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joining and empty with other object
I want to join the camera with the empty using ctrl+j but this command is not working with the empty object.
reason to join is to change the local axis of the camera. I wanted to attach the file but I did not find attachment option here.
if it is not possible then any one can tell me that how to change the local axis of rotation without rotation the object in blender Thanks in advance

the embed script for the upload should not be added as a comment, please edit your question to include the above link.

You can't "join" a camera with an empty, join (ctrlJ) is to make 1 object from several, what you probably want to do is parent: Select the child, then the parent, then ctrlP

thanks but please check out the file. camera has different local axis than empty I want to copy the empty local axix to the camera on the same position of camera .. ctrl +p not working it changes camera position. thanks

Your camera is animated + it has a constraint called Camera Solver, are you sure it's not your problem?


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how to create a mesh whose faces reduces to zero as approaching towards center?
hello blender community ..
please assist me making this pattern. I tried all the ways but failed to achive the similar one shown in image. I have idea that particle system might be used at vertices but how to make such mesh whose vertices approaches to  zero while moving towards center .

How to take a ScreenShot

One way is to use the Array modifier

Starty with a cylinder and a Bezier Circle
Add an Array Modifier > Fit Length and target the Bezier
Add a Curve modifier and target the Bezier

Changing the Bezier diameter changes the number of bristles. You can also include vertex instancing etc...

thank you . one more thing how I will duplicate it  towards center. keep in mind beizer is not perfect circle it is random shaped and we have to duplicate and scale it at even distance from boundaries ...

Well, you can simply eyeball it :). When looking at the reference photo, the gaps aren't perfectly evenly spaced :).

irrespective of the photo is there any way to evenly space such a mesh ? any tool ? rather duplicating and scaling every one independently which is definitely a waste of time. thanks in advance jachym

Hey :). I noticed you asked a new question for that, so I posted an answer there.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Blender 2.83 Displacement - Cycles and Eevee
I have problems with working on displacement node. So there I have setup of nodes.

Cycles Render

Eevee Render

On Cycles there's some error in displacement. I tried to adjust displacement with displacement node(also i have enabled Displacement and bump in options). Used displacement + normal map node still the same result. Displacement looks like it moved to right top side instead of being in the same place as headlight. On Eevee it's looking good.
What is the solution to solve this because I have no idea?

Can you provide the portion of the file that's showing the error, so that it can be reviewed? I attempted to recreate your node setup, but it's uh... a little... all over the place. Meanwhile, off the top of my head, try attaching a mapping node to the image texture, and a texture coordinate node to that mapping node (so "Texture coordinate" -> "Mapping" -> "Image texture", all via "Vector")

The reason there's no error in the displacement in EEVEE is that there is no displacement in EEVEE.
So, if you like what you see there, the simplest solution is to unplug the displacement. But that's not an explanation of what's happening.
If a vector is plugged straight into the Displacement input of a Material Output node without going through a Displacement node first, what you get is a displacement of the shading-points by that vector, in Blender Units, in Object Space. (That is, along the object's local axes, and taking the object's scale transform into account).
You can get the feel of that by plugging a Combine XYZ node into the Displacement input, and playing with the numbers.
It looks as if you would probably want simple displacement along the normals of your surface here -  there are no undercuts. So, if you did want to displace the inside surface of the glass, you would have a UV map of the lens which separated the inside and outside surfaces, and, covering the region of the map representing the inside surface, have an image which would serve as a height map, with 0 values interpreted as no displacement, and 1 values as full displacement.
You would then plug that map into the Height input of a Displacement node, and in turn, plug the Displacement node onto the Material Output.

Used only bump into normal map input and got similar result as in Eevee with "displacement" as you said that's not a displacement.

@PulpiK been doing some tests, here... since you can't see a displaced profile, everything interesting in this case is dealt with by bump-mapping. Refraction is pretty much  as good. it only needs the normals twisting. And it's much cheaper.

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


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Q: Blender 2.8 desktop shortcut doesn't work
After downloading 2.8 on Linux Mint, the blender.desktop shortcut doesn't open the application; it simply displays "There was an error launching the application". Running the executable directly works without any flaws.

Is the path in the .desktop correct?

Yes, the executable is in the same folder and the name is correct.

Be sure the .desktop file refers to /dir/to/blender and not /dir/to/Blender

the file uses exec=blender, blender is in the exact same directory.

In the blender.desktop file, scroll down to find these two lines:
Exec=blender %f
Icon=blender
Edit them to reflect Blender's location on your machine:
Exec=/usr/share/blender-YOUR-VERSION-OF-BLENDER/blender %f
Icon=/usr/share/blender-YOUR-VERSION-OF-BLENDER/blender.svg
Full process outlined here.


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Rotate bones in edit mode without affecting animation
I'm animating a model that was ripped from a video game right now, but all of the bones on the model have the incorrect rotation. This appears to be a glitch with the model-ripping tool I used.

Rotating all affected bones by -90 along the normal direction places the bones in their correct spots. However, I also have a bunch of animations imported from the game as well that I need to maintain, and rotating the bones like this messes them up. Each action is an individual animation on the action editor, and going in and fixing every bone for every animation by hand would take an incredibly long time.
Is there any way I can fix this? A script-based solution would work, I have some experience with programming but not with Blender specifically, so I wouldn't be able to write it myself.

all of the bones on the model have the incorrect rotation

Are you sure about that? If models were made in a software with a different coordinates system, their initial orientation is different from what Blender expects (typically leading to 90⁰ rotations in one or two axes), and the bones will "look" rotated, but the rig is perfectly functional and doesn't need any kind of fixing.

If the mesh looks good when in rest pose, and deforms as expected when you rotate the bones, and the animations you run on that armature look correct, you shouldn't try to "fix" the bones : there's nothing to fix on the technical side.

It may "look wrong" and unintuitive to work with bones that aren't rotated the way you would expect in Blender. And for that, there are sometimes import options that can help with it. Importers often have options to help with that, from force connecting children to changing bone axes entirely:

It needs testing, and be aware that it might make the imported armature incompatible with already existing animations, but it can make the rig look like this:

Otherwise, there may be ways to create a rig on top of the existing one that looks good in Blender and temporarily controls the original while in Blender.
Depending on the game you ripped it from, or its game engine, there might be guides on import options or tools and addons made by the modding community to do exactly that. So I would advise you to look up the game's or game engine's official and unofficial resources.

Changing the bone order to "Temperance" in the GLTF importer fixed it.


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unfinlished texture bake
Im trying to bake in cycles but result is unfinished, little new to blender and modeling ,
Here is screenshot:

And blend file :
(note the download link is not working, probably due to a hashtag character, but this works: https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/d/4129/2House.blend)
Note : used smart UV project.

please, use http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ to upload (small) files, then edit your question and paste the provided link. It's a dedicated and permanent storage that will preserve your file for this site, to benefit future readers...

you have 2 images set for baking: XOXO and XOSS: check XOXO, soes it have the details missing in XOSS (image shown)?

It seems in the file that you unwrapped only parts of the mesh, those which have ssignede 2 materials (1 baking to XOXO, the other to XOSS), but other materials have no texture assigned, so they don't bake, anywhere:

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


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Blender 2.79 white matcap issue in sculpt mode
I'm currently working on a character and I just saw that the ears of the character was not matching on each side. So, I decide to use Symmetrize and it did not work.
I try every possible way to get the 2 side the same but it was just not working. I randomly, out of nowhere change the matcap to the clay and the character ears became identical!!!! I don't know how did that happened, but the white matcap on this mesh is broken!
I would need to know if its an issue or not.

I think it's just the shading being different on the white matcap.  I don't think the geometry changed with the red matcap.  As a side note, that ear looks way too small for the size of the head.

Thanks for the reply, I just decide to use another shading.... Also the picture was in orthographic, is thats still a problem?


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manuelbastioni add-on: hair library and clothes
I'm a bit of newbie with blender.
I'm trying to create humans by using the Manuel-Bastioni add-on.
I would like to export them as Collada-files and import them into OpenSim / Second Life.
Creating a human itself is very comfortable using this add-on.
There are only 2 problems I couldn't solve:

According to the documentation, there is a hair library to be found.
I just can't find this library.
Where is this and how do I use it?
I'm not very good at making clothes.
Are there clothes templates that can be downloaded from somewhere?
Make-Human has a couple of those but only for Make-Human afaik.

Any ideas?
Thanks very much in advance!

Hello and welcome. Please ask only one question per post, make as many as necessary. Also have in mind that asking for resources (tutorials, models, textures, assets, etc) is considered off-topic here. FOr that see Resources for Blender

Those features are planned, but aren't implemented yet.  http://www.manuelbastioni.com/guide_features_planned_in_next_versions.php

You go to the asset Library (possibly when finalize has been done)

I can answer your first question. You need to be using Manuel-Bastioni Lab 1.6 or higher. You must design a character and then finalize it (Finalize Tools), after which an ASSETS button appears. As of my writing hair is the only asset available. For best results choose hair with the same prefix as the human type you created. Press Load Element From Library. To fit it to the head you have to shift select the character's body mesh then look under Proxy Fitting to find and press Fit Proxy. I use the defaults with both options selected, but you can experiment in whatever context you later use the character. To change the hair colour use the Main Color node found in the Node Editor.

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


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How to make a curved triangle with exact measurments
firstly, i would like to apologise for the title, it may not be on point.
secondly, i would like to thank all of you who always help and answer noob questions. I have learned a lot form you guys.
here is my question:
i am trying to make a small triangle box, to 3d print. And that box needs to have a sliding door.
the first problem i am facing is getting an homogenous rounded edge on the hypotenuse, which makes it difficult to model the sliding door.

what am i doing wrong?

...why don't you start from a quarter of cylinder? please use the image tool to embed images... I had to fix your links to make images clickable

I think the easiest way to get the results you want is to start with a cylinder. Simply add a cylinder, choose triangle fan as the cap fill type, and from top view delete the mesh you don't need (3/4 of it). Then fill the 2 flat sides (one face each) and you're done.


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Problem with Solidify in Curves
New to Blender. I'm trying to thicken a curved mesh. I tried to use the Solidify modifier, but I keep getting these artifacts near one of the curves. I removed double faces, as well as flipped the faces to normals, but the problem remains.

I also noticed in Edit Mode that the edges where the artifacts occur are darker than in the rest of the mesh. Does the problem have something to do with this?

Always check first for double vertices, zero-area faces, normals facing the wrong way. Manually drag a vertex at the end of one of the suspect edges, and see if it leaves a hidden one behind.

Thank you. It was double vertices. I manually removed the extra vertices and now no more artifacts. However, is there a way in Blender 2.80 where I can remove double vertices automatically?

If the topology is right for it (it usually is) .. in 2.8 it's:,Select all, Alt-M > 'By Proximity'. If you use it a lot, and are prone to carpal tunnel syndrome, you may want to put that in a Quick Menu item, and/or give it a less stretchy key-combination ; )

Thank you for this. So I'm assuming a good beginner's workflow would be to check for double faces, flipped normals, and double vertices after a mesh is completed?

There are lots of signs. Face-dots on edges, thicker-looking edges, Ctrl-R refusing to cut a loop, etc..  Also be aware of the most common cause. Right-clicking after an extrude does not cancel the extrude. It cancels the move you make afterwards, leaving doubles behind. That's often what you want. But if you want to completely cancel an extrude, use Ctrl-Z.


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Jagged Edges in Mesh
Looking at my mesh in render view, I get these results. I've turned off my Subdivision Surface modifier as well as my Solidify modifier, but the jagged zigzags in the curves remain. Wondering if it has something to do with the geometry of the mesh - I converted a curve into a mesh - or my graphics card. Would much appreciate the help for a Blender beginner.

Worth merging verticies alt+m to see it that is an issue

Yeah this sort of looks like part of the mesh has multiple faces.

This seems like part of the mesh has inverted normals. In blender 2.8, run shift+N(Recalculate Normals) to make normals consistent.

Thank you for the comments. I've tried recalculating normals but the jagged lines still appear. I tried rendering out an image to see if it was my graphics card (NVIDIA GTX 960 M), but just as I thought there are artifacts on the place where the jagged lines are.

In edit mode, turn on wireframe viewing, then select all the vertices, right click, select Merge, and merge by distance. If needed, click the box in the bottom left corner, and increase the distance required for them to merge. If this doesn't solve your problem, please share your blender file


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Extruding mesh with holes creates weird artifacts

I created slits in my chair mesh by subdividing then deleting faces. I wanted to a little thickness to the chair by extruding by normals. However, it created these weird artifacts.

Cleaning up the mesh by merge by distance or flipping normals doesn't do the trick. Are there any solutions to this dilemma?

you probably need to add some edges, please show the wireframe or share your file: https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/

Or, depending on where you're going with the model later, in the object's Data tab > 'Normals' panel you might just want to turn on 'Auto Smooth'  with an angle that catches the curve, but not the slot.

@moonboots Sending you the blend file here:

@RobinBetts Tried doing what you suggested, but the artifacts remain. Tried to thicken the mesh through modifiers but it worsened it. Thinking I've messed up the geometry somewhere. I've sent the blend file up above, so others may take a look at it.

Your problem is that you have ngons that create this kind of artefacts. Also you have a lot of useless edges, if you use a Subdivision Surfaces modifier you won't need so many.
If I were you I would redo the object, it would take less time than correct your version:

Keep the profile only, mirror it, use the Checker Deselect and the Dissolve Vertices tool to keep only the necessary amount of vertices.

Now extrude the profile, give it some edge loops and bevel where the cut are supposed to happen, then delete the faces.

Give it some additional edge loops to make the holes square, give your object a Solidify modifier to give it thickness, keep a copy of the object somewhere, apply the Solidify modifier, bring some additional edge loops to sharp the edges again.


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Hide/Show Shortcut For Panel Containing Collections/Properties
Is there a shortcut or workaround to quickly hide/show the right panel in Blender 2.8? I know it's possible to drag in and out with the mouse but this is not quick, I'm looking for a fast way because sometimes I need to do this many times every few seconds.

A work around could be to toggle in and out of Full screen mode. With Blender 2.8 default settings and  mouse hovering over the 3D viewport the keyboard short cut for that is Ctrl + Spacebar.

If you use this as an answer I will up vote it.

You can maximize the main panel instead (ctrl+spacebar) or toggle it to full screen (ctrl+alt+space)

This should definitely be the right answer if you're using video editing and want to fiddle with cuttin'n'pasting and just arranging pieces. It's sooo natural to just show the side panels when you need them and to hide them when they are in the way. Great answer @Pavel Trusov!


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How to mask stabilized footage
I have tracked and stabilized footage.
I used 2D Stabilization with Autoscale, then turned on Display Stabilization in the Display options. So far, so good.
Then created a mask on undistorted footage (Display Stabilization turned off - only then can see and edit the mask) and parented it to the tracked point used for stabilization (whole mask to single tracker point).
When I use this mask in compositing through the nodes, it is of course undistorted and since Stabilize 2D node info has no outputs, I can't pass Location influence and Autoscale values.
I can make the mask follow my tracker with the Track position node and some math nodes, but the Location influence and Autoscale is still a problem.
Is there any way to simply transform a mask to fit the Stabilize 2D distortion?


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How can I change transform?

Hi, how can I change transform pivot like this red arrows ?

Hi, not so clear: do you wish to move the pivot from its current location shown above to a new location(red cross)?

Just above the Timeline is the 3D Manipulator Widget (The symbol is 3 Axis red/blue/green. Next to that is a drop down menu w/ Global,Local Normal & View options. It is affected by the direction of the normal(s) selected though.

@m.ardito Yes i want this red and blue cross will be on this my paint red cross. I want to move this brick model In the direction of those my paint red cross.

@Dontwalk I have selected normal.

I'm not sure if I got what you ask but it seems that your rectangular mesh outlined in green has its local axes not aligned to its vertical/horizontal ides (probably you applied its rotation for some reason), and now you wish to make your local axes "realigned" in order to be able to "move" the mesh along one of those axes.
If you need this, you have to help your "axes realignment" with a separate object, say an empty.

you add an empty
you place it on one of your mesh "corners" helping with snap tools
you also use snap tools to rotate the empty, aligning one of its axes to one of your mesh sides
then you copy the empty rotation value (eg: 138.516796°)
then you rotate the mesh of a value of "180° - 138.516796°"
now your mesh is perfectly aligned with the grid, so you apply this new mesh rotation, which gets you good "local" axes
then you rotate "back" your mesh of the same amount but inversed ("138.516796° - 180°" => note, in the animation below I did this wrong), to rotate back the mesh where it was at the beginning (but now you have aligned local axes)
then you can move your mesh along the desired direction

See how it works:

Hth


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Shortcut for Pan View in Edit Mode
I used the Maya hotkey preset and then I changed View Move to Shift+Alt+LMB but this only works in Object Mode, in Edit Mode this shortcut does nothing except select.

What do you mean?

@pycoder I mean where can I find the hotkeys that are relevant in Edit Mode context?

You can find all of the current hotkeys for your Blender installation in File > User Preferences > Input.
Then you can search for what you are looking for; use "name" to search based on the name of the operator, use "key-binding" to search based on the hotkey itself.

Here is a specific use example:

I'm asking a specific question, Under 3D View / 3D View (Global) change Move View.
Test your change in the viewport, then select an object, enter into Edit Mode by hitting TAB and see if the hotkey is still applicable.

@JonneyShih Please look at my edit. I switched it to use the LMB instead of the MMB, and it works just fine in and out of edit mode. You should search for the hotkey that you are trying to add before you add a new one. You can do this easily with the "is key free" add-on.


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Parts of the mesh don't move when moving bones
I just started using Blender, so I don't have much knowledge about its tool and stuff. Anyway, I was trying to animate an object, put the bones and assigned the vertex that wanted, etc. But when I move a bone that moves other bones together, some parts of my mesh stays behind. I checked to see if I have selected some wrong vertex, but nope. I believe it has something to do with loose faces that has no edge and vertex, but I'm not sure and have no idea of how to fix it. If anybody could help, please! I'm desperate! And thanks!

The vertex of those parts that stay behind means you don't have them assigned to any bones to move them. Check all the vertex groups in weight painting mode and most likely they will be blue for all vertex groups.
You can select a vertex group while the mouse pointer is still in the list you can use the up/down arrow key to select all the vertex in the list to check quicker.
Then you need to weight paint them with the Add brush to the desired vertex group.

Thanks for the help! It worked on the leg and upper tail bones, but at the base of the tail is still the same, no matter how much I paint it red with the weight brush...

@RodrigoOliveira You paint it red to which vertex? Make sure your bones and vertex have the same name (case sensitive)

Select mesh object (e.g. dino) and go to edit mode. Apply selected mesh you want to move, click the Data icon (one with 3-dot triangle icon, highlighted in blue) at the right, go to Vertex Group under Data. Select the bones to assign (e.g. neck) and click assign.
Try move that bone in Pose mode.
Also, you have to be less messy in assigning bones to each of the selected vertex group carefully.


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How can I make a mesh copy the same shape of another mesh?
I know I have already asked a similar question before, but I just can't seem to achieve the result in such a perfect way.

Is there a way that I could have the green mesh transform its shape to be exactly like the shape of the grey mesh without losing any data or quality all around.
As you can see on the picture, the green mesh is deformed and I want to be the same shape as the grey one without effecting the quality of it.
Thank you for your help

Have you tried Duplicating it?

You need to explain how you want them to be similar and how you want them to be different. For parts that are identical, simply duplicate the object with ALT-D to make another instance of the same mesh.

Shift D to make real duplicate. Alt D to duplicate an instance (meaning if you edit the mesh, the effect is going to show up in the instanced mesh too).


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how to make designs on the wall which is already coloured
I am new to blender, have been learning it through online tutorials.
I'm able to make a wall, color it but I'm not able to make designs on the same wall.
Is it that we can apply only the colors to the wall and cant make designs on them? If not how to make designs on the models?

Hi, welcome! This is too broad for a Q&A site, I fear, you'll have to search on other sites, maybe look for tutorials on popular search engines, there are plenty out there! Colors and texture are part of the "materials" topic, and that also depends on the rendering engine your' going to use, each has its own way, even if most basic concepts are often similar...

You don't generally "apply colors" to objects, you apply materials. Materials can have colors, and said colors can come from textures, wich you can paint on.

you need to learn about texturing and/or modeling (depends on what you're trying to achieve)

Texturing:  If you want a design similar to the kind of a wallpaper, you need to either download an image of the design from the internet or make one yourself using painting apps like Krita, Photoshop or GIMP (you can even use MS Paint for a starter). Once you have an image of the design you want on the wall or object, you need to add it to the material of the object. Also to make it look in better proportions, you need to UV map your wall object:
Go to edit mode
Select every vertex of the object (press A)
Press U and Unwrap the mesh
done
Modeling:  If I'm not mistaken, you already are learning modeling. So all you have to do is go to the edit mode and change the mesh to your liking. You can use the sculpting mode as well but i suggest you to use it only to add finishing details or to make organic entities (animal, plants and stuff)

Hope this simple explanation helps you get started.
If not, try going through this tutorial: https://youtu.be/9PJL0eAuZ_E
Welcome to the Blender family and i guarantee you, you're gonna love using Blender :)


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Is there a way to check a blend file's integrity, and/or see a crash log?
I have a Blend file (my Yoda model) that I started back in 2005, when Blender was probably still in 2.3 or 2.4 territory.  I've slowly updated him over the last 11 years, implementing new features, refining and what not.  But it seems that more and more often when I'm editing the mesh or just doing random things, Blender crashes, and I'm wondering if it may be that some random feature I've used along the way, or old modifier or some little bit of data that is corrupting the file, or if it's just Blender being Blender (or really, software being software).
So, my questions are:
a.  Is there a crash log that I don't know about that I could try to see why I'm crashing?
b.  Is there a blend file integrity checker?

As far as I know there is no blend "file auditing" tools, but I may be wrong.
There are however debugging options in Blender. You can launch blender using command line options to activate it's debugging tools and see if any useful output can help you pinpoint your problem. You can see all debug options at the Blender Manual
If you are on Windows you should probably also set up a batch script or a specific shortcut to automatically launch Blender with the correct arguments without having to write them manually each time.
A batch script is also useful to prevent the command prompt from closing automatically in the event of a crash, so that you can actually see what happened and read the output history. It could go something like:
start C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /k path\to\Blender.exe --debug-memory

Replace "debug-memory" with whatever you need like "debug-all".
If you model is not too complex (rigged, or animated or with physics) and you don't risk loosing important data you may also force flush a cleanup of settings by exporting it to a non-blender format (like OBJ, or FBX, or 3Ds) so that it is stripped of any settings, preferences or additional Blender specific data that may have gotten corrupt throughout the versions.
Remove any modifiers that you may easily add again later and export only a pure raw base mesh of your Yoda model, and then re-import it in a brand new fresh blend file, so that any settings or outdated information is left behind, and only the clean mesh data is kept, then manually recreate any modifier stack you had.
Your file may also be of use to the developers if the crashes can be reliably reproduced so they can fix any bugs that cause them, although now is probably not a good time with the start of 2.8 development just around the corner big changes are expected, and backwards compatibility won't be a priority.

Thank you for the suggestion of debug mode and keeping the console window open after a crash, going to try that!  Unforunately there are lots and lots of UV-Maps, Weight Groups and Animation Rigs.  At some point I may go through a process of copying them over to a stripped mesh, as you suggested, but hopefully debugging will find the errors.

1.
I would attempt to open the file in an earlier version of blender.
If that works, export as a .dae (or .obj or others if that's not available), then reopen in the newer version of blender.  You'll loose some things, but perhaps that's better than nothing.
2.
Also if your file opens in an older Blender, you may be able to start a new file with that version, append just what you need from the old file, then save and see if you can open that file in the newer version of blender.  Perhaps some extra cruft is having problems with the newer version.
3.
If your file does not open in the older version of Blender, the file was corrupted somehow... I can't help you there, but perhaps a blender developer can.
4.
Do you have an earlier backup of the project that does not have this problem?
Blender make this easy:
save myproject001.blend
when you're ready to save the next one, save as, then press the "+" to increment the file name. this changes it to "myproject002.blend, hit return, and keep working.
I've learned the hard way that I need to make new files often.  I often have over a hundred versions of my project, I can restore all or part from an older version if something bad happens, or if change my mind on something.
EDIT: I reread the question.  I see, the file opens, but randomly crashes.  Perhaps some of these ideas will still help.
Is the crash repeatable?  I can you repeate the action that crashed it to make it happen again? (that would offer some clues.)  If not, it could also be a computer hardware problem, use a memory checker tool, test on other computers...


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How to simulate deformed metal
I would like to know if there is a good way to simulate crumpling metal, I have tried soft body and cloth sim's without much luck(although for some deformation the soft body sim dose work). Maybe it can be done with bullet physics engine with a little scripting? Or maybe there is another program out there that can simulate metal deformation? I could just model the deformation by hand using shape keys but I am looking for a faster workflow. I need it for a three second car crash VFX shot with a lot of rolling, thus a lot of deformation so shape keys really are not ideal.
This is sort of what I am looking for: https://www.flickr.com/photos/andosteinmetz/2481005494

Possible duplicate of how do I make an object bend or break if hit with sufficient force?. Related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/7018/599

I am looking to deform the metal not shatter it(although the demolition patch dose look useful). But ultimately shattering and deforming are different simulations. Also I am curios what different workflows people have(for deforming metal I only know of this one: http://www.cgmasters.net/free-tutorials/animating-a-car-crash/ witch is a little tedious).

The best thing I can think of is a soft body sim, but it seems you already tried that..

I've had some luck with this workflow, it still needs some polishing though.
The steps are as follows:

Choose a surface to deform(in this case the plane)
Use cell fracture add-on to brake up the plane (Note that you should probably add a solidify modifier to it first).
Add a hook modifier to the plane object for every generated fracture (very important... and tedious). It can help to create a vertex group for each shard and then just go into weight paint mode loosely paint that shard onto the plane.
Turn off gravity in properties panel under the scene settings, this is vary important for the simulation to work properly (also because metal deformation isn't really effected by gravity it shouldn't be of much consequence).
If we are going to deform metal then we need something to deform it with. A sphere will work fine for know (any object will work). After you have an object then set it as a rigid body object in the physics, then check the animated check box:
Now we need to animate the sphere, Of course the animation part is all up to you (so long as the sphere intersects the plane). This is what I did, add a keyframe on the first frame in a high position, then add another keyframe on about frame 15 with the ball intersecting the plane.
Set the shards as rigid body objects.
Now it's time to run the simulation. Make sure that the shards, sphere and plane objects are all on the same layer(or at least visible), and press play. You will probably need to stop it around frame 12 or so before the dents get to deep and weird looking.

And here is the final result!

Hope this helps someone out there, it took me awhile to figure it out and it still needs polishing but I think that it has a lot potential.
blend file link: example blend

Could you add a .blend?

Oh sure, here is the link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/hbzlxw9n0b0lua5/metal_deformation_example.blend

Some nine years late to answer that but, in case anyone is searching for an easier method: creating a random/noisy displacement map as a modifier, then applying it, did the trick for me, as a quick crumple for vehicles, big mechs etc. If you're smart with your UVs, keeping the texel density constant, you can even "paint" a mask to where the deformation should be stronger, making this quite controllable - and much quicker than pulling and pushing vertices around.


text:
How can I scale a duplicate mesh to evenly first the mesh?
I have a snowflake mesh that I want to place on top of a scaled duplicate of the same mesh but when I do the points are not equidistant from their counterparts.
This first image is the scaled mesh on top of the primary mesh.
]
This next image is a rudimentary manual movement of each vertices that I hope to end up with.

Does [Alt]+[S] work?

The easiest way to do that, is by deleting all but one of the fingers of your snowflake, and using modifiers.

As you can see I made that snow flake with an array modifier, and an Empty as the object offset (same way as in this answer), that way I only have to model (and then change) one.
There is no easy tool to do this like scale, or even shrink/flatten.
So here is how I would do it.

With the pivot point set to 3D cursor, and the 3D cursor set to the base of the snowflake (that is so you only have to reposition it down, not both directions). Scale S up the entire finger until it is as wide as you want. (I have the original snowflake in the same spot as the one I'm scaling to be able to see the difference.)

Now move G the entire finger, except the bottom vertices in to its proper position. We are looking to get the left and right side centered here.

Here is where it gets clever, select everything, and extrude it to give the snowflake some thickness. (Don't worry this is just temporary.)
Select the two sides on one of the "branches" on the snowflake's finger.

Now press ShiftNumPad 3 to move the view to be aligned with the faces.
Change the Transform Orientation to View.

In another 3D view select the end face. Back in the view which is now perfectly aligned with the branch, press G XX to move the end face along the view's X axis.
Repeat steps 4-6 for the other branch. It should now look like this:

Delete the extra faces, by going to side view and box selecting B the top half of it, then Delete > Vertices.
Finlay move the top vertices down till they are the same space apart as the small side branches and the new side branches are.

Here in animated gif form are all the steps listed above.

Whether it isn't better to use Edge Slide in step 6 (moving that face a little backwards) instead of extruding, using View and deleting extrusion ? Probably there would be a little less accuracy in movements though as Slide tool sometimes is strange.

@MrZak it sure seams better, I really did not even think of it because for some reason, I was thinking it would not work there. I guess I will edit my answer, that simplifies a lot of it.

I don't think you want to scale the snowflake, I think you want to use the solidify modifier.
Play around with the Thickness and Offset values until you have what you want (+1 or -1 offset will go entirely inside/entirely outside of the first surface).
You may also want to check High Quality Normals and Even Thickness.

You could use Inset Face (I) and delete the outer edges using Alt + RMB to select the external edge loop.

You could draw a flat snowflake, then add a thickness using a Solidify Modifier.

I was able to do this by first giving the flake some thickness (to give it some rim faces whose normals point outwards) and then extruding (E), and scaling with Alt+S.  You can then delete the extra thickness afterwards if it is undesired.

Note: for some reason the Alt+E Extrude Along Normals option did not work, for this reason I extruded the rim faces first, canceling the extrude with a right click or Esc, then scaled along the normals with Alt+S.


text:
What technique is used to modify one object's mesh in coordination with an adjacent object's mesh?
I would like to make a comparative anatomy primitive that I can use as a sculpting base for various animals. Most quadripeds share the same basic surface anatomy plan with differences in proportion, scale and to some extent numbers of anatomic components (for example horses feet have one toe whereas dogs have 5). In the attached image I have tried applying an armature to the bone elements and separate armatures to the muscle elements with constraints on the muscle armature bones relating to the bone armature bones. Unfortunately I am not able to control all meshes adequately with this approach. I have also tried using lattice deformations on the various objects with similar lack luster results. As a minimum I would like to be able to change scale of a bone and have it's scale affect attached muscles. Since I am a complete NOOB at animation I expect there is something I am missing here. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Try the soft body simulator.


text:
When integrating live action footage and cg, how to make proper shadows for actors?
What is the best way to make believable shadows for moving actors that are standing in front of a green screen?
Do you need to have a perfect modeled double that follows his movements so it can cast shadows? I'm guessing it becomes very tricky when the actor's clothes and hair are also moving. The other thing is that you are probably limited to your modeling, rigging and animation skills.
Is there another way of doing so? Are there some considerations when shooting in front on a green screen regarding the shadows for the integration (with cg)?
P.S: If someone knows how they did it on Tears of Steel... that's probably a good place to look. Unfortunately I'm unable to buy the dvds for now.

Some tips over here: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/518/how-to-make-a-model-cast-shadows-onto-the-world-texture-background

Yeah thanks I saw that. I have perfectly integrated cg objects to real footage. My question is how to cast shadows the other way around: moving actors into cg. Thanks anyways.

The green screen does not remove the shadow as long as your threshold is low enough. Because it's a darker shade of green, the green will be removed, but the gray will stay.
If that method doesn't work, you can mask around the shadow and add it back in later with the compositor.
You don't need to make a full scale model and match the lighting as that's more work than it's worth.

Make and rig objects that resemble the actors in sufficient detail as to be able to cast convincing shadows, then animate their movement in the scene such that they coincide with the movements in 3d space of the real-life actor. Then make sure only the shadows they cast get rendered. Then finally you might have to mask out areas where the cg shadows overlap the real-life actors.
With a static camera position and green screen setup it can be possible to capture the difference in colour values between the green screen scene with and without actors, creating a difference mask.


text:
Changing tile location
I want to be able to render a tile and then move to the left and render that tile
Specify tile size for Blender Cycles rendering via command line
So far I have gotten this... I have no idea how to make it loop to the next one. I'm new to this.
It runs without error but I'm sure its all wrong:
import bpy

for scene in bpy.data.scenes:
    mx = scene.render.border_max_x = 0
    sx = scene.render.border_min_x = 0
    sy = scene.render.border_min_y = 0
    my = scene.render.border_max_y = 0
    scene.render.use_border = True
    scene.render.use_crop_to_border = True
if 1 > 0:
    my = my + .2;
    mx = mx + .2;
    scene.render.border_max_x = mx
    scene.render.border_min_x = 0
    scene.render.border_min_y = 0
    scene.render.border_max_y = my
    int (my);
    int (mx);

    bpy.ops.render.render()

my math isnt done yet so dont make fun lololol

What is if 1 > 0 for?

I'm quite sure why you assigned mx sx etc. to scene.render.border_min/max_x/y = 0, then assigned scene.render.border_min/max_x/y to mx, sx etc.?
Do you want mx = 0, then scene.render.border_max_x = mx?

And you are making a loop in initialization and after it you do an if that is always done (1 is greater than 0 all time). Take in mind that if you want to make the if statement executed in each scene you must tab in it (tabs are important in python).

Could you use a while loop? If I understand what you want, couldn't you use a while loop instead of if 1 > 0:? This would repeat the render and increment mx and my until the statement after the while is false.

i am really new to python so it may look weird to people who know how to use it. i was just trying to get it to loop and after i can i will work out the amount of times i should loop it.

so gandalf3 i have no idea what im doing. thats why haha.
and PhoneixS yes i know :3 its just for getting the loop to work and seeing how it behaves

An if statement does not cause the code following it to loop, it merely executes the code indented after the if only if the statement following the if (in this case 1 > 0) is true.
While loop:
If I understand what you are trying to do, you want a while statement instead of an if statement:
var = 0 # define the variable "var"
while 10 > var: # while 10 is greater than whatever value "var" is equal too
    var = var + 1 # increment var by one
    print (var) # print var to the console

This will execute the code indented after while 10 > var: until var is no longer less than 10.
The result of running the above code is:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

So if we apply this to your code:
import bpy

var = 0 # assign these variables to 0
mx = 0 # I removed these from the scene for loop because you don't need to set them again for eaach scene.
sx = 0
sy = 0
my = 0
for scene in bpy.data.scenes: # loop through each scene in the .blend and set these values in each one:
    scene.render.use_border = True # enable borders
    scene.render.use_crop_to_border = True # enable crop to border

while var < 3: # as long as "var" is equal to a number less than 3, execute:
    var = var + 1 # increase "var" by one (very important if we don't want to run the loop for infinity)
    my = my + .2
    mx = mx + .2
    scene.render.border_max_x = mx
    scene.render.border_min_x = 0
    scene.render.border_min_y = 0
    scene.render.border_max_y = my
    #                                                          vv var is an INT, so we convert it to a string for the perposes of using it in the output image file name
    bpy.context.scene.render.filepath = "/tmp/test_render_" + str(var) + ".png" # bpy.context.scene gives us the currently open scene, so we can set the path for outputting images for only that scene.
    bpy.ops.render.render(write_still=True) # I added the write_still=True so the render is writted to the file spcified in scene.render.filepath

Explanation:
Here is an explanation of what each line does:

import bpy This imports the bpy module.

var = 0 This assigns "var" to a value, 0. See the wiki for more about variables.

for scene in bpy.data.scenes: This is a for statement that will repeat the code indented after this line for each scene in bpy.data.scenes. (this will also assign scene as a kind of variable containing the location of the current scene being iterated through.)

scene.render.use_border = True This sets blender's variable use_border to True. This is the same as ticking the check box in the GUI (Render settings > Dimensions):

To illustrate this, you can run bpy.context.scene.render.use_border = True in the Python console and the Border check box will become enabled in the GUI.

scene.render.use_crop_to_border = True This enables Crop to border ([use_crop_to_border][13])

while var < 3: Test if var is equal to a value less than 3. If true, then execute the indented code following this line and test if var < 3 again. If false, skip to the next unindented code.

var = var + 1 Assign var to the result of var + 1 (increment by one)

scene.render.border_max_x = mx Set blender's variable border_max_x to the current value of the variable mx.

bpy.context.scene.render.filepath = "/tmp/test_render_" + str(var) + ".png" Use bpy.context to get the active scene and set the scene render property filepath to a string. to use the variable var (type INT) in the string, it needs to be converted to a string type with str(var). See the wiki for more info about strings and variables.

bpy.ops.render.render(write_still=True) This renders the image and writes it to the path specified in filepath.

Result:
The above code outputs the following images in /tmp/ when run in the Text editor:
test_render_1.png is created with the border settings set to these values:
scene.render.border_max_x = .2
scene.render.border_min_x = 0
scene.render.border_min_y = 0
scene.render.border_max_y = .2

test_render_2.png is created with the border settings set to these values:
scene.render.border_max_x = .4
scene.render.border_min_x = 0
scene.render.border_min_y = 0
scene.render.border_max_y = .4

test_render_3.png is created with the border settings set to these values:
scene.render.border_max_x = .6
scene.render.border_min_x = 0
scene.render.border_min_y = 0
scene.render.border_max_y = .6

The total number of images is limited to 3 because the third time the loop code is executed, the variable var is incremented to 3 which is not less than 3.
Here is a code that moves to the next "tile" over:
import bpy

var = 0
mx = 0
sx = -.2
sy = 0
my = .2
for scene in bpy.data.scenes:
    scene.render.use_border = True
    scene.render.use_crop_to_border = True

while var < 3:
    var = var + 1
    mx = mx + .2
    sx = sx + .2
    print (mx)
    print (sx)
    scene.render.border_max_x = mx
    scene.render.border_min_x = sx
    scene.render.border_min_y = sy
    scene.render.border_max_y = my

    bpy.context.scene.render.filepath = "/tmp/test_render_" + str(var) + ".png"
    bpy.ops.render.render(write_still=True)

@gandalf3 Completely off topic, but you made two separate edits that both added exactly 1426 characters to the post... this is either ridiculous coincidence or you have way too much time on your hands.

@WChargin 0.o That's pretty incredible (And I certainly didn't plan it)

gandalf is a wizard!

upvote for just the extent of explaining a simple problem that could have been fixed by watching a beginner python tutorial on youtube.


text:
Objects in random places after exporting?
I have created previous models of human organ models using Blender, which then are exported to Abaqus and Unity in order to be included in biomechanical studies, and everything went fine.
However, I am now trying to create new models for new structures, and I am using the exact same method as before and the same source for the models, but the new objects are in a completely different position and rotation as the ones already created and treated after many hours of work...
I have tried many approaches to solve this problem, and none of them worked. I do not want to lose every hour of work already spent, so how can I maintain the new organs in the positions they were before?
[EDIT]: My blender file for one example is on the provided link, and it's possible to see that the ureters are out of place, when compared with the bladder/prostate/urethra, even though they were captured from the same view, position and time, from an executable human atlas. In the pictures (the second link provided) the ureters are the objects which are highlighted, and it's possible to see that they are dislocated from the rest, even when the same transforms are applied. The second screenshot shows the export settings, and I have confirmed they are correct. Sometimes, the objects appear in a completly different position (in this case they are kind of aligned).
Blender file:
Screenshots:

Can you edit and post some images to clarify the problem?

I doubt very much they are "random"   Blender uses Z axis up Y forward, other engines use Y up.  Make sure the correct setting to import / export is set.  Often searching for blender import export on forum(s) is fruitful..

other engines' forums

Consider sharing example files (old-good and new-bad) (upload it to blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com then paste the provided link, editing your question) as it would make your issue much more clear...

I have edited my question, which now has the file with an example of the problem I am having and with some screenshots


text:
how to use simultaneously one modifier to 2 objects
I want to smooth 2 different objects which are made from one bigger therefore they have some touching points. When I use the modifier one by one, they both change shapes that are not touching themselves. So my idea is how can I use the modifier simultaneously on 2 objects that modifier will treat them as one?

maybe show a screenshot because to make it easier to understand

Ctrl+J to join them. I can't think of any other way to have two objects and treat them as one.

Even as one object, smoothing will pull apart disconnected meshes. You could either move them closer so they touch after smoothing, or as one object merge some vertices so they are always connected. Would need more info on your scene to know which would work better.


text:
Sculpt brush set not working correctly
I downloaded the Orb brush set from blend swap and the instructions are useless in my case.
Blender cant find the textures or the icons for when you want to choose a brush. I can manually select the texture from the folder but the icon for it is still not visible.
I guess what I need to know is where do I put the "textures/icons" folders to make the icons visible and blender be able to find them with out me looking for them manually.

I could see how that might be helpful for an addon but its just a brush pack. The entire download is a blend file, and 2 folders of images. https://www.blendswap.com/blends/view/86419 The pack I'm referring to. Not entirely sure how i would treat this like an addon? Sorry for not understanding!

Fixed it! I was dumb and was appending from a separate .blend. Not the one that is supposed to go in the "config" of blender. Once i appended from the correct place it fixed the problem. Also, I'm new here, is there a way to mark this as solved or do i just leave it?

Once you put the .blend, textures, and icons folders in c:>users>YourName>AppData>Roaming>BlenderFoundation>Blender>2.79>config, open a new .blend and append the brushes from the .blend in the location above and nowhere else. Save as a new start up file and you're good to go!


text:
Blender High/Low vertices versions in same object
I would like to make two versions of the same mesh, one version for test rendering with few vertices, and the other version for final rendering with all vertices.
I haven't been using Blender for some years, and stuck on trying figure out how I do this. Vaguely remember it should be possible.
Would be happy if someone either can explain how this can be done or post some relevant links. Well, or tell me this is not possible, so I can stop wasting time searching the subject:)
Sorry for not very useful tags, but really have no idea what this feature is called. And thanks in advance.

Most modifiers and relevant properties have two "quality" settings, one for rendering and one for viewport.

You probably refer to the "Multiresolution" modifier?


text:
Rendered image is different than Camera view
I am new to Blender even to the world of animation.
I have 4 cameras and I have bind them with markers in the timeline. When I animate they change fine. When I open the Render view from the button side to the Object Mode button it shows perfect Camera view.
But when I Render it as png all the images are black, they are like a view from a camera just pointed towards ground but there is no other camera I have checked the Outliner list also.
I have also tried selecting the Border option in Render tab but when I click on Render or Animate, I get a message that border is not allowed for sequencer.
I have searched on google and all the solutions I am being told are not working.
Someone Please help me out.
Thanks a lot in advance.

No it is not a duplicate as in VSE I added text using Effect Strip function, the texts are appearing properly in the set frame but objects are not visible. In some frames an object is partially visible only.

ok, check this list: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/67490/why-does-my-object-not-show-up

Thanks for the list but it also doesnt help. I am doing something wrong but what, this I am not able to understand.

Consider sharing your file (upload it to http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ then paste the provided link, editing your question) as it would make your issue much more clear...

Thanks for your help but I found what was wrong.
the Sequencer box was checked in Post Processing. So i just unchecked it and Checked the Border button and it is working fine now.

This is what was proposed in comments


text:
Cycles Not Rendering particles
So I've been trying to get particles into cycles, but it doesn't seem to work. First was my question about my particle system add button not showing up, but I had to scroll (facepalm). Now its probably obvious again, but I haven't figured it out. Cycles is not rendering the particles. I tried baking it, baking all dynamics, changing it to objects from halo, but it just doesn't work. The blender file is here:

Welcome stack exchange. Actually, blender does not add an object for particles by default, you have to add an object (cube, sphere, etc.) for particles under "Object" option i.e., in ParticleSetting --> Render --> Object (Dupli Object).

Thank you! Most importantly, it rendered the articles, but on the plus side, it also gives me more flexibility/control over the particles. Thanks again!


text:
Assistance with bool tool
I am making a guillotine in Blender as a random beginner's project to get more comfortable with 2.8 and practice a non-destructive way of doing stuff. However, the boolean modifier (using bool-tool) is not working. Blender file will be attached.

idk if bumping works but bump

Hide the mirror modifier and delete the inside faces in edit mode. These are the faces you can't see when the mirror modifier is on. Also, apply the same material on your cube if you want the cut to be textured too


text:
I can't make a particle system in cycles render! :(
Please help! I'm using cycles render, version 1.79. When I try to make a particle system, I can't. I tried using blender render then changing, but then some options are grayed out and I need to change those. For example, I can't use emissions when changing render options.

why don't you scroll up

just scroll up on the tab then you'll find the add particle system option. Click on it and the thing will expand down the page

Ah. I feel stupid now.

it's ok we all make mistakes


text:
Blender Not Rendering Properly
Only the sky is rendered, some parts of the rig, and the sword. I'm not certain as to what caused it. The blend download file is below. I could not use blendswap because it is larger than 30MB.
https://www.mediafire.com/file/drrmg4p5fhs53x9/Scene_1_Backup.blend/file

If you click on the little filter icon (See screenshot) you will see that a lot of things are turned of in your render. Simply enable the things you want to be seen, and you should be good to go.
PS: dont mind the purple, you didnt upload the textures ;P

Ah thanks! The textures are from MCPrep. I've watched a tutorial on this. Thanks again.

Also, this has happened before. I'm not sure why! Is there a shortcut to turn off all render things? If so, please tell!


text:
Is there any way to read additional properties from PLY files?
The PLY format is very flexible, and it allows defining additional properties to the elements. For example, one could add a numeric, integer label to vertices.
Is there any way to read and visualize these properties?

You could modify the PLY importer to read them in as custom attributes. The whole importer is about 400 lines so it's easy to modify.

You could use a PLY to CSV converter, then use the indices in the mesh to find it's corresponding data in the CSV?

@Psyonic This could work for a vertex by vertex case, but I'm looking more for a visualization (i.e. color the mesh based on some property)

Indeed, the PLY file format is very flexible and expandable. However, currently it's not possible to import these extra properties within Blender. Not in the current Python importer, but also not in the new C++ importer that's currently in 3.6 alpha.
Stay tuned for that option to be added though. As someone who worked on the C++ implementation, I hope we can get it to work soon.

Thanks a lot for for this inside update. Is this effort public somewhere?


text:
What is the simplest way to achieve viewport-like shading in python?
My final goal is to make a script that can render a collection of meshes, one at a time, from various angles. This problem has been discussed multiple times, such as Blender script import model and render it.
However, all these approaches use the blender renderer, which requires a lighting setup. I just want to observe the geometry, so for me lighting is not really important. Viewport shading is perfect, but this requires an opengl context to generate from python, so I'm stuck with the renderer.
The question is, how could I setup the lighting in python such that it mimics the viewport shading? Or, what would be easy lighting setup that would produce a similar effect.
Just to make it clear, for my purposes lighting effects are not important, I am just trying to observe the geometry.

You can use the Workbench engine for that as it has simple to control lighting settings

The Workbench engine does not use the lights of the scene. The lighting conditions that will be used can be set in the Lighting panel.

Look at this script to get an idea how to configure the render settings:
import bpy

scene = bpy.context.scene

# set the render engine to workbench
scene.render.engine = 'BLENDER_WORKBENCH'

# get the workbench display settings
area = [ area for area in bpy.context.screen.areas if area.type == 'VIEW_3D' ][0]
for space in area.spaces:
    if space.type == 'VIEW_3D':
        display = scene.display
        break

# loop through all cameras
for camera in [ obj for obj in scene.objects if obj.type == 'CAMERA' ]:
    scene.camera = camera

    # set output path
    scene.render.filepath = '<your/path/to/output/folder/>' + camera.name

    # showoff: change render settings per camera
    if camera.name == 'Camera0':
        display.shading.light = 'FLAT'
        display.shading.show_cavity = False
        display.shading.show_object_outline = False
        display.shading.object_outline_color = (0, 0, 0)
        display.shading.color_type = 'MATERIAL'

    if camera.name == 'Camera1':
        display.shading.light = 'MATCAP'
        display.shading.show_cavity = True
        display.shading.show_object_outline = True
        display.shading.object_outline_color = (0.673848, 0.232197, 0)
        display.shading.color_type = 'OBJECT'

    if camera.name == 'Camera2':
        display.shading.light = 'STUDIO'
        display.shading.show_cavity = False
        display.shading.show_object_outline = True
        display.shading.object_outline_color = (1, 0, 0)
        display.shading.color_type = 'RANDOM'

    # render
    #bpy.ops.render.opengl() # for reference, this will not work in background mode
    bpy.ops.render.render(write_still=True)

The script can be run directly in Blender or in background mode per commandline (-b flag). For my test scene this gives me this result:

Thank you! It was exactly what I needed.

Great, happy blending!


text:
Enter UV coordinates position
How can I manually type in the coordinates for my UVs?
Currently I am seeing these buttons:

But these simply adjust according to mouse movements.
The reason for this is my model is simply 2 quads with their UVs overlaid. I would like to snap these UVs is certain tiles on my texture map - much like a tile map.
Perhaps there is a better way to do this than manually entering the coordinates?

In the UV editor press N to display the Information panel on the right.  At the top is the UV Vertex section where you can type the values directly.

Based on what you've said, it might also be useful to enable "Snap to Pixels" in the UVs menu.


text:
Baking rigid body transformations
I have created a simulation using rigid bodies to create a nice pile of "things" that will be fairly realistic. Now I would like to save or bake these new positions and rotations from selected frame into object data. How can I accomplish that?

You can press Bake To Keyframes button in Rigid Body Tools panel.


text:
Apply all modifiers, .poll() a bpy operator with keyword argument?
I would like to apply all modifiers to an object with python.
for mod in ob.modifiers:
    bpy.ops.object.modifier_apply(modifier = mod.name)

This works fine, unless for some reason the modifier is disabled, e.g.:

A Boolean modifier with no object
A Shrinkwrap modifier with no target

General Problem:
Other than knowing all of the possible attributes of every modifier and checking to make sure the modifier is valid, is there a way to bpy.ops.object.modifier_apply.poll() while specifying which modifier I want to apply?
I see that the poll() method expects
poll(self, *args).
Perhaps I can put something in for *args which will help
Work Around: I can get the modified mesh object.to_mesh()

The short answer is no, poll checks that the basic context is valid but it doesn't do extensive checks that every operation will succeed (It's often not trivial for tools to know this ahead of time)
You can simply use exception handling for this.
for mod in ob.modifiers:
    try:
        bpy.ops.object.modifier_apply(modifier=mod.name)
    except RuntimeError as ex:
        # print the error incase its important... but continue
        print(ex)

In this case I think you would be better off using,

bpy.ops.object.convert(target='MESH') - converting a mesh to a mesh will replace the mesh with a version that has modifiers applied.
Object.to_mesh() - gives you most control, uses Pythons internal API.

just wanted to follow up that to_mesh works fine for this!  Thanks

@patmo141 If this answer was helpful you should mark it as 'accepted'. See: http://stackoverflow.com/help/someone-answers


text:
How to make clouds
So I saw this pic of clouds in game The Witness and I really liked how they made the clouds. How to reproduce them?

Those were painted, probably a texture on some planes

oh..well that's a shame

^^ the novice is right... If you download a cloud texture, set it's type to "Billboard" and make it shadeless, gigantic, and always slowly wheeling across the sky, you should be good.

Related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/6835/599

sorry for the previous short and unexplained answer :)
First open up blender and add a plane, then UV unwrap it like below
(I've made a very simple cloud texture for that with transparency)

then add a plane so we can actually see something in the test render

then go to rendered shading mode by enabling it from the red  icon indicator

notice how the transparency (alpha channel) has been filled with black?
its because of the default material setup as shown in the picture below!
the diffuse shader can't render transparency

its only using a diffuse shader with a image with transparency
now, if we add a transparent shader with mix shader node and the alpha from original image as the fac value then we will get something like below

its basically checking weather a part of the texture is transparent and if so it is feeding it through the transparent shader so we can get the actual transparency.....
and the rest is going through the diffuse shader
by this method you can get the cloud you were referring to.....
now, you might wanna import image as a plane (check if the addon is enabled) then apply this method, but for some wired reason (I don't know why) its not working in my blender 2.74...
hope somebody can lighten me up :)

This is visible form one side only? Because in the Witness the cloud is 3d...meaning that every side looks different and like a real cloud, random.

@SamuraiFox , yes one side only....
if want to get something more like real clouds then I suggest making a sphere more like a cloud (maybe with sculpting mode?) and then use Volume Scatter as the material and set the color to white...
maybe add a texture to randomize it :)

that sounds promising...I'll try that


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Deforming a mesh in BGE runtime
I have two objects in my scene. One of them is a rigid body and it has to collide with the another one (soft body). I need to do the rigid body deforms the softbody in runtime and the deformation has to be plastic. I tried setting the object as Soft body in Game Render and setting Plastic = 100, but I think these parameters don't affect in the game engine. What could I do? I think changing the position of each vertex of the softbody when the rigid body touch it could be computationally expensive.

The Blender Game Engine and the Blender's simulation system use two different pysics solvers. To see the game physics settings you have to set the Blender engine to 'Blender Game':

But the softbody settings of the game engine do not offer any settings for plastic deformation:

So why is there a difference?
The solver used in the animation system is more powerfull and accurate, but as you may have noticed it is much too slow for a game.
The solver in the Game Engine on the other hand uses a very fast position-based softbody simulation called Shape Matching (see the paper for more information). While the paper also describes the implementation of plastic deformations, this is either not implemented or not activated in Blender.

The paper will probably not help you with Blender, I just added it for completeness. If you are interested in the topic though, have a look. The concepts in the paper are not that hard to understand if you have basic knowledge in linear algebra. And don't let the formulas scare you off ;)


text:
Three bones following a curve
I have a chain of three bones and I want them to follow a curve (bezier curve). I've tried  to do this creating a bone constraint follow path but it doesn't work. I've tried putting four emptys and creating two constraints for each bone: one constraint child of and another one track to. It doesn't work. In both cases the bones move but not aligned following the curve.
Also, I've noticed that sometimes the bones are in different positions in Edit Mode or Object Mode.
This is the screenshot:

Please help me. Thank you!

I think I have a better way. Spline IK to curve. Curve controlled by hooks tracking on second curve.

I first created my bone chain and the path I wanted my bone chain to follow.

Then I added another bezier curve with the same length than the armature and one vertex for each bone head or tail. By pressing "V", I turned the handle type first to "Automatic" and then to "Vector".

Next, I selected the last bone of the chain and added under the bone constraint panel a "Spline IK" constraint, targeting the second curve (Length 3, Y Stretch).
At last, I added a "Curve" modifier to the second curve, targeting the first one as shown on the picture.

Don't forget to select the right deformation axis (in my example "Z") and to check "Apply this and all preceding deformation modifiers on splines' points rather than on filled curve/surface".
Now, by moving the curve along the Z-axis, the bone chain moves along the curve.
This is not a perfect solution since the Spline IK is deforming the first bone (don't know why) and since the curve modifier is also modifying a bit the length of the second curve, but it worked pretty well for what I needed, and I hope this will help.

That's a pretty smart solution. My bones spin arund along the path-axis and I don't know why.

@copypaste paths have a W value (i think) that dictate rotation, you might have a twist in your path curve? it should say some extra per-node data near the node X Y Z position

Um, I've tried this three times, the Spline IK does move the bones, but not to a useful position. the tip of the bones are on the vector-curve's origin, https://imgur.com/a/CquwPFn

Andrea, I also tried to do the exact same thing and nobody I talked to could figure out how to do it. It seems Blender does not have a way to have all the bones in an armature follow a curve. So if you have a snake armature, it doesn't seem there is any way to get all the bones to follow the curve path. Sorry.

Hi Thom Blair III, is this still true with blender version 3.0?

You can do this with a Spline IK Constraint. Add the constraint to the last bone of the chain and set the Chain Length to the number of bones (3 in your case). If you check Even Divisions every bone will have the same length, regardless of their original length. The Chain Offset lets you offset the location of the bones from the path. Furthermore you can have the bones stretch to the full length of the path by checking Y Stretch.
Without Y Stretch:

With Y Stretch:

An how would you animate that along that path? I don't think thats possible with this solution.

yeah that's the whole question. also the "last bone" means  what ? starting from where ?

I was able to get this to work but the procedure is grueling, i might suggest hand animation instead
vertex-group xform+tracking method

prepare armature, three bones

prepare a intermediate mesh, lets call this the Train, four vertices, each vertex at the same position as each bone node

add four vertex groups
assign each vertex one to one to each vertex group

prepare a curve

add curve mesh object constraint
you should see your mesh deform correctly, i find it helpful to key frame the location of the mesh start and stop along the curve and keep blender in animation playback mode so I can see how the mesh deforms along the curve as we go.

in pose mode of the armature, select the root bone

to the bone constraints (not object constraints) as "copy transform"

selecting the mesh object we called Train
select the vertex group of an end of the vertex train

you should see the root bone teleport and stay on the vertex

in pose pose of the armature for each next child bone in sequence

add a "track to" constraint

selecting the mesh object we called Train
select the next-most-forward vertex group of an end of the vertex train

you should see each bone point at each next vertex as you work

best wishes

While you may not be able to automate the armature following the curve the way you want, you can use it as a guide.

Enable auto keyframing.
Start at frame one, pose the armature as you want it to start.
Goto the last frame and pose the armature at the other end.
Goto the middle frame and pose the armature along the curve.
Repeat 4 until you have the armature animated the way you want.


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Can i redraw the UI inside an operator?
I have a script which is working. At the end of the script, rendering is started. This is supposed to work as a template for people possibly unfamiliar with a freezing screen (blender is loading lots of data into cache from images used in the compositor).
For that reason i want an "Info" in the top bar saying something like "This might take a while. Now rendering...".
So i would have this in my operator

draw message
redraw UI (to show message)
Run the rest of the script

Is this possible?

see this Q/A http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/28673/update-viewport-while-running-script

also related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/3219/how-to-show-to-the-user-a-progression-in-a-script

use report() in your operator to display reports on the top bar
self.report({'INFO'},"This ma take some time")
# rest of the code here

Yeah, but I'm pretty sure that the UI isn't redrawn until after the python is done executing. I could be wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure that's the case.

@TARDISMaker I have already linked to the force redraw solution ( in the comments ) and this answer is about the report()


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controlling the number of edges in a "object in curve" (Sverchok)

How I might control the number of edges in the "X" direction for this surface? The edges in "Y" axis are controlled by the "Float series count"

Everything nodes :D Yes!

I'd do it this way, it gives you separate control over the 0..1 range between U and V, by using two Vector interpolation nodes

You can use the List-Item node with Int Range which will delete some points along the X axis depending on the step you set in the Int Range node :  ( change the step to get different results )


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How to make it so that objects don't pass through each other?
How to make it so that objects don't pass through each other?
For example, when a character picks up an object, when a character rests on the wall, etc.
Here is an example of the wrong animation:

How to fix it?

Generally, this kind of actions are made using Inverse Kinematics:
when the hand reaches the table you switch the arm from FK to IK, put the IK hand controller in the same position as reached by the FK hand controller so, in the following frames, the hand stays still as the arm is moving.

I studied it a little & I have problem. FK's & IK's armatures should be put in the same poses. But it's unreal. Also I know if to apply the modifier Copy Rotation to FK that it will repeat the position of IK. But I haven't found a way how to put IK in FK's pose. Is there a way how to quickly switch between IK & FK and that they repeated poses each other?

As far as I know it must be done manually, but, with a little of trials and errors, you can reach the result quite quickly, expecially using the double R rotation mode (select a bone, press R key Twice, adjust the rotation of the bone with up/down/left/right movements of the mouse). Also knowing the bone's  axes will help in the task: I.E. R Y Y will rotate every bone on their longitudinal axes. Consider also that you have the FK in one frame and the IK on the next, so a little movement is not only accepted, but desiderable.

Can you advice me a good tutorial about IK-FK, or maybe you can tell me how to make it? I just found out about IK-FK when you told me about it. I was looking for, but basically it was tutorials how to make the switch IK-FK. I found one tutorial (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8IsnFG9NUU&index=10&list=PL1CDAAF5EE1FF18C4), but the result isn't quite good: http://s019.radikal.ru/i637/1506/ae/7bbeb707c521.gif. Another tutorials I couldn't find. Help me please with this question.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGvalWG8HBU for a simple rig using IK.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3J-XN38EnhQ&list=PLE211C8C41F1AFBAB this is an amazing serie about advanced rigging.


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How do I duplicate a particle system and keep its settings separate from the original?
When I select "Duplicate particle systems" a copy of the first particle system is created. This copy can be edited in Particle edit and I can even add new particles there. But if I change any settings (for example, change Children, Root, Material & etc.), then these settings also change in first particle system. How can I duplicate a particle system so that I can edit the copy, but that this doesn't affect the first particle system?

In question at this link, particles was not required to be changed in Edit mode. Therefore, this is not what I need. I need to be able to change settings after particles have been changed with brushes (Comb, Smooth, Add, Length, Puff, Cut, Weight) in Edit mode.

I'm not entirely sure not being able edit the particles is related to duplicating the particle system? I think the question could do with being edited to be a bit clearer because looking at the answer below and its comments there is obviously some confusion about what you are asking.

I already don't know how to say it right. I just want to know how I can change settings of duplicate copy, but so that settings of original don't change. After editing in Particle edit, settings where I can unlink copy from original become inaccessible & accordingly, any changes in copy are also duplicated in original.

Do exactly what Sanbaldo said, BUT using Cmd+C and Cmd+V when duplicating the object instead of Shift+D. Then those steps will work!
Hope it helps!

I get what they are asking cause I have the same issue. I have a animal head that I groomed. The first groom is to determine flow and is done with the first particle system. I want to add some more randomness to the hair, but keep all the groom settings I just made in the particle editor. So when I duplicate the particle system, I need to be able to duplicate the particle settings, but be able to change the child settings without changing my first particle setting. Thus, I need a duplicate of the original settings. Currently it links the original settings only.
Thankfully, someone made an addon for this that works with Blender 2.93 beta
https://blenderartists.org/t/duplicate-edited-hair-particles/1247900

you have to play with system block and data block so you don't have the same particle system applied twice. Probably you'll need to click on that "files" icon  (that let you duplicate the particle system, starting from a cloned version of the original one)
This is correct:

check how to work with different emitter settings:

this is wrong (see the number 2 that means that the particle system is used twice)

This only works when particles have not been modified in Particle edit. Once hair has been changed in Particle edit, these settings become unavailable.

This comment is not clear to me. Can you explain better the problem you have?

OK I'll try. Suppose I want to make 2 frames. I made hairstyle. Then I want to duplicate ready hairstyle & slightly change settings for second frame. I need hairstyle to remain the same but I want to make it more shaggy. I.e. I want to change settings in Children for example. But Blender doesn't allow changing settings only in duplicated version.

Again I don't fully understand, cause It's possible to do what you are asking for. Check again my screenshots and see that you need to have 2 particle system index and 2 particle settings (that need to be different, so no "2" number that means that you are using it twice)

check the video in my answer

Here: https://i.sstatic.net/k8msP.gif

Have the same problem - the controls become inactive once I edit the hair via particles edit mode (i.e. comb, grow etc). It seems to be impossible to detach the duplicated hair system without losing hair comb data. Does anyone have a solution?


text:
Graphics card for Blender - GeForce RTX 2060 Super
I'm buying new computer & there was a problem with graphics card. I want to buy "KFA2 GeForce RTX 2060 Super". Computer master helps me choose computer, but he saw somewhere in internet warning that Blender could crash because of this graphics card. Please tell me, will Blender work normally with this graphics card? Especially in Blender 2.79.
I don't know, maybe that warning was for those who has weak computer? Or does Blender not want to work with new graphics cards? If this data also helps answer my question, then my operating system was replaced with Windows 10 & also processor "AMD Ryzen 7 2700 OEM" & motherboard "ASRock Fatal1ty B450 Gaming K4" will be installed soon. At the moment, my graphics card "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970".
If this graphics card is not suitable for Blender, please advise which one is worth buying for new computer.

Thanks for answer. It's very pity that Blender 2.79 doesn't support new graphics cards.
But in general, RTX is good for Cycles or not? Or maybe I should look at some other version of graphics card?

Hardware recommendations are off-topic on Blender's StackExchange. The RTX cards are supported in Blender 2.8x, but I believe the official release of 2.79b doesn't support them.

The reason is that 2.79b used an older version of the CUDA toolkit and its development was finished before the RTX cards were released. If you can't use Blender 2.8x for some reason, you would either have to compile 2.79b yourself, with a newer CUDA toolkit or download an unofficial build, e.g. from graphicall. The RTX cards are fully supported by Cycles in 2.8x

Thanks for explanation. Well, it's more convenient for me to work in 2.79.
But what if I add 2 graphics cards? To use my old graphics card for rendering in 2.79, and the new one in 2.8. Is this possible or not?
It seems my new motherboard to allow 2 graphics cards to be installed, but I don't know if GTX 970 & RTX 2060 Super will work together.

Sure that's possible.

It's good. Thank you so much for your help.


text:
Why can't I change the weights of subdivided bones?
I have character with ready armature. I want to make forearm twist & for this need to subdivide bone. When I do this, I can't change weights for these bones.
Maybe there is some way for weights to be automatically distributed when bones are subdivided? Or at least how to fix weights in this case?
I tried Assign automatic from bones, Normalize, Normalize all, I even removed all weights from this bone, but result still remained the same:

could you please share this part of your mesh + armature? https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/

Yes, of course. Here:

I don't know why you say that you can't change the weight for these bones, it looks like you can. Also, why don't you use a unique bone for the forearm and choose B-bone and segment it? Wouldn't it make the twist simpler?

I did a little wrong. I gave original model. Here: . Here I subdivided forearm bone & I tried to change weights, but it didn't work out.
If segmenting B-Bone, it's the same as subdivide, isn't it?

it's not the same as subdividing, maybe you should take a look

And how to use B-Bones to rotate forearm?

It looks like some of the vertices of the biceps are influenced by several bones, if you select one vertex of this zone and open the N panel (on the right of your 3D View) > Item tab > Vertex Weights, you'll see a series of vertex groups that the vertex should not be part of.
Also, if you select your armature and go in the Properties panel > Object Data > Skeleton > Layers, you have a lot of hidden bones that have their Deform option activated and that will influence this part of the body.
For example it looks like the wrist is the parent of some upper arm bones, therefore when you rotate the wrist it deforms the upper arm mesh. It makes no sense, you should probably correct these bones relationships. This correction should fix the problem.

But if you want to entirely redo the weight painting you can select the part of the mesh you want to rework, go in the Properties panel > Object Data > Vertex Groups and on the left of the Vertex Groups list, click on the down arrow icon and choose Remove From All, which will de-assign these vertices from all groups.
Now you can work in Weight Paint mode and give to this part the influence that each bone is supposed to have.
Instead of subdividing your forearm, you could choose to display your bones as B-bones instead of Stick (Properties panel > Object Data > Display As). Then choose the bone you want to segment and in the Properties panel > Bone > Bendy Bones, choose the amount of Segments you want for this bone. Then give it a constraint Copy Rotation that you put above the IK Constraint, and choose the hand as Target, Space > Pose Space / Pose Space. The bone flexibility is set in the Properties panel > Bone > Bendy Bones > Easing.

So, it means that other bones didn't allow to change weights. And as I understood, if click Remove from all, then after that need to redraw all weights on all along arm again, right? This is certainly not fun, but at least I found out the cause of this problem. Thank you so much for explaining.
By the way, maybe there's a way to copy weight from those bones to weight of main bones?

I've edited to show you where your problem comes from, the wrist is parent of hidden bones that are located in the upper arm, it makes no sense, these bones should logically be parented to the upper arm bone, it may fix your problem.

I tried to do as you said with B-Bones, but that doesn't work. When I rotate Hand bone, entire Forearm bone just repeats this rotation. And it doesn't react to Easing at all. More precisely, mesh doesn't respond to any changes in B-Bones.

Ok so I've given a try and B-Bone should work fine but hard to dive into this new topic here, try to fix your current problem with the answer I gave, maybe try B-Bones on a brand new file to test it  ;)

I don't quite understood. Create new .blend file & move model there? In any case, I tried several times to do as you wrote, but nothing came of it.

As I said it's a completely different topic, so it would be tedious to discuss here, my initial answer should fix your current problem, your problem was these hidden bones that should not be controlled by the wrist bone

I understood. In any case, thank you for help with weights.


text:
Pulling in one edge of a cube. I cant get the right movemen
Hello all I am trying to learn some basics to Blender modelling. I want to make a snooker table. Currently I am making the cushions which hang over the edge of the table.
I just want it to be simple so I want the cushion to be just a triangular shape 2 inches high.
I've made the cube fit along the table and all I want to do is move the bottom left edge (from the view in my pic) inwards on itself so that the cube isnt square anymore (eventually i'll make it more detailed something like this:

I've tried hotkey "G" when in vertex,edge and face select edit mode. But I can't get that darn corner side to pull inwards.
Annoyingly I can do the opposite side, so I could have already made it opposite and then rotated it, but that makes me think doing it that way would be really annoying if I was trying to make some highly detailed objects (such as robotic infantry, spaceships , etc etc for games) in the future.
Here is the screenshot that I hope shows what I mean. I'm really new to Blender and so I hope im just missing something simple. Many thanks

NOTE: To be very clear of what im trying to achieve exactly here... The highlighted edge in my screenshot needs to be pulled on Y-axis so that the bottom face is smaller on Y. BUT the bottom-right corner needs to stay exactly where it is (ie. at right-angle with the rest of the cushion). Hope that makes sense. thanks

not sure to understand, are you trying to do this?

I used the visual transform widget to make it easy to understand, but you could do the same using GY and grabbing to the desired amount that edge over Y.

thats wierd!?? I have been using G and Y with the edge selected. But when i did it the Edge itself (just a black line) moves away from the mesh and appears to have no effect. Thanks for the GIF showing me tho, atleast this proves to my brain that it is possible to do the way I was expecting.

lol i started a new project and it worked straight away. Have no clue why it wasnt working before . thanks again


text:
Geometry between Cylinders and Cuboids
I'm currently getting started with Blender and Substance.
Since i wanted to test my materials on a model, i tried to create a grenade as it has both square and circular shapes. However, exactly this is my problem now.
If i want to join both the bolt (cylinder, top left) and the base (truncated cone, bottom) with the body (cuboid, center) i would have to subdivide the body in many parts, resulting in the grid-like pattern which you can see in the first picture.
Connecting them using tris (2nd pciture) results in less additional geometry, but causes more problems later on; most notably when using the subsurf-modifier.
What is the best way to connect the meshes in this situation?
Thanks for your answers

The topology depends on the puropose of the modeling. You can minimize the policount or you can have good deformation... there is no absolute right or wrong. What will this model used for?

Right now, i want to get used to the workflow between Blender (modelling), Substance Desinger (creating Materials), Substance Painter (Texturing) and Blender (again, rendering).

---Thus, policount shouldn't be a problem here, but i still want to have a clean mesh before i can apply a susbsurf-modifier to it. And #1 doesn't look quite like what i'd expect to be one :/

Match face-count and keep the flow of the edges
Assuming that you would like to create a sort of "basemesh" to start to work with, I suggest you should:

keep a the polycount low, it will be faster to make adjustement
keep a quad oriented topology, it increase the edgeflow redabilty and helps to keep the model "clean"
keep a quad oriented topology, because you said you are going to subsurf the model, and quads give best results
work with the subsurf modifier so you can easily check if everithing is going the way you are expecting and to place correct additional edge loops

Here's a possible topology fort this particular case with the previous characteristics:

Notice how three of the 8 faces that makes the cylinder are "bridged" to other 3 faces of the the other mesh. This allow a good junction between the pieces like they were welded that will give good results once the mesh is being subsurfed.

Here's the final result with subsurf in action:


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Artifacts with boolean modifier
Here is a car brake disc Im working on:
so I decided to use boolean mdifier to make the samll holes(one side),but it just caused the other half to disappear:

after some experiment，it seems that boolean mod doesnt support unclosed mesh or seperated mesh,and also cant treat closed mesh as holow instead of solid,and when applys to smooth surface it looks like this:

only way I thought to make hole on cured smooth surface without too much subdivision is to use edge split,and then I find out edge split doesnt support vertex gruop which is kind of inconvenient.
So is it possible to ask developer to add these feather or is there better ways?

Yes booleans operations are meant on "solid" objects. To understand how you could do, you need to show the state previous to the boolean operation (or upload at least that part of the model). For the other issue I can't understand fully: maybe batter to open another question, since it is unrelated.

thanks for replying,I went back trying to recreate the scene and find out the problem is gone,I thought maybe its that previously I used too many unsorted modifiers that caused boolean to  oversee part of the seperate mesh(island).

for another problem,i added a gif to my post.

i cant figure out a way to use boolean on smooth surface,doesnt matter the order of boolean and subdiv,I think this should be something more complex,so I just decided to move on to new methods.

I expand my comments above, to post some example image. I still think it's a matter of mesh density:
To better visually describe I exagerated size of the diff meshes, but this is the overall setup:

this is how a subdiv level of 2 on a standard UV sphere, in boolean diff with a cube, enough subdivided and extruded, then hidden. Still, you see some artifact on the hole edge.
I tried a gif animation showing the effect of changing settings, but due to color banding it gets lost... so here is a rendered comparison with subdiv 0,1,2, and 4 (enough in this example)

As said above I can't show you here, but even "moving around" the sphere doesn't show artifacts (or they are much more subtle) in the viewport, and the same goes in the render.
I don't know how better you can solve this, but using much higher resolution on the edges of the subctraction, at least, will help blender to find a "smooth" setup for normals of geometry around that area...

Thank you so much for the info! Ive tried more subdivs before,but the result was not good,now I realize its because I was cutting round holes,and round shape doesnt match the topology being cutted.So it takes both topo density and topo shape to make it look good.Idk if the modifier can be improved,cause I was hoping to bring it to game engine.I post another picture as answer below.

Dont know how you record gif,but I use this very very handy software called gifcam,

I use this http://www.cockos.com/licecap/ , which ids gpl, and works also on linux+wine. but gifs are their own limitation (256 color palette, no play controls), sometimes they work but not always...

A comparison for methods to cut holes.
From left to right:
inset-extrude-crease;
inset-extrude-edge split;
boolean topology shape match;
boolean topology shape not match;

Different methods have different cons and pros,need to chose one that served your workflow best.


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Blender Internal models in Eevee
I've been using Blender Internal (Blender Render) for the past years, and since that's not in the latest version of Blender, I wanted to ask if there was a way to render out my old models in Eevee without having to manually edit them to function properly. My biggest problem is that the textures don't show up (some of them were generated procedurally).
Thanks in advance!

No, that is not possible. Blender internal and eevee are way too different to be cross compatible. Materials can only be converted manually by baking the property maps or recreating the textures and functions in the node editor. You are better off keeping the latest version of 2.79 for your old files rather than porting them to 2.8x.


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Live MIDI input for EEVEE
I want to write a python script that will allow for a CDJ's Pro Link midi file to get converted into animation modifiers. The goal is to have the midi data's key and tempo to effect some variables, where the intensity or loudness affect the others. I have been searching all over online for how to do something like this, but no luck. If anyone has any idea how to do this, please let me know.

Have voted to close this as too broad.  Addons are written in python 3.  Midi file format is a standard (not just for CDJ prolink).  There are a number of 3rd party python midi modules to choose from, from the lightweight smf to the full blown pymidi to read the midi file or stream the IO.  Searching this site for midi produces plenty of results.  Here is an example of mine re creating actions from midi using smf

@batFINGER thank you! I was not aware, I shall do my research!


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When in render mode, my objects don't show up
When I enter rendering mode, there is just a gray screen as the final render, with none of my objects showing. I tried to look up videos on YT but all of them were either old or older versions of blender. The UI is different from then so it's very confusing to me as to how I'm going to make my objects show in the rendering mode.

Are you rendering with your graphics card? are you using cycles or eevee.

I am using evee.

Is your graphics card compatible with blender?

The minimum requirements for Blender 2.8 can be found here: https://www.blender.org/download/requirements/

For starters, make sure that your objects are enabled to be visible in render and viewport. Also make sure enough light is in your seen for you to be able to see them.


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How do you make the hat transparent but show the parts that are colored in?
I was trying to figure how to make this black part on the head transparent and the one that isn't black not transparent. This is 2.80

Is the texture you're using transparent where the black is?

If you use Cycles and the black parts in a Image Texture, then you can use Mix Shader to use transparency.

The other way (with Image Textures) is just using Transarency of the Image (png file with transparency e.g.).