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Beginner's question learning Blender's timeline
I am trying to familiarize myself with Blender's animation tools (mostly timeline and dope sheet). I have created and imported a rigged character from Makehuman and imported a walking BVH animation to go along with the character. So far so good, everything works fine.
I'm trying to modify a segment of the original animation in such a way that (for instance) between frame 10 to 20, the character would rotate it's head as it walks in front of the camera, looking at it. I want to be able to select all the relevant frames (10 to 20), apply the rotation on the selected bones replacing the original keyframes with the new rotation values without having to edit frame by frame. So far, I haven't been able to find out how it works.
Any help would be appreciated.
Regards,

Hello and welcome. Please use a title that reflects the content of the question. It should be succinct, unique and identifying, and summarize what the issue is so that users can at a glance broadly understand what your post is about before opening it. Use the [edit] link below your post and avoid any emojis salutations or extraneous text not essential to the question. Remember, your title is the first thing potential visitors will see, and will weight heavily on their decision to open your question, which will directly affect the number of answers you might get.

you can delete all the rotation keyframes between 10 and 20, just create 2 keyframes (10 and 20) and Blender will interpolate the rotation between the 2 frames. If for some reason you need to have 10 keyframes between 10 and 20, simply bake the action (Object > Animation > Bake to Keyframes)

Select the armature then switch to Pose Mode. Select the Bone you want to adjust (in your example, the neck bone).
In the Dope Sheet Editor or the Timeline, select the keys you want to modify,(eg 10 to 20),  then delete them. You can Box Select them with B and Delete them with X or Del. You will notice a gap in the keyframes.

In the Viewport, on a frame near the start of the gap (eg, frame 12), rotate the neck Bone so the head looks at the camera, then insert a key (I /Rotation*).

In the Dope Sheet, select that keyframe, Dpulicate it (Shift+D) then slide it to a frame near the end of the gap (eg, frame 18). You should have something like this :

This means :

frame 9, the pose is like the original BVH
frame 9 to 12, interpolate from "original BVH" to "look at camera" : the character turns his head.
from 12 to 18, the bone  doesn't move : the character stares at the camera.
from 18 to 21, interpolate from "look at camera" to "original BVH" : the character turns his head.
frame 21, the pose is like the original BVH

if you work with a BVH, i assume only the Rotation is keyed ; but in some cases, Location/Scale may be keyed too

I have tried your suggestion and it worked just fine. There is something worth mentioning however. In order for the change to be a executed, the boxes of the modified bones have to be checked in the dope sheet (see attached image). If not the original animation persist and the changes are overlooked. It's kind of odd but it is what I experienced.

Please don't reply "Thanks" as an answer or comment, instead upvote the post that helped you. If you feel it completely solved your issue consider marking it as accepted.


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how can i animate camera that follow a growing graph
I am trying to make comparison render and I am stack I don't know how to animate the camera follow the graph really smooth

Please edit the question to limit it to a specific problem with enough detail to identify an adequate answer.

Have you looked into the Follow Path constraint?

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Is it possible to export base colors as images?
I'm not really sure how to say it, but basically, I have a simple rocket model made from few cylinders and cones.
I gave each of them a base color and now, if possible, I would like to somehow combine those colors into one texture for the whole model, and export the image. (I need the image as a separate png as that's the only way the texture will show up in the program where it's being exported)
I have no knowledge of blender at all, so I'm sorry if I'm doing it all wrong.

yes you can bake multiple materials into one, you'll easily find some YT tutorials

There are 2 methods:
Duplicate your object, remove the materials of the copy, unwrap it with the Smart UV Project mode, give it a new material with an Image Texture node plugged into a Diffuse or Emission or Principled BSDF. Create a new image in the Image Texture. Select the original object, shift select the new one, make sure that you are in Cycles, go into the Render panel > Bake > choose Bake Type > Diffuse, deactivate Direct and Indirect lights, activate Selected to Active, increase the Extrusion value a bit, then click on the Bake button, now you should have the colors of the first object printed on the image.
Other method:
Create an Image Texture node, give it a new image, copy paste this node in each of the materials of your object, don't plug it, keep it selected if you have other Image Texture nodes in these materials, in Edit mode unwrap your object (choose Smart UV Project mode, if you already used UV maps in your materials, create a new one in the Object Data panel > UV Map, unwrap and plug a UV Map node into the new Image Texture with this new UV map loaded):

Now make sure that you are in Cycles, go in the Render panel > Bake, choose Bake Type > Diffuse, deactivate Direct and Indirect lights, then click on the Bake button:

Now you have a Diffuse UV map, give your object a new and unique material, plug the Image Texture into the Principled BSDF (or Diffuse, or Emission):

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


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Why do the cubes in my Rubiks cube move into each other?
I made a model of a Rubiks Cube, with all of the little cubes inside of it separate. The cubes appear to clip into each other on turning.
Here is an example:

If anyone could help, that would be amazing.

Looks like you used shape keys instead of rigging. That would cause this kind of interpolation. Is this the case?

@Mentalist I didn't use shape keys. All I did was make 27 separate cubes, and then rotate these 9 with the rotate tool. Do you have any idea why this may be happening? It was done in Blender 2.7.2.

You have nine separate objects selected, and "Add Keyframe" made animation curves for each object. Because they are separate, each goes it's own way, on separate lines. You can see the orange dots moving on their own straight lines, instead of a circular path.
To fix this:

Clear the current curves.
Bind the objects to a shared parent while keeping their offsets.
Animate the parent only.

EDIT: You say in your comment that you will be animating more rotations. For that case I have two ideas:

Easy mode: move the object centers to the cube center, so all orange dots will be in the same global position. Then rotation along the three axes will move the meshes along a circular path.
Advanced mode: Python script as driver for object position and rotation. This is harder to set up for beginners, but it can result in a shared controller for all 26 objects.

That would work if it wasn't a Rubiks cube. With the Rubiks cube, I need to be able to maybe turn that side, and then turn others that intersect with it. I can provide an example if you request it.

@Tritofic It would be nice to have such details as part of the question, because it looked like it is for a one-time animation.

I apologize about forgetting that detail in my original post, but thank you for helping me out. The easy solution worked out fine for me, so thank you. Eventually, I may attempt to make the Advanced mode, but for now I'm good.

Wait a second, now there is another glitch. I actually tried animating it now, and it appears that on the second turn on, this glitch occurs: https://gyazo.com/0f61cba7f7cbd2845c83fa74e9000b9e                                     Is there any to fix that? All I am doing is rotating the cubes from their centers which are all at 0,0,0.

I'm guessing the Bezier interpolation on the curves cause that "echo" from the first rotation. Go into the curves editor and set each of them to linear or play with them until the secondary bumps are gone.

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


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How to add a lattice on cube's surface?
I made a single lattice around a cube in the following way:

Added a cube on scene.
In Edit mode I added loopcut with Ctrl+R.
Removed corner vertices.
Converted the cube to curve.
In Object Data tab I changed geometry properties and received next object:

Now I need to make double lattice like this(left side):

But when I made double lattice by previous way I have got object shown in the right side of previous picture.
How can I get a required object?
May be exists better way to make this objects?

You can either use the wireframe modifier or the skin modifier:
For Wireframe modifier:

Add Cube
Subdivide with 2 divisions
delete edge vertices
add wireframe modifier

For skin modifier:

Add Cube
Subdivide with 2 divisions
delete edge vertices
delete all faces (faces only!)
apply skin modifier
Scale with ctrla

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


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Black image after rendering
When I finished rendering, the screen went black and my video didn't export. I need help! It took an hour to finish, and do I really need to start all over again?

Please provide more info on your issue, probably it's already solved like here - http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/14377/render-turns-black-when-finished. As it's stated now it's just guessing - either something in Video Sequence Editor or in Compositing nodes or something with scene (no lightning etc).


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Blender crash while rendering image after building BVH

Once render is started, the building BVH value goes to 100% and then the whole Blender program gets closed !
What could be the reason ?

My first guess would be that you're using the 32bit blender version on a 64bit operating system or vice versa.

i dont think so ....cuz i hav already made 2 projects succesfully  and renfdered it !!! but when i render this one .....it crashes !!!

are you rendering on cpu or gpu? have you tried both with the same result? You may also try launching blender from command line to see additional hints displayed in the command line after blender crashes.

how to do that !! ??

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=How+to+Run+a+Program+on+Command+Prompt

Welcome to the Blender.SE! Add some details about what kind of scene are you rendering - are there any volumetric materials, how many objects, how many image textures, etc and your PC specifications, especially what amount of memory. Upload your file for better investigation of your particular problem.

I am making a teddy bear mr zak !! And as per cocoknight i triesd to open my blender file using CMD it shows python35.dll is missing ..but it is not mission !! plzz help

I've had the same problem. In my scene I used completely overloaded particle settings. Rducing children from 300 to 100 (before Mem. 3,97 GB, after Mem.1,97) fixed it and redering worked. Good luck


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How to make two characters have their own texture
In my Blender project, I have two Minecraft characters, each one has an armature.
I would like these two characters have their own texture (skin).
What should I do to make both of them have their own texture ?

As I've got the question, you should create 2 different materials (probably more), for both characters

can I have more precision? : ')
I am a beginner
and i'm french :s

Of course you have. It depends on what do you need. You can assign different materials to different parts of the mesh - https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/516/add-different-materials-to-different-parts-of-a-mesh, you can mix different textures with nodes, you can use Texture Paint.. and so on.

Okay, but I want to add an image and not à colored material on thé characters. Finally I tried to get by, but if you have à Tuto..

Applying image textures is very easy.Still, it'd be rather good to see what do you have so far. Some screenshots, .blend files. Basically, if you use Blender Internal Engine, you should read this simple tutorial - http://www.katsbits.com/tutorials/blender/learning-materials-textures-images.php. If using Cycles render engine, start with this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUkNOF8eORA. As a more indepth studying, consider watching Andrew Price' tutorials, for example this one - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzXNZkEoTAk (and whole his channel)

this is exactly what I want but in another version. (Windows XP)
How to do?
http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/8697/how-do-i-put-an-image-texture-on-a-material-in-cycles

I recommend per-object materials as outlined in the latter half of this answer: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/8845/same-mesh-with-different-colors/8846#8846 .


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How to convert vertex group to sculpting mask?
How to convert vertex group to mask in Sculpt mode ?
I take any solution.

It's possible to achieve that with Dyntopo enabled and Mask Tools addon installed (see Installing an addon) and activated.
With addon, in Sculpt mode press Vertex Group To Mask button on the Toolshelf > Sculpt rollout.

Dyntopo allows that because the geometry needed for vertex group will be dynamically created while using Sculpt brush.
The Multires modifier isn't available for that unfortunately.


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Partial decimate?
I know that there's the Decimate modifier for reducing polygons on models, is there a similar modifier which you can use only on areas where there are polygons smaller than some area "X"?
I have some models where most of the model looks ok, but there are small areas with unnecessarily high concentration of triangles that I want to simplify. They're very hard to manually select via Box/Circle select due to overlapping with other parts of the object.

Not that I'm aware of, might want to try the Remesh Modifier instead: http://www.blender.org/manual/modeling/modifiers/generate/remesh.html

This can be achieved by using either Dissolve Faces or Limited Dissolve options.
Dissolving faces
First you should select what you'd like to get rid of.
Select those tiny polygons (select one of them, and use Shift+G > Area to select them by area)

Press X > Dissolve Faces and choose option Dissolve Vertices in operator menu (F6). This makes all those unneeded vertices along the edges to be dissolved too as they will remain by default.

Beware though that this way is a little bit incomplete meaning that it doesn't accurately provide you with original topology as it was before. Weird Ngons will remain in places where dissolved geometry was before. It's possible though to use Mesh > Clean-Up > Split Concave faces, or use triangulating (Ctrl+T), but this may be undesirable.
Limited Dissolve
When using this feature you can either select only small polygons like written above or it's possible just to select all with A
and press X > Limited Dissolve. It's possible to setup limit angle in the operator panel (F6).

There is also option of retopologizing which is completely another approach (so not to delete polygons of exhisting model, rather than recreate new ones atop of them). It's described also on this site, and basically includes using either Shrinkwrap or Remesh modifiers.
Read more:
Merging, deleting and dissolving in wiki.
Mesh-Cleanup in wiki.


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Pose does not work after appending

I downloaded  a character and when I open it the bones work.
But after I append it to another project the pose seems not to go on.
The skeleton is in pose position.
Did I append in a wrong way or what could be the solution?
The first picture is from the original character that I found on the blendswap. The bones work there.
The second picture is when I appended it in my project but why can´t I move any bone there?

Please give some more infos (screentshot of model with his modifiers, the rig, and so on ....) or upload your file to get examinated.

are these pictures inaf or do you need more info ?

From the first picure I can see that an FK forearm bone is selected, while in the N panel the FK/IK slider is set to IK, so the FK bone will not influence the character's arm. If this is not the problem, I think you should upload the file. Anyway, I don't think it's an appending issue: probably the appending procedure resets some not stored hidden controls (like the IK/FK one).

sorry to bother, but how do i upload in this section !

You can use this site and the write the adress in theese comments https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/

Hi i tryet to upload the file , did it go throw, if not can you give a more detailed instruction or share a link for a more detailed instruction of how to upload it, i managet to uplaod somethign but im not sure did i manage to it right .

You should upload the Elanie file also: as it's appended it's not saved with the scene file.

In object mode select the rig, press L
(make local) and choose "All".

That´s great, it worket , thank you very much .

You're welcome, please accept the answer clicking on the relative up arrow.


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Parsing xml file with animation nodes
I've an XML which includes position and rotation information and which I need to parse it in order to use it with animation nodes. This is something I already managed to do via python scripting but as its much easier to interact with nodes I would like to replicate it within AN. My problem is that even if my script works it seems that things are done differently in AN, somehow importing the xml.etree library  has no effect on my xml, this is how it looks now:

I'm almost sure it has something to do with how I'm using inputs but as I'm new to coding I can't figure it out. As you can see in the image it seems that the node script can`t access the file input (xml).
Any ideas on how it should be done?
Thanks in advance

https://drive.google.com/file/d/11N7AeNxEntrfEwEGfwxQ-vvX_lviD1mP/view?usp=sharing

Please attach a .blend so we can more easily work on your question

Done. I'm not sure how to share the xml, so if needed i'll be happy to post it via a link.

I'm not sure either, anything would work for me. Dropbox?

there you go, google drive link

The ElementTree.parse() function takes a filename or file object for the xml file as an argument. In your script node, xml is a string and not a filename or a file object and hence the error.
Instead, you can use the ElementTree.fromstring() function which takes a string representing the xml file. Note that the output is the root of the tree and thus getroot() needn't be used.
See the documentation.

Yes! that was it, I had tried .fromstring but the getroot() was blocking it. thanks!


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Keep resampling count on spline after being divided, geometry nodes Blender
I have a sequence of splines which its being resampled with a fix number each one, this number represents how many instances each spline will be instancing and its is saved in an field coming from somewhere else of my nodetree (not relevant right now for my question).

Next, I'm using a another curve to divide my splines, this produces a new spline creating a incoherence between the number of splines (now there are four) and my field of integers with the resampling count for each spline, filled with 3 integers, this, as you can see in the images below, creates unwanted results as there is a missmatch between the number of splines and the number of integers.

So, how can I make GN distribute the points according to the new splines? So for the given example the splitted spline should instance one object for the first spline and two for the second spline, while the untouched splines should keep instancing 3 objects each one.
I'm providing a blend file with an example.

EDIT
From the comments let me share a simple sketch of what I'm looking for:

i am sorry, but also after reading 3 times, i have no idea what you want to do. Maybe a "i have this" sketch/image and a "i want this" sketch/photo would help? and it is not clear to me, how another spline "divides" your spline? as a cutter object? or how?

How would the split curve know you wanted 1 on the left and 2 on the right, as opposed to the other way round?

@Chris my question can be confusing as I'm trying to simplify as much as possible the issue which is part of a much bigger project. In the blend file provided you can see how the splines are split and how this affects how instances are distributed. But to be super clear: 3 splines are resampled, each one with a count of 3, then the first spline is splitted into two, now I have 4 splines in total, the unsplited splines should be resampled with a value of 3 each one and the first (which has been splitted into two) should have one spline resampled with a count of two and the other with one

@RobinBetts This is something I'm aware its very tricky, I would use the total length of the spline and the size of the instance as to decide how many intances fit into each spline

Hi,  @JuanManuelLynch !  Just a thought.. IMO, you would be better off defining your 'business rules' for the distribution of instances very closely, before presenting the technical aspect of the problem for solution, There's a risk that folks invest in solving the wrong problem for you :)

This setup will move the instances that are instanced on the "removed" geometry to the nearest point that is left:

It has two major problems: It does not redistribute the moved points on the "remaining splines" (leaving piles if the geometry removes more than 1 point) and it only moves the points to even positions along the original curve in chunks decided by the Resample Curve-node right above the Raycast-node.

This is a nice solution but as @Alpine points out it doesn't redistribute the moved instances, maybe we can use it to rebuild the field attribute which contains the count for each spline. As you may already noticed the problem comes from the mismatch between indices from the attribute field which contains the count for each spline and the spline indices. When the spline gets split we have 1 more index in comparison to the attribute field with the count number.


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Follow objects as if there was a magnetic field using animation Nodes
Using animation nodes how can I make an object keep following and other object with some delay, a behavior very similar to the one you can see in most paint tools for stabilizing strokes, here is an example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ah13EISw7nc
The only difference is that at the end of the transform both objects should have same location.
EDIT
here a perfect example of what I'm trying to reproduce, but without "actions"
enter link description here

Isn't that, that it is necessary to hold shift, while drawing, to have this "magnetic effect"?

For the example provided could be, but I am not trying to reproduce de stabilizer function, I shared the link in order to show how objects should behave. The idea is to move an object and this other object should follow the first one with a delay.

Method 1 (Recommended)
You can evaluate Fcurves to get trailing or attractive effect. You need a source object with location keyframes. Then follow node tree given below.

Method 2
We can also do this without keyframed source object by storing positions of object.

For storing object transformation as Matrixlist:
setattr(AN, "store", Matrix4x4List()) if frame == 1 else AN.store.append(x)
Get stored Matrixlist:
AN.store[-amount:]


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Mirrored object stays in the same place
I try to mirror an object [ correction: Lamp ] along global axis, yet it stays same place no metter what axis I choose.
Anyone has any idea why this might happen?
Edit: Object is slightly offset from global Y axis, so what I expect is to see it on the other side of axis when I mirror it, but it stays in same place.
I wanted to go from this:

To this, in one step:

Thanks

where is the object origin?

It was at median point, that didn't work, then I've selected 3D Cursor, at the bottom menu and selected a cursor point at the Y axis, then mirrored. That worked.

I also note that axis mirroring or scaling does not work on lamps. But scale, scale -1 is ok (without specifying an axis), A bug ?

So it's just a "lamp" thing? probably a bug then.

Bogac, I don't understand what are you mean or what you are doing that you expect to "mirror the lamp"?

I did what I wanted to achieve by setting Pivot Point to 3D cursor and then mirroring. Still doesn't make sense to me, when I execute a mirror around a global axis I expect to see my object on the other side of that global axis, without playing with pivot point.
EDIT:
Please check this screen shot, 3D manipulator widget has an orientation selector (in this case selected to Global) and Mirror Transform also has an Orientation selector (Local). What are their effect for mirror transform. 3D manipulator has an effect at all?

Try to create a plane or any other dummy object that represents Y axis and chose it as Mirror Object in modifier's settings. Then you can just make it invisible if you are not to apply the modifier.

Note that one can't add modifier to a lamp object; you can go with constraint though, e.g. Copy location and invert it relatively to a dummy object in the scene.

authors: Паша Москалюк


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Use Cycles baking for Blenders internal renderer
I started modeling a house that I want to use in a game. I really like the workflow of nodes if it comes to materials. So I decided to use the cycles renderer in 'material view' for modeling, texturing and baking.
I created some normal and spec maps but did not see the effect in 'material view' as if I use the BI renderer. Ok that makes sense somehow.. Cycles must be calculating the effects based on rays and rays are only traced in 'render view'?!
Do I have to change all my node based materials and switch to BI materials now to see my normalmaps applied in realtime? I still would like to use Cycles for baking.. so I still need the node based materials. Can I set up a material for every renderer and switch between them?


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Randomly select points with a minimum distance in a mesh
I select random points in a mesh using a Random Value Node. I mark those points as 'is selected' with a boolean flag using the Store Named Attribute. I want to make sure, that selected points always have a minimum distance to each other. Points that are to close should not be flagged.
A nice bonus feature would be to control the minimum distance by the points location using a Noise Texture Node
Update
I came up with the following solution that is far from perfect but at the moment fits my needs. I create a point grid where the points have the minimum distance. Afterwards I delete some of the points based on random. At the end I flag the nearest points to that gird as 'is selected'.

This solution has some flaws. Therefore I leave the question open to hopefully find a better solution.

Do you really need "mesh points" or could you maybe use "Distribute points on faces" with a "poisson" option? That has a min distance

Why don't you set the random value to integer and max to "domain size => point count - 1"?

I would be happy if you have got a description on how to archive what I have described. Distributing points on faces is not what I need.


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How to extrude from hexagon but keep edge lines straight

See the picture. I extruded the area in the foreground, and then moved the vertex in the bottom left so that to make it just extends the line of the original hexagon, indicated by the red line.
But I don't want to do it by using my "eye", isn't there a way to adjust the vertex so it´s always on the red line?
I can´t seem to achieve this.

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/127743/how-to-extend-an-object-just-on-one-side-along-his-own-edges

you can use cursor for this
1-put it in center of hexagon (select 2 points and shift+S cursor to selected) and change transform pivot point to cursor
2-hit E to extrude then press S scale in towards the center(extrusion does transformation too so by pressing s or clicking, it just make the edge without moving it)
3-again use cursor and rotate 180 degrees along y axis that face you just made
4-GG to edge slide and adjust how far you want to go along red line you mentioned

Sorry I reproduced Step1 but from that point on I dont know what you mean, but that´s on me, Im very new to Blender. I know extrude and scale but what do you mean with "extrude and scale in near the center"?

i changed my answer . hope it help

i got it, very nice thank you!


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How do I merge the locations of one set of perimeter vertices on a mesh with the corresponding set of perimeter vertices on another mesh?
I have a face mesh and a torso mesh that don't quite align. Without moving the vertices in the torso mesh, I need to merge the positions of the corresponding vertices from the face mesh. What is the best way to do this?
To clarify, the Torso is an appended object being used as a reference to use when adjusting the mesh in the Face object. The ultimate goal is simply to have the vertices of the face perimeter/torso neck opening share the same coords. The Torso object will be removed at the end of this to allow the final, adjusted face mesh to be exported to FBX.
The blend file is located here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/f1i03g9zjhy5qx8/AnointedM1_Face26_ExportTest.blend?dl=0

I'm afraid that shrinkwrap doesn't do what I need, it is for surfaces and these are the edges of two shells. Applying shrinkwrap as described causes the following result:

The shrinkwrap method makes for a surface that is visibly sealed, but on close inspection, the vertices aren't actually merged.

I need the vertices of the face mesh to end up in the same location as the corresponding vertices in the torso mesh. The two seams need to have the vertices merged (or the vertex coords matching) for each seam, without the vertices on the torso mesh moving. That last point is critical.

I tried the second method (incredibly detailed, thank you). It almost works, but the torso mesh vertices seem to be moving. Unfortunately, Blender doesn't have a concept of anchoring vertices, so the only thing that seems to work is using the linking suggested and selecting pairs of vertices and then Merge->To Last (with the torso vertices selected last). If this is as close as I can get, I can live with this solution. However, if there is a way to perform a Merge To Last on two groups (the two edge loops), that would be great.

Create a vertex group using the vertices on the face you want to merge, then use the Shrinkwrap modifier set to Nearest Vertex and choose the torso as the Target

This can be done with Mesh > Clean Up > Merge by distance.
Join the two objects (Ctrl+J)
In edit mode select the edge loop of the face

Create a vertex group with it.
Select all linked vertices (those of the face) and hide them (press H).
Then select the corresponding edge loop in the torso part and add it to the vertex group.

Unhide everything (⎇ Alt+H)
Deselect all.
In the vertex groups window, select the vertex group that contains both edge loops.
Invert the selection (⎈ Ctrl + I)

And hide all of the selected vertices so that all that is visible are the two edge loops. This will prevent the following operation to affect any other vertices than those visible.

Now Merge by Distance.

Adjust the distance so that you remove the vertices that are close to each other, but not too many, as that will destroy the model (0.001m works fine to delete 34 vertices)
Unhide all of the vertices.

All vertices are now part of a single linked mesh.


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How to render an animation through command prompt in Cycles?
I have been trying to render a 180 frames animation from command prompt with blender -b file.blend -a but instead of giving me an MP4 file it rendered me each frame in JPEG.
Do you know how can I make the final result a video file ? Thanks in advance!

Probably you never changed the output to mpeg 4, but you should never encode directly to video anyway. Encode to image and then render the images to video.

one way to achieve this is to change your output settings in your project -> file format -> video.
Then use your command in command prompt.


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Can't weld overlapping UV's
I have 2 identical islands stacked together. Blender doesn't merge the vertices that are in the exact same position when I use Remove Doubles or Weld. It only works when the vertices are NOT in the same exact position.
Here's a GIF:

Why would you want to merge vertices in the UV editor?

When you have 1 islands instead of 2, it's easier to manage the UV layout. I'd have to only press L to select everything instead of box selecting everything with B

You can only link 2 UV islands when they are separated by a UV seam in 3D space...

Like I showed in the GIF, I can weld the vertices if they're separated. It only stops working when both vertices are in the exact same position. You can weld any vertex if that condition is met. I just tested it.

I've tried this, and even after doing the welding, most of the time, it is temporary (maybe I am doing something wrong - Oh Well).
Regardless of this, the easiest solution to this is to turn on proportional editing O, and scroll the influence area way down. This way when I move one vert, then everything directly under/over my active vertex comes along for the ride.

If you make sure that "Limit selection to visible" is unchecked, it should select vertices that are hidden behind others.

Sorry, I just saw this was for UV and not mesh. Feel free to ignore this.


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Why render result of animation is black?
I have a 3D text with smoke simulation on it. It's all baked up and ready. As you can see on the screenshot the 3D smoke effect is "baked" and the flames are visible in 3d Viewport while in Rendered shading mode.
However when I render the animation every frame turns out to be blank, no text or anything.
Why is the rendered animation black instead of showing text with smoke simulation on it ?

Please download the blend file here and inspect, and some tips would be greatly apreciated: https://app.box.com/s/fih3vv6smnfjazcrmjlagothcja3ffly
thanks in advance!
Danny

This is due to the film transparency (film section in the render panel). But for now I have not found a way to keep film transparency and having the text rendered. Do you need this transparency ?

Related - http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/42939/rendering-fire-animations-with-transparent-background and http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/41574/render-semi-transparent-volume-with-cycles.

Lemon, thanks! I solved it with your help!

authors: Елена Русина


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Why is there no subtracting effect for sculpting brush?
I would like a small help with an issue that occurs while I try to enter Sculpt mode.
I don't use Dyntopo (don't want to add more faces to my mesh that I have nor to break and add new. I am working with what I have and just wish to "reorganise" them a little bit).
Sadly, I can only add to my mesh, but I can't use subtracting brush effect. The Ctrl doesn't work (opposite to what I am doing) and I can't even find the add/subtract option in my tool panel. What am I missing here? Could someone advice me what to do so that I don't use always Ctrl+Z and do it over until I reach my desired form?
I am new to sculpting, I have watched some tutorials but I just can't find the add/subtract nowhere in "normal"(?) sculpting mode (again, not in dyntopo!).
Thank you in advance.
EDIT: found my problem, it looks like that the F smooth doesn't have an add/subtract option. I just want to smooth a little bit out and then work around that. Sorry for the waste of space.

While using another brush, hold 'shift' to smooth

Found my problem, it looks like that the "F smooth" doesn't have an add/subtract option. I just want to smooth a little bit out and then work around that. Sorry for the waste of space. Perhaps the option "add/subtract" might be welcome for this option also.

You can really spped up workflow by holding Shift to use Smooth brush. Not sure what the reason for it to have Subtract effect; to deepen strokes, use Deepen brush, to flatten - use flattening brushes. Smooth uses smoothing in general so there might not be any opposite effect to it.

You aren't wasting space. The point of SE is that someone else might have had this question as well. If you think your answer is the best answer, you can accept it BTW.


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How to enforce rigid body constraints while editing?
I'm designing some toy puzzles using Blender. For example, here is the classical puzzle with two rings each having a small opening, where both openings have to be aligned in order to separate them:

I would like to temporarily enable constraints while editing the scene, so that I can "jiggle" the objects around, using the grab G and rotate R, and check that the puzzle works as expected, just like I would do with a 3D-printed object for example. The problem is that objects pass through each other when editing:

I can somewhat manage to get the behaviour I want by creating a dummy object, attaching it to the ring with a Fixed constraint, pressing Alt+A to start the animation, and moving the dummy object, but this is rather impractical as the dummy object starts falling if you don't grab G it quickly enough etc.

Is there a way to enable user control of an object's position and rotation, while enforcing rigid body constraints? I am a programmer, but I am not familiar at all with Blender's API, so if the solution involves Python please be include a couple of pointers to the relevant API docs.


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Texture view works, but render is without texture
I have this bogie:

It's textured with UV Map in a dark grey as you can see in texture view. However when rendering, it's nicely rendered, but no texture is to be seen:

I checked this question/answer already: Render not showing UV texture
EDIT:
I did all the steps mentioned in various tutorials and in the Blender wiki:
I added a material, then a texture. I created seams, unwrapped my mesh, saved the UV layout, changed its colour to dark grey and assigned the image back to the texture. In texture view you can see the result:
The frame is just plain dark grey, the wheel set has a light grey tread.
In render view it's just the default untextured grey.
Frame and wheels are different objects with different Materials, different Textures and different texture images.
Here is the blend.

Yes I tried that - no difference.

Do you have right image with texture? Does your texture influence color? It is wise to drop your blend file somewhere (e.g.: Dropbox, Google Drive).

Go to the setting of render layers. You have selected material that overwrites all materials. Remove this material and it will work.

I found this seemingly unused Material in the Outliner under Render Layer and wondered what this is for. I tried to remove it without success. So this is how to remove it. Thanks!

I had exactly the same problem while trying to render a simple banana.
I used UV map for texturing and material and
Texture Paint manually for adding some tones of brown.
Everything looked great except when rendered.
After having tried everything possible, I discovered this:
While in 3d view:
- On the top left of the screen there's a menu item called RENDER (next to FILE)
- Select OpenGL render image.
My image was rendered in no time and perfect!
You might want to give it a try if you experience the same problem I had.


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Geo nodes + rigid bodies not working
I was wondering if it would be possible to use the generated geometry from geo nodes as a rigid body without actually needing to apply the modifier.
I made a quick test where I have two rigid bodies, one ball(the active one), and a plane, with a geo node that generates a cube(the passive one), and the issue is that it seems that the geometry used to calculated the collision is just just the surface of the original plane:

Applying the geo node modifier works, but I would like not to do it the idea was to animate that cube/s inside the geo node modifier. I added the realize instance node just in case, but still doesn't work.thanks!

Thank you in advance

Could animate a parent object and have the child a rigid body... for this to work I think you need to use vertex parenting, start with a 3 verts circle mesh and parent you rigid body to it in edit mode with mesh selected. Then just set the rigid body to animated...
Here's a quick test with some movement, but rotating your mesh works too, no sense here because it's a sphere..! sorry I have no time to try something more interesting.
I read that physics and simulations will be node based too, maybe you can integrate things if that happens.

just to clarify, you animate a single triangle in geometry nodes and your collision mesh is a different object, parented to those 3 vertices... so you can easily move and rotate the collision object but not change it's shape from geometry nodes


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Is it possible to create 3d panoramic video
While I understand that it is possible to create panormaic videos for Youtube, is there any way to make it 3d. I was pondering the idea that I could render it out with 2 cameras and stitch it together using another application, but I'm curious to see if there was some way to do it all natively in Blender?

Alright nevermind I'm just dumb. If for some reason you searched this up and was wondering the same thing. Output settings > stereoscopic then go to Camera properties > type:panoramic and set panoramic type to equirectangular. This has to be in cycles. Or if you want it in video form https://youtu.be/OMGxpJKmLn0.


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Fill layers blender python
I'm actually using blender / python to use blender as a slicer.
With a 3D piece (like Suzanne) i'm able to slice it
After doing that, i get something like this (example for slicing Suzanne)

Now i want to know if it's possible to fill the different layers ?
I can do it manually, by selected the vertices and press F (in edit mode) but i dont get a clean result as you can see below:

Does someone have an idea to do the filling properly ? (if possible by using blender python) !
Here the actual code:
scene = bpy.context.scene
ob = bpy.context.object
me = ob.data

bm = bmesh.new()
bm.from_mesh(me)
#bm.from_object(ob, scene)
bm.transform(ob.matrix_world)

#bmesh.ops.triangulate(bm, faces=bm.faces)

cut_verts = []
cut_edges = []

for i in range(0, 45, 1):
    ret = bmesh.ops.bisect_plane(bm, geom=bm.verts[:]+bm.edges[:]+bm.faces[:],
              plane_co=(0,0,i/20), plane_no=(0,0,-1))

    cut_verts.extend([v.index for v in ret['geom_cut'] if isinstance(v, bmesh.types.BMVert)])
    cut_edges.extend([e.index for e in ret['geom_cut'] if isinstance(e, bmesh.types.BMEdge)])

bm2 = bm.copy()

for e in bm2.edges:
    if e.index not in cut_edges:
        bm2.edges.remove(e)

for v in bm2.verts:
    if v.index not in cut_verts:
        bm2.verts.remove(v)

bm2.to_mesh(me)
ob.matrix_world = Matrix()
me.update()

Thank you a lot for your help !

a partial solution is to use bmesh.ops.edgeloop_fill on the edges generated by the bisect, but that stops working part way through the monkey.  I tried this by inserting two statements edges = [e for e in ret['geom_cut'] if isinstance(e, bmesh.types.BMEdge)] and  bmesh.ops.edgeloop_fill(bm, edges=edges) immediately after the bisect.  Perhaps you can figure out why it fails and work around it.

if you close holes to make a manifold mesh then it should work better... you may do it from the script or try 3d print toolbox included addon


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Why do I get noise on my scene?
After importing a 3D scene from SweetHome3d (in .obj format), my preview window and also the F12 rendering result suddenly has very much "noise".
(Please tell me if that's the correct term, I'm a blender newbie)
I never saw this when working on small scenes that I created from scratch or any tutorial files. As I added 3 point light sources to the room to rule out noise due to a too dark room, I assume it has something to do with the size of the scene? Any idea how to improve the results?
This is a screenshot, you can see the problem in the upper left window:

And this is how the final result looks like:

A screenshot of light path and samples settings:

Are you aware that you are using Cycles render engine and not Blender Internal? (I ask because you said you feel a bit blender newby)

@Carlo: Well, I read that Cycles is better and some plugins like the "online materials library" do not work with BI. Did I get this wrong? Is BI still preferred?

No, I didn't mean to say you should change render engine (the choiche depends on your need). Just saying that as Cycles is an unbiased render engine, a bit of noise should be expected. And I felt like you were surprised by seeing it, so I asked if you were aware of not using BI (wich is instead biased)

BTW, giving a closer look at your images, that seems not usual "noise" but more "lots of fireflies". Do you have many mirroring surfaces/very strong light sources/glass shaders? Could you show your light path and samples panels?

@Carlo: I've uploaded a new screenshot with those settings. Meanwhile I'll google what fireflys are :-)

Give also a look here: https://www.blenderguru.com/articles/7-ways-get-rid-fireflies/

None of those tips solved the problem. Using all of them made the F12 rendering at least look "acceptable". The preview is still noisy though.
Maybe the imported materials have indeed some kind of "default texture" which totally confuses the rendering engine. I'll try to replace floor, ceiling and walls with a simple white diffuse shader.

If the problem still persist, consider the option to uplad your file (or a simplified version of it) on http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/. With a more in-depth look of the scene I'm sure someone will find out the source of the noise

Indoor scenes cause tons of noise because the light bounces off all the walls and stuff. Have you tried using portals? See https://www.blenderguru.com/tutorials/using-portals-accelerate-render-times/

The video looked promising but I did not notice any effect on my scene.
After much trial and error I found some settings I can live with, all in the Camera settings:

render/device=GPU (although it sometimes crash Blender)
sampling: "branched path tracing" instead of "path tracing"
sampling: AA Samples increase as much as I am willing to wait (64 looks ok)


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Material for "sponge" wall paint
I managed to import a SweetHome3D room into Blender and now try to get the walls look as if they were painted using "sponge technique" i.e. covered with "ingrain wallpaper", painted with a basic color and then again using a sponge and a second color.
Any idea where I could find an existing material or how to create one myself?
Images on the Net are usually not seamless and neither are ones that I could create with GIMP. Could Blender generate this effect procedurally?
Example:

Edit:
Screenshot of not working node setup

Edit:

Its hard to say if I can't see what you need, are there any example images you could provide?

I've added an example picture.

Here is one result you could achieve with noise and voronoi textures:

The concept is fairly simple, first create two base shaders.
 Here it is the two sets of diffuse/ glossy. One for the darker and lighter color of the paint. Then, just mix between them with a noise texture.
The scale of the noise texture will control how much variation there is between the two layers, and where the variation falls. The color ramp will control the intensity of the transition between the layers. Changing the interpolation to ease or b-spline might be interesting depending on your needs.
Then use voronoi (or some other texture with high scale) for bump to give the texture of the wall.
Here is the node setup for the example above:

click to enlarge

I tried to use the node setup from your image but somehow it does not work. It only gives solid brown.What am I missing? See second attached image.

You can tweak the color ramp going into the last mix shader (try holding shift to be more precise) for more control.  This will mix more or less of the top or bottom socket into it.

I wasn't aware that Blender does not generate a preview in Viewport-mode "Material" as it does for the image texture based materials. Only in rendering mode the noise pattern becomes visisble. I've added a screenshot of the values I've finanally used.


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Trouble rendering hair in blender 2.77
When I try to render my mesh with hair particles in cycles, blender immediately crashes. But when I render the mesh without hair it renders in record time.
I can't think of anything that might be wrong, considering the same mesh rendered perfectly ok in blender 2.76.
I am using an iMac Retina 5K, 27 inch, Late 2015 model. The processor is 3.3 GHz, intel core i5. Graphics is AMD Radeon R9, with a RAM of 32 GB.

You may have some informations about it following what is tell here in the documentation https://www.blender.org/manual/troubleshooting/crash.html

If Blender is crashing you should filçe a bug report and provide the Blend file that is causing the crash. It may also happen that you are hitting your hardware limitations or computer memory constraints, hard to know with so little info. What are your system specs? How are you rendering this? Please edit your question and provide more information. Could you upload your blendfile?

One of the changes for 2.77 is "Blender now requires OpenGL 2.1 minimum"


text:
Scaling faces with drivers
I'm starting to play with drivers but I can't do a simple thing. I created a driver to scale the faces of a cube, connected to the distance of an empty. The problem is that when the empty is near all the faces scale at the same time, instead I would like them to progressively scale (the ones closest to the empty begin to scale while the most distant remain with scales at 1). Is it possible using drivers?
Thank you all

Can you show us what you have as a driver expression/setup so far?

I uploaded the image of driver settings.

I think the easiest thing for you to get this working is to do the following:

Separate all of the individual faces into their own objects.
Reset the origins of each face to their natural median point.
Parent all faces to another empty to make it easy to manipulate as a whole (move / rotate / etc...)

This step didn't work out all that well.

Change the driver on each object to calculate the distance between itself and the original empty you have shown.

I've included a file that demonstrates these instructions.

Here's the results:

Also for mass reproduction of the faces...

Make the driver work on a single face.
Alt + D duplicates with links, which preserves the driver data on the duplicated face

Hint: Instead of my failed parenting step...Putting all of the faces on an isolated layer makes them easier to select, then after selecting >> (Move, Rotate, etc...).

Hi Rick, and thanks for your reply.
I am also right at your own solution but the problem is that my mesh is made up of thousands of faces and it would be impossible to change every single driver by hand. Do you know if there is a way to apply the same drivers to all the other faces? I tried with ctrl + L -> Animation data but it doesn't work because when pasting the information to all the other faces it leaves as the object the information of the "copied" face, so when you move the empty all the faces scale simultaneously.
Thank you

If you need to do this a bunch, I recommend using python. I have this demonstrated in this post

Okay, the last link I gave you showed how to get at the animation data, but you would also need to write some basic loop for your case so that you can iterate thru your thousands of faces.

@TylerDurden Check the appended info in my answer, I believe this is what you are looking for.

Thanks Rick. Alt + D is fine if you need to create a mesh from the beginning, but in my case I need to animate an already made mesh so I can't use it. I wanted to avoid using python, but I think it's the only solution left.
Thank you very much for helping.


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Poly modeling stylized but detailed/'frizzy' hair
All the tutorials I can find about making stylized hair are pretty much always just using curves - which works fine if you're just trying to shape out the most general form possible. But, it falls apart the second you start to try and model finer details, like smaller strands that fray.

This is for a different model, but a similar level of detail - using curves here just has things end up looking like limp fettucine.

I managed to pull off doing it with just straight poly modeling once, just extruding and splitting and moving verts, but it's much more work intensive than I would like and doesn't result in the best geometry.
I can't use sculpting because that's way too high poly to put into a game engine (plus it needs to be at least a little bit separated for physics), and as far as I know hair cards/particles are also more for realistic hair.
Does anyone know of any kind of workflow that could make this style of hair easier?

The hair system is undergoing a lot of work at the moment ready for Blender 3.3. See the answer in https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/268839/where-is-the-new-3-2-addcurveshair-menu and the demo video that the Blender dev team released recently.

I don't think the curves technique 'falls appart' if you need more detail. It just takes more time and work because you'll need more strands.


text:
How do you do *alternating* objects on a curve with geometery nodes?
There's plenty of tutorials about how to instance a single object on a curve using geometry nodes, but I can't seem to find a way to alternate them - instance two cylinders, then a sphere, then two cylinders again, etc.
I've been trying to make it work with the Index input, then using modulo & comparison, but I don't know how to get it to actually make the switch since the Switch node doesn't want to take the output from the comparison node.
Any ideas on how to make this work?

node setup:

result:

Modulo 3 gives 0,1,2,0,1,2 and so on.
So just compare with < 2 -> then the switch decides which object will be chosen.
In the collection "objects" are the sphere and the cylinder. Depending on your order in the collection you might have to change 0 and 1 in the switch node.


text:
Control Water Shape in Mantaflow
I'm looking for a way for to 'shape' water into a specific mesh shape - exactly like what this post does, but in a more modern version of Blender.
I did find this, but was very disappointed to see that it's a hacky method of 'just reverse the video once it's done'. As I want the scenes this is used in to be more complex than just text emerging from the floor, this isn't a good example for me.
I've tried messing around with all of the types there are, but nothing seems to work - flow either creates water or takes it away, rather than controlling it, and collision effector + attraction force field sort of works, but still isn't precise enough for what I need. I don't think domain is it either, unless something in the settings would make it easier.
How would you go about doing the example in Mantaflow?


text:
is there a way to lock everything so settings won't get changed between rendering sessions?
Say you are rendering in images so you can pick up where you left off, if need be, is there a way to lock down everything that needs to be locked, like camera position so when you start again the frames settings will not be off when putting it all together into a move when finished, it will be as if one never stopped rendering until the finished product.
I've looked for locking but have not found anything this specif on it.

I'm probably misunderstanding the question, but isn't that the purpose of keyframes: Defining values for specific frames so the animation always looks the same?

Not entirely sure what you mean, but if you render as PNG rather than a movie you can then render any number of frames at anytime and then make them into a movie in the VSE. Also there is "Save As" using the "+" button to make unique incremental file names to preserve settings. And you can click the "+" next to "Scene" at the top of the screen and "Full Copy" to make sure you do not lose anything.

being new, the animation within the camera frame moves not the camera, if by accident something, or many objects r moved by hitting the wrong key. like the mouse wheel, it can move the camera around so the scene is no longer like it was in the viewer looking through the camera, what do I need to set so that I will always get the original starting point of everything if I am interrupted during rendering, just to be sure that when putting all of the images into a movie their is not a jarring effect because something got misaligned in the middle of the process of rendering the entire project out.

ugg, I do not know all of the proper jargon for this. Not the exact starting point per se' but the camera frame and everything within that frame set up, so that everything stays as it was suppose to when first setting up and rendering from start to finish. I'm going to go check out this click '+' thing to see what that is all about.if that is just making up a back up file, then that is not what I am trying to convey here.

OK I found some tab called transform locks, does each object have their own, so it would require locking everything down separately  via within that tab for each separate object. I'm guessing.

OK Joe. sorry...

Don't edit title of the question with Solved please. You can accept your own answer instead

it didn't let me, and why is there not conformity among help forums? ok its telling me I have to wait 17 hours to tell myself I was right.. yeah Ok... that is stupid.

Transformation Locks is what you need to use to lock down everything that needs to be locked. Each object has its own LOCKS for LOCKING it down to prevent it from moving.


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Correct Topology for Quadruped Legs?
I am working on a stylized low poly cat for a Unity game and am having a difficult time finding suitable topology for the legs or knowing if I am on the right track.
How can I achieve good edge flow for the shoulders/hips to prevent any strange deformations?
Here is the stage I am at:
Low Poly with no modifiers

With Subsurface modifier

Does this look suitable for a low poly character for animation purposes?
I feel like there needs to be better edge loops starting from the shoulders but I want to avoid unnecessary topology by making more loop cuts.

It all goes to the style you're aiming to. If realistic then the leg is too short, lacks some proportions and curvature. If non-realistic note that some proportions should be preserved as well, just like e.g. how this leg is going to be bent, there doesn't seem to be any geometry for smooth bending and it's not visible from the model that this leg is being bent when cat walks. General amount of loops is fine, there aren't quite a lot of them as for now. You can also search for "cat shoulder topology" on google to see some references for that

Here you go: http://www.zbrushcentral.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=365454. You can follow this and you'll be fine.


text:
Change animation with click
I am beginner and making an educational tutorial animation.
However I want my animation in such way that it should keep looping indifinitely  through a specific set of frames and advance to next set of frames only when clicked or arrow keys are hit.
Let me make it clear by example-
I made an animation having 200 frames.Now instead of playing it direct from start to end, I would like to-
1) Play frames 1 to 100 when I click. When frame 100 is reached, animation should loop back to frame 1 and play again to upto frame 100.
This should repeat until I make next click.
2) Now I click for second time, the animation should play from frame 101 t0 150 and keep repeating until next click.
3) On third click animation should play from 151 to 200 until clicked next.

Please note that frames should continuously loop themselves until clicked without time boundation.
This can sound silly but but I need it.
I am a beginner and have limited knowledge about blender and  will be grateful for any kind of help.

As far as I'm aware Animation Nodes is a procedural animation system, not an interactive framework. I don't think it can button presses or selection or any other "real time events" as input. How would you render such animation?

Wait, why did you tag your question as both animation nodes and Blend4web and game engine? How are you animating this? What addons are you using?

The structured animation you are talking about can be done. Just not in a way that is interactive as you described.

@OmarAhmad Yes sir,but how to do it. I am a beginner and wiil be very grateful  if you tell it. Thanks in advance.

@MohammadSaim Well, then please edit the question to explain in more details what you are trying to do.


text:
Need help with strange scaling behavior on my torso model; following a blender video
I am brand new, and I am following a blender video by Sebastian Lague, and I just want to figure out why i am not able to properly scale the selected edge of my torso model, as he does in the video.

The vertices / edge i have selected before
  scaling (I use alt+right-click or
  alt+shift+right-click, just as in the video)
What the issue looks likes when i try to scale it with the S or alt-S
  hotkeys
What it should look like

What the heck is going on? If this isn't normal behavior, I seem to have accidentally created double vertices at the same points or something? If this behavior is normal, i must not be selecting the edge / vertices properly?
Thanks in advance and happy holidays!

You have a different number of loop cuts than the example - were you embellishing the design, or had you made some errors in following the example?  From my own experiences, making errors and then correcting them during a tutorial led to some weird results and it was a while before I learnt to remove duplicates.
To check your theory about double vertices, select your entire mesh (A followed by A again should do the trick from the view in the images) and then select remove duplicates from your left hand menu. Off the top of my head, I can't remember if it is T or N to display this menu from the view that you have in your images - one will bring up the right properties menu and the other will bring up the left menu options.
Are you also trying to scale along the right axes? S-Y will ensure it is locked on the y-axis as noted in the video. Selecting Shift-Y instead of Y will result in the scaling happening along the X- and Z-axes. Can't judge from your static screen shots.

Yes!! Removed duplicates worked!
To answer your first question, yes, i thought i should be able to slightly change the design to make it my own.
I did seem to create additional vertices some how? If you have any ideas on why that occured, i would love to hear it so as to avoid this in the future.

I have a follow-up question. I wonder if the vertices aren't.. "connected"?... Because i removed the duplicates maybe? Perhaps that Is something that i don't need to worry about?..

Creating additional loops, and not moving them, will create additional vertices. And because they are on top of each other, not easy to see.  Easy to do when a beginner. Removing duplicate vertices will not disconnect the remaining ones.


text:
Is there any way or addon to facilitate the attachment/alignment of armor to a model?
I am trying to fit this armor into the model's arm, but I just can't get it too tightly firm around the arm, I know it fits, the armor piece and the model came in the same size, however, I just can't make it work.
I have tried scaling up the armor piece, but it just won't fit correctly, can anyone tell me if there is a better way to do this?
here is a reference image of how its supposed to look:

here is my attempt:

armor file:

problems related to the first answer

I am not sure how to do that, the image that shows up nicely is from Google, I made the link reference the same way i did for the google image for my images, but it won't show up as it should, I don't know how to make it like the image above.

thanks! I have rearranged more images, thank you for your help!

Juding by your model, rough scaling should work but since the scale has already been altered, the best methods you have are :-

Using Shrinkwrap:- Delete the outer faces and use the shrinkwrap modifier to stick to the faces to the main model's mesh directly or use a lattice. Then add a solidify modifier to give it some thickness
Retopologizing:-

Turn on snapping and change the mode to face and then snap the individual faces/verts on the main mesh and use solidify to give it some thickness.

it didn't work.
I deleted the faces, wrapped the model onto the arm, and solidified it to give it some thickness, but it's not working properly.
ok, the model is sorta popping out but it is completely destroyed.
I...eh...what e_o????????
it took me a few hours and tutorials to understand what you were trying to suggest in the first option, the second one seems even more daunting, I don't know what to do.
here is the image of what I am talking about.
![valid XHTML][ https://imgur.com/a/22xPf]

https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com use this to add your blendfile to the question. You can also add Gif images to your question. Your image link is dead.

ok, I added the blender file and the problematic pictures to the question, however, I don't know how to add gif images or images to my comments here, it says to write "![valid XHTML]", and then put the link to the image in between brackets, but it didn't work.
hope the problem is easier to approach now.


text:
Animation: Copy and Paste Pose Flipped effects the originally copied pose
I'm currently trying to animate the Rain model (v2) and am having some trouble with it. I have tried copying and flip pasting one of my poses however doing so effects the originally copied pose. And when trying to animate that original pose back to its normal shape, it affects both the pasted keyframe and another keyframe in between. Any ideas on why this might be?
Also sorry for the big post with the pictures, just wanted to make sure I gave as much information as possible.
Model: https://cloud.blender.org/p/characters/5f04a68bb5f1a2612f7b29da

Original pose
Trying to copy the original pose
Paste of the pose at frame 20
Original pose effected by paste flipped
Change of the bone on the first pose [Frame 1]
Affects the bones of the other poses [Frame 10 and 20].

Hello, are you keyframing all the bones?

@moonboots I'm letting it auto-keyframe with the record button in the animation timeline

auto-keyframe won't keyframe all your bones as far as I know but only the ones you've moved, are you sure it is not your problem here?

@moonboots I've tried to keyframe the location/rotation of the bones by pressing [ I ] however it still causes the issue of effecting the bones on the first post and subsequently the other keyframe data i have

could you please describe precisely what is the problem in the picture you show? it looks like when you copy pose at frame 1 and paste flip at frame 20, the flipped pose seems goods, and back to frame 1 it seems to be like it was before, no?

@moonboots Sorry if I havent made it clear. At frame one is the original pose, but I wished to have it at frame 20 flipped. When doing so, Frame 20 comes out well but upon going back to Frame 1, the original pose is not where it used to be. As I try to move the right leg back to its original position to fix the pose, it moves the leg position of Frame 10 and Frame 20 as well when they are not selected. Auto key frame was turned on when doing this.

could you please share your file with just the pose of frame 1?

@moonboots https://www.dropbox.com/s/y4t19i09xkzmdpt/Rainv2.zip?dl=0
thanks for your help

it works fine here as long as I select everything and flip-paste so I hope someone will help  :/

@moonboots thank you anyway for your help. i've messed around with it a bit more and found that if I turn off the auto keyframer it partially stops it from interfering with other keyframes. so hopefully that continues to work :)

From the screenshot it looks like the other frames weren't keyed down. Ideally you should key down every channel of your frames before copy/pasting keys, otherwise pasting keys somewhere will result in the later frames carrying the changes because of newly created keys that weren't there before, of the other way around your source frame was lacking keys which are keyed down in the target frame and result in an unexpected-looking paste.

I had this problem as well. Not sure if it was the same cause, but my character was facing along the x-axis. He needed to be facing along the y-axis with the rotation applied, because the mirror paste works by x-axis mirroring.

This does not provide an answer to the question. Once you have sufficient reputation you will be able to comment on any post; instead, provide answers that don't require clarification from the asker. - From Review


text:
Flattening faces while keeping model shape
I am trying to flatten a lot but not all these faces and maintaining the detail of the model. I have tried the add-on in loop-tools, which of course just pulls the surrounding faces so you end up chasing yourself around the model.
I have also tried S Z Z 0 in the "Normal" setting but again it pulls the surrounding faces. Any help or suggestions would be great.

Hello and welcome, have you tried the Smooth tool?

Hey Emir. No I have not. Is there anyway when i flatten using the looptool I can somehow lock that face so it doesn't move when I go to flatten the adjacent faces?

Try to hide that face (H)

You could try the "decimate" modifier with the option "Planar" set to a high angle limit.

Thanks for your message haarigertroll. Iv had no luck with the decimate. It seems like a really simple thing I'm trying to achieve. Can't believe its taking me so long to find a solution.


text:
Is it possible to animate geometry nodes?
I would like to insert the F curve from the sound into the Factor parameter in the Node editor (1.). But after adding the keyframe, I don't see this channel in the graph editor. (2.)

I don't know how to display this in the graph editor?
I tried to look elsewhere, but I didn't find anything. I am using Blender 2.92 RC version.

Is the object with the geometry nodes in question selected?

I believe, there is a workaround if you move the parameter to the Geometry Input node.

My reputation wouldn't let me add a comment from Mike Whitefox above, but he has the correct answer. It's also not displaying my upvote (again because of my limited activity). The more in depth explanation is to make a connection from the node's parameter(s) you want to animate to the "Group Input" node (empty socket) then in the modifer settings you set your keyframe (not in the Node editor), then it will show up. Thanks Mike Whitefox you saved me a lot of frustration.

In Blender 2.92, parameters are not displayed in the graph editor.
They are displayed in Blender 2.93.

Should be out in a few weeks! https://developer.blender.org/project/view/125/


text:
Plastic objects looks very dark inside a glass container
I want to create a glass soap dispenser. A frosted glass look. The plastic tube in the soap container looks very dark. Please let me know how I can make it so that it looks like a regular, semi-transparent plastic tube. Also, is there a way to lessen the effect of the dark shading on this dispenser? What is making this dark shading?

This is the material for the dispenser.

This is the material for the plastic tube inside the dispenser.

Search this post for 'total internal reflection' and follow the youtube link.  https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/219303/glass-casting-shadows-and-not-looking-real/219957#219957

Your Refraction BSDF IOR is also set to a non-realistic value, and in fact may not be doing much at all at a value of 1.

it seems super complicated to me, have you tried with a Principled BSDF only, or mix between BSDF and Glossy with a Layer Weight as factor, etc?

@moonboots I've tried the Principled BDSF but it doesn't look like thick glass, which is the look I'm going for.

@AllenSimpson I will take a look. Thanks.


text:
Edit Blender UI element
how can i edit blender UI elements?
for example i want to change size of this button:

is it possible to do that? we can define or change UI's color easily by edit xml files. is there any way to change element's properties ???

The size of the icons is hardcoded in the c files to 16 pixels. You cannot resize it.
What you can do is to change is the DPI settings in the User Preferences in the System tab to have the whole UI in a dpi size that fits your needs. It's the first entry up left.

i don't want to change icon size !!!!!!! i want to change defined size for buttons .... where is the code ? do you know ?

Also the size of the buttons is hardcoded, sorry. It all goes hand in hand. There is really not this much that you could customize here without to rewrite the Blender source code. Most of what you can do with Python regarding the UI is covered here: https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Py/Scripts/Cookbook/Code_snippets/Interface


text:
Change panels position
if i want customize my blender in source codes, is it possible to define default position of panels ?
for example by default, we have blender as like as follow :

properties panel in right, info panel in top, time panel, tools panel, ... etc.
for example i want expertise panel in top ( with a new arrangement ) when blender open

This question is off-topic because it about building a custom version of blender. See what questions are off-topic #4

Um... you can customize the UI without building Blender from custom source code.

Adjust the layout the way you want it to be, then use File->Save Startup File.
Locate the startup.blend that was saved and place it in release/datafiles/startup.blend within the source tree used to build your copy of blender.

layout adjusting is in that blend file ? or in the codes ?

The default startup.blend begins as a startup file that has been saved with blender, during the build process it is used to generate a c file (startup.blend.c) that you can find inside the build directory, which contains an array containing a binary representation of the file, This c-file is used to compile the default startup.blend within blender's binary file.

You can save your current file, including preferences and window layout as startup file by selecting File > Save Startup File or hitting Ctrl + U

thank you but i want do that in the codes


text:
Receive Serial Data in Background
i have a hardware with some keys and i want control some objects in blender with those keys. for example if i pushed #1 key... camera rotate 1 degree
i can send, receive and move objects but my problem is freezing !!!!
i want blender receive data in real time ( always ) and process incoming data. I'm sending data unceasing (non stop). is it possible to run a python script (unlimited loop within) in the background to prevent freezing blender ?
for example i have following code :
import bpy
import serial
import mathutils
from time import sleep

ser = serial.Serial("COM7", 9600)

while True:
    data = ser.readline()
    obj = bpy.data.objects["Lamp"]
    # one blender unit in x-direction
    vec = mathutils.Vector((int(data), 0, 0))
    inv = obj.matrix_world.copy()
    inv.invert()
    # vec aligned to local axis
    vec_rot = vec * inv
    obj.location = obj.location - vec_rot
serialport.close()

it's work well outside the loop. but in this case, blender is going to Not Responding. i want object's movement in real time
i am not sure you can understand my problem .... sorry for my bad En language

Edit:
i want to run this process in the background .... Modal Operator is working but still freezing blender .... i want do other works and in the background, blender receive serial data and process it
it's my modal operator ( receive degree from serial and rotate an object ). but in this case rotating only works when i move the mouse, if i leave that, rotating will be fully lagged :
import bpy
from bpy import context
import serial
from time import sleep

ser = serial.Serial("COM7", 9600)

class ModalOperator(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = "object.modal_operator"
    bl_label = "Simple Modal Operator"
    x = 0
    def modal(self, context, event):
        self.x = int(ser.readline())
        if self.x >0:
            value = int(self.x)
            value += 10
            degree = value * 3.14/180
            bpy.context.object.rotation_euler[0] = degree
            print(degree)
        if event.type  == 'LEFTMOUSE':
            ser.close()
            return {'FINISHED'}
        return {'RUNNING_MODAL'}

    def invoke(self, context, event):
        if context.object:
            print("hi")
            context.window_manager.modal_handler_add(self)
            return {'RUNNING_MODAL'}
        else:
            self.report({'WARNING'}, "No active object")
            return {'CANCELLED'}

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(ModalOperator)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(ModalOperator)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()
    bpy.ops.object.modal_operator('INVOKE_DEFAULT')

you need a modal operator: see this similar question: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/16588/serial-data-from-arduino-not-received-properly?rq=1

i used Modal operators too ..... it's word but only worked when we have mouse movement !!!!! if i release the mouse, process will be fully lagged @zeffii

there are several ways to write modal operators, paste your modal operator so we can see. Also related (non-modal approach) : http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/41533/how-to-remotely-run-a-python-script-in-an-existing-blender-instance

done !! @zeffii

You may want to look at this approach to piping data from an external running process.

readline is a blocking operation : http://pyserial.readthedocs.io/en/latest/shortintro.html#readline
Try to use something like :
def modal(self, context, event):
    if event.type  == 'LEFTMOUSE':
        ser.close()
        return {'FINISHED'}
    if ser.inWaiting()!=0: # or if ser.in_waiting !=0: (see remarks below)
        self.x = int(ser.readline())
        if self.x >0:
            value = int(self.x)
            value += 10
            degree = value * 3.14/180
            bpy.context.object.rotation_euler[0] = degree
            print(degree)
    return {'RUNNING_MODAL'}

Another edit as I have read that "inWaiting" function may have been changed into a property form from v3.0 of Python :

in_waiting
      Getter:   Get the number of bytes in the input buffer
      Type: int
Return the number of bytes in the receive buffer.

Changed in version 3.0: changed to property from inWaiting()

So you should replace "if ser.inWaiting()!=0:" by "if ser.in_waiting !=0:".
Edit for a little explanation : the line "if ser.inWaiting()!=0:" wont block as it is just testing if there is something to read. So if nothing is available, the function will directly go through the "return {'RUNNING_MODAL'}" without blocking.
You can also test the behavior, replacing "if ser.inWaiting()!=0:" by "while ser.inWaiting()!=0:". It's hard to know which is better. The difference is "if" will immediately give the hand to Blender and "while" will eventually take into account several serial inputs before giving back the hand to Blender.
For this line :             self.x = int(ser.readline())
You should also read data depending on the waiting available bytes you need here (but as I dont know how your device communicates... I cant say).
(not tested)


text:
Automatic UV scaling like in level editors? For white boxing game levels
I want to design and white box my game levels in Blender, but I can't figure out how to automatically scale my UVs when scaling/extruding geometry.
I want the UVs to automatically adjust to cover a fixed distance regardless of the size of the geometry, like this:

I'm guessing it is kind of like triplanar mapping, except I need to actually adjust the UVs, and not just be a shader effect.
Is there anyway to do this, so I can make Blender easier to use when white boxing my game levels?
EDIT
The Magic UV add-on works perfectly for my needs.


text:
How to create feather wings and attach them on sphere?
I want to create a wing to attach it on a sphere in blender. How can this be done? Should i use grease pencil to achieve this or use other tools? I am new to the blender.
I want this in 3d and very similar to the attached image.

I am not quite sure with your image of "wing on a cube". Do you want to attach a 3D, realistic of wing or a 2D, cartoon-like wing or something else.

Welcome to Blender.SE. Your queston is quite unclear at the moment. I would suggest to add more information about what you have and what you are not able to achieve. Why would you use the grease pencil?

I have updated my question to be more accurate and explanatory. Sorry for confusion. Thanks.

This seems like a very basic modeling project, what exactly are you having trouble with?

Using your reference image, here is a quick solution:
Under the Properties panel in the 3D viewport, enable Background Images, then click Add Image. Pressing Open will bring you to a file browser; here, select your winged ball image.

Switch to orthographic view (5 on the numpad), than press (on the numpad) 7.
Add a plane, then go into edit mode. Select all of the points but one and delete them. Move the point to the edge of the wing in the picture. Then, pressing E (for extrude) make a line around the wing. After getting to the end, select both end points and press F to fill in a line.

The line is finished along the whole wing:

Now that the whole outline is created, press F to fill the area with a face.
Exit "Top Orthographic" view. Press E while the whole outline is selected to extrude the outline and add depth to the wing.
Here is the finished wing:

Here is what I made with this:

Hope this helps!

Great answer to a not so great question

@time passes: please answer this question if you are free https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/98910/how-to-create-and-design-hoops-net-and-attach-ot-to-a-hoop


text:
get Bisector for each point in a line
From a mesh which contains only vertices and edges, I need to find the bisector vector (or angle) between the two edges that collide in each vertex.
How can this be done using animation nodes?
EDIT
Following @Omar Ahmad answer I arrive to this point where I'm no getting the desired results.

@Omar Ahmad solution works fine but is quite complex as it requires more nodes and uses python expressions. Even so his first approach was actually correct, it only missed normalizing the vectors before adding them in order to find the bisector. My approach feeds from his solution but simplifies the process by creating an spline from the mesh vertices. The spline offers handlers which are used to quickly get the two vectors from each vertex that will be used to calculate the bisector.

Since your mesh only contains vertices and edges, we will have to find the angle or bisector between every possible combination of edges that share the same vertex. So, the first thing to do is to find the neighbours of each vertex. The fastest way to do that is to use the following expressions:

Then we are going to loop over the vertices and their neighbours and construct vectors going from the vertex to its neighbours:

Then, we loop over every combination of vectors computing the bisector vector, where the bisector vector $\vec{c}$ between the two vectors $\vec{a}$ and $\vec{b}$ using the following formula:
$$
\vec{c} = \vert\vert\vec{b}\vert\vert\vec{a} + \vert\vert\vec{a}\vert\vert\vec{b}
$$
Every combination of vectors can be computed using the expression:
list(zip(*combinations(vectors, 2)))

Where combinations is a function in the itertools module, so make sure to import it in the advanced node settings. So we can implement it as follows:

Constructing transformations based on those bisectors gives:

I'm on it! but I want to share how I tried it myself and see why I couldn't do it. My approach was to create a vector spline from my mesh and use the handles from each point to create the necessary vectors to find the bisector, is that even possible?

I'm getting strange results, when I instantiate a random object on each vertex of the mesh and apply the resulting bisectors as rotations to the objects. Can you verify if you are getting the same behaviour?

@JuanManuelLynch hmmm, I don't think this approach will work. I am not getting those strange results, can you elaborate on what exactly are you getting?

check edit in answer

@JuanManuelLynch I see. Sorry, my bad, will fix the answer in a moment.


text:
Remove chamfers from curves in geometry nodes
I have a mesh with a bunch of vertices previously sorted, from here I am able to create, with this nodetree, a series of splines.

Now I need to get rid of the remaining chamfers,like this:

I've been trying lots of methods such as finding the intersecting point between the exterior edges of the chamfer using control point handlers as shown here intersection of edge, but it only works with single values and I need to use fields as its something to be done through al the mesh.
Any ideas on how I could approach this issue?

EDIT
As asked in the comments I'll try to give more info to make it easier to understand the question.
On every mesh vertex there is an object instanced, the object containing the created curves is intended to be an auxiliary object from which we can sample new positions to replace on the every vertex from the original. In the following image you can see in blue what would result the new seat positions with chamfers and in yellow how it should be.

Could you please share your blend file with us so we don't have to recreate this? https://blend-exchange.com/ Also, I'm not entirely clear on how this is supposed to work with the lines further up, but I'll be happy to look into that with your file.

@quellenform there you go, I've cleaned the blend file to make it as clear a possible, also you need blender 3.3. You can see in the node tree how I've been trying to implement your solution but with no success. Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks again

I have now taken a close look at the file, and I don't think it's a good idea to work with Geometry Nodes here. On the one hand, the points are not exactly lined up, and on the other hand, there are some missing at the top to get reliable results. Can you possibly tell us more about what you actually want to do here? Because I think it would be better to work on the whole thing manually, instead of trying to work out a procedural solution for an unclear goal here.

...I mean, the goal is actually clear, only the way to get there is not at all. There are simply too many questions concerning the special cases (Which of the many individual segments should be used for an intersection? How do we deal with points standing alone? What if the points are not on a line?, etc.). ...so please tell us more about your project. Thanks!

@quellenform I was trying to keep the question as simple as possible because of the complexity of the project and its requirements, which may be dificult to understand as its for our inhouse workflow. I will try to edit the question to give you some more feedback

Can you please upload the file with the stand and the mechanism that creates the individual points? ...I would have another (possibly simpler) idea.

Right now I'm unable to give you more feedback, once I get more free time I will happy share the files with you.

This may not be quite what you expected, but it is a valid answer to "Remove chamfers from curves in geometry nodes":

Here I simply calculate the missing side of the triangle at selected points (always the first point of a chamfer) using the curve tangents.
...I admit I stole this trick from Pythagoras, but I'm sure he won't mind this time for once.
Here is the node tree:

(Blender 3.2)

PS: If this technique doesn't help you, please be so kind and share your entire file with us, because I'm sure there are other (easier?) ways to achieve the desired result for your project.


text:
Compute the normal of a 2D spline using animation nodes
In this question I asked how to deform an object with an spline using animation nodes. The technique explained there the deformation considers all 3 dimensions tilting the output object, but what if I want to deform this object locking the tilt as if it was done with a 2D spline but still deform in a 3d space?, exactly as it is done here.
EDIT
Using @Omar Ahmad answer I managed to get the results I needed. but I'm still a little bit confused. The following image shows the resulting graph:

I'm not quite sure if the new computed normal is correctly linked as in order to get the desired results I was forced to increment its Z value up to 1000.

You have two normalize nodes, the first one should be connected to the newly computed normals and the second one should be connected to the constant vector (0, 0, 1). Moreover, make sure the spline is indeed 2D by making its points have a z location of 0.

The normal to a point on a spline is equal to the tangent at this point rotated by 90 degrees around the z axis. Let the tangent be $\vec{t} = (x, y)$, then the normal is equal to $R\vec{t}$, where $R$ is a 2D rotation matrix with an angle of $\frac{\pi}{2}$. So the normal is equal to:
$$
\begin{bmatrix}
\cos \frac{\pi}{2} & -\sin \frac{\pi}{2} \\
\sin \frac{\pi}{2} & \cos \frac{\pi}{2}
\end{bmatrix}
\begin{bmatrix}
x \\
y
\end{bmatrix} =
\begin{bmatrix}
0 & -1 \\
1 & 0
\end{bmatrix}
\begin{bmatrix}
x \\
y
\end{bmatrix} =
\begin{bmatrix}
-y \\
x
\end{bmatrix}
$$
So, given the evaluated tangents, you can compute the normals as follows:

To deform an object as described in the answer you linked, you will need a third vector, the one we computed using the cross product. In this case, it will always be the vector $(0, 0, 1)$.

Out of curiosity, when did you start using Animation Nodes?

@RitaGeraghty Don't really remember, maybe early 2017.


text:
LOD in particle systems
I've already checked this two questions but neither solve this problem:
Level of Detail of Particles System?
How to access data related to individual particles?
Both posts derive to use animation nodes, which would be great, but AN still can't handle LOD with particles, maybe in the future.
Another option would be to use this addon from the blender market, but I'm still waiting for the developers answer on how it handles this issue and its limitations before buying:
https://www.blendermarket.com/products/particle-instantiator
So... Is there anyone who knows if its posible to control LOD of each particle? I know particles are indexed but I'm not sure if they are forced to share properties from the system, which is strange because I also know I can edit its color using a shader.
Any ideas, thoughts, solutions or conclusions would be very appreciated.
Thanks in advance
EDIT
I forgot to mention one critical point which makes @Omar Ahmad solution insufficient. In my case I'm creating an object with multiple polygons from which I'm instantiating particles, the polygons are needed because I need to paste a rotation value which I get from the normal of each polygon, therefore instanciate objects using AN is insufficient as particles wont have rotations.
gif showing the problem

Instance a number of empty objects on the locations of particles and copy the mesh data from an object list composed of LOD objects sampled based on the distance from the active camera:

In most of the cases, the distance have to be remapped, I simply divided by 4, but other remapping procedures can be done, even non linear ones like evaluating the distance at an interpolation:

That was a fast answer! Thanks, but please see my edits to the question.

@JuanManuelLynch Can't you just set the rotation as well? To get the quaternions representing the rotations of the particles, see my answer here. Also, why are you using a particle system? Won't direct instancing work better?

Well yes, this is hard stuff for me, still I'll try your quaternion solution and see if I can include it into my script. Anyway your answer is valid for my question so I'm giving it an "answered". I'll ask you back if I get stuck with the rotations. Thanks

I've tried the quaternion solution and it works, not perfect as I was not able to get the exact rotations, but somehow did the job. The problem is that within AN the object instancer creates one object for each particle and my script has to produce sometimes 90 000 objects, which is imposible for blender to manage, that's the reason I'm using particles to Instantiate meshes. So, do you know if there is a way to access each individual particle property (which could let me edit LOD) the same way you where editing the objects instances?

@JuanManuelLynch I fell like your current approach is the one limiting you. If I understand correctly, you have 90 000 triangle defining the location and orientation of each instance, you want to dynamically change the instancing source object based on the distance to camera, where you have 6 objects representing LODs, am I right?

That is correct. that has been my approach.

@JuanManuelLynch If you ask another question with those details, I will tell you about a possibly better and more efficient approach to solve this problem. And we can have a more extended discussion there if you need further help.


text:
Text won't appear in interface?
There is one problem, it seems that text won't appear on my program. The three images show the errors and also my laptop specs (I believe I just have very small amount of laptop power that makes Blender glitch).
Everything else works fine (zooming, panning, rotating, etc.) and the buttons are still there and do what they're supposed to do, but the text just won't appear.
Might anybody know how to fix this?

The drive update didn't help either. I know a way around it though, does anybody know a page which shows screenshots of more or less the buttons on blender

Sometimes I see that when my RAM is nearly all used. Closing forgotten Firefox tabs and whatever other junk is up restores Blender to normal.

Can you show a picture of what comes up when you add a text?

Here are some more links with almost identical issue:
Blender Artist thread 1
Blender Artist thread 2
Blender Bug Tracker
Looks like you are running blender on a potato and there is no fix. This integrated graphics card will just not do. It shares the system RAM as a video-memory and when your system uses a lot (2GB is almost nothing) there is not enough left.
Check the minimal system specs:
Minimal Blender Specs

If it's a RAM shortage issue then it should be fixable by adding more memory.

It might be non-compatible gpu, drivers, memory or combination of it.


text:
How to reset local orientation / frame of reference of object created from array modifier?
I have the following setup:
A bezier curve and an object, originally with all its transforms cleared to identity.
I then proceed to do the following:

Add an array modifier to the object to replicate it along the curve.
Add a Curve modifier to have the array instances follow the path of the curve.
Apply both modifiers to the object.
In Edit mode, I separate the object by loose parts, so that I end up with individual objects all along the curve.

At this point what I notice is that each object's local origin / frame of reference is no longer orthonormal to the object in question but rather, each object's origin is the center origin of the original object I used as the source for the modifiers.
For example, here's one of the objects along the path. Notice how its origin's position / orientation are really the one of the original object in the center of the world: This is before doing Origin to Geometry (Ctrl  + Alt + Shift + C)

And this is after trying to center the origin on the object:

Notice how the origin is now 'centered' on the objet but still oriented to the center of the world.
In other words, I now have this:

But I need something like this: (I achieved the origin pointing this way by switching from 'local' to 'view' mode, but the origin itself is still wrong in reality).

That is, the origin should be pointing along the path.

You can switch Transformation Orientation option to Normal (Alt + Tab) and use it pressing G, then selecting desired axis with twice pressing X or Y or Z.

I know how to switch to the global / local transform and how to translate / 'grab' stuff. The problem is not that but that, as seen in the screenshot, the local transform is messed up; the green arrow in the picture should be pointing along the black path line.

I pointed out a workaround to this problem which is that you don't use Local Coordinates rather than Normal Coordinates instead. If using last ones, it'll be possible to grab faces of your mesh along the curve, because the green arow, or Y axis, will be pointed that way. The local coordinates inherited adjacent coordinates of the original mesh, and there's no way to 'reset them', unless some weird tricks, like combining this mesh with another one, that have local coordinates as you need

hmm. So there's no way? then, can you think of another way of ending up with several objects along a path each with their own transforms set in the way I need them? The reason why I need this is because then I export this whole thing to Unity and animate the objects inside a game I'm working on. I added more detail to my question just in case. And thanks BTW for your input :)

Are all those objects along the path different meshes ? And you want to say that you need Local coordinates 'reseted' because of game ?

Right now there's 3 different kinds: the one I'm showing is a sort of waypoint  / chevron. Then I repeat the process at different spacings for 2 other kinds of objects which are 'traps' that essentially rotate continuously about their 'forward' axis and have a segment that 'kills' the vehicle if the vehicle racing doesn't doge. The main problem with the axis being the way they are is that I can't animate the traps rotating 360 about their forward axis. And I went for this approach  because the track is long (several Kms), so I can't individually place 60+ to 100 objects.

Let us continue this discussion in chat.