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how can I extrude curve shapes onto curve without tapering
I'm stuck. Can't figure out how I can extrude a closed curve onto a NURBS curve without it looking tapered.
I notice that when it's set to "2D" there is no tapering, but I want to do it on 3d.
Thanks for help.

Hi there, I am involved in addressing this issue in Blender. This is still in development but closing in on a solution and that'd be great if you could provide some feedback here: https://devtalk.blender.org/t/curve-to-mesh-node-even-thickness-feedback-thread/27271  - Thanks in advance!

It's a known limitation of the current system, there is currently no elegant workaround for this as far as I know.

Either use only separate 2D curves for each segment (rotate them in object mode to their correct positions)
Add extra control vertex close to corners to minimize the tapering distance (clumsy and may not look good)

Or use independent splines inside the same bezier curve for each segments (may cause intersection artifacts under certain circumstances)

Choose the lesser evil for your particular use case.

In the Object Data tab in the Properties panel (pictured in your screen shot), under Shape > Resolution: > Preview U:, change the number from 1 to 64 (the max). Leaving the Render U: at zero will cause it to use the Preview U: (just fine).
Also, make sure that you have added enough loop cuts to your cylinder so that it deforms properly.

Hi Shady. I added resolution but no change. It still tapers. I wanted to be able to sweep a closed shape ( moulding ) into a curve.

Could you add more details/a .blend file? I answered the question I saw, but please correct me if I answered the wrong thing.


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How to do cyclical compositing?
I am trying to simulate the effect of long exposure on cameras. Using motion blur is a good strategy for short exposures but when I want an extra large exposure (to do some sort of light painting) the effects are undesirable.
I found this alternative way that looks very promising but my skills on the node composition are zero and, unfortunately, the description is too vague.

In the compositor. Add a file out node, and write every frame to that
  file, and add that file back into the noodle with an image node.
  Voila, feedback loop

Here another reference

The planes are animated, and multiple renders are combined using a
  feedback loop.

Based on the description, it sounds relatively simple and I get the concept but I don't have a clue on how to implement it.
It would seem to me that you need a script to do this, otherwise it doesn't scale up well.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Blender 3 - Vertex count number display
How can I show the vertex count for the selected object. The answers I found are for blender 2.X, but are not working for blender v3.

see the answer here, it is still the same: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/72171/vertex-count-number-display

Thank you, somehow I clicked on the wrong arrow. Now I found it.

Somehow I missed it at first.
This is how it works, it is still like in blender 2
Credits to @moonboots.

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


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What are these black dotted lines?
In Object Mode I sometimes see these black dotted lines starting at some of my objects and ending in some random spot in the space.
What are they, how do I manipulate them, and why?

These are called "Relationship Lines" Normally, they show relationships between an object and its parent, and an object and it constraints. they can be turned off under options (N) display >  relationship lines

Just curious, where did you find the term "indicating lines"? I've always heard them referred to as "relationship lines".

fixed sorry bout that.

In Blender 2.8 you can reach it through this arrow down button (Viewport Overlays) in the viewport

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


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Who is the BSurfaces author Eclectiel L
Anyone knows who is Eclectiel L, the mysterious main author of BSurfaces?
I've contacted him twice by email, but I get no answers. On Vimeo, he seems to be another anonymous user "Blend Ideas" https://vimeo.com/user572057
His last commit to Bsurfaces was in 2012. Is there a way to get a hold of him that you know? Otherwise, I wonder how do the developers plan to maintain the nitty-gritty details of BSurfaces in the long run.

The bsurfaces addon is an official blender addon. Any bug reports can be submitted to the official blender bug tracker. Any patches for fixes or improvements can also be submitted to the bug tracker.
For ideas for features that you would like added, this also falls into the same category as any blender improvements, which is mostly find someone interested in doing the change. If the original author doesn't respond to contact then you need to find another developer that is interested. RightClickSelect was started for this purpose, you can try submitting ideas there.
If you haven't seen it, you may also want to look at CGCookies RetopoFlow addon, it expands on the bsurfaces idea. While it is a paid addon, it is available from it's github repo if you want to get it free or to assist in development and bug reports.

thank you. upvoted as it is very useful, but not marked as answer as it is too generic and not a definitive answer.


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Why does the satin fabric appear so metallic to me while it is a dielectric material
It started with making a skin shader. I am still convinced that we see a rough colored gloss in skin a little bit. Which is in contrast to the theory that a material is either dielectric or a metal.
I even got more convinced when making a shader for fabric, there are some fabrics that appear quite metallic to me like Satin, some sports-wear, new carpets, and some more.  It feels like I can tell now how much of the rough colored gloss is present in a material like grass 5%, sand 10%, bricks 10%, satin 70%, skin 5%, some plastics 10% etc.
But this is in contrast with that theory that a material is either dielectric or a metal. Any idea what I think I'm seeing then ?
Maybe a theory is that for example in Satin, the light bounces in the grooves of the fabric, and this causes the reflections that reach my eye to now have some color influenced by the color of the fabric.
So I tried to simulate that in Blender:  A diffuse with a PBR reflection node (Cynicat Pro), and gave it Bump with a distorted wave texture with a very high scale (1000). The color of the gloss from the reflection node didn't change toward the color of the diffuse shader which was pink.
Then I tried to make the gloss more rough and that didn't work either. I tried that setup with 16 gloss bounces but that didn't have any effect.
So I am a bit confused, I hope some one is able to clarify what I believe I'm seeing. I made a thread on BA as well

Could it be some sort of translucency or Sub Surface Scattering that you are seeing? Most materials are not totally opaque, and fabrics being generally thin sheets tend to let some light through them. Have you tried mixing it with a translucent node to give it a softer appearance?

Blender Cycles is physically accurate so it could be that your node set-up needs some tweaking.

@Duarte Farrajota Ramos
That was what I thought to in the first place and translucency is an important property in fabrics, though doesn't explain the metallicness in fabrics like satin.  When a satin bed sheet is on the bed, translucency will do nothing ( No light is shinging at the back and we won't see much of its translucency, while the satin effect remains the same on bed or as curtain. )

@David Prentice   Hmm, If Cycles was physically accurate I wouldn't have problems with normals facing backwards when using bump ( The black artifacts when the bump is to strong), and I could do the double slit experiment. As far as I know Cycles implemented some formula based on physics, but doesn't mean that Cycles is physically accurate. I know that there are quite some problems with the gloss shader and rendering of normals when using bump.  The question is why does satin ( the satin curtain in my real life bedroom I.E. ) looks so metallic to me while it is a dielectric.

From my purely observational and not-scientific-at-all theory I think the metallic look of a surface mostly comes from the coloring of the reflections or glossiness, as opposed to mostly white for non metallic surfaces. According to Wikipedia satin has a special weave that reflects light more evenly with less scattering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satin Perhaps simulate the effect add a slight hint of color to your the glossy shader, if using a diffuse texture perhaps desaturate it generously using a color mix node so the glossy colors are always in sync but constantly less saturated.

I found something that I believe will help you. Lots of math and explanation. http://download.blender.org/documentation/bc2012/FGastaldo_PhysicallyCorrectshading.pdf

@DavidPrentice Oh wow it looks like this manual is made especially for me.   Doesn't answer directly my direct question, but it is very useful.  Thanks !

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos Thanks for the suggestions. I will play with the desaturation and coloration of the gloss shader.  I will do a bit of experiments of the effect of different weaves on how they have influence on the reflections.

The theory I had seems to be correct: the light bounces in the ridges of the fabric and give the gloss a color toward the diffuse.  We cannot simulate this in blender with a bumpmap or a normalmap. So I did an experiment with real geometrie.  Here two illustrations. First illustration shows that we cannot achieve this with a bumpmap. Second illustration shows that we can achieve this in blender only with real geometrie and enough light bounces.

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

authors: Александр Кочегар


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Blender addon development
I have a hard modelling addon idea for blender. I have no coding experience and have no idea where to even start with learning coding or what I need to learn. It's an add on building on an existing function in blender which I guess all addons are haha. Could someone point me in the correct direction to learn to code an addon ? Or an easier option for me would someone like to support me and help me build it ? I think it could be quite successful as I am a digital modeller and the function I want to create does not exist in the way I want it. Thanks for reading ! Any help would be really appreciated!!
Have a good day,
Max

Prepare for a long journey. Start small. Aim to have something functional and complete, but simple, as soon as possible.
Here's a good intro on Python: https://automatetheboringstuff.com/
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/advanced/scripting/addon_tutorial.html gives a good overview of writing a simple addon.
I personally learned Blender addons best with Michel's tutorials. Since then he wrote a book about it. The old tutorials seem to be gone. https://blendermarket.com/products/creating-add-ons-for-blender
After you've learned everything, you need a good ref: https://docs.blender.org/api/current/index.html https://docs.python.org/3/reference/
And of course, as all addons for Blender are open source, go and open the folder of your favorite addon and start reading.

Thanks a lot ! I will check it out. What I want to do seems simple and I think I understand the logic to make it happen just no coding experience.


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Can you have multiple rest states for an armature?
I want to make a character that wears heels, so that would naturally change her height and the way her feet bones are placed.
I could just duplicate the armature with the new default position, but I was wondering if there is another option for having several rest states?

As far as I know there is only one default rest position. But you could add several poses to a pose library, so if you apply one of those poses it's like resetting the rig to that pose, too.

@GordonBrinkmann Yes, I guess that would work. Hadn't thought of it because I had in my mind also exporting it to unity or something but I guess I could just apply the pose for the version I'd export.

Okay, maybe exporting it to Unity you'll have to make it different. Most of the time I'm doing all my 3D stuff in Blender so that's no problem.


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Is it possible to add spring/jiggle physics to a rigify metarig?
As the title says. I have found plenty of addons to do spring physics for bones.
But all the ones I tried rely on custom properties that wouldn't carry over through the rig generation, and I could add those properties to the generated rig, but it being a much more complicated one and losing the ability to re-generate the rig if I want to add more things to it afterwards is a drawback.

Didn't actually find an answer to my own question but did find a workaround, so I am posting in case it shows in search results.
Basically, while applying the addons to the bones in the metarig don't work as far as I see, you can apply it to the drivers in the generated rig and those do survive a regeneration of the rig.
I found that works best to apply it on rig types for single bones (like basic.super_copy or basic.raw_copy) or bone chains controlled in a FK fashion (like basic.copy_chain)

Interesting workaround. I am actually not sure how you add the Jiggle physics in Drivers but good job finding a way that works!


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Rigify parenting with automatic mesh doesn't keep x simmetry
Im trying to rig my first character model, so I set up my rigify metarig in the proper places, made sure the base mesh is symmetrical generated the rig and parented it to my mesh with automatic weights.
However, there is a section of my mesh that just doesn't get assigned any weights by any bones, despite its symetrical counterpart doing so. I have no idea what might be causing this
This is a image of how it looks when all the bones are selected at once.

This sort of problem is not caused by Rigify itself, usually. It could be something about your character mesh. Sharing your file might be a good idea because this could be due to a number of different factors.

@CGDive Didn't think of sharing it since it's a nsfw model, and since I posted I just reverted to an earlier stage of the file since I realized I needed to do some changes and starting over didn't replicate the issue. I'll watch out in case it happens again.

Sounds good to me.


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Can you draw in 3d from orthografic projections?
Im drawing a orthographic reference for my character, and then I would like to trace it in blender with grease pencil so I have a 3d-ish reference instead of several images.
Now, grease pencil only draws on a plane or the surface of an object as far as I know, so that's the question, is it possible to draw a stroke in front orthographic, and then again in left orthographic (for example), and have blender turn it into a single stroke in 3d space that looks like both?

All you need to do is switch the view in which you want to draw, so that the strokes are aligned in a different axis.

Blender will not magically merge shapes, though.
But you can edit your objects just like any other object in 3D to get whatever shape and plane you want.

Note that you can also set the grease pencil to draw at different planes, determined by the 3d cursor. That would allow you to draw from the same view, but at different depths.
See: Align Grease Pencil with Camera Angle

This is good to know, although it was exactly that "magically merge" part I was wondering if was possible, since it's possible to convert a curve in 3d space to two orthographic 2d images and viceversa, I was asking to see if it was possible in blender.


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How do you draw in multiple colors with grease pencil?
Im trying to draw in color, but all my strokes come out the same grey color, no matter if I use material or vertex color.

I have also seen related questions or tutorials where the way they change the color is by either changing the material of a stroke manually or using the tint tool (not that I got those to work either) and what I want is for the stroke to act like strokes in a drawing program, being drawn in the color selected directly and all.
How would you do that?

First, make sure that you are in material preview shading or rendered shading (unfortunately you cut the top of the viewport on the image on the question, don't do that).

Color will not appear in solid view.

For Material.
Set the material for the stroke and fill in the material properties window.

For vertex color
Set the color directly either on the top color selector on the screen.

Or use the tool options in the properties window.


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Create and add net to helmet
I'm currently modeling a ww2 helmet:

I finished the helmet and now want to add a net like in this picture:

I tried to create a plane with modifier wireframe and then add cloth physics to the plane. The problem is that when the plane falls down on the helmet it creates a lot of wrinkles. I don't have a lot experience with blender physics yet...
Is there a better way? I want the net to be a seperate object. The net can be very simple but it should have the same form as the helmet.
Thanks in advance!

Try it with the Tissue addon:

Enable the addon. Create a lowpoly version of your helmet (the size of the pattern will depend on the size of your faces) and create the hexagonal pattern:

In Object mode, select the pattern, then the helmet, and in the N panel > Edit > Tissue Tools > Press Tesselate:

It has created this net, it has some flaws that you can correct. Keep your helmet where it is (or bring the highpoly), make it invisible, select the net, give it a Shrinkwrap modifier with the helmet as Target:

Go in Edit mode and bring some correction to the topology so that you only keep hexagons or kind of, the Shrinkwrap will help to keep the vertices on the surface of the helmet:


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Is there a tool/shortcut to automatically align edges depending on where the camera is?
I have this model. I want the selected edge to match the red line. Is it possible to do this without turning the model and using sx0?

In the Transformation Orientations panel you can choose View, if it doesn"t give the result you want you could use the knife and cut orthogonally (K to activate and A to cut orthogonally)

I am using 2.79b and there's Ctrl+S > to hit for Cursor to Active if an edge or a vertex point is selected in Edit mode.
There's also Ctrl+S > Selection to Cursor for once the edge or a vertex point to be moved to cursor once they're selected.
I assume the red line is something parented to the camera if I'm not wrong.
And I believe You could boolean a line in the helmet with it, and then move the rest of the needed verts to the cut line, followed by selection of the cut line to dissolve it once the vertex points and edges has been moved.
Options for Ctrl+S works with edges, as well as vertex points, so I bet that by moving verts, you could move the whole edge pretty precisely.


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Texture size varying while repeating based on Mapping
I am new to blender and trying to use image textures. I am using Mapping to repeat the image texture on a surface. I need to apply the image texture to faces with different size. The face is actually a floor surface. The problem is that if I try to apply same material I end up different sized tiles. Is there anyway I can use one material and keep the size of tiles same across faces with different size ?
This is the material I am trying to use.

This is how the surfaces look.

Here the same material is used for 4 different faces. Each face has different sized tile.
Is there a better way to repeat the texture?
Note: I am using blender 2.9

is it the same object or is it seveeral objects using the same textures? In principled when you unwrap it should keep the proportions, unless these are different objects

These are different objects. Each surface is different plane.There are other objects in the picture which are making it look like a single contiguous plane.

so maybe select them all in Object mode, go in Edit mode, and unwrap? This way it should preserve the proportions

Thank you !! That works.

Otherwise you can instead of the UV coordinates,try using the Object coordinates, and use the Box projection mode inside your Texture node instead of flat

As I am new, it took a while to understand. This works too. Thank you !!


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Blender won't export fbx file with embedded textures

I currently have a model with a texture and a bump map attached. Bump map is not baked. When I go to export to an .fbx file I do the usual setting path mode to copy and selecting "embed textures" but the exported mesh is plain white.
I assumed the bump map was the issue and disconnected it from the node tree so it was just the texture going to material output but I'm still getting a plain white exported mesh. I also tried creating a completely new material that doesn't use nodes and tried exporting the mesh with that. No use.
I'm not trying to upload to unity or anything. This character is purely for animation. But I'd like the texture embedded for ease of use. I haven't decided if I'll bake or simply re-add the bump map for every animation, but that's not my primary concern right now.

Use a Principled node, not a Diffuse node. See manual for what FBX expects.

that worked! tysm


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Hypothetical question regarding 2D eye rigging for unity/mocap
I just recently modeled a character with 2d Eyes. The eyes are flat planes that rest on the surface of the face via applied shrink-wrap mod. The eyes have a texture of the pupils and the pupils move by using UV Warp and a single bone. (Tutorial Video Here)

Now, it's clear to me that this method of eye animation is purely for animation and not really adequate for exporting to use in things like video games or motion tracking software.
So here's my hypothetical: how can I do 2D eye movement on the surface of a mesh?
I've been using blender on and off for about a year and this is my first time trying to import a model to Unity and possibly use the model in motion tracking software like VseeFace or VRchat. I'm looking for solutions to this issue so my characters can have completely flat cartoon eyes. And I'd like to export as an .fbx if possible.
I'd like to hear some opinions on the options I came up with.

Option 1 Do the work in Unity instead of Blender. I don't actually know if UV warp would transfer to .fbx. I'm pretty sure when exporting to .fbx you can choose to apply modifiers but then that sets them where they are permanently doesn't it? I am sure that in Unity it could be programmed where a mesh constantly moves along the coordinates of a texture to simulate eye movement. But in the event I upload the model to VseeFace or some other motion tracking software, I'm not sure if anything I program in Unity would transfer over.

Option 2 Leave eye mesh completely white and create a second mesh for the pupil on top. Then use bones to move that pupil along the surface of the white sclera mesh. This option seems more do-able but I'm not sure how I would go about it. Would I add shape keys in up, down, left, and right positions and then export those in leu of constraints? Does VseeFace have its own constraint system so I don't have to worry about it? But again, the pupil needs to be flush with the sclera at all times and not leave the sclera. The sclera mesh is shrink-wrapped to the front of the head, so it's not flat. Would the shape keys abide by the shrink-wrap even if the modifier was no longer in tact in the .fbx file?

Yes, those are basically your options.  Option 2 can use shapekeys (for flat eyes) or skeletal animation.  Flush is easy, provided that the surface of the eye is a portion of a sphere, or else a plane.  Option 1 wouldn't be export a UV warp, which won't happen; it would be create a UV warp in Unity, probably in the shader, which is just about the easiest shader work you could ever do.

thank you! for option 2 the surface of the eye (sclera) is a subdivided square plane. it's got an applied shrink-wrap mod on it to make it flush with the surface of the face, so it's neither a perfect sphere section nor a completely flat plane. But, I'm thinking that if i do the shape keys of the pupil before applying the shrinkwrap mod then they should move along the surface of the eye just fine? UV warp in unity for option 1 sounds like a simple and fun project. but if I uploaded to vr chat I assume I would lose that data? would shape keying be the better option for eye-tracking software?

No, it doesn't work to do shapekey and then apply the shrinkwrap.  Don't know anything about VR chat.

well thanks anyway, dude! at the very least this has helped me reduced the amount of time i'd be spending just doing this via trial and error.


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How to flatten surface?
my problem is the following: I am making Blender Guru's Chair Tutorial Series and I want to have a flat edge, but it makes this round shape and messes up my surface.
Thanks in advance,
Tobi

Inverted normals, most likely, https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/151374/weird-sharp-vertices-with-subdivision-modifier/151378#151378

select the vertex that is down and bring it up in the z axis. But most questions about tutorials are solved if you watch the video again and notice what you did differently.

@Squizy Can u share your .blend file if none of those help ?

It looks like an inverted normal to me. Go into edit mode, hit A to select everything then hit Shift+N to recalculate the normals.

I did recalculate the normals and it didn't change anything.
I think it has sthg to do with this random face popping up. There is a face where the line is going down in the middle. You cant see it on the screenshot.

I would recommend going into wireframe mode and removing any internal geometry that isn't supposed to be there. you can access wireframe mode by hitting z in the viewport and clicking wireframe.

That worked out fine, sorry forgot to come back and give you feedback! Thanks Michael!

there are a million ways in which your mesh could be messed up , but in majority of case this is either a flipped normal or you have a bad modeling workflow , if recalculating nor,als dont work , you can try deleting the vertex itself and then filling the 4 vertices


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Mesh is behaving weird
my mesh is doing some weird stuff. I tried to make a logo 3d and had a Logo reference image which I build on. I started with one vertex and CTRL + Right Clicked my way through to end up with the Logo. Now the problem is that my mesh is doing some weird stuff and is pulling to the starting vertex.

Hope you can help.
Cheers, Tobi

The mesh is shaded smooth more than likely. Go into the object menu, and set it to shade flat, or go into the mesh data tab of the properties editor, and enable auto smooth.

LEGEND, thanks solved the problem!

This answer is short, direct and correct, but I feel like it's a good opportunity to learn about Ngons (this knowledge could be useful in future projects, especially if you intend to deform your object):

In 3D software every face is a triangle. Faces that appear to be other shapes are actually made up of several triangles. So working with Ngons (shapes with more than 4 sides) is not recommended. When you have an Ngon you leave it to the software to decide how to arrange the triangles to make up the shape, and that leads to bad topology (like the triangles converging to a single vertex in your case). When you shade smooth the software tries to avarage the normals of the faces to make the shading smooth, but when the topology is bad it leads to artifacts like the ones you have in your mesh.

When the Ngon is completely flat (like in your case) the artifacts can be removed by changing the smoothing groups (which is done automatically when you enable auto smooth).
But if you intend to add more details to the mesh or deform it in any way (like bending, twisting, using an armature deform, etc), you will have to do some retopologizing by cutting the Ngons into smaller shapes with less sides (ideally each face should have no more than 4 sides), that way you have greater control of how the triangulation is being made and avoid smoothing artifacts and unwanted deformation.

@Squizy t Y Jesus!


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How can I use Extrude Faces along normals without making different sizes?
I'd like to make a low poly room in Blender, but when I try to add thickness to the wall and extrude the faces along the normals the smaller sized wall is thicker than the other. I want to make them the same size.
Is there any easy way to do it?
Thanks in advance,
Tobi

before extruding, go back in object mode and apply the scale (ctrl A), it's probably your problem

2 things come to mind - First, make sure you apply scale to your object (Ctrl+a in object mode), this is to ensure uniform scale (can cause problems with extrusions, insets, etc...). Second, when you extrude along normals, a box pops up in the bottom left. In the options, make sure "Offset Even" is checked.

Already comments are very usefull ... so just a tip.
You can start with Solidify Modifier with Even Thickness enabled.

when I add a Solidify modifier, this happens:
https://imgur.com/a/IAtDZoR

I haven't seen this before share file or check if there are not double vertices - in edit mode all selected Merge Vertices (M) by Distance. If it doesn't help share blend file via https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com


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Gravity simulation doesn't work (Cloth Simulation)
my object isn't falling down in the cloth simulation I run. I didn't found any solution on the internet. I'm sure it's a simple one tho...

Thanks in advance,
Tobi

Please share the blend file to check it out.

If the cloth simulation has pinned vertices, the object won't fall.
You would need to add a Rigid body constraint, and make the cloth simulation be the second constraint on the stack.

I'm a little new to Blender, so I don't know if this will help, but you can also try checking the Gravity in the Scene Properties tab.  According to the Blender documentation, the default setting should be -9.810 to simulate Earth's gravity.
Good Luck!
Source:
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/physics/forces/gravity.html


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Strange shape when deleting faces
I am currently working on Blender Guru's Chair Modelling Tutorial.
When I delete the top faces to make a hard edge, the face on the front starts making a weird shape.
Anyone knows why? Couldn't find it out myself.
Thanks in advance,
Tobi

he subdivision surface modifier is placed before the mirror. Invert them.

The reason: if before, subdivision surface will smooth vertices out of the mirror axis, so they won't join anymore.

You are clutch! Thanks dude!

Clutch? is that a good thing? I guess it must be.... :D I must start using 2.9 to get all that drag and drop goodness...

@RobinBetts : ) searched it also, but it is ok! https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Clutch

do we now call you "clutch-lemon" or "lemon-clutch"?

@batFINGER... lemon alone is hard enough to endure ; )

@RobinBetts Exactly what you need, exactly when you need it.


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How to proper scale around the center of a object while using mirror modifier
Often I have something that looks like this:

In the image above I have the mirror modifier applied to a 12 vertices circle (or a 7 vertices half circle with the mirror modifier applied). Imagining that I have to extrude and scale around the center of the whole object (including both halves), I tend to use the cursor as the pivot, and since it's in the world origin, if often solves the problem, specially when scaling around two axis.

However, things starts to get tricky once the selection isn't aligned with the world origin. In the following image I have a semi circle inside the other, and it's not aligned to the world origin.

What I've been doing for now is creating a new vertex in the middle of the object, often by extruding a new edge to the center of the selection, and moving the pivot to the center of the newly created vertex. That way I can scale around the middle point of the object, mirrored modified included. Since blender doesn't recognize the mirrored part of the object, I can't select the middle circle and align the pivot to the center of the selection.

But by now it's starting to feel more like a hack than how to properly handle that problem, I'm feeling that I might be missing something. Is there a better way to handle this, maybe making blender recognizing both halves? Or should I just use the symmetry tools? Most people seem to use the mirror modifier so it probably is a better option to the symmetry tool (and I've noticed that those tools applies only to translating, and not extruding, cutting etc.)

it's better to work with the Mirror modifier but if you've applied it and now you have a symmetrical object, and if you make a change on a side that you want to mirror, the best is to use the Symmetrize tool, this way you don't have to remove half of your object, give it a Mirror modifier and apply

Instead of extruding a vertex and set the 3D cursor to it, you can select two opposite vertices and hit shift + S -> cursor to selected
so the 3D cursor will be in the center of the circle (mirror modifier included)


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Object used for particle render getting direction flipped when particle system applied to target with curve modifier
Im trying to setup a modular conveyor for animation using the method shared here: Setup Constraints for modular conveyor. However the object used to render the particles is getting its direction flipped halfway round the curve. This results in the ends not matching up.

Is there a way to fix this? The blend file can be downloaded here.

is your curve in a single part and cyclic (i.e. closed loop)?

Also please use https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ in order to attach blend files. It ensures the link does not expire.

Not sure what's wrong with  your blend file but the "Beltlink" object  and "Segments" collection do not appear in the Outliner and are nowhere to be found.

@Bruno yup .. How do you do that? It's weird. MrQuery: you've come up with something I've never encountered before, presumably because of my routine for constructing rigs at the origin, no rotations, etc. So thanks, this has pointed something up for me. Have fixed the problem, will edit the original answer.

Nevermind the beltlink, it may have been linked from another file.

Look at https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/172271/35559 for some updates or possible fix.
Meanwhile, not really sure what's happening but even on a simple non cyclic curve, you can see the beltlink flipping orientation as it moves along the Y axis as soon as it reaches a curve control point (which is aligned and "flat"). May be a bug, something linked with the way curve control points are impacting the Array Modifier...
For some reason, it does not behave that way on all control points.

My bad, I've fixed the problem in the original answer.. sorry, it shouldn't have got through in the first place.

I think it's probably Gimbal Lock, internally?


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Setup Constraints for modular conveyor
I'm trying to create a modular conveyor which I can animate. I've got a mesh for each section of the modular belt and a Bezier curve I would like them to follow. How can I setup the constraints so that as I drag the front section it rotates around the curve and the rest of the sections follow.
Some of the conveyor sections will use a different mesh in the final setup. As such I'm not sure I can use an array modifier combined with the follow path constraint.

Maybe this is worth a look

You could use a method similar to the one shown here, mounting the plates on a moving array of supports on the curve, to avoid deformation.
But since you would want some variety in the plates, you could use a Particle System  emitted by the support-array, with settings as illustrated, rather than face-instancing:

EDIT: Thanks, @MrQuery, for pointing out a possible source of error with the rig as described. It turns out, to make it more robust, you should specify the rotation of the particles, as well as the settings above:

The phase, rotation, may vary with your plate model: orientation of its mesh with respect to its axes, (which can also be adjusted in Edit Mode).
The emission is all at frame 1 of long-lived particles, one per face, with no physics or randomness. 'Count' is used to give an ordered, cyclic, selection from the source Collection of particle variants.

I could have arranged not to  have a prime number of links ... 8(

Brilliant! This is exactly what I was looking for, thanks!

I'm now having another problem where the direction of the link is getting flipped halfway round the curve, as posted here: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/172477/object-used-for-particle-render-getting-direction-flipped-when-particle-system-a

@MrQuery fixed. See edit. You may want to delete your supplementary question.. it depends how useful you think it might be to other BSE readers.

Thanks for looking into it and finding a solution. I was going to delete the other question as it's probably a bit too specific to stand on its own, but stack exchange wont let me.

@MrQuery   No problem, just obsessively tidy ..  we may clean it up later, I'll assume  you don't mind.


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UV Unwrapping is messed up because of a vertex leading into the wrong ending
my UV Unwrapping is messed up because of a vertex that leads into the wrong ending creating a triangular face (which is not the best thing, as I followed some tutorials saying it). (I think thats the problem)
So the top left line should lead into a new vertex and not the same as the top right one.
Thanks in advance!!
I try to showcase it in the following Images:

Yes that is your problem and you can fix it by selecting the stray edge in Edge mode and dissolving it by pressing x and by selecting Dissolve Edges.

Next use knife tool k and draw the missing edges.

Accept the cut by pressing Enter.
Last select the newly created vertices and move them to better location by double pressing g and sliding them closer to the edge.

Thanks for the answer. Always wanted to know how to add edges if there's a missing one! Thanks for showing me a purpose for the knife tool!
For new people like me: Just press ENTER to make the new edges.
I also made the bottom line one the same level by selecting the vertices and pressing S+Y+0 in Bottom View.


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Merge or join surfaces generated in sverchek . Curves made by Bezier
Initially I created bezier lines in Blender. Then applyied Sverchok.  Visually I devided a shoe into some areas(6-7)  and according to these areas I generated surfaces through Sverchok. Now the problem is - how to join these surfaces together into one?  Because between generated surfaces I get some holes. So there is a way to fix it ?  to merge ?

for now it is one solution
http://nikitron.cc.ua/sverch/html/nodes/surface/blend_surface.html
but we need sewing node, that will do it between zero-space between surfaces.
https://gist.github.com/23349d01c4df05934ef8833d92d27629
try this gist as example

Ok. Thank You for the answer. But could you tell please, why I haven't  BLEND SURFACES NODE in my Sverchok?  I installed the last version

please, install side dependencies also


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object(specifically armature) ignors axis(in this case x axis) during a location animation
I was trying to animate an armature character move from one place to another:
This might look confusing but all you need to know is that the armature needs to move from location a to b

But when I insert a keyframe for the original location, pass the time line forward, insert the end keyframe after moving the armature to the correct location, and then play the animation the armature moves to the incorrect location:

It appears that the animation ignors x axis
I tried it with z too
I repeated the same keyframe process and moved the armature slightly down at the end keyframe.
And sure enough it went back to image three when played
except this time it was moved down slightly.
so for some reason the x axis is ignored during the animtion
I dont remember pressing anything incorrectly but i must have
or this is a glitch
pls help and thank you!

You can mute individual f-curves in the editor, make sure the x-axis loc is not muted.

How exactly do I check this? Thanks.

I FIXED IT THANK YOU SO MUCH


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Trying to intersect two tunnels
I'm trying to create sewer tunnels for game development and I cant seem to figure out how to make an intersection.

We've tried boolean but it doesnt seem to want to work properly nor cutting... Does anyone have any suggestions?

There are several ways to do it, here is one:

Create your tunnel section, create an empty close to it, give your tunnel a Mirror modifier with the empty as Mirror Object, enable Axis, Bisect and Flip on the right axis (here X):

Rotate your empty 45° on the Z axis and move it so that the tunnel and its mirrored version cross each other:

Apply the modifier, go in Edit mode, select all, in the header menu > Mesh > Symmetrize, and in the Operator box choose the right axis:

Symmetrize in the other axis:

Thanks for the reply! I'm having difficulties following the first step, I'm an absolute beginner.... I tried following the instructions but there's no mirrored version that appears.

please share your file once you've created an empty and given your tunnel a Mirror modifier, use https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/

Yes because, as the object is aligned with the X axis, if you choose the X axis in the Mirror modifier, the mirrored object will overlap the original, so just rotate the empty and you will see it

rotated the empty and still cant see it

in the file you share you have not given any modifier to your object, see my answer's edit for the modifier settings

Got it! Now I'm stuck on the operator box part and this is currently how it looks: https://imgur.com/a/Q7sp2O0

the Operator box is the panel that appears on the bottom left of your 3D view as soon as you make some operations, it allows you to tweak some parameters

got it to work! thank you very much for the help :D

@moonboots , your modeling techniques are just brilliant. I learned a lot from you. I enjoy reading your answers :D

@Nxdhin2005, thanks  ;)  there are several ways to do it though

Alternative approach, that allow to have several tunnel entries:

It uses two modifiers:

Shrinkwrap on a mesh with two planes at given angle (here 360 / 6 = 60 degrees).

Array modifier with amount of 6 and centered on a empty rotated by 60 degrees.

Shrinkwrap:
Uses 'project', 'on surface', along the 'Y' axis in my case, to the target 'plane', and using a vertex group: only the parts you want to project are linked to this group. The plane object is in fact two planes disposed at the wanted angle.

Array modifier:
6 occurences as we said above, using 'object offset', with an empty as object, merge options set on.
The empty is at the center of the resulting shape and rotated 60 degees.

All this will work if the tunnel is symetrical and well centered.

That's a really cool idea for an intersection! I'll probably use it for more options of generation :) thank you!

As the others have noted .. many approaches are possible, partly depending on how non-destructive you need to be (that is, how many steps you want to remain 'live', reversible or adjustable through modifiers, before settling the model)
It often saves some steps, or some awkward moves, to start in the flat, with a simple profile:

Z floor-roof, X across the tunnel, Y along it..

Looking down Y, Create the profile... here, a 16-circle, half deleted, bottom vertices EZ extruded down in Z, F connected with an edge, and then the straight sections (right-click menu) > Subdivided. the middle vertex of the bottom straight is dragged down a touch under O proportional editing, set to spherical, to make the gulley.
Looking down Z, The profile is EY extruded to make a section of tunnel
From what will be the apex of the vault, K with C to constrain and Z to cut through, cut the miter, and X discard the excess faces.
All the boundary edges, and the edges of the gulley are CtrlE menu > given an Edge Bevel weight

In Edit mode the whole thing is ShiftDRZ45 duplicated and rotated. ShiftR repeats the move twice more.
M > By Distance merge the coincident vertices, welding the parts into 1.

Back in Object mode, the object is given: a Solidify modifier, set  to mode 'Complex' by 'Contraints', then a Bevel modifier, by 'Weight', then a Subdivision Surface modifier.

Can do it using a mirror modifier this way:

It is mirrored in X and Y using an empty rotated 45 degrees so that the mirror is done on the sides (the diagonals of the inner region, between the mirrored parts).
The clipping option must be on.
Now grab Y (in my case) until the extremity reaches the center, like this:

Then scale with origin set on 3D cursor by 2 except on Z. SshiftZ2. Two because the width of the tunnel is two in this example:

All should be connected correctly:

Thanks for the reply :D I'm going to try moon boot's method first though if that's ok

@Nick, sure he was first to answer


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BLENDER RIGIFY ERROR (Generation has thrown an exception: 'bpy_prop_collection[key]: key "ear.L.004" not found')
I'm trying to rig a character for a project of mine. I've never rigged in Blender before, only 3DSMax. I'm using rigify Add>Armature>Human (Meta-Rig) and all I've done is replace the bones to different locations and tried to generate a rig. I've gotten a few errors I've tackled so far, but currently an error I have no been able to hurdle tells me this when I try to generate "Generation has thrown an exception: 'bpy_prop_collection[key]: key "ear.L.004" not found'"
I have moved the ears outside of the head because the head of this model is a bird with a mullet. I do not need ear bones but have found that rigify humans do not generate rigs if all of the facial bones are not present as they were spawned. I plan to delete them once the rig is created.
So all that said, why is my rig not generating? And what do I need to change to make it function?
Here are my pictures of the model/problem:
http://prntscr.com/ueg8m3
http://prntscr.com/ueg8wx
http://prntscr.com/ueg9mh
I'd upload the .blend if I knew how. Please help, greatly appreciated :)

Also, "ea.L.004" definitely exists http://prntscr.com/ueixra

If the bone is not deleted, then that's strange. Upload your metarig (without the character is fine) to https://pasteall.org/blend/ if you want someone to take a look.

https://pasteall.org/blend/eed7f225aea247ff80f99b01573e761f I'd love for someone to

I saw your file. The ear bone is there but it was not un-parented from the other bones for some reason
You have to parent

ear.L.004 to ear.L.003
ear.R.004 to ear.R.003

Parent with Connected.
Also your metarig has Scale that has not been applied so most likely you'll have to press CTRL+A > Scale (in Object Mode!)


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Optimal way to animate dragging objects through space from a spaceship
So I'm working on a short 5 second animation for a stream alert. I've made a rocket and constrained it with follow path, then used some custom animation to make it appear to (shoddily) fly. I also have an astronaut that I want to be attached to the ship on the outside being drug by his space walk cord. I don't know if blender has an easier method of attaching one object to another with a loose rope to be pulled by an already animated object other than just custom animating the drug object and the rope frame by frame. But maybe I can use my existing constraint path on a cord (simple cylinder) so that it may follow like a snake?
Help?
My current hypothesis is that I should attach my space walk cord to the skeleton of my astronaut and custom animate them to follow the ship. But then if I don't know how to attach the other end to the space ship it won't every stay a constant singular distance away.
I'm also trying to smooth the over all animation, as it seems a bit noisy or erratic. Any tips besides how to drag an object through a vacuum to improve the animation is also appreciated
My project is here:
https://pasteall.org/blend/5584f2dbf2004c21abeeb437ad7156af

A cloth simulation of a rope can attach the astronaut to the spaceship, then a simulation will generate the movement for the astronaut. The rope is parented to the spaceship so is it moved with it. The the astronaut is constrained to moved with the end of the rope. The animation below shows the final result.

Details

Create a rope from a cylinder by subdividing along it length. Create a vertex group at the end of the rope.
Apply a cloth simulation to the cylinder.
Parent the rope to the spaceship.
Use  the copy location constraint on astronaut and select the rope and the vertex group at the end.

Blender 2.92 file used to generate the animation. -


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Creating 3D printable 3D-texture on faces with nodes?
Newbe with Blender!
(v2.9)
Want to set up a correct Nodes-chain in the Shader, to perform:

a 3D-texture on only one face of, say ,a cube
from a jpg image, defining the displacement along the normal of that face (for ex a .jpg image of a brick surface)
with size/translation/rotation capabilities of applied texture.

I tried a lot:...(I am newbe, and watched a lot of videos...!).
My last tries:

in edit mode: subdivide the cube ..
in shader pane: add texture coord node, mapping node, image node, displacement node

but I dont know how to connect these nodes (especially the displacement node) correctly !
I dont'care about rendering, my purpose is 3D-printing of the model only!
Thanks

Hello :). For 3D printing, have a look at the Displacement modifier. You'll need to convert the displacement into real geometry for exporting, which isn't possible with nodes.

Related: How to Convert Material Displacement to a Mesh?


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When i'm in my viewport, rendering with cycles just looks like eevee
I'm making the donut from the Blender guru tutorial series, but when I went to switch to cycles, it was supposedly already rendering in cycles even though it looked like Eevee. when I was working yesterday, cycles worked fine but as soon as I opened the file again today, I couldn't see it in cycles.

It sounds like you may be in material preview mode (second to right of the 4 circles in top right of viewport). To get the Cycles look, switch to "Rendered Preview" (farthest circle to the right)

Hello :). Please add some images to illustrate the issue.

Go to Output properties on the far right panels. From Post Production uncheck Sequencer.


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Rendering for Adjacent Video Screens
I'm new to Blender, I'm looking to create synchronised animations for adjacent video screens of the same scene.
It's sort of an 'aspect ratio' of 4 x 4K video screens x 1 video screen showing the same landscape.
Each screen is centrally controlled so they can work as a coordinated whole.
What would be the best way to render and set this up ?
For example one enormous render with a ridiculously wide aspect ratio (note they're all 4K) ? Or 4 separate renders of the scene - is there some way of splitting up portions of a camera view ?
Thanks.

(1) Setup your camera view by using the extremely high coordinates. (2) Render only for a single screen (change the resolution) and use the sensor shift to grab the different portions of the viewport.

I'd potentially use multiple cameras and render each separately such as as described in https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/102163/29586 and https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/102118/29586 - just position all cameras at the same point and rotate so that the edges match up.

Thanks ! Presumably breaking up the rendering would be easier on the hardware - but doing it all as one extremely wide scene might be quicker (if its possible for something that large in 4K) ?


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Video Editor Text - Font Style Won't Change
I am using the Video Editor and have added a new Text object to the sequencer at the bottom. When I try to change the font style using the "Strip" menu to the right, selecting a new font style does not change the way the font is presented in the preview. Clicking the "F" button next to the Font style, I see a "0" next to the fonts I've tried. Can someone explain how I can get Blender to recognize different fonts besides the default? Thank you!

Jeff, are you able to place text in the VSE and with any font without using the Effects-->text strip?  If not leave a comment.

This may be related to this issue in the Blender bug tracker. I recommend you to monitor it: https://developer.blender.org/T80544

I observed this behavior on Linux with Blender 2.83.5.
I found a workaround:

Create a font strip in VSE
Set the font you would like to use (the preview does not reflect this)
Delete the strip
Perform an undo. At least in my configuration, the text is rendered in the correct font.

Thanks.  Works for me on Windows 10 with Blender 2.90.1

Thanks! What I did is just added the font, then moved my timeline forward, and then pressed Control Z, and then the font appeared. This must be a bug in Blender.

Has someone reported this yet?

@Rikki-Tikki-Tavi - Yes, as you can see in the comment I added to the original question (https://developer.blender.org/T80544)

Jesus Christ, Blender!


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Rect selection after click selection 2.8.3
This looks like a very basic Question to me but I can not find an answer so far. Look at this image please:

I clicked on the right cube and it is selected
I rect selected the left cube. Notice the dark selection color and:
there is still that "selection indication" in the outliner around the "triangle" in front of the Cube.001 name and the pivot seems still selected.
Now i click selected the left cube.
Selection indication gone. All fine now.

What does that red selection color mean (without selecting multiple objects)? I often run into problems, when that is active, since only the orange selection color is the right one.
Thanks


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Middle mouse transform like in Maya (no gizmo interaction)
While I am getting more and more comfortable with the interface in blender I am missing out one thing:
The way you can edit e.g. vertices in maya by selecting and then middle mouse drag anywhere on the screen.
In blender afaik I can only either select and then every time hit the g key, select and move only one vertex with tweak or having to use the movement gizmo when in move mode (meaning I have to hit it with the mouse).
That means i have to click or keypress one more time after selection compared to maya, where I was able to select and then middle mouse drag to move the selection.
Would be awesome if that was somehow available in blender as well.

Hello :). This isn't the right place for feature requests, but you can set-up your shortcuts any way you want. So, what is your question again? :)

I just wanted to know if that exists, not create a feature request. :)

As I said, you can change most shortcuts in Blender's preferences :)


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Assign weight to specific vertices with normalization on
I am having a quite simple cylinder like shape which is to be deformed by some bones.
The start and end should be undeformed by all other bones and the rest should be distributed evenly.
So after I parented with automatic weights, I select the top and bottom rows with the according bones and assign a weight of 1.0 to them (with either Shift+K or the assign button in the vertex groups).
I would now expect, that those vertices are not weighted in any other bone. But they are.
I know there is "Auto normalize" in the tools (which is checked) but that only seems to work for weight painting and not assigning in the way above.
Am I missing something or is that not possible currently?
Thanks, Alex

You can use 3D View > Side Bar > Item > Vertex Weights in edit mode.
Rewrite the group value of active vertex to one and
delete other group values with delete buttons.
Then use the copy button to copy the state of the active vertex to the other selected vertices.

My question was more aimed at why the normalization is not working when assigning weights like I did above.
But since it is a possibility to do it, I accepted your answer. Thanks.


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Flat surface not being shaded consistently across quads
I've been working on a mesh and realised that part of it is not being shaded consistently across the borders of each quad. I've isolated the section into its own blend file and cannot figure out what's causing the issue.
The section in question is a flat plane with some loop cuts. It's set to flat shading and the face normals are all consistent and pointing in the same direction. There is no modifiers applied.

Does anyone know the cause of this and how to correct it?
Blend file can be downloaded here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DW8WcC2wAT3FR1h9uUGkHZmDef-mzgR3/view?usp=sharing

While deactivating the "Auto Smooth" helps at the moment, i believe that something else happened and messed the normals up.
In my humble opinion i think that the surface should be fine even if the Normals are set to "Auto Smooth", in that regard i checked and found that if you press Alt+N and use the "Set From Faces" option, the surface normals are corrected.
Here the visual confirmation:

I agree...  maybe something arround Alt+L...  haven't find what exactly.

Interesting. I tried using the set from faces on the full mesh, and whilst it fixed the section in question it also messed up the normals elsewhere on the mesh. However, selecting Reset Vectors fixed it for the whole mesh.

To figure out how it happened is i believe rather impossible, as just one shortcut pressed the wrong modifier key, like alt instead of shift, and it goes under. I just tried to play with the Alt+L function and somehow even got the result, but then again trying to replicate it did not work. I only remember that i switched on spherize and it looked like the situation we started with here. At the same time i found a bug, Blender crashes if you are in the Alt+L function and press Tabulator. Gonna write a bug report, so be careful to safe before playing with the Alt+L function!

All functions regarding Normals are working on the selected elements, so yeah, different situations like beveled areas and such can and will differ in result with different normal functions.

It's entirely possible I hit Alt+L by accident, as I was selecting connected vertices with L not long before I noticed the issue. Thanks for your help!

'Autosmooth' is turned on:
Go to the 'object data properties' part, in the 'normals' section, and uncheck 'autosmooth'.

No idea how I mangaged to turn that on. Thanks for the quick answer!


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Exporting a FreeCAD model to Blender
I am an Engineering student and I am designing some electrical device on FreeCAD. I am a complete beginner but I am interested in Blender because what I am planning to do is to create some fancy advertising (commercial) video of my product. Now, my question is can I reuse the models I created in FreeCAD when doing the commercial video in Blender or are these softwares incompatible?
I know this question may sound trivial but since I am a beginner and as confused as I am, I want to make sure that I am the right place, opting for Blender in order to get my commercial video done.

It depends on wether FreeCAD is able to export a format that blender can import like .obj, .fbx, .dae,...

The format of the files bear the extension .FCStd. And I use latest version which is FreeCAD 0.18. Do you think these files will be supported?

.FCStd is a native, software specific format. You can't import or export it within Blender. You can however use an exchange format. According to wikipedia FreeCAD can import and export .stl, .obj, and .dae (among others). Those three are ones that blender can also import and export.

Yorik van Havre wrote a great Blender addon which allows you to import FreeCAD files directly into Blender.
It depends a bit on the Python versions of both your FreeCAD and Blender software, but it is possible e.g. via conda to create the correct versions yourself.
You can find the details and the addon on Yorik's github
Make sure to read the comments to get an idea of the necessary Python versions.


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How to output deep data?
Is there a way to export world position pass, also object position pass (local), and deep pass ?
I have searched in the output tab but haven't found anything.
thanks a lot!

AFAIK Cycles doesn't support deep compositing data at this time. You might have some luck with third party renders.

Passes are accessible in the view layer tab:

Though there are not world/object position passes yet, you can make them by hand like explained on this other topic. It explains only for the world position, but you can deduce how to do for others.

Since this question was originally asked, Blender began supporting AOVs (arbitrary output variables) which allow you to treat any data you can get in a material as an output pass:

Here, I'm using an AOV to do a world position pass.
Make a new AOV by clicking the plus button in properties/viewlayer/shader AOV and give it an appropriate name.  Then create an AOV output in your material and set it up appropriately.  My AOV material here is outputting unprocessed world position.  Any AOVs you create will show up as passes in your compositing.
I don't know a way to preview AOVs in Cycles, but they can be previewed in Eevee by adjusting the render pass output on the preview dropdown while in rendered or material preview modes.


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Same material being used on two objects coming up different please help?
I'm using a really simple texture on two different items but they're coming out different shades how do I get them to be the same colour?

Check your Normals area all pointing the right way.

Silly question... just in case .. does it matter that the Brightness Contrast node is not connected in the illustrated tree?


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Can't select or interact with downloaded objects unless in edit mode
need some help.
I downloaded this free car model, and everything worked great until i tried to move it around.
It is made of many parts so I selected everything with A and tried to rotate the whole thing.
Problem is, 4 objects (namely the 4 rims of the wheels) stayed put and didn't do a thing.
I can see the meshes, but I cant select/box select them. I discovered that pressing "A" does not select them at all, and when selecting them from the collections (blender 2.8), i still can't move them.
I also tried Parenting them to other objects but with no result.
The only thing I can apparently do, is go into Edit mode which actually highlights the mesh normally.
I tried merging the mesh with other objects, duplicating and splitting it into another mesh, but nothing has worked so far.
Am i missing some obscure setting that prohibits me from interacting or is it an actual issue with the mesh/file?
Thanks in advance for the help!

Possible duplicate of missing objects when opening old file in blender 2.8


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How to scale and/or move textures relative to other textures?
To give an example of this question: Imagine you have some bricks, after UV unwrapping, you apply a brick textures to your wall, you also however, want water drops on your bricks as if it has been raining (please don't take this example literally and give some reason for why there is another way to do this, it is just to introduce the problem).
So you apply your water droplet texture, but there is a problem, in the UV editor, you can only move the representation of the mesh, not the images themselves, so if the bricks are too large, you can scale up the mesh, but then the water droplets will be too large as well, if you scale the mesh back down so the water droplets are fine, the bricks become too large again.
So how do I scale or move the textures in relation to each other, I haven't found a way and have been searching around all the tools and dropdowns in the UI but can't seem to find a solution. If anyone has an answer, I would much appreciate it.

Option A: Use different UV maps for each texture Option B: Scale the texture at material level through nodes

Which nodes can I use?

You can put a Vector > Mapping node between the Texture Coordinate node and your texture and adjust the scale. For UVs, you'll (usually) only use the X and Y scale.


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I’m trying to texture paint for the first time, and was wondering if there was a way to set brush size?
I’m trying to texture paint a sphere for a globe, but I realized after a bit that the brush size is set to the view not to a scale. When I zoom in or out it stays the same size, but affects the object differently. By zooming out I can cover almost half of the sphere, and by zooming in make more fine details. A useful feature in itself, but doesn’t work for what I need.

there's an option for the scultp brushes, you can switch the brush radius from View to Scene, I don't think it exists for Texture Painting so maybe you should suggest it in the Right Click Select site: https://blender.community/c/rightclickselect/

If you witch to the 2D Image Editor, your brush will respect size in relation to the image texture being painted on. In the 3D editor, your paint will work as you describe - you can block out basic areas of rough painting there and use the 2D Image Editor to do the controlled painting if you want.


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Far away objects are lit by sun lamp when they shouldn't be, moving camera closer to objects they are no longer lit
I am creating a forest scene and using the Hosek/Wilkie sky texture in eevee to light the scene. The scene will start with a sunrise, and the sun  starts underneath a plane, with forest stuff on top on it.
When I have my camera close to the trees they are not lit up (as expecpted), however as I move further away the tree models are completely lit up, despite nothing in the scene changing except how close my camera is. The same thing happens whether using the actual camera and rendering images closer/further away, or whether I just move the viewport camera closer/further away in rendered view.
I provide a .blender file with the basics of the scene/problem in it: https://www.mediafire.com/file/lb72l7yr5qiam21/forest+scene+reduced.blend/file
I provide three images.
Image 1 - far away, all trees lit

Image 2 - mid-range, closer trees notlit, further trees are lit

Image 3 - closest, no trees are lit

Many thanks for any help!

congrats! you uploaded a 781 MB blend file...i am sure you got on the highscore list with this! :D -> would be nice if you could downsize your blend file before uploading to "just" show the problem -> not everybody has a lightning speed internet connection

Sorry, I did not realize that was possible! How should I go about doing this?

just by simplifying your scene...delete objects/textures which you don't need to reproduce your problem. But....i already downloaded it....and i could not find the reason for it. Sorry :(


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Is it possible to render the object 'selection outline', or mimic it in some way, for a particle system?
I am playing around with particle systems, and have been experimenting with this tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bv973aqx-w
The system emitted particles from an icosphere, but the particle emitted is based on another object in the space. I'm basically trying to make it look nice. I think that when particles are next to each other, you cannot distinguish the shape, which I think doesn't look very good (Figure 1). When the particle system is selected, the objects all have outlines, which I think looks cool (Figure 2).
Is it possible to add an outline to a shape (i.e. every object in this particle system is based on an emission cube I have) which will then appear in the particle system. The main solution I've found online to getting object outlines is 'freestyle', which I don't think will work here as it is applied after, and therefore the cube generated in the particle system wouldn't pick it up.
Figure 1:

Figure 2:

Any solutions/workarounds welcome!

Did you try "Wireframe modifier"?

Thank you for this suggestion, but the wireframe is the same colour as the object. Is there a way to set the wireframe as a separate colour?

I agree, it's a very nice look.. It's easy to just get the wireframe of the cubes, but to capture all the edges created by intersecting faces without Freestyle is next to impossible in EEVEE or Cycles. There are some tricks you can pull with tightened-up AO, but none of them quite do it.
I think I would either shoot a pass in the Workbench renderer, say, displaying Object color of black, with Outline checked and set to white, to use as a mask in compositing later:

Or use the Header menu > View > Viewport Render Animation option to shoot the actual selection outline (perhaps with EEVEE,) bearing in mind you can create a custom theme under Edit > Preferences > Themes > 3D View, and change the Object Selected color:

If you would rather just have the wireframe, just say, and I / someone else will come up with a variety of ways to do that.

Thank you for the detailed response, it's much appreciated. I have been able to create the wireframes, next step is to learn how to use it as a mask in compositing later. I will post back here with an update after I have tried.

@AP30 Thanks! I forgot to mention the Workbench renderer is preferable.. antialiasing.. once you get to the compositor, other possibilities open.. edge detection on normals / depth. etc.


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How to bake a particle animation over 250 frames
I have been following this guide for making a particle animation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bv973aqx-w
At the end, he says you just increase the end frame in the bar at the bottom up to 500 and it will bake up to 500 frames, although you can see in this video this is not the case, timestamp.
I have found lot's of examples on how to fix this for rigid body systems, for example this video, however these methods do not work for particle systems.
I have searched stackexchange and not been able to find a solution to this, if I have missed it, I apologise. Many thanks for any help.

I think I understand what's happening in the video and why this is causing confusion.
For some simulations (such as Rigid Body) you set the range of frames on the cache and Blender will bake all frames within that range.
For particles, things are slightly difference since particles can exist for only a part of the range of frames - so the cache is automatic in that it will store those frames that have particles that are within the range of timeline frames. ie, you do not need to explicitly specify a range of frames to cache.
In the example video, the timeline frames are amended to the range 1 to 500 but the particle system is still defined as having particles emitted from frame 1 to frame 200 with a life of 50 for each particle. This means that the cache actually bakes 251 frames - with the last frame (251) to indicate purely that all particles have died. You can see the frame count in the right-hand panel just after the bake has completed.
So, all you need to do to have 500 frames of particles (after you have amended the timeline frame range end at frame 500) is to change the particle system to emit particles that persist after the 250th frame - eg, increase 'End' to 500 or increase 'Lifetime' to, say, 500. Running or baking the simulation will result in particles for the full frame range.

Thank you very much for your reply, this is correct!


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3d objects that disappear in my scene when rendering using cycles
I'm creating a small scene, which is my bedroom, and following is the problem i'm facing

This bed that shows in preview mode just disappears in cycle render

Only the feet remain.
These two objects are cubes with these modifiers applied to

the material applied is the Following:
the only change between the two is the color

i use an hdri combined with a directional light pointing to a point in space that i can move,
The camera is rigged with constraints on a location point and a look at point
I'll appreciate any help of any kind, best regards,

Maybe they are disabled for rendering. Check their visibility in their object property panel.

i Don't think that's this, in the visiblity tab they are marked as visible in viewports and renders

and their collection?

the collection is also marked as visible

Show images ot the outliner

sorry I don't understand @susu

... just "eye" symbol in the outliner ? In the outliner, right click on the collection and look at the visibility part of the menu

I'm not sure to understand, but by looking at the eye symbol the visibility is checked, but I've tried to disable the modifiers on one of the cube and it appeared back so I think it's modifier faults

There is 3 "type of" visibility... even if unsure this is your issu, look here: https://i.sstatic.net/DRZzz.jpg

well it appear to be the smooth modifier rather than visiblity, i'll investigate to make it appear with the smooth.

ok, get it: sudivision is set to 0 for render... so smooth is smoothing too far at 27

Thanks! I've set it to 6 to render it worked, I didn't realized there was a render parameter in this modifier, I'm sorry I used your time for such little thing

@LouisBERTRAND, il n'y a pas de mal!

héhé, vraiment merci en tout cas @lemon

Following is the answer to the problem i had:
after conversing with @lemon , he/she as found a the answer.
Regarding the modifiers i was appliying, the subdivision surface modifier was set to 0 for the render as you can see in the image.

So, the smooth modifier was smothing a mesh that has to few vertices to be seen on screen.


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Select inner faces and select non-manifold geometry not working
Often times when I build a model, I will join 2 objects together, creating inner faces that tend to screw up my armature weights. I researched various ways to select this interior geometry but none of them appear to work. I tried these methods on a complex model as well as on a simple set of cubes. In any case, nothing gets selected and there is no error code.

Can you state the "various ways" you have tried.
Obviously the boolean modifier is one approach, but it has it's drawbacks. Have you tried using the Intersect (boolean) tool in edit mode?

The Boolean modifier did help me figure stuff out. Thank you.


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Can you move the left toolbar in viewport?
I'll be honest, I'm coming from using 3dsmax. So the fact that the tools are spread/copied in multiple locations is confusing. (and change sucks yaddayadda)
Been trying to emulate max more to make my transition a bit smoother, and had wanted to move the left tool bar so that it's horizontal instead of off to the side. Or even change the top bar from a drop down menu to tabs. I've always found drop down menus really annoying to work with, have a hard time selecting what I want to select without the menu disappearing. I like to be able to see my options instead of having to dig for them. :I
any help is appreciated, thanks for readin'.

My unsolicited advice would be to focus on the differences of the interface rather than trying to emulate a different software.  Transitioning to a bent interface will not help you. Each program has a certain logic built in and it is hard (and frustrating) to bend the workflow to work on a program that has a different one. You will need to build a new muscle memory, so it is better done from scratch. If you learn to use the software as is, you might become not only more flexible, but will find solutions that are innovative and might yield to a different kind of creativity...

There are pie menus for a lot of the more important options, you can enable those as an add-on.. search on 'pie'. The position of the toolbar may be awkward for you, but I would argue, although the journey may be gradual, if and when you become Blenderish, you won't be using the toolbar/dropdowns at all, so don't worry about them. Pretty much everything is a keyboard shortcut.. let your frustration prompt you to pick up the shortcuts, a few at a time. In Blender, If you think there must be a better way, there nearly always is one.

Note that not all tools have a default keyboard shortcut, but it is quite easy to create your own.


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Raindroplet simulations
I’m currently working on a short film. I’m not an expert at Blender so I decided to ask for help here.  I watched this youtube tutorial on how to make rain droplets:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0koL5NGBaA0&t=25s
Now I wonder how to get rain droplets to slide around two gauges I have modeled. The droplets in this tutorial don't behave the same way in my blender file and I feel like I have trouble tweaking it so that the water would slide around the two models.
If I don’t find a good solution for making this effect soon I will try to film a transparent glass behind a green screen and glue two cylinder-shaped green cups or something so that the water goes around the cup's edges and then chroma key the green out in Premiere Pro. I don’t know how well it smooths around the droplets if I green screen it though. (I don't have money for After-Effects at the moment.) so I figured that I try to do it somehow in Blender instead.
I appreciate the help!

Try using metaball. But if you film this directly, don't use green screen, film the water using a black background and then use a luma key.


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Why is `Alpha Over` compositor no longer blending values between 0 and 1
I have the following compositor nodes, that are supposed to add a white background behind my transparent render layer (using setting Render Properties -> Film -> Transparent).

Unfortunately the result only seems to be looking at either 0% alpha or 100% alpha, no blending for the intermediate values:

If I remove the alpha-over node and just save the image as RGBA, the alpha channel looks correct, and if I add a white background manually (using GIMP or imagemagick), It is correctly showing behind it:

The weirdest thing is, if I remove the Alpha-Fac connection, and just set the factor to 0.5, it composites the whole image to white. (Instead of multiplying the foreground image's alpha by 0.5, as one would expect when reading the documentation.)
This used to work before, but since I recently edited my World-background-shader-nodes, the alpha-over broke. But according to the image above, my alpha-layer is fine. Is this a bug in Blender?

Change the alpha over colour. Guessing the reflections show up?

I tried a few more things, and it looks like it always happens when I use an *.exr file for my hdr map. If I use a jpeg for my environment texture the background is correctly blended.

@troy_s the color just changed the background color, not the fact that alpha is not taken into account.

If it is a render, the alpha is taken into account. The only method to preserve the correct encoding is EXR. PNG cannot support reflections, etc.

So, what I did to fix the issue is convert my hdr.exr to hdr.jpg, after doing this the renders that I created had the correct alpha values.

Not a chance. Post the EXR from the render.


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Anisotropic shader not working with new file
so I tried following this (somewhat dated) tutorial to create an anisotropic material.
Unfortunately no matter what I do, the objects don't look anisotropic at all.
Here's my attempt at following the tutorial:

Even if I just open a plain new file, add a geometry, an HDR map as the background and set the Anisotropic shader, it doesnt work:

The only way I could see any anisotropy, was by downloading the example blender file from the docs.
What could be missing from a plain new file, that the example file has? The cycles nodes look exactly the same.

Sorry for the confusion, it looks like new file now (Blender 2.9) sets the new file render engine to Eevee and eevee doesn't seem to do anisotropic. 2h of life-time I'm never going to get back


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Retopoflow - How to only do a portion of the mesh?
I have a model that needs Retopology in portion of the mesh only. What I'd like to do is use Retopoflow to do the Retopology in that area but then have Retopoflow copy the rest of the poly's of the model into place so I don't have to do the whole thing. Is this possible?


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How to create character creation pipeline that use the same rig proportions?
Does anyone know a good workflow or tutorial on how to create the same rig proportions for both a male and female character? Using Auto Rig Pro, it's been great. But, having big issues when needing to transfer animation from one character to another. Doesn't work, way too much cleanup to be something I can move forward with. Auto Rig pro devs have mentioned that if the rigs have same proportions animations would transfer seamlessly. But, I'm stumped. How can the rigs be the same proportion if the characters are not the same proportions? .FBX export > transfer to second rig has been terrible as well. Looking for ability to copy action from one rig (character) to another. Any help much much appreciated.

No, characters with different proportions cannot have rigs with the same proportions.  This, that animations don't necessarily transfer well,  is a fact of life.  There is no generalizable rigging solution.  Animation might have a character bend her clavicle to touch her nose, or bend her clavicle to dance the M in YMCA, and one depends on both arm and nose length and one doesn't really depend on anything, and the animation doesn't contain any of that info about what the pose is doing in a functional sense.

Thx Nathan for the response. Knowing that it's simply a "fact of life" with animation as it is now, and not something I'm missing or doing wrong, is helpful in itself.


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Location values showing negative values
Can anyone explain why after moving my characters foot upward on the Z axis, the values are showing as negative in viewport top right. Yet, in the Move window pop up bottom left they are positive value?

I'm not sure without having the same rig, but in the top menu bar the Transform Orientation is set to Local, while for the Pose Mode it's set to Global. I could imagine it has something to do with that.

Thx Gordon, yes it absolutely did. My comment below on Gordon's post explained my issue in further detail.

While move operation performs in world space, bone locations is shown in local space. So it is predictable because leg is pointed down.

Excellent thx. Knowing this is predictable makes all the difference.

On the bottom left you'll see how many units you've moved your bone in the Global space (but you can swicth to Local), whereas in the N panel you'll see how many units you've moved your bone in its local space, i.e. compared to its default rest orientation and location

Great. Since I've posted this I've realized part of what has confused me in case anyone else runs into this issue, which was: I've been taking a class who's rig is set up differently than mine. The issue with mine is that the main control bone rotation in local space is different than that of the classes rig. For example, my hips in local space is set to the Y axis pointing up. Whereas the class rig is Z pointing up. This made the graph editor learning so confusing. Since then I've changed my rigs bone rotation to match the class rig. All makes sense now. Thx all!


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Why is the location data different in Move window vs. Transform data dropdown?
Trying to understand why the movement of a bone on a particular axis is listed differently in two different areas. See screenshot. I've moved Rain's foot forward on the Y axis. Which is shown in the move window bottom left. Yet it shows that I've moved it on the Z axis in the transform dropdown located top right. Can someone explain why this is? Thx.

The move location is adding that number to the Previous location, if i have a model on Location 1.5 m, i could use the move menu to type 0.5 and because of that, the Transform location is going to show 2 instead of 0.5 or 1.5. If you are in world 0 and move your object for the first time, then, the numbers will be the same because is 0 + the new location that you move the object

Emir, thx. I understand that. Curious why the bottom left box is showing her foot had been moved on the Y axis (which is correct) while the top right box is showing that it had been moved on the Z axis. It seems this may have something to do with bone orientation but I am not sure how to understand it fully.


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What is the most scalable way to animate large amount of objects?
I'm trying to animate the activity of neurons in a large scale spiking neural network. I'm trying to make it as efficient as possible because it has to scale well and run smoothly for atleast 30,000 objects and preferably up to millions, from the Python API.
My efforts up to now have focussed on creating the neurons efficiently and I've ended up with:

1 icosphere mesh
1 mesh linked to 1 Emission material
n objects with their own position linked to the mesh

For the animation I've found out about relevant 2 techniques:

Keyframes
Nodes

But I haven't been able to find a way where I can do it for the objects individually since they share their mesh and material. It seems like for both of these I would have to create at least n materials or nodes so that I can animate the intensity of each object independently.
So the big question: Are there better ways to animate a property of a large group of objects, ideally where I can use 1 shared resource, passing it a vector with a value for each object?
Edit: Is a frame_change handler as proposed here efficient? Is swapping out the materials of my n objects computationally efficient?

First though... preferably using one big object with many neurons and using vertex color for the material animation.

How could I make this one big object?

Do you have an illustration of what would be the final result? Is it a computer NN or real one?

https://i.imgur.com/D6aSsbH.png All of the spheres' emission intensity should be animated. In this picture they're not emission mats yet :)

@lemon I'm animating simulation results of a model of the cerebellum, so a real simulated one ^_^

Oh also, in this picture you see I don't have 1 mat and 1 mesh but m mats and m meshes with n x m objects, because I have m different neuron populations

Yes my idea was to use vertex color to drive the shader (so possibly, one material or/and one mesh should be possible)

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

Object color?  https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/185314/15543

Object color looks very promising! I added an Object Info node, connected Color to a Vector node to scale it with a constant representing the max intensity and connected that to the Strength of my Emission node!


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Disadvantages for using complex meshes for bone controls
While going through some tutorials on the basics of rigging in Blender, I kept noticing that the circles I was using as the custom shapes were extremely small and thin. I tried adding a more complex mesh as the custom shape, and it looks like it works correctly. (The below shape is a little exaggerated in size but more of what I was thinking.)

I was wondering if there are any disadvantages for having a more complex mesh as the custom shape of a bone? e.g. any performance issues or other issues that would be good to keep in mind?

No, there isn't any disadvantage or issue, except for the obvious fact that if a character has a very complex rig, with hundreds of controls, if the shapes aren't little and thin you could get your view quite obstructed.

And, eventually, viewport performance, although it's hard to imagine that being a realistic concern.


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UV Faces Proportionally Incorrect After Unwrap
This is more of an annoyance than anything else but it's bugging me.  I have a simple object that when unwrapped, has a disproportional UV map.  I've tried everything that I can think of such as:
Merging duplicate vertices - none
Triangulation mesh
Limited resolve
Chopping up the corner areas into individual faces
Removed and replaced the back face
Recalculating normals
A bunch of other stuff that I can't remember
What am I missing?
The object has narrower faces at the bevels but the UV has every face at a consistent width:

Hello :). You have multiple unwrapping options available. Simply toggling Angle-based/Conformal could help :).

Jachym was correct.  Selecting the Conformal method in the UV options solved it.


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Change Number Rounding Display Resolution in the Transform Panel
Is it possible to adjust the number of decimal places that are displayed for the "Dimensions" values in the transform window (N panel)?  Location, Rotation, and Scale are all displayed with up to 4 decimal places but Dimensions get rounded to 1.  I do some precise modeling and need to display 4 decimal places so I don't constantly have to click in the appropriate field to expose the actual resolution.

The simple way:
Change settings for displayed units in Scene Properties tab > Units   Manual

The pythonic way:
I am not so happy with manipulating the N panel because it´s used for a lot of different information. We may better expand the Transform panel in the Object Properties tab. The dimensions are displayed here with 4 decimal places by default and more if Unit System is set to None. Run script in Texteditor to see.

import bpy

def register():

    def draw_transform_new(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        layout.use_property_split = True
        ob = context.object
        col = layout.column()
        row = col.row(align=True)
        row.prop(ob, "location")
        row.use_property_decorate = False
        row.prop(ob, "lock_location", text="", emboss=False, icon='DECORATE_UNLOCKED')

        rotation_mode = ob.rotation_mode
        if rotation_mode == 'QUATERNION':
            col = layout.column()
            row = col.row(align=True)
            row.prop(ob, "rotation_quaternion", text="Rotation")
            sub = row.column(align=True)
            sub.use_property_decorate = False
            sub.prop(ob, "lock_rotation_w", text="", emboss=False, icon='DECORATE_UNLOCKED')
            sub.prop(ob, "lock_rotation", text="", emboss=False, icon='DECORATE_UNLOCKED')
        elif rotation_mode == 'AXIS_ANGLE':
            col = layout.column()
            row = col.row(align=True)
            row.prop(ob, "rotation_axis_angle", text="Rotation")

            sub = row.column(align=True)
            sub.use_property_decorate = False
            sub.prop(ob, "lock_rotation_w", text="", emboss=False, icon='DECORATE_UNLOCKED')
            sub.prop(ob, "lock_rotation", text="", emboss=False, icon='DECORATE_UNLOCKED')
        else:
            col = layout.column()
            row = col.row(align=True)
            row.prop(ob, "rotation_euler", text="Rotation")
            row.use_property_decorate = False
            row.prop(ob, "lock_rotation", text="", emboss=False, icon='DECORATE_UNLOCKED')
        row = layout.row(align=True)
        row.prop(ob, "rotation_mode", text="Mode")
        row.label(text="", icon='BLANK1')

        col = layout.column()
        row = col.row(align=True)
        row.prop(ob, "scale")
        row.use_property_decorate = False
        row.prop(ob, "lock_scale", text="", emboss=False, icon='DECORATE_UNLOCKED')

        col = layout.column()
        row = col.row(align=True)
        row.prop(ob, "dimensions", text="Dimension")

    bpy.types.OBJECT_PT_transform.draw = draw_transform_new   # replace

### use this for live edit

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

### or this for autorun, if
### scriptfile 'redraw_transform_panel.py' (extension!) is in folder BlenderUser/[Version]/scripts/startup/
### filepath to BlenderUser see: print(bpy.utils.user_resource('SCRIPTS'))
### if there´s no folder 'startup' in .../scripts/ then create one
'''
__name__ == "redraw_transform_panel.py"
register()
'''

The script in the Texteditor must be activated every time Blender is restarted. To run automatically at startup follow the hints at the bottom.


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Advice on dividing and unwrapping this mesh
I'm working on a project with several objects like this and they are causing me a lot of frustration.  I'd like some advice on the best way to divide faces and unwrap an object like this.  I've tried dozens of versions and I can't get away from mesh artifacts.  I believe the primary challenge is getting the mesh divided into relatively consistent quads. Shading smooth cleans up the faceting but introduces the stretch marks. Shading flat eliminates the stretch marks but the arches are faceted again.  I've run into this in the past and it is an area that I'm obviously lacking some basic information and experience.

This object is architectural and will have a smooth concrete texture applied in Unity.  It has a bevel modifier:

Smooth shading:

Flat shading:

Undivided mesh:

An attempt at manually creating quads:

Basic triangulation that results in long tri's"

Again, I've done many versions.  These are just representative of the basic attempts. I'd love some "best practices" workflow advice on this.
It may be worth noting that the basic shape was created in Sketchup since I can draw consistent arches in 3 clicks.  It was then imported as an .obj and the face was extruded to the current shape.

To improve the shading:

either check ✓ Harden Normals in the Bevel modifier.
or slightly inset the area

FunFact: I'm not quite sure why this helps, it'd be great if someone explained it in the comments :)

Insetting works probably for a similar logic it fixes problems with n-gons together with subdivision surface modifier: smooth shading applies a gradient to a face, that goes from a normal of a face on one side, to a normal of a face on another side. Insetting makes both the same, so the gradient between two same values becomes equivalent to a single value (i.e. flat).

To put it a different way, smooth shading approximates the normals across a rendering- triangle by (barycentrically) interpolating between the vertex-normals at its corners. The vertex-normals are calculated from the (sometimes weighted) average of the geometric normals of adjacent triangles.  Before inset. the adjacent normals of the vertices in the bevel influence the interpolation across the whole,large face. After inset (or bevel with profile 1), the adjacent faces are coplanar with the large face.. the 'interpolation' is then between two identical normals.. which smoothing says, is flat.

I was searching for a solution to a previous issue and was warned against hardening normals in that instance so I didn't do that this time.  I now don't remember what that issue was!  Hardening the normals worked well for this.  Thanks.


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Nodes are not connecting in compositor
Im using blender 3 .
after my render is finished, i was trying to do some post processing in the compositing tab.
but the nodes were not connecting to each other.
please help me

Please clarify your specific problem or provide additional details to highlight exactly what you need. As it's currently written, it's hard to tell exactly what you're asking.

Hi, congrats on your first question here!  The Community Bot's right, more details could be helpful, or a screenshot showing your whole compositor workspace.  Also, it's often a good idea to post your blend file, or a truncated version of it that has the problem.  The Blender StackExchange has its own service to share blend files:  https://blend-exchange.com/help

Possible solution : https://blenderartists.org/t/2-8-cant-connect-compositor-nodes/1188364/4 https://developer.blender.org/T74355


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Auto merging/snapping vertices
I've done this a million times and in my current project - i have a L shaped mesh, extruding to fill in with more mesh if this makes sense. i've attached a picture, the 2nd vertice snapped to the vertice on the left instead of the first one snapping to it. I don't know why its doing this. i've done it a million times and i'm sure i'm having a brain fart and something is going on .... thanks for any input.

Actually I don't really understand it either many times. The default setting of Snapping is Snap With > Closest, the problem is I often cannot deliberately decide which vertices should be checked if they are closer, I try moving the mouse next to the desired vertex before moving, but to no avail. Maybe someone here can enlighten me on this.
But what usually works flawless for me is if I change from Closest to Active. This way I just have to make sure that the vertex I want to snap to another one is the active one (which in your screenshot is the one shown white instead of orange). With this setting I always know which vertex will be snapped to the closest other vertex, no matter where my mouse is or which other vertices are closer to anything.

will change to active and see how that goes ... thank you :)

Check your snapping mode. If the centre vertex was closer, that might be why it's snapping to the other vertex. Try moving it away first then move it back in order to reset this. Other than that, if possible, try moving only one vertex at a time.

will try thank you :)


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How not to re-render frames in animations that do not change at all (e.g. cache last changed frame)?
I have to render lots of longer animations (1min+).
In many scenes a character moves a little and then stays idle at the same position. During that time NOTHING is changing: No camera movement, no secondary animations, literally NOTHING.
When I render the scenes blender still renders every single frame. So it is basically re-rendering the exact same pixels.
How can I improve this workflow?
I have already tried "Output Properties > Output > Cache Result". That sounds like what I am looking for. But it does not improve my render times at all.
Any hint highly appreciated.

just a dumb question: if you know it is not doing anything, why do you render them at all? you could render only "changed" frames, and then compose these all in the video editor. Rendering the same frame you get there "for free" by just adding the image and resize the strip.

This question may be considered a duplicate of: Can frames with no animation be automatically skipped?


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Driver Expression: Bind "Visibility in Viewport" to self.parent > hide_render?
I need to setup a driver to bind the "Visibility in Viewport" property of on object to its parent "hide_render" property.
I want to use an expression only. So I did lots of research and with my understanding the following expression should work, but it does not:
self.parent.hide_render

What am I doing wrong? Or am I missing something important?
self.hide_render works. So the prerequisites seem to be met (e.g. Enabling "Auto Run Python Script" and checkbox "Use Self")
Any help highly appreciated.

I think, you can access to direct properties here. Even if I tried python drivers:
import bpy

def parent_hidden(this):
    return this.parent.hide_render

bpy.app.driver_namespace["parent_hidden"] = parent_hidden

it didn't work correctly because Blender don't know then to update driver. So the only way to do this is that:

Thanks. So you are saying that it is not possible with a simple expression?
Using Input Value works, but it always needs an absolute reference to a specific object. So I am looking for a expression solution...

You can use python driver, but it doesn't work properly