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Is it posible to get the coordinates of the shadow from its rendering?
I need to know the volume of the shadow cast by an object by a light or at least the coordinates of the contour of the shadow in the floor. I thought that it would be possible to get the coordinates from the rendering, as it must calculate them to generate the shadow. Im new to both python and blender so I'm not sure if it's posible.
I found a diferent methode with the api in this question
Using Blender to investigate the cast of shadows from an object onto a specific point in space ,
but i'm wondering if its posible to extract the information directly from the rendering.

I haven't been able to extract the data directly from the render, but i have been able to put together a code from different sources that works. I'm posting it here in case somebody finds it useful.
import bpy
from mathutils import Vector, Matrix
import random

# In case we wabnt to asign a random color to the shadow
def get_random_color():
    ''' generate rgb using a list comprehension '''
    r, g, b = [random.random() for i in range(3)]
    return r, g, b

#We create the material for the shadow and assignt transparency
mat_shadow=bpy.data.materials.new('shadow')
#mat_shadow.diffuse_color=get_random_color()
mat_shadow.diffuse_color=(0.01,0.01,0.01)
mat_shadow.alpha=0.5
mat_shadow.use_transparency = True

#From this point we assign the objects we are gonna work with
#We assign the light, a point in this case
LightObj = bpy.data.objects['Point']
light_mx = LightObj.matrix_world
light_location = Vector((light_mx[0][3], light_mx[1][3], light_mx[2][3]))

#We select the surface we want the shadow
Surface_Object = bpy.data.objects['Plane']
surface_mx = Surface_Object.matrix_world
imx=surface_mx.inverted()

#we select the test objects
test_names = [ 'Cube','Suzanne']
test_objs = [bpy.data.objects[name] for name in test_names]
test_mxs = [ob.matrix_world for ob in test_objs]

#We loop througth the objects to create the shadows
for ob, mx in zip(test_objs, test_mxs):
    pol_accepted=[]
    shadow_mesh=[]
    shadow_object=[]
    cont=0
    #We loop through all the faces of the object
    for poly in ob.data.polygons:
        Loca_hit=[] # Where the ray hit
        Vertice_hit=[] #if vertice hits we save it here
        hits=0
        #We loop through the vertices of the face
        for indx in poly.vertices:
            i=indx #We save the indx in a variable, if not it will change to -1 when used
            P0=imx * light_location
            P1=imx *mx*ob.data.vertices[i].co
            #We check that the object it's not higher than the light
            #We should check in a more general case, that the point of the light it's farther than the point of the object
            if P0[2]>P1[2]:
                #We use the equation of the line that goes through two points to select the point of the line that
                #goes through P0 and P1, bellow the plane
                d=P1-P0
                n=(surface_mx[2][3]-1)/d[2]
                Pfin=P1+d*n
                re,loc, no, ind = Surface_Object.ray_cast(P0, Pfin,distance=1.70141e+10)
                if re:
                    hits += 1
                    Loca_hit.append(surface_mx *loc)
                    Vertice_hit.append(surface_mx *P1)
        #We only consider a face has a shadow if at least three points touch, the minimum to crerate a face
        if hits>=3:
            #We create the vertices with the hits and the original points, the faces to make a 3D mesh of each face shadow
            verts=Vertice_hit+Loca_hit
            f1=[n for n in range(hits)]
            f2=[n+hits for n in range(hits)]
            faces=[tuple(f1),tuple(f2),(0,hits,hits*2-1,hits-1)]
            for n in range(hits-1):
                faces.append((n,n+hits,n+1+hits,n+1))
            name='shad'+str(cont)
            shadow_mesh.append(bpy.data.meshes.new(name))
            shadow_object.append(bpy.data.objects.new(name,shadow_mesh[-1]))
            bpy.context.scene.objects.link(shadow_object[-1])

            shadow_mesh[-1].from_pydata(verts, [], faces)
            # Calculate the edges
            shadow_mesh[-1].update(calc_edges=True)

        cont += 1
    # We change the name of the first

    if len(shadow_object)!=0:
        shadow_object[0].name='Shadow_'+str(ob.name) #We change the name of the first shadow

        #We are going to join all the meshes together from the object
        scene = bpy.context.scene
        ctx = bpy.context.copy()
        # one of the objects to join
        ctx['active_object'] = shadow_object[0]
        ctx['selected_objects'] = shadow_object
        # we need the scene bases as well for joining
        ctx['selected_editable_bases'] = [scene.object_bases[ob.name] for ob in shadow_object]

        bpy.ops.object.join(ctx)

        # Assign material to object
        if shadow_object[0].data.materials:
            # assign to 1st material slot
            shadow_object[0].data.materials[0] = mat_shadow
        else:
            # no slots
            shadow_object[0].data.materials.append(mat_shadow)

        shadow_object[0].show_transparent = True


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Why is only one side of the object affected by subdivision surface?
Why is only one side of the object affected by subdivision surface?

Maybe you have activated the Auto-Smooth option in the Properties > Data > Normals menu, it will create a sharp edge on each edge that have an angle above the amount you have defined

Could you have possibly put an edge crease around that edge loop? It would show up as a different colour to other edges in edit mode.

Either you have high crease value or you somehow put a loop cut there but you can't see it bc it's overlapping.
First try to merge by distance with like 0.001, select all verts and make the crease value zero.

In addition you also can enable auto merge and split edges then press G and ENTER without actually moving the mesh.

I think the subdivision has applied equally to the whole surface (check the wireframe).. but maybe some of it is flat-shaded, and some of it is not.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Low-Poly 3D Models are exporting but materials aren't
I'm planning on making a short animation so I kept all the models, props and assets separated in folders. Problem is, when I try to append each object into one scene, their colors (Basic colored Materials) is excluded. I've also noticed the same problem when I open those files (FBX format) in Mixed Reality Viewer, and all I get is a plain object

compared to what I am expecting that was rendered in blender (see image below);

I'm EXTREMELY worried that I have to apply UV mapped textures to every model I made for this to work properly especially for the future since I need to be exporting these models as well in UNITY. Any workaround on this or on how I may be able to fix this problem without applying uv map? Note: I tried baking but it didn't work for me :(

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/57531/fbx-export-why-there-are-no-materials-or-textures

I've had the same problem. Apparently blender won't export color with a model because it is dependent on blender and won't carry over to unity or unreal engine. Must be done in the engine itself.

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


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Triangular Wrinkles on faces?
I'm trying to make a low-poly head for an animation, but whenever I render the object, weird cuts/wrinkles are appearing on the face (see Below)

Here's the solid view

How do I make those cuts disappear?

Thanks alot! :) deleting and dissolving some of the vertices did help with the issue

I'll make sure to answer it as soon as I can find a more appropriate fix for the issue itself.


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Sky Texture not rendered properly
I'm using the default World Sky texture settings for my scene. There's a dark bluish rectangle positioned at the middle of the sky texture when rendered as compared to its appearance in the 3D viewport.
How do I fix the issue?

That is likely not caused by the sky itself, there may be objects, modifiers, or clipping at work here. Impossible to tell without knowing more about your scene

I'm quite unsure if it has something to do with the rendering distance of the camera. Its end clipping is at 1500. I'll try creating another scene and see if it gets better

It would also help if you uploaded your file so others can improve the scenes settings.

Turns out the End Clipping of the camera (Max viewing distance) was the one causing the issue. I down-scaled all the objects in my scene and set the clipping distance of my camera from 1500 down to 100 and that fixed the problem.
Do not set your render distance past 200 as it will most likely give you clipping issues.


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Mirrored object showing problems
I'm making a head model from another scene, and the body on a separate one. Both are different .blend files. Problem is when I copy (ctrl+c) the head model and paste it to the other scene (ctrl+v) the verts of the mirrored side of the object look clean compared to the original side.
Here is the scene of the head model. As you can see, both sides have retained consistency.

After I copy pasted the head model to the body scene, this is what I get.

The mirrored side looks inconsistent with the original side.
I need both sides to look the same.

Problem is caused by lighting. I fixed mine by deleting the old lighting and creating new ones instead.


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Too Many rig layers (Rigify)

I have two characters and two rigs. One character has already been generated with a rigify armature and the other is not yet generated. if I generate another rigify armature from the different rig, nothing appears, but instead it reselects the one with the already generated rigify armature and adds too many rig layers.
How do I delete this?

Fixed by clicking the generate button again in the separate rig. It seemed to update the rig but you have to set the ik/fk again manually.


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How do I upload cycles materials in sketchfab while retaining the materials
Assuming that sketchfab does not support the renders of cycles, i'm not sure how I can upload this file without losing the materials esp when exporting in FBX.
Here is what I want the output to look like (with glass bsdf as the main material used for the whole scene along with custom nodes for the platform)

I get this instead

Is there a way for me to upload the model while retaining the appearance and settings of the materials?

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/57531/fbx-export-why-there-are-no-materials-or-textures

Possible duplicate of .fbx export why there are no materials or textures?

Im not sure how I can apply the glossiness of my materials as UV textures.

this might help too https://help.sketchfab.com/hc/en-us/articles/202600873-Materials-and-Textures


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How to remove black areas of transparent image in reflection
I'm trying to render png emitted clouds but have no idea how to remove the black areas of png's reflection as shown below

Here's the node setup

maybe check the Properties panel > Render > Light Paths > Transparency values?

I turned off its glossiness in the ray visibility menu under object tab

Could be the only way of solving the black background of the png as of the moment.


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Animation: Make object visible
I have a curve wich is a graph of something. Now I want to animate the graph to get larger by the time and then being fully visible. Hard to describe, I mean something like this without kamera movement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jJqYwrjt6s
Thanks for your help!

You need to animated the bevel end factor of a curve object.
Step 1: Add curve and change its shape in edit mode.

Step 2: Set key frames for the bevel end factor in the curves panel

And the result:

I prefer this method over Bertmoog's since it can be done directly with curve objects, and doesn't require destructively converting them to mesh.

Me too +1 :)  But my "curve" was just a mesh from the start.

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


text:
Render plain SVG without shadow quickly
What is the best way to render a 2d animated video which is made of imported SVG files from Inkscape? I already set the Environment Lighting (to 1.250) and set the Gather to Approximate. This only gives nice results with an error lower than 0.200, otherwise there are artefacts like gray circles. I am using the Blender Render (should I use Cycles Render?) and would like to have a FullHD Output (1920 x 1080) with 24fps for my 5 min long video. Currently it takes almost a minute per frame (I have a Core i5 6600).
I hope there is a way to improve my render settings...
Thanks.
(Look I want to achieve: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSKi8HfcxEk)

Not answering the question, but the video is pretty interesting.

You could probably switch to Blender Internal render engine and use the viewport OpenGL render engine alone, That is probably the fastest most flexible way

Use Shadeless material option in the Properties panel for each material,and that will keep you from having to use things like AO or anything like that. You can mimic the shadeless material in Cycles with an emission shader on everything, but I think the rendering in Blender Render for this type is faster.

Thank you so much! I used this https://code.blender.org/2011/05/scripting-–-change-settings-the-fast-way/ script to set all materials to shadeless at once and now it renders with Raytrace in just one second per frame! Awesome!

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


text:
How can I keep blender from freezing whenever I try to render or bake a somewhat heavy scene in my no good very bad computer?
Well, I'm trying to render a simple chest, that's all, but it has some high definition textures and the vertex count is very high with SubSurf. I can work fine in the 3Dview, the thing is whenever I try to render my humble chest Blender flips the heck out and starts doing some very time consuming calculations, then RAM use go waaaay up and my whole pc freezes and never comes back A La Chavo del Ocho so I have to turn my PC off and on again. Then I thought, well I just have bake the textures that are causing this and the render will go fine. Well, I was wrong yet again and my PC freezes again, and the weirdest thing, when I use 1000 samples in the bake blender crashes after some time and my computer comes back, but when I use 200 it never comes back. My computer is very bad:
Intel Core i3 3110M 2.40GHz
8gb DDR3 memory(dual 4096 MBytes)
Intel HD Graphics 4000
Windows 10 Pro 64bits Laptop
I was under the impression that the only thing that was gonna happen were very long renders and that would be fine but now i'm afraid and sad that I need a new computer to go on with my studies and right now I cant. What can I do? Do I have to just do simple works while I wait to buy new hardware?

I would say you need to accept the reality that rendering computer graphics needs a lot of processing power and move on. You do need to buy a powerful computer if you wish to avoid issues like that, however you can learn to work with what you have as well. Try working on smaller parts of your project at a time, test rendering materials with simple lighting and render border only, research how you can optimize rendering in Blender. You can also use a render farm like SheepIt. Its free, you just need to render stuff for other people let's say during nights when you don't use the PC.

The most likely reason for such a crash is running out of memory - and for what you describe as a simple scene you should not be running out of memory. Please clarify more about your situation - such as how high definition the textures are (can you reduce them in size to see if that helps), how many vertices on your base mesh (can you do anything simple to reduce the complexity of your model), what level of subdivision are you using (does reducing that help?), are there any other modifiers in use? Try cutting it down until it works and then start adding complexity until you find the cause.

Well, I'm still in the first state of grief, Martin :c, but yes, I agree. I just don't feel confortable using render farms like sheep it since my computer can't even handle my things, so it would be like taking advantage. Aaaaa, thank you for the idea, @Rich, I will try it right now.

So @RichSedman, I had 4k textures and my uvs were set to 4096 x4096 so I halved that and put 2048 as the limit for texture in simplify but I guess just tweaking simplify was enough. But the last thing was the level of SubSurf that was in 5 and now has to be in 4. But, man, thank you very much, I had tweeked things but I did'n even thought in reducing the textures and tone down to the bare and go up slowly, it worked like a charm, thank you. Can you make an answer for me to choose, Rich? Since you did resolved this problem of mine.

Excellent - glad you’ve resolved it. I’ve added an answer.

The most likely reason for such a crash is running out of memory - and for what you describe as a simple scene you should not be running out of memory.
In order to reduce the memory requirement for your scene you could try reducing the size of your textures, simplify your mesh, reduce the level of subdivision surface modifiers (there are separate settings for Preview and Render - check both) and check for other modifiers that generate geometry (for example, a Remesh modifier can easily become a problem if set too high).
Simplify the scene and objects until you get a working render and then start adding complexity again until you find the cause.


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Where have my objects camara and lights gone?
I have misplaced objects camera and lights. They do not show in the 3d viewport yet the object shows up in the rendered window. I thought perhaps I had accidentally moved the entire lot away from the grid, however the location of the object still shows to be x0 y0 z0. They are also not hidden or in another layer. They do show in Outliner and the rendered preview window. There is a strange gray line. What have I done?

I took a look at your blend. I think its a bug, if you switch from the default mode to any of the other ones it appears just fine. Its something that got messed up with the default view. I tried it with 2.8 and it worked just fine. My only advice is start up a brand new .blend file and append > import > objects. Then everything will be back to normal. Not sure what happened to your default space.

LS1, have you switch from a version to another?

@moonboots No I have not. I was working on it just fine and then all of a sudden everything went. I assumed I had typed in some weird shortcut key by mistake.

yes it's weird, but as icYou says, you can get your objects back

@icYou520 I have done just what you have suggested and appended all into new blend file. All working fine so at least I can get on with the work!

You have set a view clipping border. This allows you to only see a portion of the scene for clarity, as this cuts through objects it is also good for seeing inside an object.
The small dark area you have is the visible area in the viewport, as none of your objects are in there, you don't see anything.
You set the clipping border with ⎇ AltB and drag a rectangle over the area you want to see. Pressing ⎇ AltB again will clear it.
Also if you turn off the Load UI option when opening the blend file, the existing border will not be loaded.

Thank you @sambler. Not sure how i could have done that without knowing, but after pressing the Alt and then B keys it did indeed make my object visible again.


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Active faces of the object and UV unwrap not corresponding
I UV unwrapped a cylindrical object but noticed that the image was stretched with a section of the image missing. The active face of the image and the corresponding active face shown in the UV Image Editor window show different contents as such . Why is this happening? I have managed to cheat as shown below.


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How do I make a UV unwapped image visible on only one side of the object
I UV unwrapped a label and applied a texture.  However,the back side needs be a solid color. I applied the following suggestions
How to apply a texture to only one side of a plane. As you can see from the screen shot it is not working for me. Why?

Looking at outliner you have some modifiers on the object. Is there solidify? If yes that would explain it. Enabling Only Rim option on it would fix it.

That did the trick. For those that don't know, in this instance you will find the -Only Rim- option In the solidify modifiers panel.

If you do want to use a full solidify, you can provide a material index offset-- this will look down the object's material list, n number of entries, to provide a different material for the rim and/or other side, via which you can have the other side use whatever material you want.

Jaroslav Jerryno Novotn answered my question in the comments section. I did indeed have a solidify modifier on the object and as suggested, I enabled the Only Rim option in the solidify modifiers panel. This worked for me.

Sorry @cegaton. I thought I was being helpful! I will change it!


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Altering the height/width of an face loop/ring
How do I alter the height of the face loop in such way that it does not alter dimensions of the other faces, simple the overall height of the object? In other words, it just pushes the other faces away.

After the selection, how about hiding the faces (H), then hover over the top part and press L (select linked) then move it (G) and unhide (Alt H)

@Leander So there is no way of doing this whilst keeping the whole object visible?

These are just workaround, how about go in vertex mode, select the upper edge loop, hide it (H), select the linked top (L), unhide the edge loop (alt h) then move everything. That way, at least everything is visible.

@Leander Really struggling with this. Am I hiding the upper edge loop of the "row" I want to alter?Not sure what the linked loop is! Aghhhhhh!! Will take a break and work with a fresh head later. Will update then thanks.

Set the Pivot point to Individual Origins. Then if you Select > Inverse and use Push/Pull it will pull apart the 2 now selected halves, increasing the height of the mesh and stretching the initial face loop.
This might be difficult to do on meshes with complex topologies, though.

This worked a charm on the cube, I will try it out on the actual mesh I am currently working on. Hopefully its not too complex! Thankyou.


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How to fix irregular cross section and shape-stretching while curving a mesh?
I am trying to create a finger ring made of connected hexagons. The steps I followed were:
1. Create a mesh of 7 connected hexagons lying side to side
2. Bend that mesh using simple deform around a central point
3. Convert that mesh into a curve
4. Use another bezier circle curve as the bevel object to create a cross section for the hexagon curve
5. Convert the hexagon curve into a mesh again
There are 2 issues I am facing here:
1. My hitherto, regular, equal length-sided hexagons have now got stretched after the simple deform modifier, so 4 sides are much longer than the 2 sides
2. The cross section of the mesh is not uniformly circular (and looks a bit twisted)
3. The mesh at the junctions is protruding
Is there a relatively easy way to fix this or should I consider a completely different approach? If the latter, would be great if you can explain the new approach. I have lost a fair amount of hair in trying to figure this out so would greatly appreciate your help.
Thanks in advance!
Ayan

you have to add more count of hexagons in your array modifier, to avoid stretching in the deform modifier. and also the hexagon cilinders seem not be joined (not after array i mean the original shape of the hexagon , not several hexagons joining)

are the first and the last hexagons suppose to stick to each other or is it an open shape like in your screenshot?

@MichaelBenDavid Silly of me - I didn't actually use the array modifier but just copy pasted the base hexagon multiple times. And the base hexagon was just a circle with 6 sides - the sides did not have any cross section to start with. It was only after I had curved the 7 hexagons that I changed the mesh to a curve and then used the curve bevel object to create a cross section using a bezier circle.

@moonboots It's supposed to be open to allow the wearer to adjust the ring per their finger size

You could do it this way:

Create a torus with 6 Major Segments. Rotate it 90° on the X axis and 30° on the Y axis. Apply the rotation with ctrlA.
Duplicate it and keep a half somewhere.
Cut the 2 extremities with the knife (K to activate, Z to cut through, C to cut perpendicularly), separate in the middle with V, move one half and create an X.
Give your shape an Array modifier with a Count of 7, activate the Merge and First Last options.
Give it a Simple Deform modifier / Bend mode, with the angle you want, for example 280° if your final shape is not closed.
As you will want to smooth it with a Subdivision Surface modifier, add some edge loops to your mesh to sharp the edges.
Give it a Subdivision Surface modifier, smooth it.
Keep a copy of your object somewhere. Apply the Array and Simple Deform modifiers on the original.
Bring back the half torus you've created at the beginning and stick it to each extremity of the shape with the help of the Snap option / Vertex mode and Automatically Merge Vertices option.
Go in Edit mode, select all and W > Remove Doubles.

I am a bit speechless. At the max I was hoping for some guidance/tips  on how to solve this. For you to take time out on a Sunday to solve the issue with detailed steps and screenshots is a bit mindblowing. Thanks a ton! This looks perfect. I'll try and replicate the steps and let you know in case I get stuck anywhere. You made my Sunday :D

you're welcome  ;)   I hope it's clear

Yup - it worked! Thanks again!


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How would I make gun animations for guns with multiple swappable parts
I would like to have weapon customization in my game but I can't figure out how to animate the parts of the gun so that they can be switched out.

This question is a little too broad to get a productive answer in this SE. It would be better to make an attempt, and then ask about, (and illustrate) the first specific problem you run into.

Switching out parts isn't an animation issue. You would do that through code. You rig your weapon and create bones or sockets for attachments and then in game you program it so that the attachments you imported separately from the gun get snapped to the right bone or socket.


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NDOF Invert Blender 2.8
Is it possible to invert the NDOF pan and orbit and zoom directions in 2.8?
2.7 had an option to customise this. I use the default 3Dconexion settings but blender automatically flips them.

Blender now responds to changes made in the 3DConnexion properties application (this wasn't previously the case in 2.79).
If you reverse all the navigation properties in the 3DConnexion advanced settings, the space mouse will respond as if it was set up with default settings in Blender. In every other CAD program I have used the opposite is true.
I can't seem to find any documentation of these changes or why it is mapped wrong by default.

Yeah the defaults for 3DConnexion motion direction are backwards, and the only way to fix it is by using the 3DC per-app settings.
This issue, https://developer.blender.org/T67579 , was inexplicably closed without this simple correction being made, despite Logan's excellent comment.


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Call function when collections are modified
I am writing an addon and I would like to update some of the properties whenever collections change: a new collection is created, a collection is removed, a collection is renamed.
I am trying to use msgbus, but I haven't figured out what key actually gets triggered with these actions. My latest attempt was to follow the "Outliner > Data API" tree to find where the collections were:
subscribe_to = bpy.types.BlendData,"collections"
bpy.msgbus.subscribe_rna(
    key=subscribe_to,
    owner=owner,
    args=(),
    notify=updateList
)

I have a print in updateList to help me see in the system console when it gets triggered, but none of my attempts so far has been successful when renaming or adding collections. What key should I use for this? Or, is there a better approach?
Once this one works I would do a similar thing with the objects in a collection, so a way to figure out how to find the correct key for msgbus (if that's the right way) would be helpful.
I am currently using Blender 2.91, but I won't mind updating it if I need to. Thanks in advanced.

Hello, do you want a different callback when a collection is renamed, moved, deleted, added or do you want to only be notified if there is change, whatever it may be to the collection system ?

I will be calling the same function regardless of the event, but I am OK with registering different msgbus/operators/whatever if that's necessary


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Mesh emission strength to Area lamp strength
I've three emissive mesh planes in my scene which I'd like to convert to Area lamps.
I've set my new Area lamps to use precisely the same size, location and strength as the planes were. But when I press shift+Z to preview the render, lighting is much, much darker than it was with the planes.
Is it just matter of me bumping up those Area lamp strengths, or is there something more to consider, if my goal is to get identical lighting what I had before with the planes?
Also is there some kind of formula I should use to convert emissive plane strength to Area lamp strength, or should I just eyeball it?

I'm totally not an specialist in this matter but from what you can read from Blender docs: Area lamps emit light from a square or rectangular area with a Lambertian distribution. Then do some reading here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambert%27s_cosine_law and you will know it's not only a matter of strength. I've done some testing with both setups and I can't find proper ratio. Even if it's really close, there are some differences.

Related: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/14562/how-to-get-consistent-lamp-strengths-in-cycles also: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/8039/area-light-vs-emissive-polygon

Yeah that was a problem I had, I did some testing and found that its something like 15 to 1 ratio.
If I had a Plane with the emission strength 1 then I needed strength 15 for the lamp.

Interesting. During my testing I found the ratio being something like 200 to 1. So if my mesh used strength 20, I had to set the Area lamp to 4000. What could cause such difference in our ratios?


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How can I translate a texture using the mapping node?
In the past, I've used a Mapping node to translate textures, but in this example it doesn't seem to work. I imagine it has something to do with that Scale input of that second Noise node(?).
How should I proceed recreating this kind of texture, but with a way that it could be translated using the Mapping node?

so I toyed around a bit, I'd say this doesn't look quite as good, but it will scroll, I can explain a bit more if you want but I think it's easier to understand if you look yourself at it. I exposed some options, size controls the scale of the edge mask noise, and mapping is where you connect the mapping node to scroll, but if you want finer control go inside the group and tweak the ramps.
Sorry for jumping to conclusions earlier, I should have taken more time to test.

old post (this is wrong):
This is because this first noise texture node is only controlling the scale of your second noise, which is the one that is actually controlling the look of the texture the most.
The mapping node should be connected to the noise node right before the ramp node.

I tried that too but when I try to adjust those Location sliders in the Mapping node, it breaks the texture like this: http://i.imgur.com/J6ScAFg.png

Connect the mapping to both noise textures so that they both move together.

yeah I was careless I didn't test enough, now I'm knee deep in about 20 mapping nodes, I think I found a work around but I think it doesnt look as good as this method. will post if I get it working.

I got something working, test it out, it scrolls OK, tough the transition is not as close to your reference.


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2.8 how to move 3d curser like a normal object?
i really like that for moving a object i just press G and then x to snap the movement to the X axisis. i use this feature all the time and would like to be able to simply move the 3d curser along an axisis. drag and drop and by numbers would both be great.
i want to be able to quickly but precisely set the pivot point like that.
the closet i can come to this is create a single dot ... move it where i want it and set 3d curser to selection. is there any better way?

You could use the cursor tool on your toolbar, drag it and then press x,y or z to move it along an axis.

thanks for the answer but i don't know how to do that. what am i supposed to drag? the 3d curser is not draggable

In the tool bar on left side, there is the cursor icon below the selection tool. Select that, and then you can drag the cursor when you leftclick it in the viewport. (No transformation gadget will shop up though) If you press x,y,z while draging it, it will move along the specific axis.


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How can I control the length of hair particles

I made this object with hair particles in the Z direction, but I only need the hair that's above the gray plane I can't seem to figure out a way to do it.
I need everything under that plane to be cut off.

Sorry if it's not clear enough, basically I need everything under that plane to be cut off.

Are you planing on applying the particles?

Not really.....

Create a plane
Add particles and select Hair (as you've already done)
Style you hair see the following GIF

Now from Modifiers hit Convert

This will convert hair into a mesh
Now keep whatever you want, and delete whatever you don't need.
EDITED: To make it a little more controlled..
In these steps I gave thickness to "only-edges-mesh", because Hair by default are paths. converted into mesh by applying the modifier.

in this images.. I changed into "editable mode"
then selected "Edge" type (not vertex or face).
move to very close to the edge.
pressed "A" to select all edges (hair)
pressed "E" for extrude and pressed "x" to extruded the edge into "X" direction
pressed "A" again to select all edges
Pressed "E" to extrude and pressed "Y" to lock extrude only into "Y" direction.
.. see these are no cubic hair.
Added a box to boolean hair with it.

in this image..I am modifying with "Boolean"

scaled up the newly added box
positioned the box
selected hair.. and applied "Boolean" Modifier.
changed the boolean type..
changed the view to wireframe so I could see .. what is going on.
scaled up the box to the desired form..
Apply this modifier and that's what you needed.. right?

Is there any way you can do it without free handing, using a curve or something?

these hairlines are already converted into mesh. But if you wouldn't have already given any thickness you can .. "press TAB" button, and under edit mode, select edges and "press E" extrude in any direction..  now you can use bool tool to subtract it. I'will make a gif for that too.. if you need?


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Blender Math Nodes: which input is which (numerator vs denominator)
Is there documentation associated with the cycles nodes, in particular the math nodes? The current documentation in the manual seems to only indicate that there are two values, but not which is which. That's fine for functions that are communicative, but some (like matrix multiply and divide and power) are not.
For example:

is this $\frac{1}{input}$ or $\frac{input}{1}$? The same question for a power function, is this:

$input^\frac{1}{2}$ or $\frac{1}{2}^{input}$?
Sorry for the beginner questions and I admit I didn't look through the manual in depth, but the section on nodes didn't indicate this. Thanks!

Does this answer your questions? https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/45089/how-are-the-math-node-operations-in-cycles-calculated?rq=1


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The edges aren't dark enough
How should I adjust my shoe shader, so that its edges match better the reference image?
Can it be done without touching the lightning setup?

Blend file: http://pasteall.org/blend/index.php?id=46960

I think if you plug a "Fresnel" shader into the "Fac" socket of your Mix Shader it may help. In the Node Editor press SHIFT + "A" and you'll find it under the "Input" drop down.

The first thing I noticed when I looked at your blend document is that the mesh for your shoe is reversed. If you go into edit mode, select all vertices, and select "Recalculate" from the "Shading/UVs" menu, they should face back the right way. You need to do this for the solution to work.
First, add a "MixRGB" node to your material, as well as two "RGB" nodes and a "Fresnel" node. Connect each "RGB" node to one of the inputs of your "MixRGB" node, and attach the "Fresnel" node to the "Fac" input of the "MixRGB" node. The layout should look like this:
Next, connect the "Color" output of the "MixRGB" node to your "Diffuse" shader. Now, whichever "RGB" node you connected to the bottom of the "MixRGB" node becomes the edge color, and the top "RGB" node becomes the inside color. The final material layout should look like this:
To show that this works, I set the outside color to red, and the inside to green, and this is the result:
Of course, for your case, you can set the inside color to a light brown, and the outside to a darker brown. I hope this helped! Happy Blendering!
Cheers,
Graves Broderick

You're welcome! I'm glad I could!


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Could this kind of texture be created procedurally?
Could this kind of texture be doable in Blender procedurally? The yellow dotted line in the following reference pic is marking what I'm struggling to create.

With musgrave and noise textures I've gotten this far, but I'm unsure how to do that tattered fade between light and darker blue:

Ask a new question, this one has been answered

Instead of using a musgrave node as in your .blend-file, I used two noise nodes where one of them controls the scale of the second one to make the fade "grainy". I also made the ColorRamp gradient a bit softer. See the node tree below:

Nice solution - although using a variable Scale on that second Noise can produce unintended consequences... the graininess will become more pronounced the further you are away from the texture origin. An alternative would be to Add the noise to the Vector coordinates instead and this should be more consistent over distance/scale.


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Should I use stencil for this?
I'm not quite sure how I should do those 3 blue speckles on my character's head.
First I thought creating some kind of black and white stencil and paint over it, but  I'm afraid that would leave the edges of the blue circles jagged(?)
How would you guys texture the head?
I'm using Cycles.

You may create a procedural b&w mask and use it as a factor for mixing different shaders. It requires some experimenting to do it right but give you the full control over the dots' shape and sharpness. You may also create a b&w mask via Texture Paint mode.

PROCEDURAL MASK
Set up the material nodes as pictured below. Set up the texture coordinates to Object and play with the Mapping node settings to place the dot where you want. Set the Gradient Texture's mode to Quadratic Sphere. Use Color Ramp node to set its blurriness.

Now duplicate the nodes with Shift+D and mix them using MixRGB color node (Multiply).

Play with the settings of the duplicated Mapping node to place the dot on the top part/other side of the object.

By repeating the process you'll get a b&w mask for mixing the two shaders.

PAINTED MASK
Unwrap the sphere (I marked a seam along the vertical edge loop and then unwrapped). Go to Texture Paint mode and add a new Diffuse Color paint slot. Set the image color to pure white. In painting tools set the brush color to black and set the curve's type to line e.g. In Options bookmark uncheck the Occlude, Cull and Normal checkboxes to paint through the mesh. Paint the dots and save your image. Use it as a mask as in the procedural example above.

Here's the .blend:

Final:
You can do it with procedural material. It will give you full control over circle placement and size.

Overview and Node Setup:
Material is really simple, tricky part is circle placement.

This method will work with Texture Coordinates > Object. If you want to use Generated or UV Map, then values in mapping nodes will change.
In Mapping Nodes Location X value should always be the same as in Scale X, Y, Z but positive. Loc: 2, Scale: 2, 2, 2. Loc: -2, Scale: 2, 2, 2.
Middle Circle is on the other side of the Sphere so it's height is controlled differently then others. By X axis.
ColorRamp > Constant will give you hard edges. If you want to smooth them change to Ease or something else. Also White value control Circle size.

Blend file:

Add three/four circles and align them with the headwear.
Use Knife Project and assign a new material to the circles that appear on the headwear.
Delete the circles you added when you're done.


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Is this a correct way to do procedural bumps in Cycles?
in the following pic, I've marked in yellow how I'm thinking the procedural bump map is done in Cycles, but I'm not sure. Is there a better way to do it?
Let's say the material is applied to the default cube.

While i am not an expert in the way blender nodes work, I think that it would be more precise to use the Fac (Factor) connector instead of color.
The color connector in the noise node creates a color output thats not black and white, thats then converted into height data in the bump node.
The Fac connector will generate non-color data that then is used to generate height information.
There is a significant difference in how your bump map will look depending on which connector you use. The Fac connector should be more accurate for height data.

You can see the difference here on how it works.
The top squares use the Fac and Color connectors respectively directly as the diffuse input and below are those values plugged into the bump node to generate height.

Nope, your right on. You can do it that way. You could also plug the noise texture into the output titled displacement and they give almost the same effect, however, I prefer your method. It works a lot smoother and is easier to make changes to.

@G.Ishikawa please don't thank in the comments, upvote the answer instead. If it solved your problem consider marking it as accepted by clicking the corresponding icon.


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Q:Multiple root bones after exporting to UE4
I have seen similar questions before but couldn't find an answer. When I try to import my animated mesh to UE4 it gives an error saying there are multiple roots in the armature. I did export other animated meshes from blender to unreal and didn't have this problem.

This is a thread from UE4 answer hub: https://answers.unrealengine.com/questions/109814/multiple-roots-are-found-in-the-bone-hierarchy-we.html

The following helped me` I selected model, bones and create a copy, then I exported a copy of model and this issue was fixed.


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How can I fill up my toilet model with water?
I have a toilet mesh here. I'm trying to find a way to fill up my toilet bowl with water. Any suggestions? I'll give two pictures of the mesh.

In Edit Mode select an Edge Loop at a location where you want the top of the water to be.

Duplicate it SHFT+D Then separate it by pressing P > Selection.
TAB into Object Mode and select the object you just created (I hid the other objects).
TAB  into Edit Mode and Extrude these vertices inward as in the imageE  SSHFTZ

Select all of the vertices except the outer edge and move them down a bit G Z This creates the "meniscus".

You will want a Subsurf Modifier and Smooth Shading.
Here is my Node Setup for the material.

From what I understood,you can add a plane inside toilet bowl and give it water texture like this:

I'll try it, but I can't seem to get a water texture. I'm completely new at water in Blender.

@Matthew Lee ...water texture? don't you just need a transparent material with some surface light reflection?

@m.ardito I will try all of these answers. Thank you for answering.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJD-qL77Cug, and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfRlLbhlm4o are two pretty good tutorials if you're interested.


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Pose is not remembered as Keyframe
I use version 2.66 of Blender and I'm a newbie. I downloaded a free model of a human, rigged and skinned it and I try creating a simple animation. I set a pose, then press "I" and LocRot but when I do the same for the next pose the previous keyframe pose(s) become the same as the current. And when I press play not surprisingly see no animation. I see the created keyframes but they are the same. What I see in the Graph Editor is strange for me, because there are no interpolation lines between the frames(they are the same after all). I've tried lots of things. I've read about a similar problem but no solution.

Sounds indeed strange, could you upload a screenshot of the 3dview with the bones and the graph editor. Also are you sure you are in bone Pose Mode (you probably are or you couldnt pose the model)?

Something important to add. I use IK-bones to control the arms. Their positions are change in each frame, so animation works for them, but not for the bones that are parented to the IK-bones.

Here is a link https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5ReVjwDEgPhT3R5TkNSWlVkaWs/view?usp=sharing

The problem is that all keyframes are the same no matter what I do.

Upload our file to https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/, then other can help you more easily. Just edit your post and add the link to the file download.

You really should be using a newer version of Blender.

I found out what the problem is. When I'm in Pose Mode I have to pres "A" to select all animated bones. Then I have to press "I".


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How can I get this setup in Cycles (for cell shade)
I'm using a material setup in Blender Internal for cell look. I want to use same setup for Cycles but I can't get exact same result.
In this setup; I can select shadow color and direction in color ramp. And also this setup works good in viewport.

You cannot get this exact setup because Cycles does not let you use lighting as a factor in your materials. There is no Lamp Data node in Cycles, and you cannot use a shader's output as an input for another shader or color like you can in Blender Internal. This is because Cycle's lighting and shading isn't calculated until render, so that data is not available. You can make a fake one by using drivers to feed the location of a lamp into value nodes, but it isn't very accurate.
You can still get pretty close by using a Toon Diffuse with a high size and low smooth. Probably .9 for Size, and .01 or .025 for smooth (which is very slight, really just for anti-aliasing.) Note that Cycles will be very sensitive to proper setup of Smooth shading, sharp edges, etc. For a model like that, be sure to use Autosmooth.
If you want your shadows recolored, you will have to do it in the compositor. You can Add the Diffuse Direct and Indirect passes to get a proper shadow mask (the normal Shadow Pass does not include mesh lights or bounce lighting). Then use that as a factor for a color mix or HSV node with hue/saturate adjustments. This works if your shadows are a darker version of your existing color, but it will not work if you want to change the shadow color to something specific on an individual basis (in which case you'd need to use ID masks to select each specific different area that needed a color, which is very inefficient.) Note that when you add these shading passes, the values will be way above 1. You may need to ramp or clamp them.
The other major element here is that your shadows do not get very dark in your image. This can be achieved either through world lighting, having lots of lamps or a scene for light to bounce off of, or with ambient occlusion. Or in the compositor, you can use RGB curves/color correction to lift the blacks of the whole image up to what you want, or you can re-combine the image from it's passes and ramp or use math nodes to control the minimum values.
Keep in mind however that bounce lighting will generally ruin a hard edged, flat cell look. And the whole point of Cycles is bounce light. It can do fine for more detailed toon styles, but if you want to keep things flat and simple, stick to BI.


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parametric menu
When I create a new object (for instance: cube or cylinder), I can change it's vertex via the parametric menu, but when I rotate or move the object, I lose the parametric menu!
My question is: can I keep the parametric menu active even after I move or rotate the object?

The 'parametric' menu is actually the new objects menu. It is only available when you create a new object. Therefore there is no way to keep it after you have moved, rotated, scaled, or edit your model in any way. The reason for this is that when you do any of those things, your model is considered edited and therefore unable to change its own vertices. (You have to change them from edit mode)
I hope this helps.


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Sampled motion blur in cycles
I'm using blender 2.78.5 (daily builds) to render a scene where an object it's supposed to appear "vibrating".  The idea is to add sampled motion blur, such as when several frames are rendered and composited on the same picture.  I'm not trying to achieve a realistic motion blur effect, but more an artistic effect to illustrate the notion of movement.
The manual for 2.78 says that there is an option for sampled motion blur in the render settings, for the internal render.
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/render/blender_render/settings/motion_blur.html

Is there any way to do that in Cycles?
Thanks

The individual frames that you see with Blender Internal are more of an artifact due to the low number of samples, not really a feature.
You can achieve something similar in Cycles with a custom shutter curve that has multiple peaks:

Thank you very much! This is exactly what I was looking for.  Awesome.


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Help replicating a material
I'm trying to replicate this material in Cycles (the outer shell of the cell)

I think it's a principled shader with 0.94 transmission and 1.0 IOR, and a bump map, but when I use this parameters in Cycles this is what I get

My question is, in the example material, the surface has some roughness that is missing in my material, mine is shinier.  Could it be an effect of the lighting setup?  I would like to achieve this "silk" appearance of the reference material without sacrificing transparency.
Thank you!

By instinct, "silky" for me means:

more roughness
some subsurface scattering
added translucency
to enhance the bump effect, a IOR slightly less than 1 (0.99 works already!)

⚠ Blender 2.80 →

IMO it might be as simple as a Glossy shader mixed to a Transparent shader:

I also added a little roughness control, as your reference looks like it has some kind of noise.


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path constraint fails
Im new to Blender and i have put my mind into learning all i can about this awesome program. I have done alot of tutorials on sculping and animating, and it all gone real good.
I have now made my own version of Tux and i want it to follow a path. I have put in the Key frames for its walk rotation, but when i try to do a path constraint, Tux gets seperated from the amature and i dancing around looking all weired.
You can see him here.
http://www.mediafire.com/file/f3p4pej5mje96gq/Tux+go+wrong.blend
I have now spend 3 days trying to fix it. reading forums. I have started all over and followed many toturials on the subject.
I will never give up on this, but i hope that after 3 day there is a friendly soul who could be helpfull, so i can learn this lovely program proper.

Please prefer http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com in the future for sharing files here


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Armature doesn't move mesh
I'm new to blender and i've been following a tutorial to create an armature for my mesh, everything went good, until I applied the armature to the mesh. Some parts seem to not move at all.

I don't really know how to fix this, can somebody help?

Been a while since I animated in Blender now, but you have to assign verticies to each bone. This will determine which parts of your model each bone will manipulate as well as how they will be manipulated.

All .blend files should be hosted on http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com.

While you are in  Weight Paint mode, you have two choices, either remove the mesh from bone or add the mesh to the bone,
Please see the attach files
For adding mesh control to the bone

For removing the control from the bone

Red means full control, blue means no control, and in between those color, partial controls.

Try using auto armature with great controls in it.

Enable add on in user preferences - Search "rigify" and enable it
Add -> armature you will have 2 more option added here
Adjust the bones with your mesh
Ctrl + p, Assign with automatic weights.

Alternatively
If you still want to use the manual bones

Select your mesh
Change the object mode to Weight Paint mode
here you can add the area to bone or remove an area from a bone using brush tool

I hope it will help you!

That didn't really worked, it managed to get 2 more parts moving with the mesh, but most of it is still detached.

Please take a look of details below


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How can I get a straight UV map when I unwrap?
I modelled this little wall in Blender and I dont know how to get the curve straight.
Can somebody help?
http://prntscr.com/g2ljc6
I changed a few things with my model and Im not sure how to get the x-scale of the selceted faces of the UV exactly like the x-scale of the faces underneath...
Does somebody know how to fix this?

Screenshot

Hi, I'm not sure about what you ask, but if you wish to have the UV map straight, even if the mesh is curve, try the "follow active quad" unwrap option.

This question also offers some options. You could even use the built-in UV align tools.

A simple way to do this, if you don't want to unwrap again, is to select and scale the edges. Select the top edge of your curve like this:

Then press:

S
Y
0

The scaling result: (Repeat for the bottom edge)

Lastly scale the bottom edge along the X axis. The final result:

In your UV map, straighten out the coordinates of your curve so they form a straight line. When you texture a line on top of the straight, it will get bent with the curve of your mesh. Remember, textures on a UV map will behave like you make it.
Put a line on a curve, and you get a line on your curve. But but a line on a straight, you will get a bent line on your curve. UVs are simply coordinates; Which pixels will go where.
Screenshot of what I'm talking about;


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Rendering a long scene in pieces?
I have a "long" scene i want to render (20 seconds). However, if i were to render it all at once it would use 90% of my computer for multiple days.Could i render it in pieces?
Such as rendering 0-100 frames over night
then 101-200 frames the next night and so on.
Then edit it together later.
or would there be an obvious jitter or something?

under render settings choose the frame range you want to render > in the output section make sure you choose (PNG,TIFF,EXR) > then hit the animation button to render. It will output single files that you can bring back in as one long animation.

Yes, you can. Make the output file with a '.png' extension (or any other image extension) and start rendering the animation. It will render each frame as a picture and you can stop and continue it whenever you want, starting from whichever frame you want. At the end, when it's all done, just add them all in blender's video editor or in a separate video editing software and the rest is easy.
Here's a video tutorial from Blender Guru:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dd5RT8rEPqU


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What do all of the mode enums in bpy.ops.object.duplicate mean?
What do all the various mode constants in blender operators documentation do?

bpy.ops.object.duplicate(linked=False, mode='**TRANSLATION**') -
Duplicate selected objects

Parameters:

linked (boolean, (optional)) – Linked, Duplicate object but not object data, linking to the original data

mode (enum in [‘INIT’, ‘DUMMY’, ‘TRANSLATION’, ‘ROTATION’, ‘RESIZE’, ‘SKIN_RESIZE’, ‘TOSPHERE’, ‘SHEAR’, ‘BEND’, ‘SHRINKFATTEN’, ‘TILT’, ‘TRACKBALL’, ‘PUSHPULL’, ‘CREASE’, ‘MIRROR’, ‘BONE_SIZE’, ‘BONE_ENVELOPE’, ‘CURVE_SHRINKFATTEN’, ‘MASK_SHRINKFATTEN’, ‘GPENCIL_SHRINKFATTEN’, ‘BONE_ROLL’, ‘TIME_TRANSLATE’, ‘TIME_SLIDE’, ‘TIME_SCALE’, ‘TIME_EXTEND’, ‘BAKE_TIME’, ‘BWEIGHT’, ‘ALIGN’, ‘EDGESLIDE’, ‘SEQSLIDE’], (optional)) – Mode

Most of these seem self explanatory. I would like to see a list of all of them compiled together though

@10Replies, self-explanatory for someone with experience for sure, but for a noob like me it's just a source of confusion.

enum lists all subfunctions of a blender https://vimeo.com/103321600


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Deform an array of objects without modifying its geometry, just the relative position of them
I'm trying to model a lipid bilayer and for the moment have managed to create the main structure (three arrays and one mirror).  The problem is that the overall shape is flat and I'm trying to make it irregular.  The shape of the undeformed array is like this

My objective is to deform the array but without deforming the meshes like this

but keeping the spheres with the same shape.  Something like modifying only the relative location of the individual molecules.  Is there any way to do that?  I'm fairly new to blender and not familiar with all of the modeling techniques.
Thanks!

I vaguely recall a question from a week ago not very different from this that used a particle system emitting from vertices of a subdivided plane.  Maybe that can be adapted here.

I found it : https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/84815/how-do-i-make-an-ocean-of-independently-moving-objects

Also see https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/68923/torus-object-stretched-in-array-curve-modifier/68925#68925

You can use a "dummy" object to parent your array object to.
Here I've created a two dimensional array of planes and applied two Curve Modifiers... one the for the X and one for the Y direction:

Once that's done, create one instance of your object and parent it to the plane array by going to Object Properties and selecting the plane.
Right Click on the plane and enable duplication with "Faces" as the method.  This will create an instance of the child (sphere) for every face of the plane array.  You can manipulate the curves under the plane to give you the desired bend.

EDIT: An alternative would be to apply and separate the array elements and use the Proportional Editing Tool to position them:
1.) Apply the Array Modifiers
2.) Go into Edit Mode and Select All by pressing A twice.
3.) Press P and separate by Loose Parts
4.) Go back to Object Mode, select all the new Objects, and set their origins to the center of the spheres: Shift Ctrl Alt C
5.) Select the middle sphere and enable Proportional Editing in the toolbar.
6.) Translate the sphere in the Z-direction and use the scroll-wheel to adjust the size of the Proportional Translation.


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Delete or dissolve face keeping edges
Let's say I have a plane, is it possible to delete the face only without touching the edges or vertices? I plan to apply a skin modifier later but don't need the faces.
Can this be applied to any mesh?

X > Only Faces?

If I understand your question correctly, yes, it's in the options when you press X for delete: Faces Only

That is exactly what I was looking for, with Faces it was deleting the surrounding edges as well.


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Geometry messed up after applying boolean modifier
I don't really know how to ask this question, so I'll illustrate with pics.  I'm trying to model a sphere with two legs, using as less polygons as possible since will need to make a massive array later.  It looks like the easiest way is to model three cubes, add booleans and a subsurf modifier to make it smooth.

These are the cubes with the subsurf before applying boolean.  I intend to merge all of the meshes in only one but without losing the sharp corners between the legs and the top sphere.  If I apply the boolean, I'm getting something like this

The reason why I'm joining the geometries is because I need to apply an array later and modifiy each molecule independently.
Any thoughts?
Thanks!

Boolean Union should be fine for that. Note that geometry might change if Boolean wasn't the first modifier in stack when you applied it.

Easiest way would be to separate the objects (sphere and legs) into two objects with separate modifiers Then merge them later. You keep your geometry, and should still work as you want it to later


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Porous object, texture or geometry?
I'm trying to model something like this (sorry for the small picture)

that is basically a half sphere made of sintered or aggregated smaller spheres, like a thick multilayer.  I was wondering if this could be achieved by simulating gravity with lots of smaller particles and them emptying the core, or with a particle system of any kind, or even with a solidified sphere with a porous texture, any idea?  I'm not that knowledgeable in Blender.

if you have a close-up picture you could use it as a bump map, or as you say, particles, but actually your picture is very low quality so it's hard to say

Particles are very computationally expensive and likely overkill, unless you are going to do some serious closeups. Otherwise you could probably do away with displacement, micro-displacement, bump mapping, or even a good diffuse texture might suffice

I actually need a closeup, I will try with a particle system (few thousand only) and if not, micro-displacement.  Thanks for the insights.

and don't forget that with particles or displacement you can bake to make it much lighter  ;)

Solved!
I followed this tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gM8yEMFMjg, where the author is using a sphere as a volume container, and then sets up a particle system emitting from the volume.  I haven't managed to run the physics simulation to avoid particle overlapping, but in my case should be good enough.


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Bake vertex colors to texture from mesh
This has been asked before but I can't find the solution now. The solution was something about going into blender render, setting the bake type to vertex colors and then just baking but I'm just getting pure white bake. Obviously I'm missing some steps... or something. I do most of my work in cycles so I think the issue could be something to do with the nodes. Do the nodes or materials need to be set up in certain way?
Baking vertex colors has been working just fine before. I just did this a couple of days ago but something has now changed and I can't get any my vertex colors to bake anymore. I just get white.

Setup material like this, Using emission node makes it fast:

You can get vertex color data here:

In bake options chose "Emit"

I just get white bake with this.

show your setup

If I make new blend that thing you showed works. But on my blend file it doesn't.

Make a screenshot and post it in question body

Oh my god I'm such a total idiot! I had my image editor set to show alpha and not the diffuse channels (those little icons next to the pivot options in image editor). I was looking at the alpha channel instead of the rgb channels...

Note for newbies: the "Col" in the Attribute box is important, and is case sensitive.

For blender 2.9: switch to cycles rendering, replace the material output node in the shading wokspace, use the Vertex Color node indead of the Col one menionted here. Oh and don't forget to have your object already UV mapped and a texture image selected.

Just tried baking in Blender 3.2 and I think it's important to note that in the Object Data Properties under Color Attributes the vertex color setup should look like this:

I had to create a new color attribute using the + button, because the default one was set to Face Corner* and Byte Color which gave me a completely black bake.


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Align to Object misbehaving
Whenever I go to align two objects (in Object Mode) I expect their origins to snap to the target. S, X, 0 should do this. It is currently doing something else; making all vertices go to the target origin as well (regards if median, active etc.), as if I had done this in Edit Mode.
Toggling Manipulate Centre Points will stop this transformation happening, but attempting to rotate with R will stop functioning until I toggle back. The Transformation Panel will let me enter rotational values but it's not the same as having it on your mouse.
This error has only existed for me since today and I've done all I can to track down an answer elsewhere. It's affecting all work files including the startup file.
The funny thing is, this seems to be permeating through space and time. I have not only purged the directory, upgraded from 2.78 to 2.79, changed the install directory to a different disk, and loaded factory defaults for every test, this issue still plagues me. A friend I sent my work file to says he sees the same thing but is localised to that file, while it's a bit more intense for me, to say the least.
Any magical shortcut I need to hit or hidden .ini file I need to nuke to restore normal functionality and fix my workflow would be appreciated.

I don't understand your issue... S,X,0 should scale your object to be flat on X axe... as it is in your screenshot. I am not aware of using scaling (S) to snap objects...Can you attach your .blend via http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com ?

Here you go.

and I don't know what to tell you other than S, X/Y/Z, 0 has been the primary means of aligning the various parts in this work file, the previous iterations of said file and other previous projects. While I'm in edit mode it behaves as expected so most of the actual workflow isn't affected, but for years now I've used that command to align things and they have never deformed like that before.

Sorry, I still don't understand why it should align (if you dont have Manipulate Center Points turned on) when you use Scale. I find it perfectly logical that after Scale along X to 0 objects become flat :-/


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Blender - Export to DAE with texture
Okay, i have a really wierd problem. I am totally new to blender, and i have just bought a 3D model of a present, to play a little around with.
The 3D model looks very nice, and in Rendered, Material and texture mode are all the materials showing perfectly fine (not in Solid though, the present is just gray here).
So... Now i want to make this file into a .dae-file, so that i can use it in Xcode. And here comes the problem. "The model export, but not the texture." And i dont want a totally gray present in my app. ;)
I have nothing done with the present (nothing else than pay $ for it). I go into: Export -> Collada (.dae) and have the Texture options like this:

(I have also tried the other options)
The blender file looks like this in blender.

But the .dae-file look like this.

Can anyone tell me what i am doing wrong?

How is the last picture taken? Maybe, if it wasn't blender, the problem is on the other side; in your Xcode/App that isn't able to display the materials.

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/57531/fbx-export-why-there-are-no-materials-or-textures

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos that link has nothing to do with Blender being unable exporting textures with dae or obj - the texture option COPY is checked yet it does not help with Blender v3.6.4. It looks more like another Blender export bug.


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Realign UV Map for texturing
I am trying to make a texture for this cup, but when I unwrap it, the parts are scattered. Is there a way to easily align them? This is my first time using blender so all help is appreciated!

you should first use Mark Seam, then, when you unwrap > a simple Unwrap, not Smart UV Project

It looks like you have many unconnected polygons? try to Edit Mode  -> select all and press W -> Remove Doubles and unwrap it again.


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How can I link the mesh data of several objects so they all use the same?
I have alot (like 50) duplicated meshes. i used SHIFT-D to duplicate the objects ,but then read that ALT-D saves memory. is there a way to link the mesh data (like using ALT-D) after i have used the wrong duplicate? attempting to go back and use ALT-D would take a long time.
The meshes i duplicated are all the same shape and size and only have different rotations.

Use Ctrl+L > Object Data. See also https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/51128/file-optimization-duplicate-or-linked-duplicate for resources optimization info


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Is there a difference in image quality by rendering on different computers?
I have two computers. My new one is pretty solid, but it still takes 8 hours to render 3 seconds at 24 fps. I wouldn't mind it but i have other things i want to use that computer for in the meantime.
If i were to transfer the project to my old computer could i let it render non stop (for like a week)? Would it look any worse? I know it would take longer, but i don't really mind as long i can use my new computer without a major handicap.
I don't have the old one on me at the moment but from what i can remember it has
6gb of ram
core i3
nvidia gt 650m
EDIT: it's in cycles

It will do fine, just longer.

If amount of RAM is enough for the "old" computer to put there all geometry, textures and start rendering then it will work just fine

One thing you'll want to double check is that you have the same version of Blender on both computers. If you don't, you could get compatibility issues.

No. The only thing that will change is the rendering time, everything else should be exactly the same.


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Export error: mesh has ngons
I've been trying to export a model to the game "transport fever" and I keep getting this error each time I try and export:

Well... You need to get rid of ngons. If this is for a game, just make them tris.

You should read error messages more carefully, it says the mesh has NGons not "rignors"
NGons are polygons whith N sides, that means your model that has more than four sides.
NGons are generally considered a bad modelling practice in general, and should be avoided for a multitude of reasons; and in many applications and file formats they are not even supported, so sounds like you have some cleanup to do.
Open all your meshes in Edit Mode and look for faces with more than 4 sides and remodel them so you have a proper quad dominant topology.
One quick (but unadvised) way to fix it it to blindly triangulate your mesh, by selecting all your faces in Edit Mode and pressing Ctrl+T.
Other less ill advised method is to transform all into quads with Alt+J.
Lastly the recommended method is to properly retopologise your meshes using a carefully planned topology that will ease future editing

How do you know when its more than 4?

You look at it and you count 1,2,3,4 edges, if it has more... Bam! that's an NGon


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blender making empty parent as a child in cube parent
Okay so I've been trying to make it so that an empty object will become a child in my cube parent object but I don't know how to make it become a child.
I've tried pressing shift to make the empty object into my cube parent but it doesn't make the empty parent become a child.

Select the Empty Object then SHIFT Select the Cube and press CTRL + "P" and select "Object" from the drop down menu.

not working man I tried that

Does shift have to be pressed at the same time when selecting the cube and for some reason ctrl+p doesn't bring up a menu. Does it have to be in object or edit mode?

See https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/26108/how-do-i-parent-objects

This has to be done in Object Mode.
First select the object you want as a children (in your case, the empty). Hold SHIFT while you select the object you want to become the parent of the object you selected first (Note that the outline around your empty object should turn from a bright orange to a dark orange color).
Then press CTRL+P and select "Select parent to "Object"".
GIF illustrating the process:

Hope this helps.

To set the parent very fast go to the Outliner and drag the 'empty icon' of an Empty to the 'mesh icon' of the Cube. You may also unparent the objects in the same way.


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Blender cycles CUDA out of memory error in archviz scene
I have made an arcviz scene with different objects that are complex (level of detail pretty good and I prepared render but there is a problem: the cuda memory (3 gb) is not enough for the scene. I am trying to solve the thing without actually losing precision or realism, but the problem still persist (I tried rendering layers separated but there is still the problem of the objects being connected  (shadows or others) one another, so if i render one, it seems out of place because it hsn't the shadow or reflexed of other objects of the scene. Do you have any suggestion?

If rendered on different render layers and composited properly there shouldn't be any problems or visible seams. It could help if you show how do you composite render layers. Also most likely putting object with particle system on another render layer could be enough to minimize VRAM usage

If you're lighting it with an hdri you could opt for a lower resolution one, that helps me sometimes. Nice scene btw!

Does using a lower tile size help?

I'm guessing the rug is causing the problem, due to the number of hair particles. If that is the cause, try changing the particle settings or use geometry instead of the hair strands as strand.
Or invest in a better graphics cards, Gtx 1060 with 6 gig of memory works great for my projects.

While investing into a "better" GPU might solve some problems, you sooner or later will run into that problem again, anyway - if you're going to move to more complex scenes, that is. (My Radeon Pro with 16GB also works great, it's just not an option for everyone).

When it comes to complex scenes with particle systems, you might invest some time into learning compositing.
You can separate your scene's problematic elements into Render Layers, render them individually and then using Blender's built-in compositor to "glue" the layers back together.
For a quick explanation on how to use the various layers in Blender, check out Gandalf's explanation here:
How to move objects to new Render Layer?
Blenderguru has a good tutorial about splitting up a scene for rendering and then using the compositor to combine them again, which you can find here:
https://www.blenderguru.com/articles/how-to-render-a-complex-scene-without-crashing


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What is the max amount of cores and threads Blender can use?
I wanted to get a 12 core CPU (Threadripper 1920X) and I wanted to know the max amount of cores Blender can use?

Blender can only use one NUMA node at a time.

Theoretically, Blender can use an infinite amount of cores, there are not set limit to this. Not as far as I know of though.
But cores don't really impact the performance on Blender renders directly, but it's rather the amount of threads your CPU can pump out and still maintain optimal speeds that matters. If you go to Cycles render, you've probably noticed the orange squares that travel across your screen eventually. Each one of these squares are threads, so having more threads will result in more squares. Bumping up the amount of threads manually isn't going to do you any good without a good multi-core CPU, like the one you mentioned.
So a short answer to this question; theoretically, there is no limit. So go ahead and buy a 100 core CPU if you so wish. Blender should (theoretically) be able to use all the cores.
Multi-core CPUs are almost always better at doing complex calculations at least the standard CPUs are (there are theoretical quantum computers which run with fewer cores, but at fenomenal speeds, but I won't go into this field).
I don't recommend getting yourself an expensive CPU like the 1920X unless you are professional in the field. Most software available for you today use up to 4 cores, but a majority still only fully utilizes two cores. Before I went into the IT business, I thought getting the AMD FX 8150 Black Box 8 Core CPU would boost my overall computing performance and speed up software such as Blender, games and such. It did speed up the Blender rendering times indeed, by a noticeable bit, but since most games out today don't use more than 4 cores, my performance actually dropped in some games.
So make sure you know exactly what you're going to use your computer for before purchasing one of these CPUs, as their designed use is almost exclusively for digital media editing/creation.

At least in the past there have been issues with more than 64 threads: https://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?400308-More-than-64-threads/page2 The patch mentioned in that thread was committed, but I'm not sure that resolves all issues. In any case, the CPU that OP is looking to buy is 24 threads, so this should be a non-issue for them.

The OP was asking if, and what in the case, max limit of CPU cores Blender can handle at once. He should not have an issue with the 1920X CPU unless it for some reason isn't fully compatible with Blender yet. If it isn't I'm sure it will be patched soon enough. We have yet to see 20+ core CPUs being shipped out to the open marked at affordable prices (These are mainly for military use today) but there are information out about a 72 core x86 Intel CPU. I have some beliefs that this CPU will cause problems with Blender though.. But still, probably going to get patched when the time comes.

Just to add to FreemoX answer, I agree there should be no artificially imposed limit, as far as I understand, but there is also the obvious answer that in practice no one ever tried a 100 core processor, probably no developers even have access to 12 core processors anyway, so things are at best untested, possibly under optimized.
While it should theoretically work, in practice there may be limitations, bugs, unoptimized code that prevents software from taking full advantage of a very high number of cores.
Parellelization can also be taxing, there is also probably turning point below which it becomes inefficient to use more threads to process certain job. Splitting up the task, distributing workload, managing threads, becomes more taxing than processing it with fewer workers.


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Render appearing black and white cycles, how to fix?
My render is appearing black and white in blender. Here is the render:
It should appear in these colors:
Note: This is Material Mode, not the actual render.
Here is the file: .blend File
Thanks! :)

Please use the https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ to upload .blend files internally. Also, you haven't packed anything into your .blend file, so all the textures are missing resulting in everything turning pink

@FreemoX i used mcprep so on my screen it's not pink.

First thing I noticed, is that you're probably rendering this in greyscale. To render in colors, make sure your RGB option is selected:

This will result in an image lite the one you posted. To fix this, make sure you got the RGB selected like so:

As cegaton mentioned, you are viewing blue hues only, I failed to notice this and edit this answer before cegaton beat me to it. Here's at least a GIF showing what it does (It's all pink because all the textures are missing, but this will work for you)

Hope this helps.

i'm already in RGB, but it's not working :(

You're welcome. In the future, check out cegaton's comment on your question. It shows how to pack all external information (In this case, your textures) into your .blend files. This would make it easier for you to get help in the future for similar problems

ok @FreemoX I will


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How to set this strange anim. keys in outliner?
I'd like to set animation keys from python script (for automatization). In this particular case can't find command for outliner context. I need command to set keys for 'TOGVIZ' and 'TOGREN'. (Not by picking that pictograms.)

The little camera and eye icons you use to change visibility in the outliner are toggling object properties.
The eye icon links to the hide property, while the camera icon links to the hide_render property and the cursor is the hide_select property.
To insert keyframes using python you set the property and then use keyframe_insert to create a keyframe with that value.
obj = bpy.context.object

obj.hide = True
obj.keyframe_insert('hide', frame=1)
obj.hide = False
obj.keyframe_insert('hide', frame=10)

obj.hide_render = True
obj.keyframe_insert('hide_render', frame=1)
obj.hide_render = False
obj.keyframe_insert('hide_render', frame=10)


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Billions of loop cuts
Been modeling for 1.5 month now, and realized that my biggest struggle in every model are proximity loops cuts. Particularily in this model when I wanted to "cut-out" sound pickups (green) I had to make somewhat of a couple dozen loop cuts, which of course affected other parts of the model (distorting the smooth shape, generating shape-ruining angles). So I wonder how do professionals handle this (probably one of the most common) problem? Do they also make a lot of loop cuts? Or would they in this case just add another cylinder mesh, and array-clone it into desirable amount of pickups? In this case I also read that it's a bad practice to have a lot of separate meshes in your model file as they affect file size etc. I saw some ppl using mean crease thing, but as I'm intending to sell my model on Turbosquid, such creases are prohibited.
The 2nd question is when I was cutting out the notch for pickup selector (red), new loop cuts went through the top surface of one of the knobs (blue), distorting their rounded shape. How would one go around that? Deleting obsolete edges creates N-gons which is obviously not acceptable, at least for Turbosquid CheckMate Pro.

Thanks!

why are you trying to do it in one piece, especially when this object is made of several pieces?

Hi, moonboots.
As I stated in my message, in one of the 3d modeling courses I was told, that you should use as few meshes as possible, as it affects several parameters like file size etc. Maybe I took it too literally?

Sometimes its useful or even necessary to build your object with a unique mesh, but there's no real reason why you should do it in your case: the real object is made of several parts and you're increasing the amount of vertices a lot. And also, note that you can have several distinct meshes in one object, you don't need to have several objects.

Also by using as little objects as possible you can't take advantage of instancing which helps optimize memory and workflow

You don't have to make several objects, you can keep all of your geometry in a single mesh, but if the pieces are separate in the real world referece, then separate them in modeling.
You must have misunderstood some of the guidelines, this also won't increase your files size. It will likely decrease it because you can use simpler geometry. You can also Separate P and combine CtrlJ meshes at any time.
Good models will have good topology and edge flow. The edge flow should also be subdividable. Topology-Guides on tumblr has very good references on this topic.
If you really don't want to use separate pieces in your geometry (although you should), there is no problem with using triangles in planar areas. If you absolutely only want to use quads, here is some ugly topology.
Start with the base quad, inset it, add a supporting loop on each axis.

Extrude it and  add additional supporting loops. Make sure, subdivision works well

For the top pieces, make a single one and duplicate them with the array modifier. During modeling, rely on mirror and array modifier, apply them only before exporting. The topology is going to be almost the same as at the base, but we can use the adjacent connections to our advantage.

Here is, how one piece could connect to an adjacent piece using the mirror and array modifier.

This would be the resulting geometry. It subdivides well, but is extremely convoluted with meaningless edges just for the sake of okay-ish topology.
Third time's a charm: Use disconnected pieces of geometry for disconnected objects.

Hi, Leander.
Thanks so much for this detailed answer.
"If you really don't want to use separate pieces in your geometry".
Actually, I don't know it myself whether I want to use them or not :D I'm just interested in professional modeling, so I'd like to know how pro-modellers do stuff.
Generally I found out that using separate meshes isn't a bad thing (I guess that course has misleaded me) and that it's definitely better than cutting numerous loop cuts on a single mesh and then clean it all up.

I think this is a great answer .. It strikes me that the struggle with, and advice on, overcoming variable levels of detail in unified (single-surface) sub-d models is important only if the model is expected to deform. That advice is often mistakenly carried over to models which will never be used that way.

I agree that in hard body modeling there is no reason to maintain one mesh, or even maintain a model as only quads. If there a large flat areas, then I see no reason why they can't be ngons, like the top of a cylinder. A mesh that deforms maintaining quads is much more important. As long as a hard body model is clean, with clear normals then it's topology is good. At least that is my feelings about it.


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Generate square "skin" around a line for icon solidifying
I'm quite new to blender/modelling, and though I have made a few successful pieces previously, I'm having an issue in generating an object for 3d printing.
I am essentially creating a series icons, made up of straight lines. Here's an example of one:

The idea is that the black lines will be basically a square rod, and all connected to make up the icon. This square rod needs to have the faces aligned with the plane the object sits on... Like this:

I've traced the icon in blender using simple vertices linked together with straight lines.

The issue I'm having now is when I try and give the shape some volume. This is a very basic and out-of-proportion idea of what I'm trying to get as a final product:

Here, I've thrown this together by extruding the points up, creating faces an then insetting them, but the icon doesn't really have any physical volume, as it has no inner side wall or bottom face. Plus, the lines are all inset, instead of being equal on both sides of the line I really need to make it so that the lines all basically have a square tube around them all.
I've heard of people using bezier curves, and then beveling the lines to add thickness. This gives me several issues.
Firstly, the bevel comes out as a diamond, rather than a square, where the faces are all at 45 degrees to the plane the object sits on:

Secondly, the lines are all different thicknesses and appear to taper along their length, which I have no idea how it happens:

Finally, the corners of the shape have open ends, and I'm hoping to make it so that the object has sharp corners.
Any help with this issue would be much appreciated.

There seems to be some sort of screwiness that goes on in the mesh when you create it from vertices. To combat this, after I traced the image using vertices, I converted it to a poly curve (Alt+C). I set the curve extrude function to "0.1".

Then I converted the curve back into a mesh (Alt+C) again, and Removed Doubles in edit mode.
When I added the Solidify modifier this time it worked perfectly as long as "Even Thickness" was checked.

Here is my finished product. The blend file is included below, feel free to use it for your project.

Hey TechTornado.
Thanks so much for your response. This really helped! And thank you for including your .blend file for me to use.
I followed your instructions, and it fixed a hell of a lot of the issues I was having. It's weird, I must have something screwy with my vertices or something, as with the corners I get some strange extension along the SW-NE kind of diagonal axis. It must be something I've done with my tracing, so I'll give it another go. In the mean time, your .blend will help me a lot for troubleshooting.
Thanks again!

@ChickenMacNugget Glad to be of help.


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My rendered photo has black dots on it
If you look to the right of the photo are the girl's arm it has black dots on it.

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because this is not a question

If you have a question please rephrase your post to read like one. If you want someone to do it for you then post it over at https://blenderartists.org

Who is girl from them?

I don't have a sampling tab I am in a diff version. Also yes this is a question.


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Why does my cylinder turns into a plane in cloth animation
I made a long cylinder directly from 'shift+A' as a cotton rope, then divided it into 10 parts and applied 'cloth' modifier. But it turns into plane later in the animation. I have no idea about what's wrong with my modeling.
I also tried to make a plane and then use 'solidify' to give the thickness. But it also turns out to be a plane.
Here is the animation of that cylinder.

How to prevent the cylinder from being a plane? I want to make a falling rope.
Thanks.

Cloth is a thin material that deforms easily. I think what you want is soft body where you can set the  stiffness of the edges to define how much the shape deforms.

So, it is quite simple, you dont tell blender what is the physic of your rope. A cynlindre with cloth simulation is like an empty cylindre made of fabric.
If you want to create a rope simulation, you will need to apply the simulation on a line and not a cylindre, then draw a cylindre around the line.
I found this video that could help you to achieve what you want.


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pose position to reset position?

I've already cleared all user rotation, and also tried alt R etc... when I press the reset position button ever thing looks good, but in pose position is pressed the head legs and arms twist in a funny direction how do I fix this without redoing everything?
please I need help  thanks in advance...

In pose mode, press A to select all bones
Click the Pose menu (in the header, next to Select).
Under Apply, click Apply Pose at Rest Pose.

Are you sure that you reset the rotation in the pose mode? Because i assume you reset the rotation for the armature rotation as object in object mode, while you are supposed to reset every bone rotation inside the pose mode.
If this is the case, enter Pose Mode for your armature, select all bones by pressing A, then reset the rotation by pressing Alt+R, and press Alt+G to reset location if necessary.


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Video for motion tracking is missing
I was motion tracking a scene, after I clicked on setup tracking scene, I went to my previous saved file, which was before I clicked and on setup tracking scene, but when I came back my scene was gone, but markers remained.. and I could still play the video, but no image was showing. Also, you can see at the bottom that the video is here "scene 16-.mp4", but dunno it just disappeared.
Do you guys know what happened, or how it could be fixed?
Thanks


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Add object and shadow over a background using the compositor
I am doing an animation with a camera to add 3D elements to it (don't really know what it is called)

As you can see in the picture above, i am trying to use nodes to assemble my shadow, object and background for the final render, but for my shadow, some of the plane is still visible... I tried using a "Dilate/Erate" node to mask the plane but it ends up also hiding the shadow.
Do you guys have any idea on how I can fix this? Thank you


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Get a Variable from One Driver’s Script and Use It's Value in Another Driver’s Script
I have an issue where I need to be able to access a variable from one script inside of another script.  Here is a short version of the code I’m working with:
import bpy

def RotateMonthDisc_v2(earthOrbitRotation):

   totalDaysLost = ((earthOrbitRotation/6.28)*daysLostEachYear)-totalDaysGained
   totalDaysLost_Radians = (totalDaysLost*lengthOfOneDay_Radians)*-1

   return totalDaysLost_Radians

bpy.app.driver_namespace['RotateMonthDisc_v2'] = RotateMonthDisc_v2

I would like to be able to get the value of the totalDaysLost variable (not to be confused with totalDaysLost_Radians)  inside of another driver’s script, but I wasn't sure how to go about doing that, or if it’s even possible to do it.
If it’s not possible, I was wondering if it might be possible to use the same script on two objects, but have it behave differently on each one.  Maybe with an if statement saying, if it’s this object, return this variable, but if it’s this other object, return this other variable.
Thanks a bunch to anyone willing to help!


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Self-intersecting geometry removal
I'm working on a number of icons for 3-D printing. I'm having an issue where I've traced out the object as linked edges and vertices, and then gone through the following process:
Convert to curve.
In the curve options, extrude to add "height".
Convert back to mesh.
Apply solidify modifier.
This has left me with an object that is as I need it, but has also left some self-intersecting geometry that I would like to remove, so that I'm not getting overlapping faces inside the geometry etc.

I've tried the:
Ctrl+F > Intersect (knife) but it doesn't seem to be simplifying the geometry as I need it
Boolean modifier using a cube around the object, and doing all three available operations. Nothing seems to happen here.
I have the .blend file here in a dropbox folder
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/c05dvx6vforyx1y/AAB_bYT-gw0Z40l0AGKju9tga?dl=0

Hello :). This definitely looks like a perfect job for the Boolean modifier. You just need to separate your mesh into different objects for it to work.

Ah you're definitely right. I hadn't thought of that. That gets me new vertices at the intersect points, and though it leaves the intersect area with a lot of mess, it's pretty easily manually cleaned up so that will do nicely. Thank you! :)

Happy to help, good luck with your project.


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Animate keyframes with python
I can see how to use-
object.keyframe_insert(data_path="location", frame=10)
to keyframe an object's location, but how can I find the data path value for other parameters?
Eg I want to keyframe the start and end bevel mapping value on a curve what should I put instead of "location"?
Thanks,
Owen

Rightclick on the Field and choose copy datapath

Right Click and choose copy datapath only works if you don't want the full path.  See this discussion  If you need the full datapath, then see this answer

Brilliant, thanks all


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Automatic text from file
Do you know how I can create text objects from a file or list like this?
Text           x        y       z
abc            876      232     12
bcb            365      345     23
etc
Thanks,
Owen

similar topic

similar yes, but I want to also place the text at specific locations

yes then maybe drag it to the location by hand to where you want it at..
or try to read the code... i mean the following line seems to be pretty much self explanatory and the author of the article mentioned above (duplicate) also tells you that you can easily offset the position to your liking using his code ;)
bpy.ops.object.text_add(location=(0,idx*2,0), rotation=(0,0,0))

Thank you for the reply. I will have lots of loacations so looking to automate the placement. I can see that I should be able to insert the x, y and z fields from a csv file into the location values


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heat weighting problem
I'm new to blender, and I have a problem with rigging. I follow the tutorial to add armatures to the model, but after that, when I press ctrl+p and choose "with automatic weight" it gives me an error says "heat weighting: failed to find solution for one or more bones" I tried all the solutions that I found on the internet like remove double, delete or apply all the modifier, delete all the vertex groups, check the transform, rotation and scale(they are all good)
But nothing helps. I don't know if there's any problem with my mesh...

here is my blender file

Possible duplicate of heat weighting: failed to find solution for one or more bones

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos I checked that answer before, and tried both of those solutions, but they can't solve my problem

I have found 3 non manifold vertices, but removing them didn't help. May be automatic weighting isn't design for high vertex counts. I noticed, that if only succeeds even in lower vertex count, when removing intersection faces.


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How to make hundreds of objects randomly stand on a curved surface(with selection area)
I'm trying to do a character's model, and this is the hair part. I want to place this cone shape short hair randomly on the back of the head (like the part in the red circle). Is there a simple way to do this instead of placing them one by one? I also try to duplicate them as a group, but since the different size and rotation, it's hard to make sure all of them are stuck into the head.

@Ashok Sorry I'm new to Blender, so how to do it exactly?

@Ashok Thank you so much! This really helps!


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comicbook-like material that looks like one of matcaps
how would you get the material that looks like black and white matcap. the last position on the matcaps "menu". the one that look like a comic book.

...but i'm not really able figure out from that link how to make a black contour around objects like i wanted. there must be somthing with mapping from a camera view, but i'm to fresh for that.

Please edit your question showing what have you achieved so far and describing exactly why the linked question answer doesn't satisfy your needs. It describes how to to build a shader in each render engine that looks exactly like the choosen matcap.

i don't know how image texture, used in cycles engine, should look like to give the contour effect. in the link there is image texture node but i have no idea what image is used in it.
so far i achieve nothing and that's why I asked.

You should use the exact image that makes the matcap itself https://svn.blender.org/svnroot/bf-blender/trunk/blender/release/datafiles/matcaps/. The one you mentioned is the last one, n°24

thanks. this is close. with configuration from the link it doesn't give a contour on every side but i think it's a matter of tweaking it a bit. we'll see.