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How to transition to skin tone for lips inside blender
I am trying to create lips and hope the top part selected could transition to skin tone. I'm wondering if there's a way to do it without going to an external program to create the UV map. I've checked out these two answers and it works but I feel like there must be a way to do it inside blender? How do you know when to use UV maps as opposed to texturing?

Thanks!

I was surprised to be unable to find something great on SE to link you.
Here's how:

On the left, we have a monkey with two materials: white face and red lips.  How do we get from that to the monkey on the right, with blended lips?
We assign all of our mesh to a new material (I've called "blend"), and in that material, we use a black and white texture to mix between the two materials.  Then, we paint a black and white texture.  I used basic Blender texture painting.  Here, white indicates that we should be using the parameters for the lips, and black indicates we should be using the parameters for face.  Of course, you can reverse that if you want.
If you have more complicated materials than the simple diffuse shaders I'm showing, you might consider node grouping everything in those materials instead, for ease of setup.


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How to make node disappear

It seems to make the value node disappear while connecting it to group input. I've tried different combinations and have node wrangler on but I'm not sure how to get it. I'm also unclear as to exactly what it does, that you couldn't do without the shortcut. From this video.

First they use a Node Wrangler shortcut.  They're doing a Shift +  RMB and drawing a line over the two noodles coming out of the Value node.
This command combines the two noodles into a Reroute node that splits out to its two destinations.
Then they delete the Value node and bring a new input over from the Group Input.  Essentially they've recreated the Value node as a slider on the node group.

thank you! also funny and fitting those lines are called noodles.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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How to set parameters on objects position while animating?
I'm trying to animate a gun reload, and I'm very new to blender and animation. When I try to rotate the gun in a certain way, the parts start to move everywhere when I animate them. What can I do to confine the parts to their respective areas relative to surrounding objects?

What is hierarchy of your scene? You forgot to show the outliner.

Don't try to animate every single part by itself, this would lead to the need of lots of adjustments (so-called "counter-animation"), wich should always be avoided.
Instead, you have to build a correct hierarchy over your spare parts, something like set the rifle butt parent of trigger, sight, stack, ....
Then you start animating the butt with the "big" movements, then animate the trigger relatively to the butt ....
In a professional environment you would build an armature, parent each part of the gun to a bone, you would have all bones child of a Master bone, you could have some automatized or pre-recorded sets of movements ....
Lot of things to learn... Enjoy!

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


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How i can get so smooth sculpt
im watching YanSculpts on youtube and i can't see poligons in his Sculpt and i want my sculpt to look like his. Is it different matcap or sth else?

Did you try setting the object's shading to smooth?

@SamirRahamtalla It worked, thank you. Didn't know smooth shading works in sculpt mode too

In object mode set the shading to smooth in order to avoid seeing the individual polygons of the mesh when sculpting.
Blender 2.80:
To do this open the "Object" menu in the 3D viewport header and choose "Shade Smooth"
Blender 2.79:
In the 3D viewport press  T  to show the toolbar. In the "Tools" tab select "Smooth" under the Shading section.
Alternatively you can search for the operation "Shade Smooth" or just "Smooth" by pressing  Space  in 2.79 or  F3  in 2.8
Note Dynamic Topology has its own Smooth shading option for Sculpt mode which overrides this setting from other modes and should be set separately.

Note that Dynamic Topology has its own Smooth shading option for Sculpt mode which overrides this setting from other modes and should be set separately.


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How can I scale a UV Island within a precise border in my low-res texture?
I'm having a bit of a specific issue that I can't seem to find an answer to.
For context, I'm trying to apply a low-res pixel texture to a blocky (Minecraft) character model. However, this model has a high amount of subdivisions around the limb joints, i.e. the elbows and knees, to allow for smooth bending.
The result is that my arm's UV island looks like this:

The subdivisions around the joint are smaller in size than the size of 1x1 pixel. This means that if I use Snap to Pixels on this island, these tiny subdivisions become squished/distorted.
Is it possible to have this island fit the arm texture perfectly, without the subdivisions losing their original shape and proportions?
Any help would highly appreciated! :)

here is an idea, but just to warn you, I am taking advantage of the "ANY help would be highly appreciated."  Hope it is worth it :)
I have a simple repeating texture:

Now I have created an example mesh like your arm:

What I have done to the corner edges is I have selected them, hit ctrl-E, and select "Mark Seam."  Then I selected the entire mesh and hit "u", and then I selected from the drop-down, "unwrap."
I then applied the texture to the arm.  Now select the entire mesh, go to the UV image editor, select all of the mesh in the UV editor window, and scale it to the appropriate size.
The texture will not be aligned on each side, however.  I fixed this by aligning it manually.  This is how: you select one whole side at a time, move over to the UV image editor, select the mesh, and move it on the x and y axis.  This will change the position that the texture is on the mesh, as shown below.  Make sure, when moving the texture, that you are moving the mesh on the UV image editor window, and NOT on the 3D view window.

This is a lot more manual work, and I hope that I did not lose you.  If I did, please say so, and I will edit this post.  Here is the result you will get:

If this doesn't exactly apply to your problem, then don't feel bad to clue me in, and I will try to help.

Hey RBlong2us, thanks so much for the response! Although the effect you achieve is very close to what I need, unfortunately I think it's not quite the solution I'm looking for :( This way, even though the unwrap is lined up, you still need to scale it down manually, and as a result of that, you see that the pixels are not 100% flush with the face of the cube's edges. Essentially, my subdivisions arent pixel perfectly cut, but I just care about the scale of the UV island being pixel perfect. Any way to do this without distorting all the vertices(since my subdivisions/faces arent pixel perfect)?

Hey, Thanks for responding.  I think I might be able to figure out an idea.  Do you think you could upload your .blend file?  I'd like to take a crack at it!  If I figure out a solution, I can show you how I did it.

I'm curious: would you be willing to modify the texture to fix the problem?

OK, I need you to explain how the Snap to Pixels works.

I've made a finished test/placeholder texture so you can fiddle with it if you want, thanks so much for trying to help out with this, you're a legend. How do I send it to you? 2) It depends on how it would have to be changed, but I think so! 3) Snap to pixels is a function which, as the name implies, makes all the points making up a UV island snap to the corner of a pixel. Essentially this means that if the texture you supply to place the UV islands on is very low resolution, you can move the island on a grid the size of the pixels!

Could you upload the texture as a link?

https://imgur.com/AWrAQsU And here's also the .blend, so you can apply it to the model! https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Q5T3Pi1Vuuok51c1NqyQ3RQbq3m7himB/view?usp=sharing Let me know if there are any issues!

OK, I've got one problem at the moment;  i'm still using Blender 2.79, so when I download the file, I get a warning saying that it was "written with newer Blender binary (280.0)  expect loss of data!"  Can you copy the mesh and paste it in Blender 2.79?  If you no longer have 2.79 on your computer, don't worry about it.

Is there a reason you need all that subdivision, besides near the joints?  If not, I might have a suggestion.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Wq5319MHcSHNKS6u3Ha38oTDuHYD0DR7/view?usp=sharing Sorry about the late reply! Here's a 2.79 exported version just in case. All the subdivisions were made by the modeller and animator on our team, I believe they're necessary for more flexible cartoony animation, even on parts like the head and torso

Hey, I just looked at your new .blend file (Thanks for sending it!), and except for the UV unwrapping at the bottom of the character and between the legs, it looks great.  Could you clarify the problem?  Is the unwrapping between the legs and the bottom the problem?

Did you figure out the problem?

You could upscale the texture- if you're not using it in-game, it won't matter if you 2x or 3x it, so that 1x1 pixel becomes 2x2 or something larger


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BSP tree in blender
I'm working on a project in which I need to find out if there is polygon in the proximity of a point in space. I read somewhere that the binary space partition tree can be useful for this. I found a lot of theory but still, I don't understand how to implement it practically in Blender.
Can anyone give me a brief explanation, how to implement it or tell me if it is even useful for a problem that I'm dealing with, please?

The blender api provides such functionality, you can use KD-trees or BVH-trees to deal with relations in space. If you deal with heavy meshes use efficient data access to vert coordinates(use foreach_get())

I tried KD tree but it takes only points in space, I need to detect any if there is any part of face nearby. For areas with dense vertices, it worked but it did not work for large faces.

Then you need BVH tree to get the closest face and a distance to it.

Thank you, It is working. You helped a lot.


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Diffraction of a wave passing through double slits
I am trying to create an animation of a wave propagating and passing through a double slit to undergo diffraction. The effect is something similar to the image attached:
I have played with the wave modifier and dynamic paint (canvas for wave plane and brush for slit), but the wave will just propagate through the slit with no observable effect:

I would appreciate any hints into how to achieve this effect.

Quality is butchered by gif format

You will need 3 Dynamic Paint objects

Canvas
Highly subdivided Plane with this settings:

Most important thing here is to set Timescale to 0.10 and Speed to 5. I don't know why but this way whole simulation is more stable.
Collision object
This is just a Brush with Waves > Type > Reflect Only

Wave generator
Animated Cylinder Brush with Waves > Type > Depth Change. Also you can crank up Factor and Clamp Waves. Seems like these options are producing smoother result.

Blend file
Here is file with used material and everything else:

The question is tagged 'dynamic paint' and there is already a very good answer about that by cgslav.
This solution uses a shader node tree.

Slits are located by two empties. One is moving to vary the effect (but this is not mandatory of course) and value node is keyed with frame number in order to produce the wave effect.
The overall node setting is the following:

On top, 3 parameters which correspond to:

A keyed value which is equal to the current frame
Wave speed
Wave frequency

On left, coordinates inputs, and from top to bottom:

Shaded object coordinates
Empty1 coordinates
Empty2 coordinates

Empties coordinates are added to the shaded object coordinates as this will reflect the empties locations.
If we don't want empties, 'vector' input from the 'sine' node groups can be used to locate the slits directly.
The two 'sine' result are then added and recentered to [0, 1] (they could be between [-2, 2] so we multiply by 0.25 and shift by 0.5.
The 'sine' node group:

It calculates the delta between the two vectors so that we can have it length (dot + sqrt).
Multiply frame by speed and add it to the length and multiply this result by the frequency.
Finally it takes the sinus (or cosinus) of it.


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Rays emanating from a point on the surface
I am trying to create an effect in cycles (like the attached photo), where points on the surface emit rays (like god-rays). I have tried adding a spot light at the location where I want this, along with a principled volume to the world (setting the density to ~0.1). However, the whole scene becomes foggy and the effect is not really produced.
Can someone please show me a way to create this (just the rays)?

Volume scatter can be even lower than 0.1 try 0.05 or less, also make the light size small and increase the power.

You could use a simple box for the volume with the following texture:

Awesome :) My I ask to share also blend (sure not problem to reconstruct from image, just as time saver). Thank you

@Secrop Thanks for the solution. Could you explain a bit what the 'Normalize' and 'Length' are supposed to do?

@koroma, the 'Normalize' just makes every coordinate to be it's projection onto the unit sphere (the ray like stuff). 'Lenght' is just used as a falloff.

@vklidu, blend file long gone. just did it to illustrate, and one can do it in less than 5 minutes.


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How to smooth the face after boolean modifier applied?
The face is not smooth out after I applied boolean modifier and after shade smooth.

Try the subdivision surface modifier

The ngons create artifacts, try this solution (quads only):


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How to? Smoke Simulation Pressurized Steam
Can anyone suggest the best method of creating Pressure Steam in Blender? I have tried Mantaflow with little luck.
here is a source image I am trying to emulate.
thank you all.

try using particles

That's my next best bet at this point.

try giving a shot to emberGen, then you can export the volumes to blender


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Using Space Mouse Pro on Google Virtual Machine
I'm trying to set up my Space Mouse Pro to work with my nvidia-gaming-windows-server-2019-4-vm on Google Cloud. I have managed to connect it using USB Network Gate and it is detected by Windows Server, however not by Blender.
In device manager it appears as 3D connexion Space mouse pro. In the general tab of the properties window under Location, it figures under Location 0 instead of a COM port.
I'm not sure if Blender scans from COM ports when initializing and maybe that is why it's not finding it.
Any thoughts what I could try?

A COM port? How old is your computer?

Hi Lukasz,
Even though they’ve fallen out of use, all connections by either USB or FireWire are termed COM ports as the designation still applies. Since there are many kinds of peripherals one can attach to a computer, COM port assignation is carried out by software and, because the COM port is virtual and not hardware, the assignation of COM port numbers can extend for any number of digits (COM255 for example).
Programs that manage microcontrollers however, usually search for these peripherals between COM1 and COM8 (the original allotment for hardware serial ports for PCs).

If you connect a microcontroller to a PC via a serial‐to‐USB interface, the computer will assign it the next available virtual COM port which, as stated before, can be well above COM8. Given this, the program that manages said device will be unable to find it unless you manually reassign the COM port numbers.


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How to twist object maintaining uniform section?
I have a long slender 'cylinder' with the following section that I'm trying to twist about the length (z-axis)

I've tried both the Lattice and Simple Deform modifiers but the center becomes thin like it's being stretched out.

It's what you would expect if you twisted an existing object but I'm looking for something more like a column of an old building.  This picture is not exactly what I want but close enough to illustrate the goal.

I've only been using Blender for a few weeks so I apologize if this is super simple.

Your topology lacks some horizontal edge loops, that's why it shrinks on its middle, so go in Edit mode, CtrlR then scroll (or +) to increase the amount of edge loops, then let's twist again!

That worked perfectly! So simple. Thank you.


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Adding Color to an edge
I'm trying to do a youtube tutorial and it involves making cupboards in a wall. What I did was make loop cuts matching my reference image to carve out cupboards but I want to make it look like there's space between the cupboards. Is there a way to give an edge color? Or is there another way I could be doing this. Thanks! I'll include a screenshot.

"Mark Sharp" provides sharpness to the edges its under  EditMode-Edge-Mark Sharp

you can't give color to an edge, but if you slightly bevel the edge you'll have a face and you can give color to the face

.. and the bevel / bevel modifier has a material index setting, so you could color with that, if you wanted to

Thank you very much for the solutions!


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How to add background image?
I want to add a background image to a render through the compositing, nodes but I can't seem to figure it out. How can I do this?

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/38333/background-image-shows-in-front-of-3d-objects-not-behind-them/38334#38334

https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/38464/92768


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Completely fill the bottom of an object that has holes (including the holes)
I 3D scanned an object, which created a base that I want to keep but that has holes going through it. I don't mind them at the top but I want to create a (semi) flat bottom, so the object can properly "sit" on another object.
The bottom looks similar to this (the original one is much more complex of course and the holes aren't perfect circles):

What I've tried:
Loop select the rectangle, press alt + f - this creates a bottom that doesn't connect to the circles properly:

I deleted the new faces and tried this instead:

Select 3 vertices each of the border and the holes
Select > Select Loops > Edge Loops - this selected the edges of the rectangle and the border of all 3 circles.
alt + f - this filled everything between the rectangle's border and the holes but not the holes themselves.

"Edge Loops" doesn't work on the circles anymore, which might be fine in this example as I can just easily select its vertices in more or less one go with the "select box" but my real object is a lot more complex and it would take a while to select all of them for just one of the holes (let alone all 3).
How do I fill the whole area, while properly connecting the vertices of the circles too?

What you are trying to achieve Will confuse blender how to work with Normals. It will generates a lot of issues. You should fill cylinder from top and bottom part separetly with some distance to be seen by blender as faces with Normals pointing out (colored blue in Normal Orientation overaly).

@vklidu I tried to fill the holes first but then Blender won't automatically select everything around it, which leaves me with the same problem: An area the vertices of which I have to select by hand to fill it, just this time it's the area directly connected to the outer rectangle, not the inside of the holes. What do you mean with separetly with some distance?

I don't have a solution for you ... just a note.
What you are trying to achieve will confuse blender how to work with Normals. It will generates a lot of issues especially with shading.
If I understood you right you want to fill hole by face that is at the same time part of bottom surface.

If you enable under Overlays > Normal Orientation you can see your model is not all blue (Blue = normal direction is pointing out, Red = normal direction is pointing inside). This will generate issues in shading since blender will twist a shadow at the place of connection between (in/out face direction).
Probably that is why it is hard to fill it. Probably blender is smart enough and tries to fit that in a right way.
You should fill bottom cylinder and bottom part separetly with some distance to be seen by blender as faces with Normals pointing out.

To keep some distance I mean to avoid another issue - Z-fighting (face shares the same space with another face).
Answer how to close 3D scanned mesh is not simple and easy to do.
I just wanted to warn you - your proposal will generates problems and is what you really need.

Helper
Probably you can find helpful addon 3D-Print Toolbox ... if you click Solid under Result you can see how many edges are non-manifold. Clicking on that result will select all these edges in viewport.

The actual model I need this for isn't a simple object like in the image above but it's a 3D scanned model, so editing it is quite hard because of the sheer amount of vertices. This model is kind of similar to the image but there's one difference: There aren't any vertical edges like with the cylinders, instead there's a slope that ends at the same level the surrounding rectangle ends. - kind of like a circular skate park (image).

If I slightly change the height, then the model doesn't look like the actual thing anymore and I also can't extend the outer rectangle to give a bit more height for the same reason (plus, stretched textures). I don't want to 3D print this model at the moment (I could always add a bit more height then as the texture doesn't matter), so I won't have to worry about "manifoldness" for now (plus, there'd probably be more "non-manifold" problems anyway).

I took into account it is a 3D scanned complex object (sure its always crazy to fix those surfaces). Would be helpful to share screen of your real model and mark areas you want to fill. From your screens and description I understood you want to create a closed mesh. BTW addon is mentioned not for 3d print purpose, but it selects hole edges of your complex mesh that is hard to select manually (like you already mentioned).

For fixing my problem, which was the opposite of yours: I needed the holes to stay there and I pressed F instead of Alt+F. For your solution try just pressing F, which is a mesh error, but that seems to be what you are trying to achieve.


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Grease pencil drawing underneath rough sketch?
so I've tried two different times to follow this worthikids tutorial for basic 2d animation but I keep hitting the same roadblock.
I get to the part where I've drawn a rough sketch, and then you're supposed to add a new blank grease pencil to 'ink' over the roughs but it always draws underneath instead. I'm clearly doing something wrong but I don't know what.
(green is my rough layer and grey is my ink)

I tried adding a stroke instead of blank but it still does the same thing. I'm really lost here.

There are many ways to get the result.
The "standard" method is to create Layers, where the upper layers are in front and the bottom ones are back (this happens in default mode, where the strokes depth order is set to "2D layers").
Every layer has its opacity setting, and in edit mode you can select and move strokes between layers.
In edit mode you can also arrange the strokes internal order of appearance.
In your method, using 2 different grease pencil objects, the strokes lie in the same exact place and they conflict each other (this is called Z-fighting), you should move backward one of the objects (or the single strokes), but you would get parallax shifts when working in perspective view.


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Why is my texture blurry on my model?
So I'm 100% brand new to blender. I've 3D modeled in Cinema 4D for class, but nothing major. Anyhow-
I'm trying my hand at making a PSX/N64 reminiscent low-poly model just for fun, but as I've entered into the texturing phase, I've noticed my textures are kind of blurry & not as sharp as I'd prefer. Obviously with the style, I want my textures to be pixelated, but they don't look as clean as the tutorials I've been following. I've posted some pictures to hopefully help resolve my issue.

Hello, what the resolution / file format of your input texture ?

as @Gorgious says, this is surely due to low resolution of the image texture, If you created it in Blender, default  size is 10241024, try double it to 20482048 or even higher and try what fits your model the best way

you've chosen the Closest option in your Image Texture so the result should stick to your picture, maybe pack your image and share your file? https://pasteall.org/blend/

@moonboots https://pasteall.org/blend/e8d75938c13440439f27e04f03fb785f Is this what you were asking for?

@Gorgious My image texture is 256 x 256 & I'm painting it directly in blender. I've seen it done this way before, but I'm unsure where I deviated. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMplVXdI26M&t=0s&ab_channel=Miziziziz Here's what I'm referencing.

@Milo Thanks but you haven't packed your image so we can't see any texture. Also, 256x256 is very small, are you sure your black icon is not blurry?

@moonboots Oops, my mistake. Like I said, still new to this. I think it's packed this time: https://pasteall.org/blend/4efbeda189194de1a4cd8d8da6550056
I restarted my texture so it looks a little different than above, but I added a similar X to the top of his head to help illustrate the issue. I think the problem is my texture is blurry, but I'm not sure if increasing the resolution would take away from the PSX vibe I'm going for?

I think the texture is blurry because of the falloff of the brush you used in blender. Look into the tool properties, there is a falloff property which is smooth by default, change it to "Constant"

it works fine except in Solid mode where the pixels are blurred, there must be a setting somewhere. Difference between Solid and Material Preview: https://zupimages.net/up/21/43/ropf.jpg

I can't find any solution, there may be one but if it's not the case then you can't trust the Solid view mode, you need to switch to Material preview or Rendered preview mode to see your texture as it is supposed to be. Make sure that the Image Texture is set to Closest of course.

I second the fall-off, changing to Constant will help here

Since Blender 2.80, setting your texture's interpolation from Linear to Closest is the way to go:

Prior to 2.80, switching to Closest instead of Linear in the Image Texture node has no effect in solid view, a pixel will automatically be blurry.
What you can do is switch to Material Preview to work on your texture, in that case the Closest option will be taken into account. It will also be taken into account in the Rendered preview mode and when you'll render.

I had a similar problem but to me the cause was simply that I had depth of field activated on my camera which I forgot to turn off, and it made it look as if it was a texture problem because only that 1 object was visible in my viewport in that moment!


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The Hair dynamics makes the hair 'seperate' or 'float' away from model, it is my first time using particle

I am very new to blender, I hope I'm not a burden, I am following this tutorial. but I am trying to go for a different style, I guess maybe a messed up? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgmJ7rLGvCg&list=PLunylD9CvgoSTCVAOD5hHEFlXSGhvVDVZ&index=4

sorry if the theme is too bright

Could be the collision. Have you applied the scale to your model? (press Ctrl+A and select Scale in Object mode)

Thank you, It worked, normally I don't think people use particle for hair but It caught my eye and I'm already used to particle. Thanks


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How to give random motion to particles with geometry nodes within the object
This is the tutorial to morph particles between meshes with geometry nodes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pimbaEE9cjQ
now I want to move one step ahead: can we give random motion to particles, after morphing to final shape within the boundaries of same shape instead of rest them steady at the end in the form of shape, with the help of geometry nodes ?
I'm asking here after trying and searching a lots of tutorial out there (I found none related to my above requirement)
Thank you.

Instead of rest them steady means you want to keep them moving around? I don't know if you have come across this tutorial by Joey Carlino, but it seems to me that this could be what you want or at least be a starting point: Moving Points with Geometry Nodes

what version of Blender are u using?

@GordonBrinkmann yes it's almost near. thank you for suggesting me that tutorial.

@Chris i'm using blender version 3.1 (latest at the time of submitting this answer), and you have given exact solution to me.

with this node setup:

you can get this result:

what it does:
Distribute points distributes the points on the original geometry (cube) and a mixamo character. Then the positions of mixamos character will be transferred to the cubes "channel" and then set via the mix node so you can animate the points between cube and mixamo. The last set position node handles the "wiggling" animation. It starts at frame > 40 (that's when the movement of points from cube to mixamo are done) and the noise texture delivers the random values for the wiggle movement which will be scaled by the vector multiply.

yes, i exactly needed this thing. thank you very much for spending your time for me.

You are welcome. Actually it needed 5 mins because I made this already  it is as always in life: if you made it already and you know what you are doing : it’s easy. If you are new and have no idea how it works: you might need months to do it or even give up…♂I gave up 1000 of times in Blender because I didn’t make it work…but fortunately I often got help here

it is true indeed. i am noob to the geometry nodes. and as you said me as well can always get help from intelligent people like you in here. thank you again.

i am noob in lots of areas of Blender too... ;) it's nearly to big to know everything...


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exporting 23.98 fps as a png sequence in blender 2.8
I'm trying to export my animation in 23.98 fps as a png or openEXR sequence in blender 2.8 however when I import it to a composition software such as after effects it says that the sequence is at 30 fps. However, when I export an AVI file instead of a sequence format it exports as 23.98 fps.

Standalone image files have no concept of frame rate

Inside After Effects you could right click on your image sequence and select  "interpret footage".
With that you can change the frame rate.
Hope that helps.
Good luck


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how do i rotate an object in particular angle by importing the values from a csv file and animating at different frame time?
I want to rotate an object at different angles at different frame time by importing the values of angle from a csv file. the file contains a number of angles which i want to allocate as keyframes at diffenet times.

Please show you completed work in Blender with a screen capture at minimum. Please state your months/years of experience with Blender, Python programming language and Blender API. You may also wish to show some of your file data for clarity. Its useful to know if there are 8 rows of data or 8888

If you have already read in the file please show your Python. Typically in this scenario .. Step 1 is to read in a file .... or just copy and paste the data in the blender text file window, if this is compatible with your needs. Step 2 is to use the data. So by many peoples reasoning these could be two separate questions. This is a relatively small programming project.

Sometimes people view these requests as a tutorial request either in Blender or Python or Blender API. Other times people randomly provide you with a complete solution. At BSE your typical question should not be a tutorial request. We want to see some of your completed work to show your effort


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Using blender from a remote machine
I used to stream blender via Steam or TeamViewer, until recently. I tried to use it, and it only showed blank screen. I tried turning hardware encoding on and off, didn't solve anything.
Is there anyone who is pulling this off ? If so, how ? Or anyone knows what might be the problem ?
(Windows 10 on both machines, main righ - Amd ryzen 5 2600, gtx 1070, 16 gb ram)

The problem was, TeamViewer.
I have installed some monitor driver because of it (which also prevented me from changing brightness of my monitor), after realizing this, I changed back, and the Blender worked ever after.
That's it, TeamViewer.


text:
Add functionality to existing commands
I want to update my import .fbx, so it would replace and remove all duplicate materials. I have found how to do the action at: link
However, I don't really want to create my whole custom import .fbx that would basically do the same thing as the regular import, but also execute this at the end.
Is there a way I could piggyback my custom code onto existing functions? Meaning my addon script would only be:
def at_import_fbx_end():
    do_my_stuff()

Or something similar to this.

Is it possible to locate and reuse Blender's own code for importing FBX files? It's all open source and - with UI elements at least - it's often quite easy to find the source code for it. EDIT: I've found something that might help so I'll write an answer.

Great suggestion. I was able to locate the files, and this will make the whole ordeal easier, and it will work, but it will be a separate import. Checking the code, I wasn't able to locate a function called, or event, or something, so I don't think I can just piggyback off of it

You can override operators to add logic before or after calling it. It's a bit hacky but could work

You mean directly editing the source code to include my custom decorator? I don't see any other way to do this, and I would very much like to avoid editing source code, as that's not really ideal, I'd rather just make the new import button.

You can piggyback on an operator by declaring another operator that uses the same bl_idname. It's a common gotcha that we can use to our advantage. It's a hack and it might mess up things when you unregister, but nothing that you can't repair in a few minutes by replacing the script files.
This script will for instance apply a translation to all imported objects :
import bpy
from bpy_extras.io_utils import ImportHelper

import io_scene_fbx

class SimpleOperator(bpy.types.Operator, ImportHelper):
    bl_idname = "import_scene.fbx"  # Overwrite the base operator
    bl_label = "FBX override"

    def execute(self, context):
        # You can do things before importing
        io_scene_fbx.ImportFBX.execute(self, context)
        # You can do things after importing
        bpy.ops.transform.translate(value=(0, 0, 5))
        return {"FINISHED"}

# We steal the importer settings. However the display will be messed up :
SimpleOperator.__annotations__.update(io_scene_fbx.ImportFBX.__annotations__)

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

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(SimpleOperator)
    bpy.utils.register_class(io_scene_fbx.ImportFBX)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

LEGEN-dary. Exactly what I asked for, thank you. Any chance I can also add custom stuff to the existing import panel? BoopProperty to turn on or off this extra custom stuff?

And yes, when I was messing up with the original io_import_fbx, after unregistering it, I had to re-register the included FBX for it to work again.

Did some testing, and while I was able to add the check box into the import settings, I wasn't able to ignore it later on - it always got passed as keyword, and since it was extra, it threw an error

You can add properties to the operator and they will be displayed and work as they would normally. But In this case I couldn't do it specifically because of this line https://github.com/blender/blender-addons/blob/master/io_scene_fbx/init.py#L216 which dumbly relies on an exact sequence of argument names... https://github.com/blender/blender-addons/blob/master/io_scene_fbx/import_fbx.py#L2348-L2368 because when you add a property to the operator, it will also be added to self.as_keywords dictionary

One solution is to change this line in your blender install folder's scripts https://github.com/blender/blender-addons/blob/master/io_scene_fbx/init.py#L206-L207 and add your property name(s) to the list. I didn't test  but I assume it would stop throwing errors

Yes, I assume that would solve the issue, but I'd rather avoid that, since it's not just for me.

You can also completely copy/paste the execute in your operator and fix the error there. You'd have to redo it if the base code ever changed if you want to be up to date. And you'd need to from io_scene_fbx.import_fbx import load

At this moment, I could just completely copy paste the import part inside io_import_fbx, replace parts I like, and it would not break the menu as well. I think we've reached the end here, with multiple options and some tradeoffs. Thanks for your contribution

Happy to help ! Cheers

I just had a quick look and if you right click on any menu operator you can access certain shortcuts, including the Python command for it. See image:

(To enable this function, you need to enable Python tooltips in Interface preferences > Display > Python Tooltips)
So for this example, your script could start with bpy.ops.import_scene.fbx(), then you add do_my_stuff() afterwards. (I clicked the copy command from the shown UI button for that code)
It may be that in order to combine these in a way that works, you'll need to add a custom UI panel or something where you can choose which file to import and then let your code run, removing duplicate materials once you've imported it.
As far as I know, Blender does not contain any signals for finishing things like file imports or other processes.

(To enable this function, you need to enable Python tooltips in Interface preferences)

Thanks, I'll add that as a quick disclaimer just in case!

Just using the bpy.ops.import_scene.fbx() doesn't help much, as that's importing the files on your own. The issues is, that the existing importer already has plenty of presets, but is missing some (in this case, the duplicate materials).
That means I still have to copy the whole code of the import (as I want to keep all the possible import settings), and add my stuff on top of that.
https://github.com/blender/blender-addons/blob/master/io_scene_fbx/init.py


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How to Change the Origin when moving a Collection Instance
I have created an Collection Instance, when I try to move it, the origin(to snap at vertices or edges) is far away from the object, I want to set it.

In the image, the Collection Instance is selected, the cross is far away from the object and I can´t set it using "Set Origin to 3D Cursor"
What Am I missing?

Not the best solution, but in edit mode of objects, the origin point doesn't move.  Can you try moving the collection group in edit mode?

If you Right Click the collection and "Select Objects" it should allow you to do it then. But I'm not sure if this would solve your issue.

First Method : Set the origin in the base collection
To change the origin of a collection instance, you have to go to the object information panel, then the collections foldout and choose "set offset from cursor" with the drop-down popup on the right of the collection name.

Alternative method
Select the collection you want to use as an instance. Go to the collection properties (Collection icon in the properties editor) and change the X, Y, Z values.

Link to the docs
Here you also have access to two other options in the dropdown menu, Set Offset From Object, and Set Cursor to Offset.

Second Method : Set the origin in the collection instance
There is another way to do it as pointed out in the comments. Select the collection instance and type F3 to search for "Set Origin" and choose accordingly to your case. Alternatively go to Object>Set Origin.
Note that this will be a bit more work if your object's origin is not in the center of its geometry. You can still manually place your cursor and choose "Set Origin" "From Cursor".

WOW! I also want to add to this post ( since I had this issue come up again ) that the best way to do this I think is to just click on the instanced collection and set the origin point to geometry and then boom... finished :)

@CameronT0101 I did'nt realize you could do that ! Strangely the "Set Origin" option doesn"t come up when you right click with a collection instance selected, but you can still use the F3 search bar to get it or by the regular menu. I'll update my answer

Yes, I did forget to mention that I have power snapping pies installed ( Master Xeon 1001 add - on ) so for me it came up and worked instantly. Anyways, this was a very happy mistake and I hope it helps others!


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How I can change Blender to the "blue mode"? The cube is always transparent

In this tutorial Blender is in the mode that I want, but I cant find the theme.

Do you mean that you need the edges to be blue color?

I think the question is really: how do you make the cube appear transparent, so that you can see the background image whilst editing?
It is simply that in the screenshot from youtube, the user is in edit mode (press 'tab') with wireframe display mode (press 'z') and all vertices selected (press 'a').

You can change Blender Themes colors under "File>User Preferences>Themes" in Blender 2.7X or "Edit>User Preferences>Themes" in Blender 2.8.
This screenshot is from Blender 2.79

Make sure you select 3D View, then scroll down to find "Active Vert/Edge/Face", here you can change the color and opacity of selected mesh elements.
Same steps in Blender 2.8, except that user preferences is under Edit drop-down menu, and the panel will look different.


text:
Rotating in blender, Plane's Propeller
I've been thinking or searching for solution about this, I've been trying to make the propeller spin but for some reason
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcD4-3UVCSI

Someone else has had this problem just t'other day!  See here - https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/137781/how-to-animate-a-prsopeller-on-the-axis-of-rotation

https://blender.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2449/what-is-the-problem-with-posting-an-image-or-link-and-asking-how-do-i-do-this

Thanks for the info, im new here so im kind of not use to it hehehehe.


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Blender 2.80: Color changing in render result
I'm new to Blender
I want to make an simple animation so I deleted the light and using world light. However, after rendering all my images colors become very faint compared to render preview.
How can I fix the render result to looks like my render preview?

Welcome to Blender.SE! Could you post an screenshot of the situation? Which render engine are you using?

Don't forget to add the screenshots with the built-in tools. Also, "did all the things needed" is really, really on the weak side of the description scale.

Try to add an Emission node to your material. here is an example of setup https://imgur.com/a/yRijNIa

I fixed my problem. Thank you guys a lot. Its because I was looking at LookDev mode and used Cycles engine instead of Eevee.
@metaphor yeah.. I'll try to describe better and add screenshots if I have any problems in future. Thank you


text:
Is it possible to transform an armature into a curve?
I have a tunnel that I want a camera to go through, and want to replace the armature with a curve so it moves exactly on that path. I'd like the camera to also rotate to follow the bends of the tunnel. Using cycles.
Appreciate it, the problem I'm having now is that the camera follows the path, but after each turn, kind of snaps back or bumps, like a recoil of sorts. I reduced the size of the turns, but it still happens. And within the graph editor I can't change the interpolation mode, it's all greyed out. The only reason it looks kind of decent is because the camera is set to 15mm. Any ideas?

sometimes it's jerky because the curve's resolution is not high enough but it doesn't seem to be the case here... maybe share your file? https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/

Yes, you can make the armature match the position of a bezier curve with a spline IK constraint.  Setting it up is a lot like making an IK constraint but with a couple extra steps.
1) Setup your bones.  It looks like you have done that already, though be warned: since it is an IK constraint it works from the tip of the hierarchy towards the Root, not the other way around.
2) Add a bezier curve and add the number of control points you want in the form of edge vertices.
3) Add some control objects for the curve.  Many people just add some empties for this purpose, but there is nothing stopping you from just making armature bones.  However: it is not a good idea to use bones from the Armature that is being controlled by the Spline IK, as it will likely create a cyclical dependency.
4) Hook those vertices of the curve to the control objects. (go into the curve's edit mode, click a vertex, ctrl+H, choose appropriate option).
5) Apply the Spline IK constraint to the last bone of the chain.  Configure "Chain Length" to match the number of bones in the curvy part of the armature.  Play with the other settings as you see fit.
When done, you should be left with a curvy poseable armature controlled with your control objects.  You can mess with the control handles of the curve by rotating and scaling your control objects.

The rig shown here is a bit more complicated, since I did want bones to control how this armature worked.  It involves creating two armatures, one parented to another, and the top level armature controls everything (including the Bezier curve).

This saved me, thanks! I got the camera following the path created by the armature now. How do I get the camera to rotate and move with the tunnel? Right now I'm using the "follow path" constraint on the camera

This question here has a few options you might want to try: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/46888/camera-follow-path-and-change-rotation.  -- If you found this answer helpful feel free to mark it as the solution

Appreciate it, the problem I'm having now is that the camera follows the path, but after each turn, kind of snaps back, like a recoil of sorts. I reduced the size of the turns, but it still happens. And within the graph editor I can't change the interpolation mode, it's all greyed out. Any ideas?

You probably will need to ask a new question for that


text:
Making faces with vertices
When I want to create the faces between bottom of the handle and the body with manner that you select vertices and make faces, I get a problem that when I want to select the last vertices, the hole vertical vertices of that point get selected as you can see.

Probably you selected wrong edge loop and your aim was to select the opened one at the end of the handle. In that case move the mouse cursor more towards the center of one of edges of that opened loop while Alt+ left clicking.

The vertices you selected can only be selected when you press Alt+LMB so you might've accidentally pressed Alt while selecting the vertex. To select multiple vertices, you need to select one vertex, press and hold Shift, select next vertex, and so on.


text:
Autodetect RTX Render Cores in Blender 2.79 (Master)
To be brief. I'm rendering relatively small scenes (mostly crystal structures) in blender, and I recently got an RTX 2060. Interestingly, when I use the default settings (with auto-tile size) Blender 2.79 indicates that my GPU has 12 threads. This results in noticeably worse performance as shown below:
12 Threads = 2:59.02
1 Thread = 0:56.30

Does anyone know why this is the case? Is it a case of hardware misidentification? The difference is pretty significant.
Thanks

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/63151/why-does-cycle-rendering-only-use-one-core-from-an-amd-gpu

This is not what I'm asking. I realize that CPUs render with multiple cores, while GPUs tend to render with a single "super"-core. What's happening is that Blender is rendering with 12 threads with my GPU by default, which I didn't think was possible. Is it subdividing the single large GPU core into multiple smaller units, each with its own dedicated VRAM?

@BesselFunct Pretty interesting. I've tried it on RTX 2080 and there are no differences but as well Blender has in Auto-Detect values from CPU by default.


text:
Where did Interpolation Modes go in Grease Pencil Blender 3.1?
Just upgraded to Blender 3.1 and cannot for the life of me find the different interpolation modes in Grease Pencil mode. There used to be an options menu with different interpolation modes (sinusoidal, linear, quadratic, etc.) but I can't find it anymore.

As far as I can tell you have to go to the Grease Pencil view of the Dope Sheet, hover over the dope sheet part of the display and use the T key to bring up the menu.

don't remember that menu, but after doing ctrl+shift+E you can change the mode in the last action pop-up (bottom left of the viewport), and then it'll use that by default

Both of these methods work. I ended up rolling back to 2.91 as I know where the menu is. I'm hopeful they'll bring the dialogue back.


text:
Non-manifold, bad contig Edges and Sharp Edges on simple basic geometry
I have had issues trying to produce clean geometry for 3D printing for what is simple geometry. I check wether my mesh is clean or not using the 3D printing addon. Here is a step by step simple reproductible example starting with the defautl view to explain the non-manifold, bad contig Edges and Sharp Edges issues I have had and don’t understand :
From the default start:

I change units from meter to milimeter
I modify the view Clip start from 100mm to 0.1mm
I delete the default cube
I create a 10mm cube
I add a curve > Circle radius 3mm location X 0mm Y 0mm Z 20mm

I do a knife-project cut through

I select the two round faces in edit mode and press 2 to have all the
verticies of the two faces previously selected.
I then bridge edge   loop them
I select all the verticies of the top circle and make a face (F key), notice below the 48 non manifold edge already because of that face:

Maybe it is because the top round face makes a zero volume if that object was to be printed right now? So I do an extrude 10mm on the three “top faces” to produce the final piece, I should then have a fully solid perfectly printable piece but below are three screenshots of the issues this mesh has:

What did I do wrong for those issues to appear on such basic geometry ?

I think I don't understand at all what happens from screenshot 3, but if you really selected all vertices of the top edge loop surrounding and holding the hole and make the face of them that surely will be non-manifold geometry no matter how you extrude it afterwards. Note that not only infinitely flat surfaces are non-manifold but infinitely flat junctions as well (e.g extrusion from selected edges on the screenshot 3). It might be easier to answer if you show desired result as well

@Mr Zak : that explains some of it. How would you transform screenshot 3 into screenshot 4 properly then (which visually is -if it were that simple   - putting a cube on top of it) ?

So you are saying that since you make the face (frame 68-70 on your gif) after the rest has been extruded (or are you doing something else that looks like extrude?) then it’s ok since it will not be infinitely flat because “attached” to a volume ? I tried and still get (although it can be one-click corrected with “make manifold”) Non-Manifold Edge.
On your gif  what are you doing frame 231-238 ?
Also how do you select so fast the vertices (frame 52-54) and the faces (frame 86-89) ?
I’m afraid I didn’t quite get it although looking frame by frame at your gif. Could you elaborate ?

It is not important how is geometry created; rather the end result is. I was trying to show one example of what I thought you want to get in the gif because I wasn't generally sure if that's what you actually aim to get. What is shown in that gif can be shown in this sequence as well; text explains action for the selected geometry. Note that shown example is easier to get by just boolean cutting cylinder from a cube (which is not coming through cube)

What you describe in the sequence is what I understood after analyzing your gif. Even though I can get this geometry (the one in the gif) perfectly manifold using the Make Manifold function of the 3D Printing addon, it bothers me I can't get it manually, and I don't see what made those edges manifold since the look exactly the same before and after. This makes me dependant on an advanced tool for a simple geometry I don't understand how to make right manually, which I dislike :(

Probably the intruded face (the one in the bottom of resulting extrusion) has its normals inverted, it was for me. Select it and Ctrl+N or recalculate normals (better enable normals orientation preview to be sure). Recalculating normals is something easy and quick I didn't mention. It's one more reason why subtracting cylinder from cube with Boolean would be better option to model this object

That was Indeed a normals issue, thank you, if you can elaborate it into an answer I will accept it.

It would be helpful for anyone searching for similar problem if you add the answer to your own question and describe what exactly did you do to solve the issue in some steps

I had a similair issue, although the shape had no inside-outside errors, still it was solved by  :    reset vectors-  recalculate outside
I'm guesing that while editing normals can get distorted, not alike the shape you see.


text:
How to change parametric object attributes after creation
Once a cylinder is created, how to go back to its attributes ?
"Vertices, Cap Fill type etc.."

You will have one opportunity to adjust the parameters on the newly created object by pressing F6 blender 2.79b or the lower right properties box in 2.8. If you later on need to adjust it, just redo the object.

Strange... F3 for me in 2.79b is repeat history


text:
Increase the length of the z-buffer
I am using the examples already given here, i.e.
Convert depth/z value to RGBA
The problem I am facing here is to increase the depth. If one sees clearly a blue pattern starts from a close distance of the camera. I need to push it further. Please
I have tried changing the values of the nodes but it is not working.

Is it important to you to map to the full 32 bit resolution? I don't think your reference answer is actually doing that.. the A is not independent, it could be calculated from the R,G and B, and so is redundant?

@RobinBetts: I am very new to Blender, if you can please elaborate your suggestion more? I didn't understand how to map to the full 32bit resolution, and what exactly to map?

Please describe in detail what you actualy want to achive.

@J.Doe: I need to show the depth of field in a way that an object nearer to the camera should be seen as red and furthest from the camera should be violet. But in the middle, there should be a transition of colour.
E.g. as the object starts moving away from the camera it should start to turn from red to orange, then to yellow, then to green, then to blue, then indigo and at the furthest point, it turns to violet.
At the moment the object suddenly turn violet(blue in my case) just as soon as it moves a little back from the camera.

@J.Doe:
If you see in the first GIF, in the link I have attached, just a little distance away from the camera monkey face turns blue. I want to increase this distance.

Your setup is fine. You take depth Values (a number of some value per pixel representable as an grey scale image). And dependent on this number you chose a color from the HSL spectrum.
So you just need to scale your depth value right to controle for which depth wich color should apere.

Thank you so much the help :)

Just one question. If need to the same on the material rather than on the view. Then?


text:
Insert mutiple rigged characters as a crowd
I have a soccer stadium and id like to insert a crowd. I have rigged maximo assets. Theres 45k seats lol whats the best quickest way to insert? So far i can only add via duplicate onto an empty and continually doing so. With 45k seats that wud take me years

I'd suggest taking a look at http://crowdmaster.org/. I haven't used it myself but it seems to have been used by some established blender studios so is likely to be reasonable.


text:
Rigging armature
In the below image I have my character on the right and I have an armature on the left
The armature is an FBX from mixamo which has a kicing movement, how can I apply this armature to my character? If i do join it says ''no mesh data found''

You can't join them, you have to use parenting. Select the mesh first, then the armature and hit ctrl+p. But probably you will have a better result, if you upload your character to Mixamio, then downlad it rigged.

this armature has been downloaded from mixamo, i dont want to upload character to mixamo because the textures go missing and ive used all sorts to fix it and it does not work


text:
keyframe object in and then out of scene
Imagine I am going to take a gun out my pocket and then fire
I can keep the gun next the side of the pocket. How do I keep this out of the scene but then into the scene as my character picks the weapon?
In any other instance where one would like an object to not appear in the scene but then appear. How does one do this?

You can keyframe visibily properties (object props>visibility)

How do I do this?

Know how to use the timeline? If yes, select the frame, then place the mouse upper the visibility prop check box (either render or viewport) and use 'i' key to insert keyframe (or use rmb on it).

so when he keyframes have been insertng, go to the top right, click the eye icon next to the object. continue keyframing, then click eye icon and continue keyframing?

Not this one... will explain in a minute

@Kamran Ali, under the object panel, under visibility, animate the checkbox for show in renders.

Object visibility can be animated (keyframes):

Two visibilities: one for viewport and one for rendering. You may need to keyframe twice.
To add a keyframe, place the timeline where you want then change the visibility checking or unchecking the visibility, then:

Either place the mouse cursor on the check box and use I
Or use RMB on the check box and choose 'insert keyframe'

So you can blink an object:

What version of Blender is this? In 2.92, when I look under the Visibility section from the Object Tab, I get the checkboxes you show, but not the sliders.

Sliders? You mean the green lines? I've added them to point out the checkboxes in the screenshot.

OH! I thought those were variable controls! Okay. Well, that still leaves the question I would have had, then, which is how to keyframe the gradual loss of visibiltiy over time, in sort of a fade effect.

@R-800, for fading in or out, that should be done with the shaders. No other way, I think.


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How to keyframe child of constraint in and out
I am dribbling a soccer ball using child of constraint. In the image I would like to keyframe the ball where the arrow in drawn but when I try to keyframe it it still follows the child path, How do I fix this?

I see you have the 'Influence' slider keyframed at 1.00.  Is it also keyframed down to zero somewhere along the timeline? If so what happens?  When you say it's following the 'child path', what path is that?  Experience has taught me it's best to duplicate the ball, remove all constraints, animation, and parentage, and switch to that.  There's no complications then. You can still switch back to the other if needed, or to any other duplicate if need be.

when the influence is 0 the ball either stays in its original location or at keyframe 80 if i change influence to 0 it goes back to its original location. The child path is the left foot. regarding duplication, lets say I duplicate, what do I do then?

It will need a step by step explanation.  I'll put an answer together.

Whilst your project has the ball constrained as a Child of' the parent character (or foot) I've instead placed physics properties on the ball for the initial bounce and returned to physics when it enters the goal square.
Exactly the same process applies though and this will always work - give you a completely 'free-from-constraint'  ball with which to do as you wish.

The video (above) is what happened when kicked with the physics in play and for whatever reason would not behave as needed.
The second (below) when employing a duplicate to bypass the physics altogether..

The procedure -
When kicked, at the frame the foot comes into contact with the ball, stop the animation and duplicate the ball.
Immediately remove the copy's constraints, physics, animation, parentage, everything, so you end up with a free and unconstrained mesh.
Keyframe the copy's location and rotation.
In the Outliner, keyframe the original ball to invisible and the copy to visible.
Go back to frame 1 and keyframe the copy's loc/rot again.
Also reverse the visual switching in the outliner and keyframe that. (the original is to be seen at frame 1, the copy to be invisible)
Animate the copy and send it into the goal square. (emulate a bounce or two?)
-===============-
Whilst unnecessary, for demo purposes here, the original (physics) ball is switched back as the copy crosses the goal threshold.
Similarly in your project, you can also switch back to the child-ball at anytime.
Switching back - At the frame required...
Move the player-character so the two balls are at the same location. (or close)  Use SH-S to set the 3D cursor to the selected duplicate, then select the original ball  and send it  to the 3D cursor's location. (SH-S again)
This will place both at precisely the same location.  From there it's a simple matter to rotate the child-ball in all 3 axis' until they're aligned again.  I've found it easier to use wireframe mode and "Normal" orientation for this.  Always be in ORTHO view.
-================-
When the balls are textured you have to ensure this is matched at the switch-back frame also -
An easy way to do this is -
Temporarily remove the original ball's smoothing and texture.  Reassign one face to a bright colour before duplicating.  At the switch-back frame rotate both balls so their mis-coloured faces match up.
-===============-
Switching can take place between the two balls as often as needed, all without fear of some constraint's apron strings mucking you around.
The monkey video below has been freely switched back and forth between physics and animation several times, plus throwing in a path constraint for good measure, all without a single glitch.  It's a basic workaround but it always works.
Monkey Blend file is available if you want that.

Thanks I will try this, what about dribbling the ball? How do I make it smoother by using child of constraint?

If you're asking how to smooth the dribbling with parentage, I've never tried it.  If you're asking for a smooth transition to the duplicate when the original is moving, then at the switch-over frame you have to start the animated ball off instantly at the same speed as the original. (i.e. experiment)  Don't set the keyframes to 'Linear' or you'll lose the adjustment handles in the Graph editor.  Instead use the launch (1st) handle to start it off at speed, not accelerate gradually.   If you're inexperienced I guess I can throw a video together, show how it's done.

Please show  a video as it will help translate everything youve said. Would that be ok?

OK, will do, give me a few days, I'm laid up with a bung leg at the mo...  Maybe I should apply a modifier or two on it.

Thanks boss. Will wait for it.

Just to add - the links will go down along with the comment in a month's time.

@josh sanfelici put up a good one here - https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/151002/how-to-use-root-motion-with-inverse-kinematics - You can bake a constrained object and dispense with the constraint, physics etc.  It will then behave exactly the same except it's instead, animated by keyframes.  i.e. the dribbling ball should still do it's thing but without the "Child-of" constraint. I've tried it and it works well. If it works for you it's well worth an upvote.


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FBX option from import is missing
I have a blend file, But when I am trying to import the only options I have are collada and alembic. FBX, OBJ etc are all missing.
I have enabled FBX add on in preferences. I have seen the options MANY times before, why is it missing all of a sudden?

are you using an old version of Blender?

Are there any errors displayed on the console?

Blender 2.8. There are no errors, just when I click file>Import> all I see is collada and alembic. If I open a new blender window, I have all the import options. This file had those options and now they have disappeared

I would check the User Preferences for that blend file; Addons > Import/Export

Ive done that. All add ons have been added correctly

I have the same problem .
But i accidentally found a solution so I thought  I should share it.
The  import export options like . Fbx  etc are missing In layout workspace, if you switch to modeling you will find all the other import export options.
Same in case of  exporting uv layout, it's missing if you open a window and use uv editor but it's present in uv editing workspace.

Thanks, i had this problem, is it fix above 2.80 ?

I suppose this is due to the import add-ons being turned off in the workspace.
The solution is to look into the Properties Editor Panel and select the Context Tab → Workspace → disable "Filter Add-ons" checkbox.

This is noteworthy and many thanks. I have never known this previously.


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Switch child constraints
I am dribbling a soccer ball. I have set a child constraint to the ball for the left foot. Works great, Mid motion the player changes to his right foot, How do I ensure I get the same effect with the right foot? I tried adding another child constraint to the relative bone but couldn't work it out

see: https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/86451/7777

Hey, what exactly is the problem with adding another child of?

blender 2.8 child of
blender 2.8 child of two child left right foot.......ok
Set two child of objects to adjust the influence value to join the left right foot.

Welcome to Blender! Whilst this may theoretically answer the question, it would be preferable to include the essential parts of the answer here, and provide the link for reference.


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Rigid body bouncing ball
I have added rigid physics to my object and the floor. The object falls and bounces off the floor. How do I make this happen at a different keyframe? Currently it only does it at the beginning.
Ive clicked animated but I cant work out How I want the ball to fall and bounce at a different keyframe

You could keyframe (location) the initial position of the ball and then keyframe (location) the starting point of animation. This will keep the ball at the same position till the animation starts.

Can i add multiple passive bodies to the same active body?

Why would you want to do that? I didn't get your question but a rigid body can only be active or passive and not both.

I meant... the floor is passive. And lets say ones shoes are passive too. If the ball is active. It will act the same when the ball interacts with the shoes or the floor (bounces in this case)

I think the ball will be affected by both but I'm not sure. Maybe these will help https://blender.stackexchange.com/q/1552/54300       https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/physics/rigid_body/properties.html#rigid-body


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How to pick up object?
So imagine a scene. A character of mine is bending down grabbing a ball from the floor then standing up and throwing the ball.
I have the character rigged and ready with the action but how do i make the ball move with the character? Im hoping keyframing it in position isnt the way to do it as thats a nightmare?
In general im asking the best way for an character to pick up/throw/interact with an object... whats the best way to do this? (Once the character is created and rigged)

maybe my answer here will help: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/147240/how-can-i-make-my-animated-robot-pick-up-an-object-a-pole-during-an-animation/147249

You add a "Child of" constraint to the ball, and select the armature and bone of the character you want to pick it up with.  You can then animate the influence of the constraint to change when the ball is influenced by the character.
hope this helps.


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Soccer goal net movement
I am creating a soccer animated series.
Picture a soccer goal, how do i make the net move smoothly once the ball makes contact with it?
Thanks

Try to use a hook modifier on a subdivided plane. Additionally the mesh effect can be obtained using the wireframe modifier. A (more accurate) alternative is to use Animation Node as you can do nearly what you want (ball proximity and influence on the net).

thanks, will try

Check this one: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/98910/how-to-create-and-design-hoops-net-and-attach-ot-to-a-hoop/99074#99074

@Cgslav, I came to the exact same solution  ;)

Related: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/61540/dynamic-proportional-edit-connected-to-an-object/61542#61542

You have several solutions. The more realistic one would be to use a cloth simulation then use it as a Mesh Deform to deform your net. You have 2 much more simpler solutions, with Lattice and, more flexible, Warp modifiers:
Cloth: It's the most realistic solution.

Create a plane about as large as your net. Give it a Physics > Cloth simulation, enable its Cloth Collision option. Pin it on its border.
Create a ball, give it a Physics > Collision simulation.
Animate the ball and simulate the movement of it hurting the net and falling on the ground. The net should deform accordingly.
In the Properties panel > Object > Display, change the display of the plane, choose Wire.
Bring your net object, give it a Surface Deform modifier, put it above the other modifiers. Choose the plane as Object. Click on the Bind button. Now the plane should deform the net.

Lattice:

Create a lattice and in Object mode, scale it so that it encompass your net object. Subdivide it a bit.
Give your net object a Lattice modifier. Choose the lattice as Object.
Assign a vertex group to the whole net vertices except the borders that are supposed to be pinned, choose this group in the Lattice modifier.
Put the necessary modifiers below the Lattice one.
Select your lattice, in the Properties panel > Data > Shape Keys, create a basis shape key and add another one, keep this second one selected.
In Edit mode, deform the lattice so that it deform the net the way you want.
Back in Object mode, play with the value under the shape keys list. You'll be able to create keyframes to animate.

Warp:: This method is more flexible as it allows you to animate more easily.

Create 2 empties, in front and behind your net.
Give your net object a Warp modifier. Choose the 2 empties as objects From and To.
If a part of the net is supposed to be pinned, select the vertex group in the modifier.
In Falloff Type, choose the kind of deformation you want, you might prefer Curve to create your own one.
You can move the empties, therefore animate the movement of the bump.

Thanks, so in terms of animating this, id need to increase the range per frame?

could you please explain what you mean?

well say the ball hits the top of the net and then rolls down. i guess I would need a couple shape keys to show the net movement as the ball hits and rolls down

oh ok yes that's the limit of this method, I'll explain Warp modifier which is more flexible, and I'm trying with cloth but i need to fix some issues with this method

well thats the effect im trying to get with jerseys. Like can the warp modifier move a jersey as the player is running? If so I assume it would need cloth modifier also? if you get what im trying to say

it really depends on the degree of realism you're looking for, if you want a tissue-like simulation, nothing better than Physic > Cloth, but it's not a domain I'm familiar with, I'm digging though

Thanks sir. Somewhat realistic, dosnt have to be anything EA Sports like. also, if u can answer plz, wud u know how to add text to the soccer jersey? like a flat text? even though the jersey isnt completely flat, how do i lay it on the jersey?

you need to use Image Texture node, it's the kind of question that has already been answered, if you don't find the answer, post a new question, because it's completely different from the current topic  ;)  I'm trying to find a solution with Cloth, not easy to get the ball repelled by a surface...

yeha i ask many questions in this forum, not all get answered, so i guess whilst i have a pro im gonna ask lol my bad

well I'm not a pro yet  ;)   for the jersey you'ill find an answer here: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/46424/add-a-transparent-image-on-top-of-a-material/46447#46447

Ok, I've edited with the cloth solution  ;)

Can you show me what you did so I can see?

I mean I've edited my answer to add the cloth solution, actually it's the same as the one linked by cgslav above

also check the link given by Lemon

hah i didnt even see lemon. Thanks sir. Ive been using blender for 3 months, just when I figure something out Something else goes haywire. BETAproblems.com

@KamranAli If this answer has helped you, you can 'accept' it. See: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5234/how-does-accepting-an-answer-work


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Animation sequence
So I have a mixamo character with soccer animations. So lets assume a player is running, kicks the ball (ball lands in the net) and then he runs of celebrating.
The player himself has 3 different animations. How do I make these animations go in sequence? Right now the player keeps going back to his starting position as oppose to a flow of these actions.

Hey, could you show what you have at the moment?  Not sure at what step you are at.  Do you already have the animations placed as strips on the timeline?

You probably want to use the NLA editor. Each animation will be considered as a unit and you can combine those units.

is the running animation a cyclic 1 position animation?


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How to write my add-on so that when installed it also installs dependencies (let's say: scipy or numpy-quaternion)?
How to write my add-on so that when installed it also installs dependencies (let's say: scipy or numpy-quaternion)?
Does blender understand setuptools (setup.py)?
Thanks,
Note: I'm using blender 2.8

Ran into the same issue and received helpful responses on devtalk. There's also another post that was helpful when installing  pip for 2.81.
2.81
import subprocess
import bpy

py_exec = bpy.app.binary_path_python
# ensure pip is installed & update
subprocess.call([str(py_exec), "-m", "ensurepip", "--user"])
subprocess.call([str(py_exec), "-m", "pip", "install", "--upgrade", "pip"])
# install dependencies using pip
# dependencies such as 'numpy' could be added to the end of this command's list
subprocess.call([str(py_exec),"-m", "pip", "install", "--user", "scipy"])

Modification for 3.6
import sys

py_exec = sys.executable

Warnings:

On Windows, Blender must be run in Administrator mode. Blender may need to restart before using the installed dependency.
Installing dependencies requires an active internet connection

It is worth mentioning, for those pip installing dependencies that need to build, that the python sources need to be present in: PATH_TO_BLENDER/2.80/python/include/python3.7m/. Sources must match blender's python version and can be grabbed from: https://www.python.org/downloads/source/. Otherwise an exception is thrown during installation mentioning the missing Python.h

I don't know about older version, but to reach python executable in blender 2.83 you can use bpy.app.binary_path_python

In 3.3 binary_path_python is missing. Instead you can use
import sys
python_path = sys.executable

One possible solution is to keep add-on and dependencies installation separate, i.e:
First install deps into Blender's python:

ensure Blender's python installation has pip: path/to/blender/python -m ensurepip and path/to/blender/python -m pip install -U pip
And pip install your dependencies: pip install <whatever need be>
If any of the deps needs to be built, as opposed to installed from wheels, you have to ensure that the python includes are present, otherwise you will get an error about missing Python.h.

And then install the add-on.
This is not an elegant solution though, having to tell your users to go through this process is not convenient.


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How to register a single property (not a property group) in blender 2.8? (Python API)
How to register a single property (not a property group) in blender 2.8?
My attempt
This is what I am doing at the moment inside my addon __init__.py:
# ...
bpy.types.Material.myprop = bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=MyProp)
# ...

with MyProp class:
class MyProp(bpy.types.Property):
    name: "Some name"
    description: "Some description"

The idea is so I can see access this property through:
bpy.data.materials['Material'].myprop

Here's the error I am getting when loading the add-on:
bpy.types.Material.myprop = bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=Myprop)
ValueError: bpy_struct "Material" registration error: myprop could not register

Silly me... This is what I was looking for:
bpy.types.Material.myprop = bpy.props.FloatProperty(name="myprop")

Reference:
Assigning property to existing class


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How to specify the size of a text box in a panel?
Please consider the following image:

The text box with the value "127.0.0.1:56661" is just too big, it occupies a considerable percentage of the row in the panel leaving small space for the label "Some parameter". How can I specify the text box size?

Remove the property name of the text box (name = "",) and add a row.label(text="Some Parameter: ") above your row.prop(scene "Parameter Op String Box") in your panel build.


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Bezier curve-based mesh's front surface is not appearing

I made a bouquet by blender 2.70 for The Sims 4, but the front surface is not appearing (even in the Blender). I made it with a Bezier Curve.
How can I make it show the front surface? I'm trying to make it again, but is there any way I can fix it?

I would recommend updating to at least Blender v2.79, as 2.70 is outdated.

In this version it could be one side surface only. In 2.81 go CURVE => 2D => FILL MODE: BOTH. If you don't won't to update the software convert it to mesh and create mirror etc.

bezier curve-3d fill full is gonna be okay?

No, in CURVE parameters change to 2D => FILL MODE: BOTH. With this 3D option there you won't see any surface.


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cardboard flute - cardboard thickness
I need to prepare a textured simple, plane of cardboard, made of a simple mesh plane but using only, for example, solidify and subdivision modifiers. The thickness I've made as a second material on the object's rim with transparency. In real - cardboard has empty spaces between waves and two planes - spaces that look like holes.

From the right angle, as a fake, it looks quite nice :P
But it's not a solution:

Unfortunately, this problem occurs when I try to use displacement...

Help ;)
(edit)
My intention is to fold the cardboard into a cardboard box during animation close-ups of the camera. The plane must be rigged and the edge of the cardboard looks photorealistic and unfortunately also in high resolution

Thank you all for the advice. Unfortunately, my intention is to fold the cardboard into a cardboard box during animation during close-ups of the camera. The plane must be rigged and the edge of the cardboard look photo realistic and unfortunately in high resolution

Try lowering the "Dicing scale" of the subdivision modifier, be careful not to overdo it, that can lag your computer with too low a value

Are you bound to using mesh only, or can you use a curve object to get your corrugated pattern?

I just don't know how to approach it ;)
So far, I've tried to use Rim in Solidify Modifier as a second material, because I have to fold the cardboard surface into a cardboard box during the animation

Single face displacement will only get you so far.
Just to illustrate.
Single face displacement
The image texture is used to "extrude" the original face.
Notice the incomplete rims, rough appearance, and high required geometry.
Faces: 1 000 000

Multiple Faces
Three faces on top of each other.
Displacement is used on the middle face only, to creating the wavy pattern.
Top and bottom faces have solidify modifier to add thickness.
Faces: 1000

Thank you, but these are not solutions in my situation: /
I would like to fold the cardboard in a carton during animations at close-ups

Hello again :). To get relevant answers concerning animation, you should edit your original question - it says nothing about animating.

Well, I should actually start with the target need, sorry: D
now everything should be clear

I would make the squiggle with a separate mesh in between the two side planes. If you do still want to use the displacement modifier, you will need to use more subdivisions or a higher resolution mesh. Hope this helps.

In this particular situation, unfortunately, this is not a solution to build it from a few meshes, but thank you :)


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Architectural visualization
I am intermediate in blender but I am new in architectural visualization. Can you help me with this?
How can I improve the first model to look like the second one? I need exactly the same look. I did it as I could but now I stuck and I need help.

Are you using Blender Internal or Cycles? Look closely at the reference image. You'll see a "pleat" where either the fabric has bee folded over or there might be separate panels added. Maybe google furniture construction. Also you'll notice lots of wrinkles. You may explore using some of the tools in "Sculpt Mode" to accomplish that. Make sure to make a duplicate of your original to work on in case you're not happy with the results you getting (I usually put one of the copies on a different layer).

Also, a fabric texture used as a bump map will hep add some of the fine detail that fabric has.

Thank you for your great answer. I use cycles. I will try to define pleats more. I made some wrinkles but it is even hard to see them. maybe I should use harder brush?

@ Mikhail Gavrilec - I don't have much experience with sculpting. You may want to create a separate question specifically on that topic. Also, If you look at the shadows on the floor caused by the end table you'll see how long they are. This dramatic "Side Lighting" helps to bring out detail in wrinkles etc. (The size of the light source also makes a difference).

Look closely at the reference image. You'll see a "pleat" where either the fabric has bee folded over or there might be separate panels added. Maybe Google furniture construction. Also, you'll notice lots of wrinkles. You may explore using some of the tools in "Sculpt Mode" to accomplish that. Try some different tools and hardness until you are happy with the result. Make sure to make a duplicate of your original to work on in case you're not happy with the results you getting (I usually put one of the copies on a different layer).
In addition, If you look at the shadows on the floor caused by the end table you'll see how long they are. This dramatic "Side Lighting" helps to bring out detail in wrinkles etc. (The size of the light source also makes a difference).

I agree : more wrinkles, a bump or displacement texture (with openSubdiv surbsurf) to get the soft velvet effect and HDR lighting from the window + some interior soft light(s).

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


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How to get the correct area of each triangle of a tessellated (scaled) cube using the Python API?
When I add a cube to the scene with dimensions 2x2x2, and run cube_obj.data.calc_loop_triangles() followed by list(cube_obj.data.loop_triangles)[0].area, I get what I would expect, an area of 2 (the face area is 4, so the triangle should be 2, which is great).
If I scale the cube, doubling its dimension to 4x4x4 I would expect the area of each triangle to become 4, but the area attribute remains 2...
How do I workaround this and get the area of the triangle in global terms using the API?
I understand that I could just get each triangle local coords vertices, pre-multiply by the object matrix_world: obj.matrix_world @ obj.data.vertices[i].co and from there calculate the area. But I assume the API already gives me that, I just don't know what to call.
Thanks for your attention.


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Set active bone in pose mode from Python script
I'm trying to use the function bpy.ops.pose.constraint_add() on bones through a script, but stupid thing is that I can't find how to set the bones as active ones which is needed to call this function.

My bad, I forgot to mention that this is under Blender 2.8

Set bpy.types.ArmatureBones.active
It's a matter of setting the active bone of the armature (the data part), and hence the active pose bone.
Python console code. An armature object is active and in pose mode. Long windedly sets the active bone.
>>> C.object
bpy.data.objects['Armature']

>>> C.object.data
bpy.data.armatures['Armature']

>>> C.object.data.bones["Bone"]
bpy.data.armatures['Armature'].bones["Bone"]

>>> C.object.pose.bones["Bone"]
bpy.data.objects['Armature'].pose.bones["Bone"]

>>> C.object.pose.bones["Bone"].bone
bpy.data.objects['Armature'].pose.bones["Bone"].bone

>>> C.object.data.bones["Bone"] == C.object.pose.bones['Bone'].bone
True

>>> bone = C.object.pose.bones["Bone"].bone
>>> C.active_pose_bone
bpy.data.objects['Armature'].pose.bones["Bone.001"]

>>> C.object.data.bones.active
bpy.data.armatures['Armature'].bones["Bone.001"]

>>> C.object.data.bones.active = bone
>>> C.object.data.bones.active
bpy.data.armatures['Armature'].bones["Bone"]

>>> C.active_pose_bone
bpy.data.objects['Armature'].pose.bones["Bone"]

Use bone.select = True to have bone both active and selected.
Note There is no need for the operator.
Example adds a copy rotation constraint to each selected pose bone.  The cube is used as the constraint target.  Run script in pose mode, else context.selected_pose_bones will be None
import bpy

context = bpy.context
scene = context.scene
cube = context.scene.objects.get("Cube")

if cube and context.object.mode == 'POSE':
    for pb in context.selected_pose_bones_from_active_object:
        # use if already existes, else create
        cr = (pb.constraints.get("CubeRot")
                or pb.constraints.new(type='COPY_ROTATION'))
        # set some properties
        cr.name = "CubeRot"
        cr.target_space = 'LOCAL'
        cr.target = cube

Thanks, that was quite simple after all. The API seems so different in 2.8 that i'm quite lost with it. Thanks again

Isn't "Use bone.select=True to have bone both active and selected." wrong? I believe "object.data.bones.active=bone" is correct.

i want to add a little snippet for clarity. Thanks to batFinger for the detail. It was quite tough to find out.

import bpy
#The desired Bone
boneToSelect = bpy.data.objects['Rigify'].pose.bones['spine'].bone
#Set as active
bpy.context.object.data.bones.active = boneToSelect
#Select in viewport
boneToSelect.select = True

I am wondering how you have the armature object be the armature currently in pose mode for and not an armature that has to be named 'Rigify'.

I figured it out.  boneToSelect = bpy.context.active_object.data.bones['spine']


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How do I change the render order in the blender 2.8 2D animation tool
I started experimenting with the 2D animation tool yesterday but while using the array modifier to make a crowd I had the problem that all objects that overlapped overlapped the exact opposite way you'd think they would. Somewhat fixed it by rotating the camera around 180° but the problem persists in the top left corner. There is a button to "Keep original stroke on top", but that only helps for the original row and I'd prefer to know how to do it right than working around problems.
I'm also sorry if I did anything wrong, I'm new here.


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How do I rig this so the wings are symmetrical?
How do I rig my flying machine so the wings can be flapped symmetrically? I'd like to have it so that when I move one side, the other moves as well.
Video

You can use Bone Constraints for that (try Copy Rotation, with the "Invert" setting on the right axis)

went to look at the video answer, link is broken.
don't know if you need this but its a flying rig.
and is more entailed than your model and
not sure if you can adapt it or not I reworked it some and it works. https://drive.google.com/open?id=1C5MKQ9Vrl3hZC193DZE2lBJUtGuLPRoP

In Edit mode, copy your "wing_L" bone with the Symmetrize function to automatically create a "wing_R" bone.
Switch to Pose mode, select the right wing and give it a Copy Rotation constraint.
Copy the exact same setup as the one on the screenshot: Enable X, Y and Z axis, enable the Invert option of Y and Z, choose Space > Local Space / Local Space.
It should work.

You could also simply, in Pose mode, copy the left bone pose with ctrl and paste to the right bone with ctrlshiftV. Just don't forget to insert a keyframe for the right bone (i).


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Why do I have a large black and white artifact on the rendered image?
Cant figure out why the rendered image has a large black and white artifact (on the bottle on the right)?

This is the blender file.
Appreciate any tips!

it doesn't happen when I open your file in 2.79 or 2.8


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rigging problem connecting two bones at the tail
how can I connect the tail of a bone to another tail of a bone?

This may sound like a bit of a cop-out, but you don't have to.
If you want those heads to stay in the same position, use a Copy Location Constraint, instead.


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Adding metallic/glossy surface to dissolve effect
New to blender, and attempting a sort of material wipe, one material is wiped away revealing another one. I'm having trouble formatting this in a way to add a metallic/glossy texture to the black portion of the sword.
I do know how to use the principled bsdf in normal situations, but I've tried placing it in many different spots and none seem to work.
I've attached a screenshot of the shader setup, and 2 different frames of the animation to give an idea of what I'm doing. And if anyone wants to know, I'm working in evee.
Shader setup: https://gyazo.com/aca1da1aba143207557e243ee5b45e5c
Example frame 1: https://gyazo.com/96008081c517e50e94c0d94424c095f9
Example 2: https://gyazo.com/a5701659642a536c1bdca59c76d4634b

Please use the built-in screenshot adding system to add screenshots to stackexchange questions. In the meantime, you can probably do what you need with a gradient texture, and a Math node set to Greater Than, with the threshold animated.

you can replicate this effect with this node setup:

result:

The "trick" is to use the mix shader node. The factor value decides which material it should take for each pixel.
To animate this we don't take a constant value, but we animate it.
In my example i took the y coordinate of the object and compared this to an animated value. Because a comparison with a constant value would just be a line distribution and a bit boring i also added some noise to make the effect a bit more interesting. You could of course add here different texture value e.g. wave, gradient...whatever you like. Shader nodes is damn powerful.
boring "line" example: (constant comparison)

wave example:

other wave example:

You really are having fun, here :D

Finally i understood 2% of the shader nodes and it’s just awesome. And yes…lot‘s of fun with BLENDER


text:
Animating grid lines forming into a big grid
I am trying to animate lines into forming into a big grid something similar to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPwP_CPVwqM
How can I achieve this type of animation?
At first I was thinking of making a procedural grid texture where I would have vertical and horizontal lines and somehow keyframe them in a way they would merge and form a grid onto a plane
But I can't figure it out how to do it
I want them to be merge asynchronus, just like in that video, kinda make them form the grid in their own pace.

Hello and welcome. While files, images, and external videos or links may be helpful additions they should not be the only way to obtain information about your issue. Don't make understanding your question rely on downloading a file, watching a video or visiting an external site. Use the builtin tools to upload images or gifs, along with thoroughly explaining the problem in written form so it can be indexed and searched for thus helping future visitors with similar issues.

You can use a Grease pencil object, with some "Build" modifiers, each pointing at a different layer of lines, to get variations in time and speed of the build effect.

Thanks for the help! This is an interesting take, I will try both ways you guys showed me

Here is an approach with the shader. It also uses layered images and does basically what you mentioned in the question.

You have an image with lines and a mask that hides a part of the image. The change of the mask's offset creates the animation. At first, the mask hides everything. Then it reveals the lines over time. Some distortion and rotation for the mask are used to create the illusion of the individual speed of the lines.
To make a grid you need at least two layers, one vertical and one horizontal. For the effect like in the video, you need four layers so that the lines interlock. The four layers are rotated by 90°, 180°, and 270°. Please note that group input slots use pi/2 (1.5708) for 90°, pi (3.14159) = 180°, and so on. You can enter pi/2 directly into the input field.
Shader Node Setup

Mapping Group
The first group calculates the mapping vectors for the lines image and the mask. The image is rotated. The procedural mask (a Linear Gradient) needs to be rotated by 90° compared to the lines and is moved by a given offset for the animation.

Mask Image Group
The mask is a black and white image (Gradient Texture). In fact, there is no gradient. One side is just black and the other one plain white. For a more interesting transition, the image can be rotated (lines will run with a diagonal offset) and distorted by Noise texture.

Lines Group
This group just creates a procedural image of lines with help of the Wave Texture node. And uses the given mask to hide/cut the lines that should not be seen yet. The From Max value is the width of the lines.

Animation
For the animation just keyframe the Offset Mask value of the Lines Mapping group for each layer. Note the values range from 0 to 1 or from -1 to 0, depending on the direction/rotation of the layer. If the mask is rotated or distorted you might increase the values a bit more to reveal all lines.

Woow I think this is exactly what I was looking for! Thank you so much for the help!


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I'm getting this lighting problem only on eevee, these are default settings and it happens on every save file

I've tried turning up max distance in cascaded shadow map, I have both scene lights and scene world ticked. Material for the cube and the plane is both default Principled BSDF.. If I had to guess, it was some sort of shortcut that I accidentally fat-fingered. Material for the cube and the plane is both default Principled BSDF.

can u provide blend file?

@Chris  its a different files but the settings are all the same

your uploaded file show me this: [1]: https://i.sstatic.net/1Aw6m.jpg was this intended?

Do you have an AMD GPU? It looks similar to the AMD GPU driver bug: AMD GPU Material in "material preview mode" and "rendered mode", is entirely gray as background. Only outline is displayed

yes i didnt intend to use that file, but the lighting issue is consistent across all my new files, with that one being the first one where it occured, and i dont have a gpu, im using cpu rendering unfortunately


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Smooth Shrinkwrap Modification
I was wondering if there is a way to smooth out the results of a shrinkwrap modification.
The issue with using shrinkwrap in some cases is that detailed areas create artifacts you don't want. For instance, one vertex fitting to one face while the neighbouring vertex is fitted to a completely different face because that's the nearest surface. So that often leads to jaggy surfaces. Instead' Id rather have none of these vertices move or have both move in a similar direction. I.e. I want to smooth out the "delta" of shrinkwrap.
So, the result of a shrinkwrap ("nearest surface point") could be interpreted as an offset between the original vertex position and the new vertex position. What I want to do is apply smoothing to that offset mesh. Neighboring vertices of the original mesh should generally move in the same direction. I specifically don't want to smooth out the original mesh. I only want to smooth out the offset that the shrinkmap adds to each vertex. So simply adding a smoothing modification after the shrinkwrap won't help.
Is there a way to achieve this goal?

Have you tried adding a smooth modifier to the object that you've applied the shrinkwrap to?

Yeah that's the option I mentioned doesn't do what I'm aiming for.
When I add a smoothing modifier to the object, it will basically smooth the combination of base mesh and shrinkwrap modifier. What I want to smooth is the offset that the shrinkwrap produces. I.e., I have the original vertex position, I have the offset the shrink modifier adds on top. When I add a smothing modifier, I either smooth both base position + offset or only the base position. I want to smooth only the offset.

It might be more work than you want, but you can apply shrinkwrap based on vertex groups. That gives you the flexibility to either not apply the shrinkwrap to some parts of the mesh, or use a completely different shrink target for them.

@DaleCieslak yeah I know I can filter the shrinkwrap with vertex groups but that also doesn't give the the desired result and as you already mentioned, it's quite a bit of work. Basically at this point what I would do I's do the modification manually.