text:
How to ease grease pencil animations between different keyframes
I have been trying my hand at animating with grease pencils, but found that keyframes do not behave with grease pencils as they do with standard meshes. When you put a keyframe for the clouds in this picture for changing positions, it doesn't gradually calculate the position change from keyframe to the next keyframe like you would expect. Instead, it just jumps to the next position only when it hits the frame where you made the next keyframe. Kinda complicated, but here is a snapshot.

So a youtube suggested video showed how there is an interpolate button in the Grease Pencil Left Panel. This allows blender to calculate frames between keyframes. Here is a link to the video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jULE3Gohi9I

Be careful using Bezier vs. Linear interpolation!
The animated objects will get from point A to point B over the same number of frames, but the frame-by-frame motion of the two is quite different.

Linear interpolation does what it says; with every frame there is the same amount of motion.

Bezier interpolation has variable acceleration
Frame by frame motion will not match the linear curve.

An example of Linear motion- A cloud drifting by usually has the same apparent speed; we are not used to seeing them speed up or slow down.
Bezier motion- A door swinging open starts slow, goes faster, and slows again before closing gently.

Under the dope sheet or graph editor "key" tab, make sure that the interpolation mode is set to either "linear" or "bezier". It might be that the default interpolation mode for grease pencil objects is constant. Constant is what makes the animation jumpy. (If you want to be able to change the acceleration at different times for the objects, choose bezier because then in the graph editor you can grab the little handles and rotate them, changing the acceleration/deceleration speeds)
Hope this works!!

(source: blender.org)

K, I see the point, but for some reason. The dope sheet shows key frames, but the F-Curve does not. I will add a photo up above in order to help you understand what I try to explain.

Hmm yeah I see what your saying. I'll see if I can find why that is

I tried just converting grease drawings to meshes that have easing enabled, but that just isn't practical. Maybe Blender isn't meant for 2d animation. Thanks for the help.

No problem! I didn't end up finding out what u were asking about, but I did stumble across an add-on called COA Tools, and that might help. I haven't personally tried it, but it might suit your needs. https://www.blendernation.com/2016/03/10/cut-animation-tools-overview/

Thx, I think the link you sent me is not intended for grease pencil, but I think I found a way to import images in as plane meshes. Even though blender claims now that their grease pencil animation tool is amazing, it seems to lack basics like interpolation. I'll just have to use meshes. Thx for helping out though.

You need to move you timing mark between the two keyframes you want to smooth in your "Grease Pencil" dopesheet - then select strokes-> interpolate ->sequence in "draw" mode up top. It will
After doing so - it will add weird little blue markers on the dopesheet.


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How to show Blender thumbnails in Linux (Ubuntu)
I have installed the 2.8 version of blender through steam Ubuntu. Location in /home/myusername/games/SteamLibrary/steamapps/common/Blender. I can not understand where to copy blender-thumbnailer.py.
What's the "PATH" directory? In General I have a lot of projects associated with the work and with no preview I can find something).

Asking on behalf of a user who emailed me.

Save this file to: $HOME/.local/share/thumbnailers/blender.thumbnailer
[Thumbnailer Entry]
TryExec=blender-thumbnailer
Exec=blender-thumbnailer %i %o
MimeType=application/x-blender;

If you install Blender via Ubuntu's package manager, blender-thumbnailer will be in your PATH, otherwise you'll need to add it.
From what I can tell, you need to have blender-thumbnailer in your PATH for this to work.
See: How can I edit the $PATH on linux?

Note, it would be good to see if this could be simplified or even done automatically.

I would add to this answer that PATH is an environment variable that stores paths that Linux uses to search for programs. It can be viewed by typing $PATH on the terminal. Not sure if it's a good idea though to advise a user to edit /etc/environment, ~/.bashrc or ~/.profile when they don't know what PATH is. Could go wrong.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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How to enable all addons on startup?
How can blender be started with all add-ons enabled?
This is useful when testing if all addons can be loaded without any errors.

This can be done using --python-expr.
blender \
    --factory-startup \
    --python-expr \
    "[__import__('bpy').ops.preferences.addon_enable(module=m.__name__) for m in __import__('addon_utils').modules()]"

Some add-ons can be ignored, in this example {'cycles', 'render_freestyle_svg'}.
blender \
    --factory-startup \
    --python-expr \
    "[__import__('bpy').ops.preferences.addon_enable(module=m.__name__) for m in __import__('addon_utils').modules() if m.__name__ not in {'cycles', 'render_freestyle_svg'}]"

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


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How can I move inside the scene with a midle mouse without limits?
I need to record a camera movement by using the mouse (scrolling or ctrl + Middle Mouse) but the problem is it just stops very quickly and doesn`t let me passing through the whole scene, is there a way to expand it somehow?

I think you are looking for "continuous grab" it can be turned on/off under User pref->Interface. Alternatively you can "focus view" with alt+midclick while hovering over something. Or you could type "walk/fly navigation" after hitting space. Hope it helps

Thanks a lot!!!

No worries :) good blending!


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Can I modify the #frame expression so it switches values slower?
I tried to add things like /2, /4 or so but it doesnt work like that.
I made a procedural water shader and thus want to get the constant movement, but it is too crazy with #frame.

Increase the values :
Example: #frame/100

actually it doesn`t slow down visually

send a picture, showing the expression...

correction it worked in a similar node setup, just not with this one, so thank you

but used frame, not frames. Blender  showed warning saying frames isnt right

what? send the print! you don't need to show your entire shader. Only the specific node ... be voronoi, noise, wave etc ... and with the error

I cant get that error now but I swear it was! If I get it again soon, I`ll upload it

I can confirm there shouldn't be a safter frame in the expression


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I`m using an Environment texture that looks fine with normal focal length but when I make viewport/camera bigger values it`s too big, can`t tweak it
Say, when I use 250 mm, the Environment texture in World looks too close and distorted, but I can`t make it more distant as if I use scaling in Mapping node, it just distorts the texture more but doesn not do what I need, any advice? I need that focal length but with less distorted environment texture.
I`m doing this in Eevee.
The 1-st picture is what I get with long focal length setting.
The 2-nd is how I`d like it to look at chosen focal length

Can you add a screenshot showing your world shader settings?

yes, I updated.


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Matrix Math Example
I have other more general questions about matrices and how/why we use them in Blender / AN but first can anyone please explain why in the example the object doesn't seem to have been translated by 3?
https://animation-nodes-manual.readthedocs.io/en/latest/user_guide/nodes/matrix/matrix_math.html
(Though I can quite clearly see the rotation translation)

The transformations are applied from right to left so, in this example, since the translation is the second input to the multiplication node, it will be the rightmost transformation. The following example assumes that your cube is centered at (0,0,0).

The object's origin is at (0,0,0)

Translation: the object is translated in the x axis by 3 units, so it's new origin is at (3,0,0) (at this point its orientation remains unchanged).

Rotation: now the object is rotated around the global Z axis, through the world's origin (0,0,0). i.e. the pivot point is (0,0,0), but the object starts at (3,0,0), so it moves on the circumference of a circle centered at (0,0,0) and of radius 3. Since the axis of rotation does not go through the center of the object, but through (0,0,0), the object is both translated and rotated. In the example below, the angle of rotation is 45 degrees.

The animation node tree to implement this translate-first-rotate-second transformation could look like follows:

Now, as an exercise, let's switch the order of transformations to see what happens.

Object rests at the origin (as before).
Rotate around the global Z axis by angle of 45 degrees. Object's origin remains at (0,0,0), but local X and Y axis are rotated by 45 degrees CCW.

Translate along the global X axis by 3 units. Origin is now at (3,0,0), and the local axis remain unchanged from step 2.

The animation node tree in this case is almost identical, but for the switch of inputs of the first Math Node


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How can I create a library of animations?
I want to store animations (just the animation data itself) so they can be recalled and reused in other projects.
How do I create such a library of purely animation data?
(For instance if I have some text animations that I like the feel of and wish to reuse)
I can see why you might flag this as possibly answered the question though the suggestions are not quite what I meant, I want a library that is visible to all projects without 'linking' akin to Photoshops presets.
In fact I wish this was the case with all data objects, materials textures etc.
EDIT
Please see the edit. I wasn't asking about linking files, but about libraries, so that animations appear as presets - this should not have been marked as duplicate especially in the light of this.

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/81/how-can-i-reuse-existing-materials-objects-etc-from-an-existing-blend

This should not have been marked as duplicate,  especially in the light of the update to the question.

Blender allows you to link or append.
Linking only creates a reference to the cross-referenced object.
Appending imports the cross-referenced object into your current file as a local copy.
Both are available through the File menu.
There's a great answer already on this site:
How can I reuse existing materials, objects, etc from an existing .blend?
Presets
So in response to your updated question I understand that you want something accessible from all projects without linking.
This is where add-ons come in.  There are loads of them out there and if you know (or are willing to learn) Python then you can roll your own add-on.  There are plenty of examples out there and here on how to go about this and also the source code for the included add-ons are available on git.blender.org.

Thanks but as mentioned this isn't quite what I am asking.

Blend files are libraries of object data, be it materials, meshes, textures or entire scenes that's just how blender works.  If this doesn't satisfy you then upload a blend file and be very specific about what you want to archive.  I think what you are getting at is an effects library, which you could write an add-on that pulls in data from a (you guessed it) blend file.  All roads lead to Rome.

It seems indeed they do, thanks Merlin. I am though surprised if this addon doesn't already exist, can check.

Have a look at https://blendermarket.com/products/ik-text-effects

Thanks, I can try the addon  route, does anyone know how I can contest this being marked as a duplicate?

It hasn't been, it would have a full banner under the question, it has only been commented that this this may be a duplicate.  There are no flags against it currently


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Emit liquid from the whole of the mesh's faces?
I would like to be able to emit liquid from the whole of my icosphere mesh.
As you can see, it only seems to appear from the bottom half.

Blender 3.6.5 / Windows 11
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MhhAzYOz5jRqyp5ewHIERhQKs6fmj7gM/view?usp=sharing

Hi James, since you are not new here to BSE and because you didn't check any of your questions as "right answer" i just wanna let you know, that people help you here in their spare time for free. To help this site getting better and to be a good citizen you should click on the checkmark left to an answer, if the answer was helpful to you. thx. Then a green checkmark appears in the provided list of me - where you have no green checkmarks.  [1]: https://i.sstatic.net/uYsVF.png. And also it is a little sign that you are thankful.

regarding your question here: please provide blend file because you didn't show us any settings you made. thx.

@Chris Thanks, my bad. URL to file now attached.


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Plasma Flare effect
Is there a way to achieve a plasma effect as found in Halo?
I want to create the blue plasma/flame effect not as an animation but just an image.

Please show some of your work with Particles and Turbulence.  Searchable at BSE.

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/71461/make-flames-stick-close-to-the-surface-instead-of-rising-upwards/71662#71662 This could probably be duplicate, but I'm not sure.

Cycles Render or Blender Render or Other Renderer can be selected.
Consider particles with turbulence.
For quick rendering enhance and color and blur in the Blender Compositor. Cycles not necessary.

Create transparent texture as many games do
Use ordinary light sources rather than particle light sources

For enhanced realism or different style. Point density with particle system with Cycles for computational efficiency.
Particles as light sources either in Cycles or Blender Render.
Search here at BSE for particles and turbulence
The goal here is to give you high level direction.  No tutorial is provided here.  You can also search on the famous video website for particles and turbulence.  Rhymes with NooNoob.


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How to create this doted material in cycles
I want to created this doted material in cycles.

Uptill know i tried this.

But did not get the similar result. Any suggestion or help to get the similar effect. Thanks

It looks like the Musgrave texture is pretty close to what you want:


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why follow path with duplication not in curve shape
I have a icosphere and a rectangle path. With the follow path selecting icosphere and path. Ctrl+P i made a follow path. In the properties of icosphere i on the duplication to frame. The icosphere not in rectangle path. Shape missing.

Frame duplication is pre-2.8.. what version of Blender is your file?

@RobinBetts 2.79 old verison


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How to break an object with dynamic hair?
For some weeks I try to break a rigid body with dynamic hair (grass). My starting point was break the mesh and then make it hairy and dynamic. But every fraction have to get set to dynamic individually. The result was crazy dancing hair, which turns.
How to give the entire mesh dynamic hair ( if possible on just one side ) and break it?
Extended version. I have a cube with dynamic grass on the top. Now I want to make an Object break through my grassy floor. But when I use the fraction tool to subdivide and split my floor, the grass disappear. It is no problem to enable the grass particle system on the top fractions, but it's hard to set grass on the top surface of the top fractions. And it is impossible to port the dynamic grass settings, cause they are not transfered to the other fractions via the particle system.
Is there a better way to reach what I want?

select what part of mesh you need the hair particles. Then you can make the vertex group and under the particles group add the vertex group

Thank you. So one point is done. But how to combine hair with fractions?

i did not get what you mean combine hair with fractions? Do you mean you want to join the mesh?

When I use the fraction tool I get a lot of objects, and I don't want to set up the dynamic hair for every single object (about 250).

maybe this video help for you https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvaByzVHJss

Question edited. I can upload my current project, so you see the problem yourself.

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


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Objects rotate strangely when entire mesh is rotated
When I rotate my model, or even part of the model, each object in the mesh rotates by itself.
It's like each object has it's own origin (even in the same part of mesh)
I tried setting object's parents, but that didn't work. I tried applying all modifiers, that didn't change anything. I tried changing all of the objects' origin point to 0,0,0. And that didn't work either. This still persists after joining all of the meshes together. Can anyone help?

Change the pivot center of rotation to be Median point as shown below:

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


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[2.83]Missing Weight Options
In weight paint mode[2.79], there was an option that could assign many vertices at once with a specific weight. You could also remove any weight on any vertex with another option right beside it. You could also select or deselect any vertices on a vertex group.
How do I enable this feature, is there a hot key, or a specific mode to go to for it to show up? A button somewhere?

After watching a few videos, apparently this one button 'Vertex Selection', which is only seen by accessing 'Weight Paint' mode, enables this useful feature.
EDIT: You have to have weight data on any vertex on any object on the scene, for the column to become available.

It is also visible in edit mode, it is hidden in object mode because in object mode you cannot select vertices, so there is no need to have those options visible


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Pose Mode and Bone problem [Blender 2.83]
So I have scoured Blender Stack Exchange trying to find an answer on why my bones are refusing to change to a selectable state inside pose mode. Photo
I haven't found anything that fixes my issue.
I am working with separate objects, but I went to a fresh file, and I had separate objects on separate bones attached to the same armature(where each bone is parented to one object), just like in my file, and it worked just fine.
Things I've tried:

Deselecting In Front
Appending the Armature to a fresh file
Trying the Circle Select(having difficulties) v2.8 only?
Made a new armature, selected both it, and another bone and hitting Ctrl+j
Disable Selection in the Outlier isn't the problem
Clearing parents and reparenting everything

https://blend-exchange.com/b/LvJ8Bkw4

I think the object did not assigned with weight painting to the bone.

There is only one bone in your active armature that can be selected. See the green bone icon next to the green armature icon in Outliner. Looks like you have created a separate armature for each bone. Select all armatures in Objectmode and CTRL + J (join).

This is probably the answer, however everytime I try to do this, the program crashes...

Apparently if you don't have any bones selected as 'active' when you join them, the program crashes.
I was joining all the bones bones together and I deselected an object I accidently selected. leaving nothing on a 'active' highlighted selection. At least that's what I think was happening.


text:
Is there a way to animate a morph between different fonts?
I want to make an animation where the font changes into another in a smooth way.
Example: https://youtu.be/rtKbMZqnYFE?t=10s
Thanks!

SVG of second example
Yes, with this add-on you can do this (and more).

Or, if you use 2d curves:

How did you make the second example?

In the second example the curves are 2d.. so they are filled. And you can ensure a smoother transition by matching the nodes (F2 and double click on path in inkscape) in source and destination shapes in the SVG from where you are importing the paths. I am also attaching the SVG I used for this example.


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My render set to 1000 cycles is not crystal clear
I created a donut and cup in blender. I went into Render-Sampling and clicked on "Render" and set it to 1000. yeah, it was over kill, but it should be crystal clear. After 11 hours of rendering (no joke) it was crystal clear, of course, but the cup and half the donut as well had grain still! I already rendered it. I do not have photoshop. anyway to fix this? I am a beginner at blender, and i used my GPU to render it. any help is appreciated!
picture:
https://i.sstatic.net/gMecx.png
only took a couple hours :)
zoom in near the cup....

Some images and/or a .blend file would be helpful. You can upload a .blend file here http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/

what if it is a png?

i've just finished rendering it

check out this link, this is going to be helpful if render glass or refractive shaders https://www.google.fr/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjOkLnfyuXTAhXH0RoKHcdwCcQQFggqMAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.blenderguru.com%2Farticles%2F7-ways-get-rid-fireflies%2F&usg=AFQjCNEeXF2p2kthndwKwSpugQbXtdRtxw&sig2=FFcjS6ne5rcJYYRXXvHBBA

it says to upload a .blend file. i only have a png...

If you edit your question, you can insert the image right here. There is a button to upload it.

What are your material, and render settings? How large are your light sources? It would be useful if you add at least that bit of information, if not a simplified version of the file (please pack textures via file>external data>pack all into .blend if uploading a file) by an edit to your question.

It´s never completely noise-free.
I rendered my latest projekt with 8192 samples and at some Points there is still grain (But it took just 1 hour to render, not really complicated lighting/mesh)
But as Benjaming J. already wrote, you can follow this link https://www.blenderguru.com/articles/7-ways-get-rid-fireflies/
Some tips are really helpful actually.
I also decreased render time on my latest Little Project(Yamaha HS7 Speaker) by Rendering the part of the Picture that tends to be noisier with a higher sample rate(For example the left part of the Picture where the Speaker stands). (This doesnt work with animations of Course)


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Texturing on a circle with "Ngon" as the filling not working?
I am making a table and the top of it is a stretched out circle with Ngon as the filling. I have tried to import a Image Texture but it will not work. I am using cycles and the most recent blender version. This is what it looks like in preview using 32 samples..

How i fixed this: i used a sphere and stretched it out to make a circle. now my texturing works.

How have you imported said image? Have you created a new material for it? Have you assigned that material to your object? Have you provided it with UV coordinates? Have you unwrapped your object?

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos i selected the object, created a material, added a image texture, went into edit mode, pressed "U" and then selected Smart UV unwrap or whatever it is called.

Can you edit you question and shows us the results of those steps? Please post some screenshots of your material setup, material slots, unwrapped object and corresponding image texture.

sure @DuarteFarrajotaRamos i can add a .blend file to make it more easy.

finally added it :)

anyone else??  :(

You didn't pack you texture, I can't see anything, so here goes a bunch of wild guesses: Avoid NGons, use proper topology, prefer quads, apply object scale, provide your texture with explicit texture coordinates in your material nodes.


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New to texturing, how do i make my metal texture glossy?
I know some other people have asked this question but none of the answers to the other peoples questions have helped me resolve this issue. i am trying to make a metal cube...but it looks like this:

this was a 32 sample version because i did not have time to render it.
i used all 4 maps from my texture. don't know if that was a good idea.
it is too dark and odd looking i want it to look brighter like normal metal. any help is appreciated :) here is a .blend file:

This question is better asked in a site like the forums at Blender Artist.com. As asked, there are too many answers, too subject to the opinion of the one answering to be a good fit on this site.

i don't use blender artist though @brasshat

very poor mesh resolution, so the shading is poor quality. Either that or your lighting is causing it. Add a bevel modifier with angle limits.

@BlenderUser1 You can create an account at https://blenderartists.org, it is free, try it. This site is better suited for technical questions specifically about Blender, not artistic critique. Anyway, your maps are fine, it looks like your box has smooth shading, which is not adequate for flat faces. Either make it flat shaded, or add some bevels like VRM suggested. Maybe make your texture influence bump channel too, and add some context, like ground and some objects around it.

problem has been resolved, thank you for all those who have helped :)


text:
New to texturing, my leather texture is see-through
i have been playing around with leather textures and i decided to make a chair, this is a test render of it:

As you can see, the seat itself is transparent. I have read some answers on this type of issue, but they were not what i was looking for. I'm sure this has something to do about texturing.
Here is the node setup:

Green: COLOR TEXTURE
Red: DISPLACEMENT TEXTURE
Blue: NORMAL TEXTURE

You didn't pack your textures, we cant troubleshoot material problems without all the relevant textures.
Anyway this doesn't look like a texture problem, not even material related.
You have lots of duplicated geometry and overlapping vertex in your mesh, there are double faces everywhere in your seat, and your.
Enter Edit Mode in each of your meshes, select everything then press W > Remove Doubles.
Be sure to recalculate normals afterwards by selecting everything and pressing Ctrl+N

it makes the seat into a circle... and whenever a strectch it out it goes back into being transparent @Duarte Farrajota Ramos

for the seat i scaled a cube and added a subdivision surface modifier, then in edit mode i stretched it out into a box shape again.

Yes it does, if you want to Subdivision Surface an object, while keeping hard edges you have to learn how to use what are usually called Control Loops, see https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/6425/keep-sharp-edges-when-using-subdivision-surface

i did i used Control+R to make loop cups to create a box shape again.

Loops shouldn't overlap the existing edges, they can be close to them but not coinciding.

well, they overlapped for me :)

not sure what i exactly did wrong.

still not resolved @Duarte Farrajota Ramos

I think you've got all the data to solve this already. It is clearly a normals problem, eliminating duplicate geometry and cleaning up your model with proper modelling topology seems to solve the transparency issue. Without proper file with packed textures there not much more I can say

i still don't understand. you are telling me to remove doubles and recalculate normals. if i did not word what i did properly, i scaled a cube on the z axis, then i turned on smooth shading, then turned on subdivision surface modifier and went into edit mode and added a couple loop cuts. i will add a nodes setup @Duarte Farrajota Ramos

Packed the texture, hope it worked :)

Do you know what a file with packed textures it means? See https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/30906/how-do-i-pack-textures-for-sending-off-to-a-render-farm . In fact don't bother, this has probably nothing to do with textures themselves. Like I said, you mesh has overlapping geometry, get rid of it and add new edge loops that don't overlap with existing ones. If you have any modelling questions ask a new question, this is out of scope for solving here in the comment. See the linked answer in the comment above.

i don't know how to make it not overlap....


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How do I can grab the current image in blender game engine from a python controller?
I am trying to create a python controller that executes game commands based on the image pixels of one of the camera viewports. This is for a robot simulation using computer vision.
I've tried two different approaches to no avail:
APPROACH #1: use bge.render.makeScreenshot() to save the current frame to a png file. The PROBLEM is that when I process that file later in the script, the PNG file is invalid/incomplete. I think the image file writing buffer is not flushed and closed yet. The files are there and look fine after the I exit the game engine.
APPROACH #2: try to render and grab pixel values as outlined in this thread. The PROBLEM is that image array is None.
Is there a way to fix either of these approaches or another better approach for getting an image frame from the blender game engine?
import bge

def main():
    cont = bge.logic.getCurrentController()
    own = cont.owner
    scene = bge.logic.getCurrentScene()

    if not 'init' in own:
        own['init'] = 1
        own['counter'] = 0

    own['counter'] += 1

    ######### APPROACH #1
    # get frame using makeScreenshot()
    frame_filename = "//frame" + str(own['counter']) + ".png"
    bge.render.makeScreenshot(frame_filename)

    # do image processing on frameXXX.png ...

    # ***PROBLEM: frameXXX.png is empty/invalid/incomplete

    ######### APPROACH #2
    # render a camera scene and get image pixels
    cam = scene.active_camera
    source = bge.texture.ImageRender(scene,cam)
    source.capsize = [640,480]
    imageArray = bge.texture.imageToArray(source, 'RGB')
    charArray = imageArray.to_list()

    # do image proccessing on charArray ...

    # ***PROBLEM: source.image and imageArray are type 'None'

You've tried use an image from a non-active camera?

@Strapicarus I did try another camera that was not scene.active_camera and it also gave None. I'll try some other cameras.

Side notes: - A meaningless function name adds confusion to the code rather then clarification. I suggest to rename the function to something that expresses what you expect it to do. - You do not need the property "init" you can work with property "counter" directly e.g. counter = owner.get("counter", 0)

@Stapicarus thank you. I created a new camera, and parented it to the camera I wanted to capture from before and it is giving output now. Not sure why the other cameras in the scene were not giving output but I guess they were in some sense active

I suggest to replace the term "frame" in the title with "render", "screen", "output" or "image". As it is now - it reads like you are talking about the timing rather than the image.

The second approach is the closest. But here's some code that may help (untested, but pulled from a working setup)
    obj = cont.owner
    camera = obj.scene.objects['NOT ACTIVE CAMERA']
    tex = bge.texture.Texture(obj, 0, 0)
    tex.source = bge.texture.ImageRender(
        camera_obj.scene,
        camera_obj,
    )
    tex.capsize(640*480)
    tex.source.background = [0, 0, 0, 0]
    source = self.tex.source
    data_array = bytes(640*480*4)
    source.refresh(data_array, 'RGBA') # Take the picture....

    print(data_array)  # Hopefully lots of data - in a 1D array.

You shouldn't recreate the data_array and texture objects each frame. Only do it on the first  frame, then just keep running the source.refresh() line.
If you run into issues, let me know and I'll make a blend file.


text:
Why does this material change colors throughout the animation?
When I turn up the roughness to 1, it completely goes away, but only because the surface is no longer reflective and is completely matte. I just want the material to look as it should (flexible aluminum tubing), but it keeps changing colors. I have point lights in the tunnel, and they're all the same temperature. Any thoughts? The still of the tunnel is how I'd like it to look.

maybe try attaching another picture with the color that you want as comparison?

For sure, I'll do that now and include my node setup. Thanks

The reason why some areas are lighter/darker is because of your lighting. You've got point lights spread out across the tunnel so the areas closer to the lights will be brighter and vice versa

Normal aluminum tube will come with scratch(?) with one direction, it can be achieved by using Anisotropic value in Principle BSDF. And your light might need to set up more carefully

The reason why the tunnel gets brighter and darker is because of the point lights that you've scattered across the tunnel. Areas closer to the lights (orange dots shown below) are brighter.

You can fix that by moving the lights with the camera instead of fixing the lights into a single spot. Delete all but two of the lights and parent them to the camera (yellow dot). It doesn't really move the lights perfectly along the middle of the tunnel, but you could always animate them manually to fix that.

This is really helpful, thanks so much! Going to give it a shot now.


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Is it possible to get rid of this seam for a tunnel shot?
I have tried clearing the seams, scaling the uv map up and down, but it won't go away. Any ideas?

Why don't you use a seamless texture?

If your texture isn't 'seamless' there will always be a seam.

It's a procedurally generated texture...is there a way to convert it?

Add a picture of your node graph if that is how you generated it.

I just added it. Please advise :)

If it's a 3D texture just use object or generated co-ordinates.


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How do I fill a room with mist (smoke) in blender cycles?
I'm trying to fill a room with humid mist, and cannot get the smoke domain to change from grey to any color. I also tried to just use volume scatter within the world nodes and it requires too much ram for my computer. Any advice on just making really minor, atmospheric mist?
Here's my new node setup. It works, but cannot get the color to change from grey to transparent white. Any ideas?

Delete all the extra nodes. As a rule don't add complexity until you know what each of those additions is doing. All you need is a volume scatter node. Volume scatter is like suspended particles on the air, Lower the density so that the air will be more "transparent". Usually a value of 0.1 or smaller works fine, but play with it until you are satisfied. But don't add more nodes until you understand what each one is doing. It is easier to find the answer to one problem if you keep the variables under control. The more combinations you add, the harder it will be to control the result

Add a big cube that surrounds the room (there is no need to set it as domain of a smoke simulation) and use a Volume Scatter node connected to the Volume output of the Material output Node. Unplug anything that is connected to the surface socket.

like in this example:

and this post:
Low lying fog bounding object rendering as solid

in your screenshot you've plugged the Volume Scatter into the Material Output Surface input, I guess you wanted to plug it into the Volume input?

This is great, thank you both for the help!

thanks for the edit.

I updated the post with my current node setup. I can't seem to get it to be more of a white mist, just the standard grey smoke displays

If you are getting grey, you probably need to increase the intensity of your lights. What is gray? What is black? What is white? it is all relative to the amount of light on the scene.


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Smoke is gone from fire, only flames displayed
For some reason I can't figure out how to get the smoke to display. It was working before I made the resolution so high, something else must have changed. Please help!

scription here]3]3
enter image description here

What are the sim settings? Please add images showing the settings for the domain.

Thanks for the reply. I just added the sim settings and image of the render


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How do I get rid of these un-calculated parts in Cell Fracture?
I've tried to recalculate normals, and also tried a solidify modifier. But, cannot seem to get cell fracture to work without having pieces that aren't calculated, meaning, unfinished pieces just sticking out of the object. Here are my settings, the mesh in edit mode and the object with cell fracture. I've tried many variations. Any help would be great!

what are you trying to achieve?

I just want the object to break without having big chunks of mesh uncalculated sticking out of it


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Is it possible to export SVG 2D animation as path using Blender?
Hi everybody I am new to blender,
I have seen this animation
I would know if Blender is capable to export this kind of file as SVG path using Grease pencil or other mean?
Also when I am downloading the file the SVG size is 4.6MO, I would export the path of the file to limitate the amount of memory necessary to implement the file in my webpage. How please can I do that?
thanks

Blender is more than capable. Would be a simplish script to knock together.  Looked into it after finding  this cool animated svg http://tavmjong.free.fr/blog/wp-content/uploads/BATMAN/batman_logos.svg  to blatantly steal for an icon from http://tavmjong.free.fr/blog/?p=741 It explains the data stucture used.  , mulled around the idea of extending the svg importer to read and create  animations  Thought bubbled the idea of using a frame change handler to swap in the curve data, In the end i used a text editor to grep out  each shape.  Agree too would be an ideal way to export gp animations.


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UV of cube after transform
In my project I have a cube, this cube was transformed(Scale) and now I trying make texture for this cube. But if I selecting the face of this cube in UV editor I getting just cube(Square) not transformed.
My goal is make texture with proportions of transformed cube.
I tried clicks to all buttons in Blender - really. And tried to triangulate, rebuild or something like this, also as I understand unwrap it is not what I need.
*picture of compare of transformed face and the uv of this face:

**same question:
Why this cube have this scale in Uv Unwrap?

Hello and welcome. when you edit the 3D mesh, the UVs are not going to auto-update to match the new dimesions of the Mesh, you need to UV unwrap after you finish the 3D mesh editing

hello please share your file: https://blend-exchange.com/

@Emir i tried unwrap but this face still be square, thanks for answer maybe it is bug

@moonboots bazylevnik0.github.io/art/side/dribbble/card/card+.blend

You need to apply the scale of your object (CtrlA) and unwrap again:


text:
Determining scaling factor of 3d model according to Camera position
New description : The goal is to capture snapshots of a 3d model. For that, I need to ensure the model fits the Camera view well.
The Camera location will be provided by the client, which cannot be changed. The Camera can be positioned anywhere.
The model will always be positioned at the Centre.
How to determine the scaling factor automatically, for the 3d model?
Previous description : I am new to Blender. The goal is to capture snapshots of a 3d model. For that, I need to scale it down/up according to the camera position(and probably "focal length" too), so that the model fits well in the snapshot.
My task is to automate all of this.
For determining the scaling factor, I think I would need to know the area captured by a Camera at the origin(since the 3d model will always be centered at origin).
Is there a formula to calculate the area ? Then I can use that to scale down the object along all 3 axis.

Related https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/214597/15543  https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/229829/15543

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/7198/save-the-2d-bounding-box-of-an-object-in-rendered-image-to-a-text-file

You need to write a full script for this, I've made one that iteratively zoom the camera in and out until the object fit the frame by checking for 2D view bounds. Here is the function that helped me achieve this (that I stole from somewhere else):
def camera_view_bounds_2d(obj): #Returns camera space bounding box of mesh object.

scene = bpy.context.scene
cam_ob = scene.camera
mat = cam_ob.matrix_world.normalized().inverted()
depsgraph = bpy.context.evaluated_depsgraph_get()
mesh_eval = obj.evaluated_get(depsgraph)
me = mesh_eval.to_mesh()
me.transform(obj.matrix_world)
me.transform(mat)

camera = cam_ob.data
frame = [-v for v in camera.view_frame(scene=scene)[:3]]
camera_persp = camera.type != 'ORTHO'

lx = []
ly = []

for v in me.vertices:
    co_local = v.co
    z = -co_local.z

    if camera_persp:
        if z == 0.0:
            lx.append(0.5)
            ly.append(0.5)
        else:
            frame = [(v / (v.z / z)) for v in frame]

    min_x, max_x = frame[1].x, frame[2].x
    min_y, max_y = frame[0].y, frame[1].y

    x = (co_local.x - min_x) / (max_x - min_x + .001)
    y = (co_local.y - min_y) / (max_y - min_y + .001)

    lx.append(x)
    ly.append(y)

min_x = clamp(min(lx), 0.0, 1.0)
max_x = clamp(max(lx), 0.0, 1.0)
min_y = clamp(min(ly), 0.0, 1.0)
max_y = clamp(max(ly), 0.0, 1.0)

mesh_eval.to_mesh_clear()

r = scene.render
fac = r.resolution_percentage * 0.01
dim_x = r.resolution_x * fac
dim_y = r.resolution_y * fac

where or one?   https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/158236/15543

that's the one yes, thanks for linking @batFINGER

Not sure that I completely understand what you're attempting to do but I think you want to recreate the actual scaling that you would see from a real physical imaging configuration. If that's true, try working out the distances and focal lengths according to the simple relationship that the ratio of the focal length to the image size is the same as the ratio of the camera distance to the image footprint at the object in question.  f/s = D/S where f is the camera focal length, s is the size of the image, D is the camera Distance and S is the image footprint in scene space. Hope that helps move things along.
Updated comment: So someone is providing you with pictures of a 3 dimensional object (i assume from different angles) and they are telling you how far away the object is but they are not telling the focal length of the camera? I'm guessing that the goal is that you hope to create a Blender model of the object and that the dimensions of that product will be the same as the original object. Even though you have multiple pictures, you either need to know the focal length or at least one dimension of the object (like height) in order to properly set the scale.

Thank you for the reply. I have updated the description. Hope its clear now.


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Blender alternative to MAYA viewFit()
I have following code in Maya. How can I implement this in Blender ?
# Frame object to the camera. You should not use it if you want fixed position of the camera
def frameObjectToCamera(camera_name, object):
    cmds.viewFit(camera_name)
    return

According to official docs, this is what viewFit does :

The viewFit command positions the specified camera so its point-of-view contains all selected objects other than itself. If no objects are selected, everything is fit to the view (excepting cameras, lights, and sketching plannes). The fit-factor, if specified, determines how much of the view should be filled. If a camera is not specified, the camera in the active view will be used. After the camera is moved, its center of interest is set to the center of the bounding box of the objects.

What it does in Maya? Fit the view to the selected object? If so, that's already part of Blender. In the 3d viewport go to View > Frame Selected. Enable developer extras to get the operator command.

Period key on the Numpad. - Forward Slash shows just the selected object in isolation.

@brockmann
I guess it fits the selected object to the view of the Camera. So the Camera will be positioned such that the selected object is in its point-of-view.


text:
How to align Camera such that the selected object is in its View, and the Camera is placed in a specific plane
The task is to click snapshots of front/back/right/left of a 3d Chair objects.
To automate it, we first align all the Chairs such that the height is along z-axis, y-axis is the horizontal axis, and x-axis is into the acreen.

Now, the next thing is to place camera somewhere in first quadrant of y-z plane, so that Camera is by default facing the front of object.
If I use the View->Align View->Align Camera View to Selected, the camera is positioned anywhere in 3d space. I would necessarily want the x-location of Camera to be 0.
How to do automatic positioning of Camera in y-z plane ?
I could think of one solution. To create a Bounding Box around Chair, and then shoot rays from 4 corners of Camera, and detect collision. A python script will handle this and the logic to position Camera accordingly in y-z plane. For that, I will need to know how to do ray shooting and collision detection. I couldn't find any simple step-by-step guide over it.
Clarification: I am not looking for Camera rotation help. I already have that script.

A simpler version of this? Or @batFinger 's answer, over there?

@RobinBetts That is about Camera Rotation. I want help with Camera positioning


text:
Weird erratic mesh color(Normals aren't the problem)
Things I've done:
I've looked for extra vertices.
I've messed with Normals.
I've even tried deleting a section and re-making it.
I deleted half the mesh, mirrored it, and what's weird, is that the weird color isn't mirrored perfectly.
enter image description here

The topology isn't weird, no n-gons, no overlapping vertices
Normals are fine.

Add a Subdivision Surface Modifier.

@cegaton Even though this might be a duplication of 'Why does turning off Auto Smooth removes blotches?' He did not accept the correct answer to his question.

And furthermore, this question helps out those who don't know about 'Auto Smooth'. I did not previously know about Auto Smooth which means my question will help out beginners find an answer to this problem. It also educates beginners about the existence of n-gons, and Normals. Before posting this question, I looked at the possible questions that might have an answer, but 'Eric Huelin' post did not come up, further proving that my question is more helpful, even though it is in fact a duplicate.

@JaredWolf "closing" a question as a dup is not a problem. It is actually a good thing. Like you said one of these might not come up, but creating a link between them (closing as a dup) will point one to the other. Twice the chance somebody will get the answer they need.


text:
Blender crash exception_access_violation
2.77 crashes when attempting to render a cycles scene when using an image texture. Only adding an image to a cube in the standard scene then rendering from preview or full render blender crashes, doing the same in blender render works. Other versions have been tried but getting the same result.
Both CPU and GPU have been attempted used.
OS: Windows 10 x64
Graphics: GTX 750 ti 2gb
Ram: 16gb
CPU: AMD FX-8120
Render engine: Cycles

there is not enough info to help you. are you using the GPU or CPU? are you running out of memory?

4128x2322
1,30 MB
Richtone(HDR)
jpg
Tested now with a non HDR image and blender didn't crash.

Also did a test with some older and darker HDR images which worked


text:
Syntax in the Python API
I am a newbie with Python scripting in Blender.  Lately, I have been browsing the Blender API documentation to figure out how to incorporate certain features into my scripts for Python.  However, I am confused because I feel as though the documentation fails to provide the examples necessary to understand how the methods provided in the library would actually be used in a script.
For example, I am interested in (as part of a "poll" function in an operator) determining whether a object has been modified.  I found the method bpy.types.Object.is_modified.  Unfortunately, I can't make heads or tails of the information provided, as I know I can't just type in bpy.types.Object.is_modified to determine whether an object has been modified.  It throws an exception in the Python console, even when I type in "scene" and "settings" for the parameters for the function (the parameters are listed as "scene" and "settings" in the library's function definition).  I have tried leaving in "Object" in the command, and have also tried replacing "Object" with either the name of the object or a variable being used to represent the object.  Similarly, I am not really sure how any methods in bpy.types.Object are normally called, because, although I do not really know, I get the impression that they are normally called using prefixes other than "bpy.types".  Can someone please help me?
EDIT: Here is a picture showing what I have tried and the exceptions that I have received:

what is the error?

Take a closer look at the syntax the command needs.
bpy.types.Object is just the general class.  In basic programming terms, bpy.types.Object is only a blueprint for what an object should be. You want the instance, or copy, of the class that refers specifically to 'Plane' .
In your case, this would be: bpy.types.Object(bpy.data.objects['Plane'])
Secondly, look again at the API for is_modified(). When it says (scene, settings) it doesn't mean those literal words.

scene refers to the actual class of your scene. You want bpy.data.scenes['Scene'] (or whatever name is shown in the outliner)
settings has two options already determined for you. In the API, it says "(enum in ['PREVIEW', 'RENDER'])," meaning either of those words is what goes in the settings place. PREVIEW checks the object's modifier settings for preview mode, and RENDER checks settings for render mode (what appears when you press SHIFT + Z)

So, to do it right:
import bpy
scene = bpy.data.scenes['Scene']
plane = bpy.data.objects['Plane']

Then:
bpy.types.Object(plane).is_modified(scene, 'PREVIEW')  OR
bpy.types.Object(plane).is_modified(scene, 'RENDER')

what about plain old plane.is_modified(scene, 'PREVIEW') All objects in the bpy.data.objects collection will be instances of type bpy.types.Object


text:
How to get rid of shadowy texture on objects?
I am trying to make a very simple diagram. I have these arrow-like objects that are inside of a transparent box. The arrows have this "shadow" on them, making them look dark. This effect looks fine on everything but the yellow arrows. I have removed all shadow effects, messed with lighting a little, and nothing changes. I am thinking it is texture related. I brought one arrow outside of the box, and it is still there. I have included a couple screenshots of the image and my settings.
I am extremely new to blender, and I am trying to keep this project relatively simple, so I would appreciate the simplest possible fix.

It could help if you add to your question screenshot of one of those arrows while in Edit mode. Things to consider iin this case are mesh geometry, position of the lamp sources and render engine options regarding to shadows (in case of BI you could turn off Raytracing).

I added a picture of where the lamp is, and a close up of the arrows in edit mode, I hope that helps.  Here are some things I just tried:                 1) If I turn off the shadow setting on the lamp, it is still there on the arrows.  2) I just tried moving the lamp around, and it does change the positioning of the shadows, but it looks even weirder with the lamp in other places.

Hi... As I understand the issue, this is pretty easy to solve in cycles (turn off shadows for lamp; turn off shadows for the object). Is that an option?

Awesome, it does look better in cycles render. However, the method I used to make the box transparent (I followed a tutorial) only works if I am in blender render, so I guess I'll have to find another way to make it transparent.

Make your box out of a transparent or glass BSDF to begin....  depending upon lighting and your desires, they may well get you there.

If in BI checking Shadeless in material properties and choosing appropriate color for Diffuse could be a way to go.

It's hard to tell from the images alone what you mean, there may actually be two different issues at play here.
As mentioned by Mr Zak you could easily make your arrows shadeless either by

Increasing Emission -  This will make the object as if it were emitting light, it will partly retain shadows and glossy reflections (with the right render settings you can even actually maker them glow if you render with Blender Internal)
Turning on the option Shadeless under the Properties Window > Material Options > Shading - This Will make your object flat colored, as if it were bi-dimensional, no shadows, no glossiness, or shine, and no light emission (basically doesn't react to lighting)

There is another issue at play here, that may be slightly messed up normals which will yield weird or unexpected shading. Use an edge split modifier on all your objects to make shading as expected.
Have in mind that switching to Blender Cycles may not be a full lasting solution on it's own, it will require setting up materials and scene differently from scratch since they are two completely separate and independent render engines, and Blender Internal materials are incompatible with Cycles and vice-versa


text:
Does the camera angle matter when rendering a model or 3d animation for unity
I want to help someone with making a game, and since they dont need any programers i may as well help them with other things. But my problem is the camera angle, i think it will affect the model/animation because you would of only rendered that angle. So im kind of confused because im wondering if i should just send them the project. Even though he wants the volentiers to use maya, but then i saw, in the list of things he needed help a layout of export settings for BLENDER say that the settings have to be like that.
This is the link http://puu.sh/kn93D/61fc4326d6.png
And next to the link it said; If exporting from blender use these settings.

In short, the camera viewpoint doesn't matter at all. What they're asking for is not an image. They're asking for the actual model.
You're thinking of sprites. Some games use sprites, which are individual images that are rendered for a certain number of viewpoints. The original StarCraft uses sprites for all the movable things.
Other games use actual 3D, which are animated in the game engine and can be viewed from any given perspective. StarCraft II and Fallout 4 use actual 3D instead of sprites.
Your thinking about "sending them the whole project" is on the right track, but they can't use the Blender file itself. They've asked for an FBX, which is a format for storing the whole 3D model, its textures, its UV maps, and some other things. It's a lot like an OBJ or PLY, if you're familiar with those. This will let them use the whole model in the game.
In this case, the camera that will be viewing the model is not in Blender, it's in the game. So the camera in Blender doesn't matter... just make sure you don't include it in the export ;-)
You should also definitely check out the B.SE chat room: http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/8888/the-renderfarm
There are several folks there who are making games with Blender and might be able to help you with more specific questions that might not be appropriate for the actual site.
Have fun!

When animating a sequence that will be used in a video, we can animate "to the camera" to get an animation that looks good from the camera but may look weird if seen from a different perspective. In most 3D games we don't get that luxury. Consider games like doom or quake, the camera is fixed to the user who can move around freely and see game characters and objects from every angle. In this situation you have to make an animation that looks good from every angle.
Some recent games are using 3D graphics but have a fixed camera that may only allow the user to pan around the scene. If this is the case then you could get the camera angle from the game developer as a reference, then animate to that camera angle.
Either way, the camera in blender is not relevant when exporting the model data, the camera will be set and controlled by the game engine. Even if you include the camera in the export, you can't expect it to be the camera used in unity.

Blender's camera has nothing to do with it at all...Unity will only import it as an empty game object. In fact, if all you're doing is animation, there is no need to even have a camera in Blender! Also, because of what import settings he said to use (selected objects is disabled), there shouldn't be a camera because it would clutter stuff up in Unity. Furthermore, there shouldn't even be lights in Blender unless you absolutely need them (just stay in solid viewport) for the same reason.


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VSE shortening clips when rendering
I have blender set at 24fps, and several input video files at 24fps. I add them into Blender, and preview them and they play fine. After rendering the project however, each clip is shortened by a small amount (as if sped down) and the last couple of frames of each clip is black.
Why would these clips be shortened by rendering? They are the same fps as the Blender settings (100% sure. 24fps). If I play these clips in a video player they are the right length, but when I render them in Blender they are sped up. (leaving black screen in between each clip)
Thanks for the help
edit:

in this first picture the clip has just been added to the VSE. The clip is 24fps and Blender is 24fps. The last frame (1422) is the last image of the clip. All good here.

in this second picture is after rendering. The last image of the clip is now at frame 1411. The 11 frames after that are now black. When I play the first clip in a video player it is the appropriate length. When I play the second clip it is sped up, and the remainder of the clip is the default black screen.
I have no idea why this is happening

How did you arrange them in the VSE? Can you provide a screenshot? Are they touching each other?

Thanks for the help, I am uploading pictures to clarify what I mean now


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Hiding lamp in glossy material
I have plane with glossy material and point light.

You can see the white dot in the plane as point light.

How to retain glossy plane but so that point light is not seen on the plane ?
EDIT: I have tried to modify point lamp material but lamp is still on glassy plane.

I changed material of point light but the light is still seen on glossy plane.

As I look into the question now I don't understand what are you trying to do. If you remove light source visibility from the plane its "glossiness" won't be visible as it's visible because light source is visible in the plane. If you don't remove it then there's no reason to set up anything - light source itself won't be visible to camera as it's a lamp. If you want light source to only lighten up the object and glossy plane to reflect only the background uncheck Glossy in light source settings

If I understand correctly this is the result you are after:

To achieve this you will need to mix Emission with Transparent (pure white colour- #FFFFFF) shaders in Lamp material by Light Path > Glossy Depth as below:

Note: If you change Glossy Roughness (should be 0) even a bit, light will still be visible.


text:
How do I save an edited texture to a file from within Blender?
I imported an .obj file with a texture (from photogrammetry app 3DSOM) which I show on the web using Three.js. As you can see, I need to edit the texture inside the jar, so I successfully imported the .obj file into Blender and edited the texture's appearance using the brush:

I know the .blend file doesn't save the texture on re-opening.
I can export the file an an .obj and also understand that the .obj format won't export the texture.
Is there a way from Blender to export the texture I've modified?

Texture is a datablock which references to image file. So as long as image file hasn't changed its location you can open UV editor window in Blender, open datablock with mentioned texture (if not already) and press Save Image (Alt+S).  This generally isn't related to whether texture is from photogrammetry app or not, the process is the same. See https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/23888/1245

Hi I am having do much trouble with this. I've edited my texture and am trying to send it off but cannot.

From the Image Editor, press f3 to save the image to a desired location and name (save as) and you can press Shift+S to save the image over that previously saved one. (Save)


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How to copy weight paint to other arms
So I'm attempting to weight paint a model that has six arms floating away from the main body. My issue is that I satisfactorily weight painted one of the arms, but now I want to copy that arm with its weights to all of the other arms. Unfortunately, the weights don't seem to be copying correctly, and I'm unfamiliar with how to go about transferring them. Does anyone have some tips on how to go about doing this?
I've copied all of the arm meshes, so they should be exact duplicates, and I've copied all of the skeleton bits for the arms, so they should also be exact duplicates, it's just a matter of transferring weights from one arm to another.
In this image, the selected arm is the one I weight painted:

Trying to attach the Blend file through BlendExchange, but it's giving me an error, will keep trying if the file is necessary.

A bone moves vertices that have a vertex group weight that matches the bone name.
Starting with the weight painted arm, in edit mode select the arm and use P->separate by selection. In object mode, duplicate the new arm object and move it into position for another arm. Rename the vertex groups in the duplciate arm to match the corresponding arm bones, eg. rename arm1_upper to arm2_upper. Repeat for each arm.
In the original mesh, delete the arm meshes. In object mode, select all the arms and then the body, use ⎈ CtrlJ to join them into one mesh. Each arm bone should now move the matching arm.


text:
How can I remove the part of the object that is inside the (hollow)cylinder?

How can I remove the part of the object on the right that is inside the cylinder?
I also want to remove the part that sticks out:

How can I do that?
EDIT:
New screenshots to show the objects:

it's hard to understand what your object looks like, could you please share the file or a part of it?   https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/

I edited the original post and added more screenshots. tell me if you can see the objects more clearly now.

I'm not sure you've made a good topology but anyway if I've correctly understood what you want and if I wanted to do it quickly I would use the Knife tool


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Using edge loops for sharp edges without distorting the mesh?
I've been trying to make a pirate ship a few days now, but when I was trying to sharpen out the edges of the ship's cabin, I ran into a problem. The edge loops I'm trying to sharpen out the cabin's edges with, are distorting the body of the ship that should not have any creases. The body and the cabin should be in one piece and the transition from the blocky cabin to the round surface of the ship should be smooth. On the picture the problems are circled.

I have watched CGmasters viedo,  where he explaines how to avoid pinching from additional detailes by shrinkwrapping detailed mesh (with pinching) to the same object that is not detailed (base mesh).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rlMzsBWtPY
I'm trying to create the base mesh that I later shrinkwrap an even more detailed one onto. The problem is that I may or may not be so noob, that I don't even know how to create the base mesh without pinching. I HAVE tried controlling the shrinkwrap modifier using vertex groups to only transform the part of the model that doesn't need to stay sharp and edgy, but that didn't work well because of a seam that appeared.
I hope everyone gets my point :)
I'll also try to upload the blender file for everyone to play around.

Additional picture showing my topology

You just need to move some vertices to make it smoother:

That's a lot better... I don't know why I didn't come up with this myself

if I understand correctly what you want its the body of the ship without those 2 distorted edges loops. You can dissolve them as they are not really needed for support.

I have tried this... I mean, this is OK, but I'm still left with pinch in the transition from Ships body to cabin. As I mentioned the transition should be smooth.


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Bevel and Subsurface makes concave corners weird
In hard-surface modeling there are often sharp edges and smooth, flat areas side by side. To get smooth areas, subdivision surface modifier is used. Edges that need to stay sharp, must be surrounded by edgeloops or have to be creased. Manually setting edge loops needs a lot of work and often don't work as expected as edgeloops need to loop the whole object, which creates problems in areas that need to be smooth.
I'm trying to use bevel modifier for edgeloops as this is a non-destructive way to sharpen out edges, furthermore I can control which edges get bevelled by using weights or vertex groups.
In the picture I manually beveled my mesh to showcase the problem.

It seems that when bevelling concave edges, the subdivision surface kinda overlaps the mesh.
Blender file
Previous questions didn't have clear answer or suggested usin edge loops, which don't work in many cases.
Is this sort of problem fixable without using edgeloops or creases?
Thanks in advance

I do not want to use these as these make edges completely sharp. Nothing in the real world is completely sharp.

Yes, but this pinches the mesh from the subdivision surface modifier until the corner is sharp. If it's possible, I'd prefer round corner not a pinched mess

There is a very simple solution to that bad topology. Just add two edge loops to fix the effect of the Suburf, see the image:

There's a video of CG Fast Track which talks about this problem. Blender 2.8 Beginner Tutorial - Part 2: Sword. Watch it from minute 41.

I had a similar problem with concave angles and subsurface modifier (check Weird behavior when using bevel and subsurf)
You don't necessarily need to add bevels to make the shape look sharper with subsurf. The solution for this problem that I had is very similar to this. Here's what you can do:

Model the basic shape
Apply subsurface modifier
Select all edges that need to be "sharp"
Select all edges that are connected to the problematic area
Add them to a new Vertex Group
Add a bevel modifier before subsurf, set it to 2 or more segments
Change the method to Vertex Group
Select the vertex group that you just created, you should end up with something similar to this:

Edit
I noticed that the final result has some undesirable edges along the side of the model. To fix this, work the topology like so:

Select these edges

Add a bevel

Work the topology by dissolving edges and merging vertices to look like this


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how do I fix ik leg
I raised the leg up, but it went inside. I tried the limit rotation but it didn't work. How can I adjust the iK applied leg?

my file

hello, maybe share the armature?

i added my file.

In Edit mode, bend the knees a bit so that Blender knows in what direction it is supposed to bend, and move the Pole Target a bit forward, otherwise once the knee goes further it will flip the leg backwards:

thank you so much. it works!!


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Chain addon question
When you create chain, Blender add path called deform and rot_link which is empty.
I have extruded the vertices of deform path to make more links in the chain.
Now the problem is when is scale down the chain. Scaling down deform path, links are disapearing.
How to scale/manipulate the chain after you create it ?
EDIT: Make a chain, extrude deform a couple of times and scale down the chain, deform and rot link.

EDIT:  I have scaled down chain in edit mode. Is it possible to scale deform path so that it fits the length of the chain? You can see how path is way to bigger than chain itself.

I can't get the setup you describe, perhaps at least an image, and/or better description would help...

It's the same as I described. When you scale down scale down the chain, deform and rot link, created links are disappearing.

sorry, maybe it's me but "When you create chain, Blender add path called deform and rot_link which is empty" really means nothing... did you use an addon for chain generation? afaik blender ha no mean to "add"  those objects (a path and an empty, it seems) on its own..

Yes, it's chain addon. Go to user preferences and install add chain. Add chain is in create tab. This addon creates chain, deform (path) and rotlink (empty).

To scale the links of the chain, you have the chain object selected and go into Edit mode. The links disappearing is a desired behavior, as the links are trying to fit the length of the deform curve.

Thanks, it seams this is the case. Is it possible to scale deform so that it fits the length of the chain? I've updated main post.

Did you scale the chain down in edit mode? If you did, the chain would have automatically adjusted to fit the length of deform. Its not set up to go the other way. If you didn't do it in edit mode, you can press ctrl+A and apply the scale of the chain.

Yes, I scaled it in edit mode. But when I went in object mode chain didn't fit the length of deform path. Deform path was lengthier than chain.

You might need to start over. The way the addon works, the chain will always fit the length of the curve.


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Saving GIMP's Alpha Color values in Blender
In Blender when rendering with Transparent background and saving transparency with .png file, is it possible to save the png with GIMP's option:
Save color values from transparent pixels ?

How to achieve Alpha 1 transparency with Blender compositor?

"is it possible to save the png with GIMP's option" - can you clarify what is your question ? Which setting of GIMP are you referring to ? Why do you search for exact that setting inside of another program ?

So, I would like to save transparent png image from Blender directly by saving color values from transparent pixels and not using GIMP or PS.      Other solution is to have Superpng plugin for PS which I don't have. It has Alpha channel control. I would like to do this with Blender.

@cegaton I have rendered with transparency. I would like to save alpha chanel as well with transparency.

@DanMonsic If you are rendering with transparent background the  background will have black color value.

Will it?  I thought it has white.

I think it has white. I would like to have alpha background.

All that is necessary to save image with alpha channel is already described in the linked answer - enable RGBA for image file to be saved (works not only for .png which is best to avoid, but for all other image formats as well). If you save image which was rendered with Transparent enabled and check RGBA prior to saving your image will have alpha channel.

@DanMonsic You would want 0 value for transparent areas for best results of math operations, which is black color.

How to get Alpha 1 transparency ? http://www.fnordware.com/superpng/out_dialog.png

Alpha 1 is solid, no transparency

unless Alpha 1 means 1-bit alpha. If that's the case, Blender does not produce that kind of images (paletted with 1 bit alpha).

PNG is an unassociated alpha image format, while Blender, as any other 3D renderer produce associated (often called premultiplied) alpha images.
To produce an unassociated alpha image using the compositor, you have to "pre-divide" the alpha channel and connect the unassociated RGB to the composite output and the alpha socket of the same node.
You can unassociate the alpha channel using an Alpha convert node (using the "premul to straight" mode) or just divide the rendered image by its alpha with a mix node (divide mode).
That's the correct way to save unassociated from Blender if it has to be predivided manually for any reason, otherwise Blender does the predivision automatically when PNG is selected as output (and in that case it's not necessary to manually connect alpha to the output).
PNG will always save the RGB information of transparent pixels because it is an unassociated alpha format.
However, producing an unassociated alpha image from an associated image is a destructive process, because it has to be divided (and alpha zero pixels are discarded).
Saving an associated image as PNG is not allowed by the format, so it's important to keep in mind that any hack used to produce a PNG as described by the OP will produce an invalid image that is likely to produce edge artifacts when composited.
It is strongly advised to respect the alpha association dictated by the format and avoid this kind of hacks if PNG has to be used.


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Edge loops to multiple faces
I want to select multiple faces and make 4 horizontal edge loops (Ctrl+R) on them.
How to do that without doing it one by one?
EDIT: When faces are seleced, how to create horizontal loops on them?
Faces are selected. Now I want to add horizontal loops on each on one of the them. How to do that in one go. So, I don't need to do the same action for every face.

Documentation on selecting edge loops:
https://www.blender.org/manual/modeling/meshes/selecting/advanced.html#selecting-loops

I know how to select loops. I want to create loops on multiple selected faces.

Are you trying to cut new loops into existing faces?

@Dan Monsic
It might work with the subdivide tool
1 select the edges
2 press 'W'
3 select subdivide
If that doesn't work, include some screenshots so it's easier for the community to see what's wrong

I think CTRL-R works only on a single edge loop, while he wants it to act say on 3 edge loops, separately, but in the same way, so that if he sets 4 "cuts", each edge loop gets 4 cuts, 12 total. This is different from subdividing though.

@Delagone , Ctrl+R works only on one face. I want to do that on multiple faces. Subdivision adds both horizontal and vertical loops on the faces, so I can't use it because I want only horizontal ones.

@DanMonsic In order to have the subdivide option work properly you should only select the edges where needed.
You have selected to much edges. DESELECT the edges located on the Ngons and it should work.
Also it's better to get work in edge select mode instead of face select for this kind of modeling. That's why subdivide won't work.


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Quad faces along the curve or grease pencil
Is it possible to generate quad faces along the curve ?
Is it possible to generate quad faces along the grease pencil ?
For example, I set up some bezier curve and on this curve Blender generate connected quad faces uniformely.
I know that grease pencil can do that  for mesh reopology. Is is possible to do that without the mesh?
Black is curve or grease pencil, blue are faces only I want them to be regular (same size) and connected.

Is something similar to this what you need https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/63310/animating-appearing-extending-strip-with-gaps/63322#63322 ?

Like in retopology, I want grease pencil or bezier curve to have connected faces along the way.

Yes. Since at least Blender version 2.65, the grease pencil has included a "convert" button, one of the options of which was to convert the grease pencil work to a bezier curve. Selecting the bezier curve, and applying the command ALT-C permits the conversion of the bezier curve to a mesh object. From there it's just a matter of applying standard modeling techniques to convert the edges to quad faces. The following image exemplifying this technique was made by adding a bezier curve to a scene in top orthographic view, selecting all vertices, witching to front orthographic view, and extruding along the z axis.
[
At some point, changes to the grease pencil made the process easier, since version 2.78 gives as one of the options of the convert button in the grease pencil tool panel, direct conversion from the grease pencil to a "polygon curve". However, I have no direct experience with trying to make that conversion.

Ok, how to  convert the edges to quad faces ?

Select the edges, and then extrude in the desired direction, and I haven't tried to use it, but the "covert to polygon curve" suggests that it might be possible to get quad faces directly.

You can't do that directly. I showcased with an image what I would like.


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Filling pentagon with quads (combinatorics)
How to subdivide edges of the pentagon so that when I'm making grid with faces I get perfect quads or almost all quads ?
This is more math-combinatorics question but is quite important for the mesh to have nice grid.
For example, if I press grid fill with this subdivion, Blender says  to  select two edge loops and I can't fill it with almost all quads.

GridFill will work on even number of vertices, so e.g. pentagon of 5 verts subdivided once. This won't provide decent topology though in this case (at least with one click) so using Cathmull-Clark way seems to be the most efficient one here.

Original answer (edit addressing the question clarification below)
If you look at how the Catmull-Clark subdivision algorithm does it, you can see it creates a five-pointed star:
Before:

After:

When you surround it with quad geometry, it still works the same:
Before:

After:

With Catmull-Clark smoothing:

If we look at this, we can see that this redirects the topology very nicely:
It is important to note, though, that in a few cases, you can change the way you divide it up to change the topological flow. Most times though, this is the easiest and most useful subdivision.
Edit:
When I saw your edit and understood better what you were asking, the first thing I thought of was CGCookie's Retopoflow addon. You can purchase it on the Blender Market. This has a few algorithms to fill or "patch" areas like that. I looked at how it did that and came up with a few ideas:
#1: Are all of your subdivisions necessary?
I know that this doesn't answer your question directly, but it seems like the number one thing that the RetopoFlow does is reevaluate whether all of the vertices on each edge are necessary. It will add or remove vertices to adjust and produce cleaner topology.
#2: Treat it like a quad
In some cases, you can treat it like a quadrilateral. For example, if you have a pentagon like this:

You can treat the two right edges as one edge and still fill it like a quad:

It doesn't have to be symmetrical:

In addition, Retopoflow has a open pull request that has more sophisticated N-gon filling methods. You might be able to look through the source code to find what algorithms it uses. Here is a gif from the site of what this produces:

Thanks for this explanation but I was wondering about filling the pentagon with different subdivisions of edges and making a perfect quad fill. I want to have edges subivided in edit mode and then fill it with faces.

@Wildfire Does this answer your question better?

Yes it does. Thanks. In #2: Treat it like a quad? you made pentagon with edge subdivision 4,3,2 . Is there underlying matematics what numbers to take to get such quad subdivision. I'.ll take a look at this addon you mentioned but is for retopology, right? It a expensive for my hobby.

@Wildfire. Treat it like a quad, meaning that you treat two of the edges as one, bent edge. Buying RetopoFlow is expensive, and the money goes to support its development, but since it makes Blender API calls, it is still open source and you can legally download it for free on the GitHub link I gave without paying.


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Dissolving textures to animate blink - What am I doing wrong? (Face animation with shaders)
I'm trying to animate a blink using textures and I am using a two image texture connected to a mix colour node and when I move the "fac" slider the textures do not change. I do not know what I have done wrong, any help please? (Keep in mind, I am a beginner so I don't really know that much about Blender)

@moonboots Hello, I tried this however I didn't work I'm pretty sure I'm doing it wrong, Is there any way you could attach a screenshot of how it should look like?

maybe pack your images (File > External Data > Pack All Into .blend) and share your file here (read the instructions): https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ or https://pasteall.org/blend/

@moonboots

@moonboots like this?  sorry about this, i'm not really used to blender thanks for the help tho the slider won't change the texture tho?

ok so I've corrected my answer, I thought you were using a Mix Shader but you are using a MixRGB so the setup I show is correct

Ok so as you're using a MixRGB, you can indeed mix the 2 Image Texture nodes into the MixRGB, then you need to plug the MixRGB into a Diffuse, then the Diffuse into an Output:

MixRGB is used to mix 2 colors and/or images, but you need to tell Blender what kind of shader it is supposed to be, between Diffuse (which will be affected by light and shadows) and Emission (which emits light). In your case I guess you need Diffuse.
Another equal solution would be to use the Mix Shader, in that case you need this setup, as Mix Shader doesn't directly accept images or colors:

thank you so much! the place where i went wrong was that i wasn't in rendered view i was just in the standard one so that is why it wasn't showing! tysm tho :D

oh ok, anyway the Diffuse and Output were missing so you wouldn't have been able to see anything

yeah i just added that in :)


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Colour Has Too Much White Around Edges When Rendered
I'm super new to Blender, and am going through Blender Guru's Donut Tutorial for v 3.0.
At the rendering phase, when I use the cycles engine there seems to be too much white/blueish colour on the icing drippings, as shown in the pic below.
Any ideas about how to fix this? Thanks!

Maybe try to decrease the Subsurface value of the Principled BSDF?

I tried turning it down and it seems to have helped. Thank you :)

Decrease the Subsurface value of the Principled BSDF. If you want to keep a bit of subsurface effect, you can change its color with the Subsurface Radius values (in RGB):


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Bones and Mesh misaligning when rotated
I'm relatively new to making posable models, and I'm experiencing an issue where some bones near the head bone and meshes near the head mesh are misaligning when the head bone is rotated. I've tried Weight Painting the meshes so they all move in tandem with the head bone, but this doesn't seem to fully fix my problem. I also tried parenting some of the bones to the head bone, but that seems to have misaligned them further. Any help at all here would be appreciated!
Blend file here.

Here are the meshes I weight painted to move with the head's vertex group

Here are the bones I tried parenting, and what happened when I rotated the head

Almost forgot! Here is the Blend file: link

As John points out, first apply the scale of your objects, and check the normals and recalculate (ShiftN) when they are inverted:

Your problem is that the vertices of these parts are part of vertex groups that they should not part of, therefore they are influenced by other bones, see if I select a vertex of this part and check in the N panel:

To fix that, select all the vertices and remove from all groups:

Now you need to parent the first bone of each hat chain bone to the head bone (with the Keep Offset mode). If you want these hat bones to control the hat object, select the armature, shift select the hat, switch to Weight Paint mode, select the bone chain with LMB and ShiftLMB, and go into Weights > Assign Automatic from Bones:

At the end, maybe it would make it easier to join all the objects into one object, unless you have a good reason not to?

Also all the objects and the armature need the scale applied and two parts of the object ("nose" and back of hat) have inverted normals!

@John Eason Oh OK I didn't check everything

Those are usually the first things I check with animation problems because they're quick and easy. Then I go on to vertex weights, etc. :^)

@moonboots Wouldn't removing the vertex groups also prevent the hat, hat bobbles, and tongue (the part that may have been confused for a nose) from being affected by their respective bones? I'd like those to be posable as well if possible.

Oh yes of course, I didn't realize that, please see my edited answer and tell me if it answers?

@moonboots I followed all of your directions, but the head's bones and some of the meshes are still misaligning. Also, not all meshes are joined because I want them to be moved independently and not pulling on the meshes their joined to, or so it would be easier to fix any remaining weight errors. That said, I did join the all of the head an hat parts together, but the bobbles are still detaching when the head bone is rotated. (link here, file marked 8-15)

Separate each part as a separate object as it was before (you'll join them afterwards if you want), for example the bobble, in Edit mode select all the vertices and Delete All Groups, then select the Armature in Object mode, Shift select the bobble, switch to Weight Paint mode, select all the bones and Weights > Assign Automatic From Bones


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Bevel shader not working (Bevel Node)
I'm trying to use the bevel shader on an experimental mesh, I don't know what I'm doing wrong, everything seems to be in place but the bevel itself does not work!

maybe try a lower Radius value, like 0.2? If it still doesn't work please share your file

i tried every radius possible, this is the file

It looks like a split normals problem, go into the Object Data > Geometry Data and click on Clear Custom Split Normals Data, then lower down the node's Radius value. Don't forget to switch to Rendered preview. Also the Bevel node only works in Cycles.

i really appreciate you helping me, i tried your solution but had no luck, i have a 1650gtx, maybe this is the problem?

problem fixed, i was in the wrong preview mode - Switched from material preview to Render and now it shows, thank you my man

oh ok nice I was searching for the solution

I suggest you to post the solution as an answer so that you can mark it as the solution to your question, people can upvote it, and the next people having the same issue will easily see the solution.

@  L0Lock, The problem was the split normals, as I said, but he couldn't see the result because of the preview mode


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Problem with soft body collision animation
I'm new to Blender.
How to make animation so that objects deform and interact with each other?
I make a thread - collision, animate it and make a body - soft body, but it turns out not at all.
The thread falls into the body. I did not find anything in the tutorials please tell me what is available.
Blend File

Hello and welcome. Please don't post the same question more than once. If your previous question was put on hold, address the raised issues by editing it so it can be reopened rather than post a new one, otherwise see What should I do if no one answers my question?

fine. Sorry. Will know
I thought that simply my question would not be solved and I added the file

you mesh has a ridiculous high amount of vertices. Maybe you wanna watch some beginner softbody tutorials? There are lots of them in youtube. Anyway...if i gave your one mesh a "good" amount of vertices like so: [1]: https://i.sstatic.net/krZzI.png then i got this: [1]: https://i.sstatic.net/v7JFS.gif Basic rule is: your softbody animation will look totally different if you have more or less vertices. So you have to have (as always with Blender) a bit of experience to know how it looks good

Not to nitpick, but in your blend file there is a Cloth simulation and not a Soft Body simulation. Just saying that because there are two different simulation types in Blender with those names. -- Also, you have the entire edge of the towel pinned. I'm not sure that's a good idea, because pinned vertices are not affected by the simulation, and they don't move. They are just pinned. You can turn off gravity to prevent the mesh from falling.

Cloth simulation seems to work better than Soft Body for what you're trying to do. Here I've give a Collision to the circle and created a shapekey animation so that it squeezes the cylinder. As for the cylinder it has a Cloth simulation, a bit of Pressure and its Field Weights > Gravity is turned off:

Settings:

The mesh, I've given a Subidivision Surface modifier with a level of 2:

File here:

yes, but it doesn't quite create the effect that I threw away as a reference, and cloth is hardly used in the reference

Does it need to be Soft Body and is it animated or is it a single image?

it's animation. this is what i need to do. But I can't find a solution to this for almost a week :( https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/k0u67fjchbyp5onkpa3o3/IMG_4437.MP4?rlkey=dr536jd0t2hciovesiyiy9xw7&dl=0

I've edited, still a Cloth simulation, I think it's pretty close to what you show @Vlad

thank you, I will try with these settings and let you know the result. And how much did you put subdivision on the objects?

See my edit (Subdivision Surface with a level of 2)

I repeated your settings in detail and I got ... you can take a look -__-
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/q6ukswxn8siksu7zdnyhu/1.blend?rlkey=ewzc3aunaj530a5ngbeoghb2s&dl=0

You need to flip the faces of your rings or disable the Collision > Single Sided option of the object, see my edit, I've shared my file

wow, just one checkbox was crucial. Thank you so much. Maybe you know where you can learn this in detail? tutorials?

I don't know if there's a tuto in particular that would help, maybe check this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLuHr1unnyg but i may make one about your question


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How do I add specular highlights using a single color in Blender Internal?
I think I have tried every possible combination of settings and the closest I've come to what I need is this:

See those areas that are white? I need to them to be #FFEBBD, or any color that I choose for a specific material. I've done a ton of experimenting which only resulted in complete garbage or some blended specular shading adding a dozen extra colors to my palette (which I must avoid).
Here are the settings I used to achieve those white speculars:

Now if only someone could tell me what I need to do to have a color of my choosing show up there instead of that white. And yes. I've tried changing the Specular color. And the ramp colors. And I've tried every combination of Input and Blend.
edit:
here's the material preview

What does the material preview look like?

Just added a pic of it to the original post.

What does it look like if you change the white specular highlight? (I admit, just from the color ramp it looks like it shouldn't be white, but it still is.)

Exactly the same. Added picture to show you. Now, I found a slight workaround until I can find a solution, but it's still not ideal. I can use the Toon Shader to get a non-white color (but still not my color of choice) which I can then replace with my desired color in gimp (which I couldn't do with white, since different materials will need different spec colors and if they're all white I can't differentiate between them with the color select tool) So far I don't really like the spec placement with Toon, but I'm going to play with it some more.

That is a really weird problem. Just a shot in the dark here—but I see your diffuse color is still white (at least from the first picture), what does changing that do?

Changing the diffuse color would wreck the color ramp for the diffuse. But I stumbled on something. Changing the color on the specular ramp to green gives me a uniform color very close to the one I want. I think it's just this particular combination of colors that won't play nice, because I rendered some grass using this same material setup, but with greens, and everything worked.

Green worked? Wacky. Glad you figured it out.


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How to slowly fade out an image/plane? [solved]
I've an image with this properties:

How can I do so that it's slowing disappearing?
Thanks in advance

I think that you can use principled bsdf instead of those nodes and use alpha value... you give alpha value 1, set keyframe and set another keyframe with value 0 to make it disappear over span of those keyframes

Hi I need this nodes for other reasons ( https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/234516/blender-how-can-i-render-true-color )

Just use a Maths node to manipulate the Alpha channel. You can either set it to Add or Subtract and ensure you have the Clamp checkbox enabled (so you don't get out of range) or you can use it as a Multiply and change the value of the multiplication between 1.0 (for 'normal' alpha) down to zero (for completely transparent).

It works for me! thanks

@SteZano Great - glad to be able to help. You can mark this answer as the 'Accepted' one by clicking the 'tick' just below the voting buttons on the left of the answer. This will help othersto find the solution.

Can you see the difference between these 2 pictures?

One uses your setup, one uses principled BSDF
My setup for it is this:

You can then animate it using this value:

0 is visible, 1 is invisible

ok, thanks I'll try. But how can I add the "subtract" chart?

It is called "Math" node, you can then select Substract in the menu that you can open above the "clamp" button

Lighting conditions can overbrighten the Principled. With even light it will not be very noticeable, especially when seperated; I dare you to feed both into a Shader to RGB, then
Vector Subtract followed by Absolute.

I  don't think this is absolutely right... using the Principled BSDF for pure emission you shouldn't connect to the Base Colour and should instead set it to pure black - otherwise you'll get a surface response from incident light rather than pure emission as described in the original question.

I try your option @MikoGC but with value = 1 the transparent background becomes black and the image grey (see https://i.sstatic.net/BjC0S.png) - am I somehow wrong?


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how to replicate this move in edit mode from youtube video
I am following this video in constructing an Easter Island figure but at 6min 15secs I struggle to scale the lips in Z as he has shown. I selected just the front faces and side vertices and then scaled with S+Z
What have I missed?
https://youtu.be/IV6de9CyuXs?t=375

at 6:15 it looks like he just extrudes the faces, but you've already done it. 30 seconds later he scales the lips on Z. I'm not sure what you're trying to do?

The only thing at 6:15 is extrution, then he just scale the lips on Z axis

exactly what he is doing... to scale the lips on z... he said he used RKEY? Nevertheless, I used SKEY and cannot replicate it! I just selected the front faces and side vertices but doesn't turn out like his model...

he uses Mays, not Blender, it may be different shortcuts. In Blender, to scale on Z, press S+Z

@moonboots ok, I tried that and somehow it it creates new surfaces. Is it possible to add an addition gif in this comment?

you should be able to edit your original question

@moonboots I edited it. I didn't see any relevant options for this command

so it seems like you scale like he does, except there's a problem with your topology, there is a hole but it's hard to understand what you've done and how it looks like, anyway you need to fix that. Also, if you are learning Blender, you should better follow Blender tutos rather than Maya  ;)

@moonboots it turned out my geometry was non-manifold. I checked via the 3d print toolbox. The scale comman works correctly. thanks for your support.


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How to create this loft between 2 individually defined group of edges and a bezier curve
What would be the most efficient way to copy the outline of the 2 edge based objects shown so that i can apply them as bevel objects along this Bezier curve?

If those are two different meshes, then there are a tons of ways to connect them-- and that's the problem.  Before you can contemplate doing this, you need to think about what way you want vertices on one mesh to correspond to vertices on the other mesh.

As a starting point maybe just connecting each vertices one to one as the meshes are duplicates..

If they're the same mesh, in different objects, it's easy, trivial.  Convert the mesh to a curve (if necessary) and then designate it as a bevel object for the bezier curve.  Adjust bevier curve tilt (on a per-control basis, select curve control in edit and ctrl t move mouse confirm) to match what you want.

A link to a file would allow me to give a better answer, with pics and instructions using your exact geometry.

Ok! I will add models to this post tomorrow!! Thanks Nathan!

@Nathan: I have uploaded the model. I consist of 2 different curves/mesh. I suspect there  will be difficulty lofting because of the different number of vertices in each?

If there's a different number of vertices in each, it is not the same mesh at start and beginning.  Again, in that case, it's necessary to establish how each end's vertices corresponds to the other end's vertices.

ok, thanks for the tip. Crucial points is the same number of vertices etc.


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Rigid Body Simulation - solver output window
I am trying to get my model to run but I soon as I press play it does nothing.
I have attached a model with partial geometry. The inner part is the driver which motors the outerpart about its (outer_part) global z axis.
I have no idea what the solver is doing. Is is possible to display the output for debugging purposes?

hello, could you please share your file?

can't you only keep the object and modify it a bit?

@moonboots: I have uploaded the model. Hopefully its sufficient to see whats wrong.

could you please describe what kind of animation you're trying to do? Also what does it give if you copy paste into another Blender (or append into a brand new file)?

@moonboots: Appending actually worked but then it stopped at default 250. I extended to 1000 but it doesn't seem to solve from 250 onwards. Can I clear the solution and run again at a longer end time/step

250 is the limit of the cache, you can extend it the Scene panel > Rigid Body World > Cache > Simulation End

great. Now its running nicely! Thanks!


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How to create folds around a cylinder
I am unable to proceed very far in this video for creating folds around a cylinder. The problem arises when one tries to select Random in edit mode which is not available in 3.1. How shall I proceed?
https://youtu.be/fINXU7uTpFE?t=49

Select Random is available in 3.1, go into the header menu > Select > Select Random

@moonboots: is that not in object mode? I tried it and didn’t see any random vertices highlighted…

I'm not sure what you mean, this is 3.1: https://zupimages.net/up/22/36/0frw.gif

@moonboots! Thanks. I was selecting all nodes before selecting random. Cheers