text:
Does having objects behind other objects slow render times down in Cycles?
When creating an object, like an A/C unit in my case, there are a lot of objects that are only partially visible because of the view or because they are behind other objects, and some are not visible at all because they might be on the back of the unit. Do all those objects, even the ones that aren't directly visible, get rendered when rendering in Cycles? Just trying to think of ways to improve render speeds. Thanks!

The short answer to your question is Yes, all of the other objects in your scene contribute to the final image and are computed by Cycles.
In a little bit more detail, Cycles is a ray-tracing render engine. This means that it simulates light rays bouncing around your scene. Just like in real life, these rays can bounce multiple times, which means they can go around corners, refract through glass, and influence the scene regardless of whether or not they are in direct view of the camera. For example, look at this simple scene:

Even though the red sphere is out of the camera's view, it still influences the scene, tinting everything red. It even spreads beyond the direct line-of-sight of the sphere, by bouncing off the walls.
So, how does Cycles render everything? It starts by creating a BVH Tree. BVH stands for Bounding Volume Hierarchy. The BVH Tree contains all of the objects in the scene, including particles and hair, and allows Cycles to make a quicker determination of whether or not a ray has intersected with a mesh.
Cycles classifies its rays in multiple ways. One of these classifications is Direct vs Indirect. Direct rays happen when an object is lit by a lamp or object that is in its direct line of sight. Because of this, Direct rays are only the first bounce of a ray. All other bounces are indirect rays. This indirect lighting is (most of the time) going to be the largest contribution of objects out of the camera view to your scene.
Knowing all this, what is the best way to decrease render times? There isn't one easy answer, but here are a few suggestions.

Decrease Max Bounces:

This limits the number of times a ray can bounce before it is killed. Decreasing these can minimize the amount of time spent calculating rays in parts of the scene not visible to the camera. This can make your scene darker, though, since it decreases the influence of indirect lighting sources.
Use AO Bounces (in the Scene panel):

Similar to decreasing Max Bounces, this also limits how many bounces a ray can have before it dies. Instead of just killing the ray, though, this does an Ambient Occlusion calculation first. This can have the effect of lightening the scene, since AO passes are usually brighter than normal rendering.
Use Camera Cull:

This is the most drastic of the options here. It will actually exclude objects outside of the camera view from the BVH Tree. When using this, you have to be careful not to get weird flickers from objects coming in and out of the camera margin. After enabling it in the Scene settings, you have to individually enable culling for each object in the Object settings:

If you want a little more control, you can manually animate the renderability of an object by hovering over the camera icon and pressing I:

Thank you! That makes sense. You've given me more useful information in a couple paragraphs than watching hours of YouTube videos on similar topics. I genuinely appreciate your help explaining this to me and giving me those tips to speed it up. Thanks again.


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Can't see live changes in edit mode on character
I've see the opposite of my problem but I can't seem to find anyone who has had this happen. I can see changes only after a bounce back to object mode, but only for some things. In the images below you can see my character has to do the bounce but the cube I throw in to show you this does not.
Thanks for any help.

Are you using shapekeys?

Yes I am using shape keys.

I have found several ways to reproduce the problem, but we can only know what wrong in this specific case if you upload your file.

Thank you. When you asked about shape keys I found this: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/58763/unable-to-edit-the-meshes-for-shape-keys      I forgot to post that it is now fixed. Thank you for your help and sorry for the long response.

The shape keys were pined I found this in my search: Unable to edit the meshes for shape keys
It now works.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Blender 2.82 animation nodes toolbar is missing
Animation nodes toolbar is missing.
Latest AN for blender 2.8x installed and works.
Only the toolbar not shown.

Since the new version (2.17) of Animation Nodes the Node Tree Options are present in the Sidebar (Right panel). Use N to reveal the panel.

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


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how to achieve this grid falloff with animation nodes?
I want to get the falloff effect through animation nodes as in this video
Are there any ideas?
Video from Instagram here by @cavidmdw
Thank you

Similar setup found here:
HERE
Many thanks to Omar Emara @OmarEmaraDev helped me to find this old post


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No Active Keying Set?
What does that mean? I don't know what keying sets are for, so please do explain.

This is a list of possible keying sets: choose one of them (generally LocRot or LocRotScale) and you'll be ok: i.e., if you set LocRot, every time you will click on the keyframe icon six keyframes will be added on every selected element: three about Location (X,Y,Z values) and three about Rotation (again X,Y,Z; four values if the rotation is expressed as quaternion).


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Why is there some weird sphere, and how come it's part of a texture?
For some weird reasons, I was working on this 10-second animation, when all of a sudden, some weird ball came out of nowhere, and I can't move it, because then I'll move the entire floor. Can someone help? Here's some screenshots: Oh wait, the file's too large. Can't. Sorry, but I think you get the idea. I'm also a noob.

if, when you move the sphere the floor moves, it is most likely joined to the floor. Select the floor and then press Space to search and enter "separate" then click Separate and "By Loose Parts". The sphere will be a separate mesh and you should be able to find it in the Outliner.

Oof, turns out it wasn't stuck to anything. However, it just can't move at all. It won't move anywhere.

Make a copy of the .blend file and remove everything unrelated and the upload the file to https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ and we can have a look.

Ok, doing that right now. Is it ok, because it says that the file is too large.

Wait I can't the file is too large, what do I do now?

"Remove everything unrelated" should get the file size down and you can remove the textures/images. How big is the file? I have seen some really large files uploaded there.

I believe 81 MiB


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What camera size in Blender pixels would a profile picture be?
I really need to know. I use 2.79b, and a MacBook Pro (I highly doubt that's necessary, however).

there is no difference between "blender pixels" and regular pixels. If your profile picture is 256x256px, then thats what your render size needs to be.

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is not about Blender

Yeah, gonna delete this post


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How do I create mist easily?
I want to make mist easily. Can someone teach me? I use a MAC and I use Blender 2.79b, making a MineCraft scene. Oh, I'm also a noob.

Zackarus, there are at least 3 methods to create mist: 1 - Cube with Volume Scatter material, 2 - Mist in Compositing, 3 - Fake 3D mist with a plane.
The first method, Volume Scatter, is the most basic, but it's a little bit heavy if you have a slow computer :

Create a cube that contains your scene + camera.
In the Properties panel > Data > Display > Maximum Draw Type > choose Wire so that your cube is transparent in Solid display.
Give your cube a material with a Volume Scatter node plugged into the Volume socket of the Material Output node. Keep the Density value low so that the mist is not too heavy (here: 0.04).

Second method, with the Compositing, tuto here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxNeMMZs_sM
Third method, fake 3D mist with a plane, answer here: How to get mist only at horizon line?


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The sun in my scene isn't working
so I'm a beginner in blender and I'm trying to render this picture, so I put a lighting source. The only one I know of is sun, under Lamp, and when I render my image, nothing happens. It's very dark.

Its because monsters are coming when there is no sun, or its because sun lamps are considered as a light axis which won't come inside closed parts: use another kind of lamp instead.

Thank you so much!


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Addon Duplicate files - which to remove?
I searched for a similar topic but I might just be looking in the wrong place.
I have two addons added to 2.79b, still using it for many purposes, and have already upgraded to the latest 2.8 build, however these addons are not yet upgraded to work on 2.8.
Anyway, I forgot that I had a version of one of these addons installed already, set it up, realized it was already installed, and removed it.
Restarted Blender and went to use addon, it wasn't there.  Went to add addon, and I got a warning that the addon is installed in two places, C drive Program files, and the Root drive where the addon is located.
If these are two opposing files that are conflicting with one another for the addon to run, which should I remove, the one in the C drive, or the Root drive version?
I think this has happened to me before long ago and when I removed one of the versions, I was never able to get it to run after that.
Thank you for any help you can offer, or point me to the question on the stack exchange that was previously asked so I am not creating a redundancy here.

When you remove addon installed twice it's only important which one of them is newer to provide you with recent features. It doesn't matter if you remove one located in default location or custom one. It's not really clear from the question how the addon is told by Blender to be installed twice though since you removed it from one place already; make sure to clean up everything after version you removed and leave in place the other one

Thank you for the help.  I will try this tonight.


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Grease pencil strokes transparent on surfaces
My Question is about the grease pencil drawn onto surfaces.
Grease pencil strokes on geometry are turning transparent and causing the geometry to also lose opacity.
I want to paint over an entire object with a drawn map over it but this prevents me from being able to draw on the back and front, top and bottom, side and other side, without seeing

all the other sides in view port.
Is this a bug or am I doing something wrong with the mesh to stroke application?
Thank you for any help you can provide.

cegaton, not sure how this is relevant, there are no caps in the message.

well then thank you for whatever edit you did, must have hit caps lock instead of shift but did not see that.  I do not type with caps, it is considered rude.
Aside from the forum etiquette, would you happen to have a solution for why the above problem is occurring?

I am having the same problem. More details: It happens when the line you drew on front, intersect in the view with the line you drew behind the cube (it needs to have a mesh between the lines). Any solutions for this?


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Using nodes to visualize parallel straight lines and control their thickness
I'm trying to visualize many straight lines (around 100 up to 200) of differnet lenght parallel to each other in a 2D viewing.
The Input should be a .txt-data with 2 numbers per line, which determinates my starting- and endpoint. Like this:
 0,200
 10,200
 50,150
 0,50,120,200
 0,150
 ...

The next step would be to change the thickness of the lines.
Maybe you're able to explain me a solution or tell me were to start, but I'm just a beginner so I may not understand every explanation.
Thank you very much!!

Please document your "first try-outs" with Blender nodes, so others can see what you attempted. Maybe related. Since nodes are usually used for compositing 2D images or renders I don't see how they could be helpful with your problem. Do you possibly mean animation-nodes.

This isn't really a nodes question, it's a scripting question.  To get your input into Blender, you're either going to enter it by hand or script its input.  Once you begin scripting, this is a problem where the nodes part of the solution is trivial.  A lot of the implementation can be traded between Python and nodes, but Python is the easier way to do it.


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List of Menu bl_idnames? INFO_MT_file_export, etc
I am loosing my mind here.
Every example addon in blender uses bpy.types.INFO_MT_file_export yet not a single doc explains where the hell the name INFO_MT_file_export comes from.
The doc for bpy.types doesn’t have anything about it. Which leads me to believe we are accessing some object.
I can draw the conclusion that it’s a bl_idname for the info menu and the export submenu, but I don’t understand why we can access it using the dot operator inside of bpy.types, or why we can call the append and remove function if it’s a type of Menu.
Moreover, is there a list or something of all of these predefined possible menu ids?

Mousing over the base of a menu gives you the bl_idname.

Note that the "Open on mouse over" option in Interface > Menus must be DISABLED or else the menu will open and the tooltip won't show. Or at least increase the delay to 1 second or so
If you right click and select edit source it will open up the code for that space in the text editor

In this file you will find
class INFO_MT_file_export(Menu):
    bl_idname = "INFO_MT_file_export"
    bl_label = "Export"

    def draw(self, context):
        if bpy.app.build_options.collada:
            self.layout.operator("wm.collada_export", text="Collada (Default) (.dae)")
        if bpy.app.build_options.alembic:
            self.layout.operator("wm.alembic_export", text="Alembic (.abc)")

which affirms that it is a Menu class.  The naming convention used by blender for operators and menus is <SPACE>_<TYPE>_<name> where in this case it's the INFO space, is menu type MT and named file_export.
When a blender menu (or operator) is registered it becomes known to bpy.types.  If the naming convention is followed, we can find all menus in the info space, simply by using auto-complete  in the python console.
>>> bpy.types.INFO_MT_
                      add(
                      armature_add(
                      ...
                      file(
                      file_export(
                      file_external_data(
                      file_import(
                      file_previews(
                      ...
                      window(

To get a complete list of all menus, you can use python's built-in dir() function:
base_type = bpy.types.Menu
for typename in dir(bpy.types):
    bl_type = getattr(bpy.types, typename)
    if issubclass(bl_type, base_type):
        print (bl_type)

One last question, how come are we able to use append and remove? Those functions are present in the Menu class, or are they added by the subclass?

It's a class method of bpy.types.Menu and maybe not that well documented.   Type bpy.types.Menu.append(  (autocomplete) into py console.

Aka, not documented at all...

Just adding for posterity: Settings->Display->Python Tooltips must be enabled to get the bl_idname to show up when mousing over menus.

Also note that the "Open on mouse over" option in Interface > Menus must be DISABLED or else the menu will open and the tooltip won't show. Or at least increase the delay to 1 second or so

Cheers, edited. Mouse over is my preferred option these days.


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Animation doesn't work after export
So I use Mixamo for my model, then I export it with .dae extension. After that, I imported it to my Blender and the animation work. However after I exported it to .obj, the animation doesn't work at all and if I export it to .babylon, the model will be abstract but the animation work. How do I solve this if I want my .obj animation to work out?

Related https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/58624/how-to-export-animation-from-blender-to-3ds-or-obj-file-without-loosing-animat and https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/6868/how-to-create-and-export-multiple-animation-actions-in-blender

OBJ does not support animation.


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Scopes & Mask Tabs disappeared from UV/Viewer screen
Any idea how this could have happened?  I have my keyboard connected to 2 computers (via a/b switch) and occasionally type a key sequence into Blender that is meant for the other computer.  I have no idea what I might have typed to remove those tabs and no clue how to get them back.  I'm doing some color correction and really need my scopes back.  BTW, when I open a new Blender session the tabs are missing.  When I open a backup copy of my color correction, the tabs are there (but I would have to trash all my changes to get back to where I left off.)

TLDR: Scopes disappear in Edit Mode. Switch back to Object mode in 3D Viewport.
I figured it out.  I looked in space_image.py and found the following code.
class ImageScopesPanel:
@classmethod
def poll(cls, context):
sima = context.space_data
if not (sima and sima.image):
return False
# scopes are not updated in paint modes, hide
if sima.mode == 'PAINT':
return False
ob = context.active_object
if ob and ob.mode in {'TEXTURE_PAINT', 'EDIT'}:
return False
return True
I could not quickly figure out the meaning of each of the variables, but decided to take a look at what could turn off the "scopes" tab.  As soon as I turned the "3D View" from "Edit Mode" to "Object Mode", the "Scopes" tab re-appeared on the "UV/Image Editor".


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Removal of Program to reinstall not gone entirely
I have 2.79 and a heap of addons that do not work when they should be, Hard Ops, etc.  Also, my Alt Click on edge loops stopped working so I figured I should reinstall Blender.  All the new versions say Install 2.8 but I can't seem to install it, also, I have tried to remove 2.79 to do a new clean install, I watch Windows remove the program, then I go and remove the folders, reinstall Blender, and it is the same version I tried to remove, complete with Addons, and all.
How do I completely remove everything to do a clean install since I am clearly not doing that very well, and
How do I "Install" 2.8 when I only get an exe to start the program.  There doesn't seem to be any sort of "install" to place Hard Ops, Box Cutter, etc. in a directory for 2.8.
My apologies if these are repeated questions, I could not find anything related to them, and thank you for your assistance.

Possible duplicate of Console flashes on launching, then closes (ms-windows)

The great thing about Blender is you do not need to install it. Go to the download page and select the stand alone version .ZIP. You can then unzip it and run it from anywhere.


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How do I make transparency work in EEVEE in 4.3 and 4.4
I cannot find settings-Blend Mode, opaque/alpha clip/ alpha hash/alpha blend in Blender 4.3 or 4.4 and its really frustrating.  What happened to it, where did it move to, or what do we have to now do to replicate this feature?  Why was it removed?  This has become a rather annoying frustration, and there is nothing I can find anywhere on it.  Thank you for any help you can provide.


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How to fill a hole in textured mesh without getting weird faces?
I am new in blender and have have struggled a bit with filling holes in my textured mesh made in photoscan. I am writing here because I haven't been able to find similar examples on the internet.
The thing is that I want to remove certain elements in my environment, which goes well. But when I want to fill the hole that gets creating when deleting these elements, I run into problem.
Most of the time when I try to fill the hole, these crazy striped faces get created(see attached file). This happens both when I fill the hole in one go with the "F" key or if I close it together face by face.
Sometimes when I close the hole, it is closed properly, but with untextured faces (see attached file). Here I dont know how to add texture to just a specific little spot on the otherwise textured model.
Anyone that can help my here?

I am at work right now so can't provide full answer, but from look of it you would need to unwrap the newly added plane so it will know which pixels from texture it should use.

When you change the topology of a mesh it changes the UV. As @internetofmine states you will need to unwrap again to get the textures to fit. It may not make much sense with a tiny hole but imagine a globe with a country missing and then adding faces to fill the hole. The new faces cannot know what the country texture should be and just stretches from its known existing edges.

Okay, thanks! I will try to unwrap it then. Any tips to how I do this in the best way?


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Blender crashes (gets stuck) on viewport render
I've been working on a project for some time. And I heavily used the rendered shader in the viewport for it.
However I enabled the option that saves all textures within the blend.ini file and since then my blender crashes whenever I try to enable the viewport rendered shader.
Even after disabling it again it still crashes.
Does anyone know what i'm dealing with?

From the File menu Load Factory Defaults and the File Import and try importing components of the original .blend file. Keep importing more until you hit the issue.


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Need help downsizing an OBJ file
I am a complete novice to 3D. I am trying to downsize a file of a train engine that is 400+MB so that I can import it into Adobe Dimension for a layout. Currently the file is too big to be used practically.
I've tried Decimate but I know I'm doing something wrong because I can only get one section to downsize, not the entire train. I've tried eliminating the hidden polys, but no luck there either.
I get the files from a third party (not sure what software is used originally), then an engineer converts it from either STP or IGS to OBJ. If anyone knows a better way to achieve a smaller file, it would be a great help. Thanks!

One thing I could recommend is joining all of the meshes (selecting them all) and then pressing control j (join meshes). This will work if you have a lot of different objects. My guess is that you only applied the decimate modifier to one specific object and that you are only decimating that part. Could you share a screenshot or two so I could see better what the problem might be?


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How can I change the number of vertices in surface mesh?
I created a surface mesh in itksnap with stl format. I can import it to blender. Please consider it with 3000 vertices and 1700 facets.  At now I want to change the number of vertices to 2200. How can I do it?
Shahrokh

You can use the Decimate Modifier, as described, but also X > Limited Dissolve, and/or W > Remove Doubles... with both these two solutions you can play with the parameters on the bottom of the left menu (activated with N)

Reduce the number of vertices with the decimate modifier

Add a decimate modifier to the object and set it to collapse.
In the ratio field, enter desired amount / current amount.
If needed, apply the modifier.


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How can to change verts values in the curve model?
Hi Blender Developers and Users:
I have curve models with ply format as following specifications:
Verts: 177, Faces: 0; Tris: 0;
For example, I want change verts value from 177 to 200 (increasing)or to 150 (decreasing).
In other words, I want to interpolate points in these models.
How can I do it?
Please guide me;
Shahrokh

In general, you can't directly affect the vertices created by curves without writing those curves to mesh (alt c -> mesh from curve.)
However, you can increase or decrease the number of vertices created by a curve.  Increasing the resolution of the curve in properties/data/shape will create additional vertices along the length of a curve.  If your curve has a bevel, increasing its resolution creates additional vertices along the radius of the bevel.  If your object is using a bevel object, you can change the resolution of the bevel object instead.


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UV Select mode resets to Island
Any time I switch to verts/edges/faces mode in the UV editor and make a first selection (which works fine), the selection mode automatically resets to islands. Which is extremely annoying when you want to select several vertices. Right now my only workaround is to switch back to required mode after every selection.
I've been digging through settings of UV editor, hotkeys and the internet, and saw no clear mentions of such behavior. Any ideas what might be the reason?
Blender version 2.93.1 / control scheme 2.7X

Do you have selection synced with the mesh?

No, and in fact, when I switch to synced selection, the mode doesn't change and I can select several vertices as usual. Granted, there is no island selection mode in synced in the first place.
This mode is also something I avoid using whenever possible, with its forced selection of multiple elements when selecting edges of UV islands, and incomprehensible clutter when working with overlapping islands.


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Blender merging material faces if it shares the same uv/texture?
Since I've updated to the most recent version of blender, whenever I export a DAE, if it has multiple faces that share the same UV/texture it will merge these. It prevents me from being able to have customizable faces on this mesh in the game etc.
Unless I assign "fake" textures to each face separately, this is the only way around it.
Is there a setting that I need to uncheck to go back to how it was?

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


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GLSL vs Multitexture in Blender 2.79
I use Blender 2.79 and I want to know the difference between Multitexture and GLSL shading mode and which one must I used for a better result.

see: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18950395/fixed-function-vs-shader-based


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Blender 2.81 toolbar selects tools randomly
In Edit Mode, when I click on SHIFT+SPACE to make Blender 2.81a ToolBar appear, this is what happens

it automatically and randomly select one tool
the toolBar appears and disappears automatically
So I got to do SHIFT+SPACE twice to make the ToolBar appear and stay on the viewport so that I can choose the tool I want.
Is it normal? If not, How can I fix it?

⇧ ShiftSpace by default brings up the tools menu, this can be temperamental in how long it stays visible. Holding space down usually helps to keep it open.
The menu will normally show up positioned so that the last tool used is under the cursor, if the cursor is near the top or bottom of the window it gets moved so that it can be fully shown in the window. This can be part of what leads to it selecting a new (random?) tool and disappearing quickly.
You may find displaying the toolbar on the left side by pressing T to be easier.


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Weight paint color influence in Blender
I know that with Blender weight paint, BLUE color means no influence. My question is : which color can only move the mesh and not deform it?

how do you want to move your mesh? Vert. Colors alone don't do anything, neither move nor deform, they are just factors for other operations, like modifiers, particle systems and some other.

I mean, I want to create a Walk animation for a robot. I don't want his torso ans hips to be deformed like a human. I just want the hip and torso bones to move the mesh.

When dealing with robotic and mechanical animation, you should assign every vertex of torso to the torso bone  ONLY, the hip vertices to the hip bone ONLY, and so on. As long as a group of vertices are assigned to a bone/vertex group ONLY, they will move exactly with their bone, without distortions and deformations (and the value of the weight is not important, you can set it to 1.0, but any other value is OK). Deformations will occour when there are difference between the weights of different vertices, which tipically occour when using automatic weighting. So use instead parenting with "empty groups" option, then select the hip vertex group, select all hip vertices and click "assign" under the vertex group properties tab. Do the same for all the others vertex groups.

Yes, I understand it now. It means left arm vertices to left arm bones only so that they are moved but not deformed.

If you don't use deformation, you shouldn't use Vertex Groups at all. Bone parenting will always require less setup and when your model gets complex (let's leave out draw call argumentation here), or you use it a lot of times, cumputing times will be significantly less.
You need to keep your robot parts separate for this. Then select eg. a
leg -> Shift select the armature, hit CTRL + Tab (to get into pose mode), select the bone that is supposed to move the body part and hit CRTL + P and choose bone parent.
No weight paint, no Modifiers, just plain parenting.


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Blender 2.83 doesn't load ".blend" file on my Ubuntu computer
I use Blender 2.83 on Ubuntu 20.04. When i double click on a ".blend" file, Blender doesn't load my project but opens the default Startup file. I did use Blender 2.82 with the same operating system and the same computer whithout any problem. Is it a bug?

Hi! Can you provide the exact steps you did to install? That will help us reproduce your error.

Did you update the default app to use for blend files in the os when you upgraded?

I installed Blender 2.82 first and Ubuntu apps automatically updates Blender for me. It's installed as Snap app

I fix it. I had this problem because Blender has been updated automatically to 2.83. I just uninstall and reinstall it. It works fine now. Sorry for this question.


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White Lines on baked textures in Blender
I unwrapped models using Blender Smart UV project (Island Margin : 0.06). After baking texture in blender render, when I zoom in and the model is big in the Blender viewport, everything is fine but when I zoom out, WHITE LINES appear on the model. I face the same issue when I export models in Unity. I also notice that these lines disappear when I uncheck Mipmap in Blender User preferences and "Generate Mip Map" in Unity. How can I fix it in Blender or Unity? Thanks

Try to increase the the margin in the Baking panel.

The white lines you see is the result of the downsampled MipMap versions of the textures that Unity creates for you. These are used to reduce aliasing when viewing detailed textures from distance. You should give the UV-islands more margins.


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Blender 2.82 simulation interface unlock?

upgraded lastly from Blender 2.79 to 2.82.  With 2.79 I used Blender to do fluid simulation.  Now trying the same with the newer version.  Unfortunately, the new version locks the screen during simulation baking so no other work is possible.  The old version allowed even to preview already baked steps, which was very-very comfortable!
Am I missing something in the new version, or is it really not possible to use Blender during baking anymore?

Does this help? https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/167526/cant-preview-smoke-simulation-on-blender-2-82


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Netrender addon missing
I am unable to find the netrender addon in Blender 2.79b on fully updated Ubuntu. My son is starting to work on more complex scenes and we have a couple systems laying around that can be dedicated to this.
Any ideas?

The answer for me was to download from blender.org instead of installing using apt.

Just incase anyone else has this problem you don't need to manually install blender.
Go to the standard app repository that's preinstalled and type blender into search and it will bring up 3 versions of Blender. Do not install by navigating to the blender file as this will not contain network render.
One's Blender t-paw and the other two just say Blender open up the download page for each one and you'll see that ones called Blender followed by a load of letters and numbers and one just says Blender.
You want the plain version of blender not the one followed by numbers and letters which is a third party build and am not sure why this is installed as the default blender.

That is rather annoying. Using apt in a terminal does not show the others, or at least I do not know how to make it as I normally use RHEL. But yes, there are three options when using the Ubuntu store.


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Create cloud texture using python
As part of a larger script, I am using the following to add a displacement modifier to each object:
displace_modifier = obj.modifiers.new(name="Displace.01", type='DISPLACE')
displace_modifier.strength = 10.0
tex = bpy.ops.texture.new("Displace.01", 'CLOUDS')
displace_modifier.texture = tex

and getting the following errors:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.78\scripts\addons\make_stone_wall.py", line 267, in execute
    main(self, context)
  File "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.78\scripts\addons\make_stone_wall.py", line 131, in main
    tex = bpy.ops.texture.new("Displace.01", 'CLOUDS')
  File "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.78\scripts\modules\bpy\ops.py", line 186, in __call__
    C_dict, C_exec, C_undo = BPyOpsSubModOp._parse_args(args)
  File "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.78\scripts\modules\bpy\ops.py", line 143, in _parse_args
    raise ValueError("1-3 args execution context is supported")
ValueError: 1-3 args execution context is supported

location: <unknown location>:-1

location: <unknown location>:-1

I am pretty sure I am missing some of the arguments for bpy.ops.texture.new(...), but I haven't been able to find anything online to help me figure it out.
Does anyone know what I'm missing, here?

Rookie mistake. I was calling bpy.ops.texture... instead of bpy.data.texture...


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How can I assign a key frame to the bevel effect
I want to make an animation with the bevel effect, is that possible?

Yes, you can. You only need to set the key frame from the Bevel field by hovering your mouse over it and hitting I.
You need to use the Bevel modifier and not use ctrl+B in Edit mode. You can find it the right side of your screen, on the Properties panel, if you click on Modifiers (the little wrench icon) the list of available modifiers will appear and you just need to click on Bevel to call the Bevel window, then you hover over the Width field and press I to generate a key frame.
Do that at the beginning of the animation, to set the starting point, then change the value on the Bevel Width field to what you want to have at the end of the animation, make sure you are at the end frame as well and hit I again while your mouse is hovering over the Bevel field.

I'm sorry I' new, what do you mean bevel field? I've just been using ctrl b in edit mode.

No worries, we all had to start at some point. On the right side of your screen, on the Properties panel, if you click on Modifiers (the little wrench icon) you will see the Bevel window, and you hover over the Width field and press I to generate a key frame. More on the Bevel modifier here: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/modeling/modifiers/generate/bevel.html?highlight=bevel

it looks like he has made a bevel in Edit mode and not with a Bevel modifier. If you don't want to use a modifier, you can change the positions of your edges in Edit mode and save them as keyframes, but you can't have zero bevel at keyframe 1 and create a bevel at keyframe 2


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Missing panel on blender 2.79
There is this panel that is on multiple tutorials I have watched which I cant find.
Please help, I am getting really frustrated.

They might be using a different blender version, have a look in the video which one they -and which one you use. In a daily build from the end of last month in blender 2.9 I have that menu. You can download Daily Builds from https://builder.blender.org/download/

To clarify is the panel not there with a curve object selected? @WhatAMesh Holy cow, 2.9 already.

It's the panel that's circled twice and selected.

Yeah even 2.8 doesn't have the option, and I cant find the 2.9 build you're talking about. Thank you for telling me about the beta though.

Show a screenshot of your project in Blender please. Two possibilitites of lacking that tab so far - either you don't have any curve object selected or you don't have that editor window opened (Properties editor). This is all guess work so far without more info.

There is no 2.9 yet, just a typo on 2.79 above I assume.  Blender 2.8 has the curve data properties panel.


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Import Images as planes sequence - Blender gives me 5 planes?
Importing 'Images as planes' (547 .PNGs with transparency).
For some reason, when I use the same settings as usual, Blender is creating 5 planes:
Images 1-35, 36-241, 242-437, 428-531 & 532-547.
Seems a bit random!
I can swap them in & out, sure, but does anyone know if this is a known bug, or I'm doing something wrong?
(Win 10, 16GB Ram. Blender 2.93.5. Working fine with a previous 384 image sequence. Task manager reporting Blender using 600MB after import. Each image 5MB, sequentially numbered from 1, all the same size files, 2.7GB total)

Just a quick note: when you say it did work with a previous 384 image sequence I assume it's a different sequence. Have you tried just importing 384 or less images of the new 547 images sequence? Sorry I can't test this myself I have no sequence that large at the moment.

the import will use the names and a number. For instance, "a1.jpg", "a2.jpg", "b1.jpg", "b2.jpg" will generate 2 sequences (because a and b are different prefixes).

Gordon - checking, the 384 images are only 1.4MB each. If I try importing just 384 of my 547 x 5MB images, I get the sequence divided into 3 planes: 1-35, 36-241 & 242-384. So the breaks are the same.. Lemon - the images are jjfa000.png, jjfa0002.png ->. jjfa0384.png; I can't see any reason why the sequence numbering would trigger a new plane in this instance.

(Sorry, typo, I meant jjfa0001.png)

it is translated into blender's standard image sequences, so that follows their rules.

Trying the same sequence but smaller images (1.4MB each, the same size as in my 384 image example that imports as a single plane), Blender cuts my sequence into only 2 planes, 1-450, 451-end, which is more manageable. If I'd done this first, we'd be speculating about a 630MB import limit per plane, but cutting at 35, then after another frames, then 195, then 103; it all seems so arbitrary.


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Is it Possible to create a Online blender-made game without python?
The reason I asked is That I do not really know python, So Do I have to use python? Or am I more likely to Try to create it without python?

Have a look at blend4web and verge3D.

Yes, it is almost possible. You can build the entire game using only logical blocks, but to leave the game online you will have to use a python model file to get internet connections in your game. That is another matter. Just search on youtube on this.

Ok, So i do have to use logic bricks on the Game, But not on when the player goes online?

No. You can create your game with logic bricks without problem. Now, for your game to work online, you will have to add python addon that creates the server. You understand, it's a python addon that will leave your game online. Here's a little bit about it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wu4K1NS0aBE is in Portuguese but to understand a little.

ok, I understand, so in order to create the online game, you need to install this BGE addon.

Sorry to ask you too many questions.

Nevermind about the link, I think I got it,

Do not worry, you can ask at will: D

Just to let you know that I now have created another question about MIDI, If you do not know how to do it, That's ok. I'll look for somebody else to help me, And you don't HAVE to answer it.

Here is the link: https://sound.stackexchange.com/questions/44573/how-do-i-download-the-3ds-midi

Yes you can create Blender Game Engine games without coding!
There is working add-on called Easy Online for BGE, UPBGE 0.2x, and UPBGE 0.3x.
Download for BGE / UPBGE 0.2x
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2SsDz7a95Y
Download for UPBGE 0.3x
https://github.com/lordloki/EasyOnline
Tutorials
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCledfkxccjcdVCaILs0uj7w


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How do I show all UV textures at once?
I am UV mapping my model and I don't think there are any problems so far.
However, only when each object is selected it shows the texture.
I want to see textures on all objects, like hair, skin and clothing. But I can only see one at a time when I select it.
I'm using blender v2.79

You have to turn on Texture Atlas addon in Addons tab.
It's a workaround, but there's noting better at the moment. Waiting for 2.8!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIok7SCQ3SA

I'm confused. I'm just doing a simple character thats all. Everyone elses models can see all colours at all times? Did I do this wrong?

@anon As with your other questions, I suggest adding images to your question to illustrate the problem.

@anon, the Texture Atlas does exactly what you ask. It temporarily joins several objects in one, that lets you see all of its UV maps on a single texture at once. You can place the maps as you wish, and then press a button in the addon, to kill that joined object, and return your original ones, but this time with all the UVs fitting your singe texture.


text:
Trouble with UV Mapping
I am attempting to learn how to UV Map. However, the tutorial I'm watching has instructed me to click the "New" option. I can not find that option. Also, in the menu rather than having color options all it says is "No output node".
The blender version in the tutorial is different to mine. Any ideas on how I can move forward with learning?

Hi. In order to get the best answer to your question, please only ask one question at a time. You are welcome to ask as many questions as you need as separate posts.

I don't understand. I was just asking where the "new" button was or if that doesn't exist, why there are no options under the "surface" tab.

What tutorial??

Possible duplicate of The interface to create material looks different

hi @anon Maybe you could point us, if possible and free, to "the tutorial I'm watching" so to better understand what you were taught.
But UV mapping is not strictly related to materials, as you show up there.
UV are a 2d representation of a 3d surface, and need to be associated with a 2d texture, in the same UV/image editor.
Maybe add some detail of what you did and where exactly you have a doubt on how to proceed... You find (and create/delete) all UVs for an object into the "object data" properties panel.
I add this answer to show you a simple, basic example here below.
It's a basic UV map of a basic default cube.

on the right the "Object data" shows the UV map in the list (more UVs can be added)
at the bottom, you see the "add new image" for that show UV map. Maybe your tut is referring to that?

It seems you MIGHT be using Blender Internals while the tutorial is using Cycles or vice versa. If not, go to the node editor and add a new material output node ( Outputs -> Material Output ), and proceed.
EDIT: My other guess is that, your on edit mode and need to be on object mode to add a global material to the mesh
But from your question it has nothing to do with UV mapping.


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How do I turn on Cycles Render?
I was watching a UV wrapping tutorial and got stuck as the version of blender they use is different to mine.
I looked in the comments and people said that the way to fix it was to turn on cycles render. However, they do not specify where to find this. So I'm stuck.
Any ideas?

You can do it in the top of your screen:


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What is the best way to color a model?
I have made a model I'm happy with and want to color it. I have used UV mapping for this but now I have learned maybe that wasn't the best thing to do...
Only one object in the model shows up in color at a time, but when I see other peoples models they are fully colored.
I'm just really confused, I don't know what I did wrong. Are all the objects like hair, eyes, clothing and skin meant to be all attached on one layer? I assumed not because I'm going to be rigging it later.
If anyone could give me some advice or point out what I'm doing wrong it would be extremely helpful as I'm just struggling a lot and don't know anything about 3d modelling.
I heard that there is this thing called texturing but I don't know if that's different to UV mapping.
I just want colors on my character. What is the best way to do this?

One thing you can do is texture painting. That allows you to add different colors to your model and apply all of that color to the material of the object. Here's a good tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcCQKuWPhXk


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How do I fix this mess? (Edges, Vertices merging after Ctrl+J)
I messed up.
How do I fix this mess? (This happened after merging 8 objects Ctrl+J)
My whole model has a horrible looking line down the middle of it. Including the face (ow).
As you can see there are many problems.
I can't ctrl+z because the program has been closed since. Any ideas?

my horror stories with Ctrl+J always result from not applying Modifiers before the join or the Mesh Auto smooth angle. Can you undo the join, apply the modifiers plus other per mesh settings and then rejoin?

It looks like you mirrored half of a human and merged it, but the vertices were not all on the same Z-Axis so some of them were merged and others not. You could select the edgeloop and then scale it to 0 (in Y-Axis probably). The merging will probably be more successful then.

I suggest you go to Edit mode, press P and select By loose parts. This will seperate the meshes. Or just select the faces of the meshes you want to seperate and then press P and then select By selection. This will seperate the selected region.


text:
How do I delete all these menus?
How do I delete all these menus? I can't see my model.

on the top right of each window you have a small triangle that you can catch, them move it in the direction of the window you want to crash

Click on the drop down menu here. And click on Default.


text:
When I enter sculpt mode my model's hair looks deformed
I have tried making a choppy haircut for my character, so that the hair ends flat (like a cartoon character) rather than at a point.
I started out with a cube, made it thinner and curved it to fix onto the head of my model. I was happy with the shape but I wanted to give it a little texture with the sculpt tool.
However, when I changed it to sculpt tool mode this happened:

I don't know what to do or how to fix this. I just want my characters hair to look like this:

To fix this you could add a subdivision surface modifier and use that with the smooth sculpt tool to keep things without all of those bumps. Make sure that your head is rounded ish to keep the subdivision surface working. I did the same with a hair model and it worked for me. try giving it a shot.

Thanks but it's still not really giving me the look i want.
http://puu.sh/ADvHC/cd2b64d12d.png
As you can see, it's not choppy. It's more rounded for some reason. I can't figure out how to fix this issue.

Could you do a bit more of a roundabout view so its possible to see more of what's going on?


text:
When I enter sculpt mode half of my model goes missing?
When I enter Object mode, both sides of my model shows.
However, when I enter Sculpt Mode only half of my character shows up.
This makes it difficult to sculpt without seeing both sides.
i have put one mirror and one multiresolution modifier on my model that I have just made. I have clicked subdivide twice and would like to start sculpting.
I'm new to blender, so I believe the fix may be simple like I forgot to hit a key or something? Any ideas on how to fix this?
Any help appreciated. Thank you for your time.

Multires modifier is the only one which can't be repositioned in stack of modifiers, as per manual:

The Multiresolution Modifier is the only modifier that cannot be repositioned in the stack if it means that there will be geometry or other object data created or removed before it

This means that while it can be only in the top of stack relatively to other modifiers generating geometry Sculpt mode will take into account only data generated by Multires, all others (especially generator modifiers, like Mirror) will be skipped.

So in order to have all mesh faces available for sculpting while in Sculpt mode with Multiresolution apply Mirror modifier and edit mesh  with X-Mirror option (in Edit mode) or Toolshelf > Tools > Symmetry/Lock
(in Sculpt mode) instead.

I appreciate the reply, but even after looking into the X-Mirror that was linked in the post I'm unable to find a button for X-Mirror.
I am actually following a tutorial online and they were able to do this. I'm unsure why I'm unable to.
Here is the tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdsY4BtlcpQ
Would you not recommend that I not watch this tutorial? This was the only one I could find on how to make a full character from scratch. Multiresolution and mirror worked for him, so I'm unsure why it doesn't for me.

@anon on the 4:54 he applies the Mirror modifier, pretty much what is stated in the answer above. Though if going mirrorred sculpting use Symmetry/Lock in brush settings, just as he does as well. I updated the answer.

thank you so much. I'm sorry, I missed the part where he pressed "apply" and tried deleting the mirror and re-adding it being confused. Thank you!


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How to figure out where the UV shows on the Mesh?
How to figure out where the UV shows on the Mesh?
I know that there is an option or button to find out what part of the UV mapping matches up with the mesh so that fixing problems is easier.
Does anyone know what that option is?

I remember that the person I saw do this clicked a part of the UV and the mesh itself lit up at the same time. So I don't think this is it?

That's what that option does.

That button right there is probably what you want. Also keep in mind that by default, only faces you have selected in edit mode show up in the UV editor.

weird, even with the option enabled, it doesn't work for me.

Maybe check what selection mode the uv editor is in. When the option is enabled, you can select vertices, edges, or faces. Same goes for the 3D viewport. Try putting them both into vertex select mode.

Never mind. I was doing it wrong. I still can't get that to work but I don't need it anymore.
I now realise I can just paint over my model. I was just screencapping the UV maps and using another software to paint in, then bringing them back in as textures and having to keep on going back and forth between the two until it lined up right. - facepalm -


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Modelling pollen 3d mesh
I am kind of a noob in blender, who's trying to model a grain of pollen for an ai experiment. The pollen grain is this one:

And I don't know how to model that random wireframe that overlaps itself in blender, 'cause the blender wireframe modifier only lets me build a perfect wireframe with no overlapping.
I'm not native speaker so maybe some words are incorrect. Thank you if you can help me.

Try to find some noise images that are similar to it, and use this noise image as a displacement map.

You could use the Tissue Add-on that comes bundled with Blender 2.8x. You have to activate it in "Menu - Edit- Preferences - Add-Ons"

I'm not sure about what you mean with the random wireframe overlapping. To make this object I think you should fake the texture rather than model it, I see at least 2 ways:

With a Noise node > Height of a Bump node > Normal of a Diffuse. Here I've even mixed 2 noises in a MixRGB to give a bit more complexity. I also added a Layer Weight at the end, if necessary.

You could also create a repeatable texture from your original image. Unwrap your object, in the 3D view / Texture Paint mode, use the Stencil brush to paint on your object with your texture, and again use this with a Bump node.


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How do I find where I rendered my images?
I rendered my animation as an image sequence. I can't find the images so I can render them into a video. How do I find them so I can make them an image strip?

Go into the Render settings tab, under the output panel there is a path where Blender outputs your renders by default. You are well advised to set it up before rendering any animations

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


text:
Change the angle pivot of my object
This is my first question! :D I'm ultra noob! but I'm getting better and better.
So: I want to change the angle of the pivot of this object.

Is like this now.

But when I want make a scale in X axis, this is happend.

So I belive that is one solution is change the axis like this for the scale thing... right?
How I can do that!
Thanks!

Possible duplicate of How to Micro Manage Manipulator

Possibly press S to scale, and then press XX to scale over the local X-axis instead of the global one.

Let's you have this setup here, similar to yours:

Cylinder fits 2 cubes, but it's orientation is broken. And you want to fix it.
Create a Custom Transform Orientation. For this simple example: select the edge you want to align, press CtrlAltSpace or find it at bottom of the N-Panel.
You will have a new transform orientation that fits to geometry:

Now you can use this transform orientation for scale your object. But If you want to align object itself, move next.
In object Mode select cylinder, and press ShiftS -> Cursor to Selected
Create empty then press Object -> Transform -> Align to transform Orientation.
Parent cylinder to the empty  CtrlP.
Clear empty's orientation AltR. Cylinder will follow empty and will rotate with it like this:

Unparent cylinder AltP -> Clear and keep transform.
Apply rotation to cylinder  AltA -> Rotation
Rotate cylinder back ( Object -> Transform -> Align to transform Orientation. )

YOU ARE THE BEST! :*


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Ctrl-Shift Arrow key broken?
I thought ctrl-shift arrowkey L & R was supposed to hop between markers, but it doesn't seem to work any more (2.93.5)?

You can always assign a hotkey via context menu:


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How do I move a camera using just part of an exponential interpolation curve?
I have a model of a room containing a 1/10th scale model, containing at 1/100th scale model, containing a 1/1000th scale model.
I move the camera from a start position - looking in through the window of the 'top' room - to the frame before an identical view through the window of the 1/10th model. If I loop this, I get an 'infinite zoom-in'.
(The smaller models are to provide convincing detail through the window. I don't zoom down to them).
To make the camera movement smooth - an apparent 'constant' speed in relation to scale - I need exponential change in speed in X & Z. Of course, the exponential curves in Blender's graph editor don't do this, they only offer an exponential change in displacement.
As a consequence, Blender's exponential interpolation starts 'too fast' and ends 'too slow' to look like a constant speed: The exponential curve in displacement is going from 10X to X, but the velocity is going from N to zero, and I can't see any parameters to adjust this.
I can get an apparently constant velocity (i.e. dropping exponentially from 10xN to N)  across a clip by placing the keyframes of the exponential change in position some distance outside the actual loop. However, while this loop then looks fine, I can't then put any action in just before or just after this action, as there's the gap needed either side before the keyframes.
I could animate up to, and then after, these keyframes, then remove the unwanted frames later, but it would be nice if there were a way to adjust the parameters of the exponential curves so this wasn't necessary.

I've done infinity zoom in past and it was far from perfect for reasons you described. If I had more time I would define the relations of scale and distance mathematically and use drivers. Here's an example of what we're talking about for those confused: done properly, done improperly (if you're perceptive enough, you will see that it changes speed)

This was driving me crazy as well. In my case I needed a camera zoom curve in the form of y=A2^Bx. I couldn't find a solution using interpolation or f curves after 2 days of research.
As a workaround, I used a Python script to create a keyframe for each frame in the sequence, based on the formula I wrote into the script. There are about 20000 frames in my little video, and the presence of >20000 keyframes didn't appear to affect performance in any way, although it did take about 8 seconds to create each set of 10k keyframes.
Below is the script I used. You can copy it into the Text Editor window of the Scripting workspace, tweak it, and then run it. You would need to change the camera name, frame range specified in the for loop, the desired parameter(s) to change, the equation(s), etc.
I am not a Blender or Python expert, but I thought it might help someone to share this method as a concept. Maybe others can chime in with info I didn't think to put in here.
import bpy
for x in range(11401):
    bpy.data.objects["CameraClose"].location = (0,0,0.001388887*2**(0.001666667*x))
    bpy.data.objects["CameraClose"].keyframe_insert(data_path="location", frame=x)


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Proportional editing on UV map
I am a beginner and I'm currently following these tutorials on Youtube in order to finish my model but I am stuck!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8UH_WU23Io - this is the tutorial on how to UV map the eyes.
It seems quite easy, but my issue is that at that part where I should scale the selected part of the mesh on the UV map with the proportional editing tool.
When i attempt to do it,
1. The ring that should aid me as to deciding how big the "influence" should be does not appear (despite me having enabled the tool) and
2. If I, then, try to move or scale the selected area, the whole mesh moves with it.
This results in the eye that I'm creating having several irises and pupils which is, of course, not what I want.
Does anyone know what could be the possible source of this?
Thank you!

Just a guess..The proportional editing circle might have been too big and is not showing in your screen. If this is the case, it also explains why your entire mesh is moving because the circle is encompassing everything. To rectify this, scale down the circle by scrolling up the mouse wheel.

I read that on other posts too, however, when I do that I basically zoom in and out :/

Please share your blend file so that I can take a look at it? You can do this by uploading the blend file on this site - https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com and copy + pasting the generated url here. Please pack all external data and save the blend file before uploading https://i.sstatic.net/7MbCb.png

Actually never mind, you were absolutely right and I didn't go back enough to see how terribly big the editing circle was i just played around and saw. Thank you!!

Glad I could help :) I wrote the same as an answer. Please mark it as accepted ✅. That way it wont show up in the unanswered section.

The proportional editing circle might have been too big and is not showing in your screen. If this is the case, it also explains why your entire mesh is moving because the circle is encompassing everything. To rectify this, scale down the circle by scrolling up the mouse wheel.


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How to render picture as 4 mega pixels?
I wanna create Shutterstock friendly pictures but it has to be 4 megapixels. How do I render my picture as 4 MP so that I can upload it on Shutterstock?

you don't know where to set render resolution, you don't know what resolution to choose so it is 4MP or both?

google reports 4MP as 2592x1520 https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=4mp+resolution+pixels

If you want to control your proportions and get the minimum amount of pixel you legally can:
First determine the right proportions for your composition:

adjust the camera position (G) and the Focal length from the Camera settings

in the Dimensions panel of the Render tab, keep Y fixed to 1000 and adjust X to obtain the most suitable proportions

(make sure to have the percentage at 100% before the final render)

Now you need to scale up your measures to get at least 4 million pixels (4 mega pixels) or, to be extra sure, 4'194'304 pixels (as "mega" usually indicates 220 = 1'048'576 in digital contexts).
Take note of the X value that you entered (oldx)
Calculate:

64.8 * √(oldx), round it, and type it as your new "X" value
64800 / √(oldx), round it, and type it as your new "Y" value

If you are happy with one of many possible canned proportions, instead of doing all the calculations, just use:
    1:1   →  2048 x 2048
    4:3   →  2365 x 1774
   16:9   →  2731 x 1536
    3:2   →  2508 x 1672
   16:10  →  2591 x 1619

one megapixel is one million pixels. Make the area of your picture equal 4 million pixels
The dimension for a 4:3 ratio would be 2309 x 1732 with 4 megapixels, so set width to 2309 and height 1732
if you dont know how to set dimensions use the amazing google recource... thats how i answered you... with https://www.scantips.com/mpixels.html

This is exactly what I said earlier, but without any attempt of makeup

One megapixel is one milion pixels. To calculate your image's pixel amount, just multiply the length with width. You can also use the Megapixel Calculator.
Example: To get at least a 4 megapixel image is, using common photography ratio aspect, your image needs the dimensions of 2560x1920 pixels (= 4 915 200 pixels).
You can set your image dimensions in the right toolbar under Render > Dimensions:

thousand would be kilo, mega is times million

jspr has amended the answer. However, I don't believe that a trivial mistake (writing thousands instead of million), especially if the rest of the answer clearly assumes the right order of magnitude, justifies that many downvotes. Also, a trivial mistake could be fixed by users with enough reputation, if the intent of the original answer is clear.


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Easy Ways Of Finding Both Front And Side Profiles for Character Modelling
I'm starting to get into photorealistic character modelling and I'm trying to find some reference photos on the internet to practice with. Unfortunately I'm not having any luck finding any photos of the side view of people's faces, as most of the images on Google are of the front view. Does anyone have any tips or know of any websites I can visit to find both front and side views of the same person?

Possible duplicate of Resources for Blender

I tried 'woman orthographic face views' and that yielded some results, 'man orthographic face views' works too. Really depends on what you're looking for, though!

It is probably simply a question of finding a suitable keyword combination. I tried both on Google Images and on Pinterest with "face front side" and found a lot of examples, both male and female. Furthermore, once found a good image, you can use the function to show similar ones, and you will have plenty of examples to practice.

I can find plenty of front view pictures, but I'm having almost zero luck finding side view pictures of either real people or cartoon characters. I'll try fiddling around with keywords a bit and see if I get anything promising. Right now I'm just using "[person name] face side view," which doesn't seem to be working


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Metal Deform In BGE
How would I simulate deforming metal in the game engine? I want something similar to a car crash or a can being crushed. I have tried softbody physics but it does not look like metal but more like clay.

Does it need to be physically accurate in real time or is a premade animation ok?

Preferably realtime.


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How do I run Blender 2.79 on old GPU?
I have a PC with an old intel GMA 945 that only supports openGL 2.0 and DirectX 9 and I want to install the latest version of blender. Everytime I try to run Blender 2.79 it gives me an openGL warning and crashes. I have updated my GPU driver to the absolute LATEST I can find,(Which is still about 5 years old). It is not my main PC but I want to use it alot more. Here are the specs:
4gb DDR2
Intel Core2 Duo 2.33ghz
120gb HDD
Intel GMA 945 128mb
Windows 7 Home


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Cycles materials in BGE
How would I set the game engine to use cycles materials rather than standard materials. I don't even know where to start!

As far as I know, though I may be mistaken, you cannot use Cycles materials in the BGE. BGE is older than Cycles, and was never meant to accomodate Cycles, plus, BGE is going to be depreciated (ie not maintained nor added anymore) from 2.8 forward.

You can bake cycles materials into textures and use them. that way.

Now with UPBGE 3.x you can run cycles in real time.


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How would I create a never ending level for BGE
How would I make a city or terrain in the BGE so that when a player gets close to the edge it will generate more of whatever I tell it to, (mountains, roads, etc... etc...). I don't even know where to start.


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Subdivision Surface Modifier Problem Blender 2.8
I am having an issue with the subdivision surface modifier in blender 2.8. I am getting this weird spike in my mesh when I smooth it with the modifier as if the vertex is unaffected by the modifier for some reason. There is no random geometry inside the mesh and there are no double vertices.

Solution: This was an issue with my normals and I found the solution after more experimenting. Blender 2.8 made it less obvious to see the directions of the normals. Also, CTRL-n no longer recalculates normals. The new hotkey is SHIFT-n for "recalculate outside" and SHIFT-CTRL-n for "recalculate inside". I hope this information will help a fellow blender user.


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Need help getting Cycles to match Eevee brightness

Pic 1 is Eevee
Pic 2 is Cycles at exposure of 1
Pic 3 is Cycles at exposure of 5
Note that the backgorunds are of similar exposure in 1 & 2, implying that while the 3rd may be nice and bright, that's only because the exposure is overkill. That actual background/world color is fairly close to black.
Side note: I assume it's a 2.8 bug but the option to change the energy of the light disappears when you switch to cycles.

The devs know about this and the light intensities for Eevee will be adjusted to match better with cycles in some future 2.8 build. But expect some differences nonetheless, they are very different engines.

Oh ok, that's good to know.


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Odd occurrence when setting interpolation to constant (with python)
I have this python code that creates and object sets 2 keyframes and then sets the interpolation between them to constant however instead of doing his properly it seems move the objects smoothly to a different location and then move then instantly to the location I want them to be. Here's a simple example of what it roughly looks like:
import bpy
scn = bpy.context.scene

verts = [(0,0,0), (0,5,0), (0,5,5), (0,0,5)]
faces = [(0,1,2,3)]

examplemsh = bpy.data.meshes.new("example")
exampleobj = bpy.data.objects.new("example", examplemsh)
exampleobj.location = (0,0,0)
scn.objects.link(exampleobj)
examplemsh.from_pydata(verts,[],faces)
examplemsh.update(calc_edges = True)

exampleobj.keyframe_insert("location", frame=0, group="Location")
exampleobj.location = (5,5,5)
exampleobj.keyframe_insert("location", frame=5, group="Location")

kf = exampleobj.animation_data.action.fcurves[0].keyframe_points[0]
kf.interpolation = 'CONSTANT'

The constant interpolation seems to work but not after an very odd curving motion. Does ayone know what's going on?

There are 3 fcurves for location (x, y, z)  You have only set constant interpolation for x fcurves[0].  Look in graph editor, x steps from 0 to 5 at frame 5.  I believe what you want is constant extrapolation. See answer here  ... or linear interpolation which will give a straight line between keyframepoints ?

@batFINGER My Laptop's run out of charge so I can't look too far into this but I assume I might be able to change 'interpolation' to 'extrapolation'

Suggestion. Show your image from the Blender Graph Editor in your question.


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Using python to create cuboid with a hole in the centre
I wish to create a basic rectangle with a hole in it to the scene upon running the python script. I understand how to create a simple cuboid - however I can't find an easy way of creating one with a rectangular hole through the centre short of splitting it up into four rectangles however I want it to be one structure.
My code for the cuboid so far is:
import bpy

verts = [(0,0,0),(0,5,0),(1,5,0),(1,0,0),(0,0,5),(0,5,5),(1,5,5),(1,0,5)]
faces = [(0,1,2,3), (4,5,6,7), (0,4,5,1), (1,5,6,2), (2,6,7,3), (3,7,4,0)]

grat1mesh = bpy.data.meshes.new("grat1")
grat1obj = bpy.data.objects.new("grat1", grat1mesh)
grat1obj.location = bpy.context.scene.cursor_location
bpy.context.scene.objects.link(grat1obj)
grat1mesh.from_pydata(verts,[],faces)
grat1mesh.update(calc_edges=True)

Any help is appreciated, thanks.

Using from_pydata
Make  an inner and outer square of vertices for top and bottom.  Fill top  with  4 trapezium faces.   All other face indexes can be calculated from the top faces by adding appropriate index offset to them.

import bpy
from mathutils import Vector
context = bpy.context

scene = context.scene
mesh = bpy.data.meshes.new("mesh")
# 2d square
def xysquare2d(z=0, scale=1):
    r = [-scale, scale]
    return [Vector((x, y, z)) for x in r for y in r]

verts = []
# top verts
verts.extend(xysquare2d(z=2, scale=2))
verts.extend(xysquare2d(z=2))
# bottom verts
verts.extend(xysquare2d(z=-2))
verts.extend(xysquare2d(z=-2, scale=2))
top_faces = [(0, 1, 5, 4),
         (1, 3, 7, 5),
         (3, 2, 6, 7),
         (2, 0, 4, 6)]
# make all the other faces from top faces
bottom_faces = [(i + 8, j + 8, k + 8, l + 8) for i, j, k, l in top_faces]
outer_faces =  [(i, j, k + 8, l + 8) for i, j, k, l in top_faces]
inner_faces =  [(i + 8, j + 8, k, l) for i, j, k, l in top_faces]
# add them
faces = top_faces  + bottom_faces + outer_faces + inner_faces

mesh.from_pydata(verts, [], faces)
obj = bpy.data.objects.new("obj", mesh)
scene.objects.link(obj)

Can create pydata from a mesh.
Make the model, then run this script on the mesh.
print("verts = [")
for v in mesh.vertices:
    print("\t", [axis for axis in v.co], ",")
print("\t]")
print("faces = [")
for f in mesh.polygons:
    print("\t", [i for i in f.vertices], ",")
print("\t]")

Which when run on mesh created above results in
verts = [
     [-2.0, -2.0, 2.0] ,
     [-2.0, 2.0, 2.0] ,
     [2.0, -2.0, 2.0] ,
     ....
     [2.0, 2.0, -2.0] ,
    ]
faces = [
     [0, 1, 5, 4] ,
     [1, 3, 7, 5] ,
     ....
     [10, 8, 4, 6] ,
    ]

Using boolean modifier
If you don't mind ngons, can use boolean difference, append this script to your original
# copy the mesh
grat2obj = grat1obj.copy()
grat2obj.data = grat1mesh.copy()
scene.objects.link(grat2obj)
# move it up 1, 1
grat2obj.location += Vector((-0.5, 1.25, 1.25))
# scale it
grat2obj.scale = (2, 0.5, 0.5)

# add a boolean modifier
bm = grat1obj.modifiers.new("Chop", 'BOOLEAN')
bm.object = grat2obj
bm.operation = 'DIFFERENCE'
# apply the modifier
scene.objects.active = grat1obj
bpy.ops.object.modifier_apply(modifier=bm.name)
# remove chopper
scene.objects.unlink(grat2obj)

Using bmesh
Add a plane, inset it, remove middle face, solidify.
import bpy
import bmesh
mesh = bpy.context.object.data
bm = bmesh.new()
bmesh.ops.create_grid(bm,
                      x_segments=2,
                      y_segments=2,
                      size=1)

bmesh.ops.inset_individual(bm, faces=bm.faces, thickness=0.3)
# take out middle
[bm.faces.remove(f) for f in bm.faces if all(not e.is_boundary for e in f.edges)]
# extrude
bmesh.ops.solidify(bm, geom=bm.faces, thickness=1)
bm.to_mesh(mesh)
mesh.update()

Thanks a bunch that was the best explanation I could've wanted. Thought it might've been slightly easier than this, however!

it's late, I'll get around to bmesh later.  With bmesh you don't have to keep tabs of the vert indices. Possibly easiest to add two prim cubes, remove tops, then bridge.  Or  4 traps and extrude.  Is there any particular reason you want to use from_pydata.

Not at all. I'm sure I can work around it if there's an easier solution. Just seemed easier at the time to plot out a basic cube that way - and as such I thought a basic cube with a hole would be similar.


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Creating objects with a 'for loop' and setting each new one a keyframe within the 'for loop'
So I wish to have a script which creates an object then set's it keyframe at a frame, 'f', before creating another object and setting a keyframe at a new frame, say f+1. However it always sets the keyframe to the first object created and not to the newer ones and using bpy.ops.data.object['Wave'].select = True doesn't work as it just selects the first plane created and not the others (due to the fact the others are named Wave.001 for example. I thought about turning the name into a string but that seemed like an improbable solution. When I ran this script with a more simple example of a plane it seemed to work... Here's the script I'm using for the wave:
import bpy
import math
scn = bpy.context.scene

numY = 10
freq = 1
amp = 1
scale = 1

for numX in range (2, 20):
    scn.frame_current = numX - 2
    verts = []
    faces = []

    for i in range (0, numX):
        for j in range (0, numY):
            x = scale * i
            y = scale * j
            z = scale*((amp*math.cos(i*freq))+(amp*math.sin(j*freq)))

            vert = (x,y,z)
            verts.append(vert)

    count = 0
    for i in range (0, numY*(numX-1)):
        if count < numY-1:
            A = i
            B = i+1
            C = (i+numY)+1
            D = (i+numY)

            face = (A,B,C,D)
            faces.append(face)
            count = count + 1
        else:
            count = 0

    mesh = bpy.data.meshes.new("Wave")
    object = bpy.data.objects.new("Wave",mesh)

    object.location = (0,0,0)
    bpy.context.scene.objects.link(object)

    mesh.from_pydata(verts, [],faces)
    mesh.update(calc_edges=True)
    bpy.ops.data.object['Wave'].select = True
    bpy.ops.anim.keyframe_insert_menu(type='Location')

The strange thing was that without the bpy.ops.data.object['Wave'].select = True the script fails with it outlining bpy.ops.anim.keyframe_insert_menu(type='Location') as the issue. I don't see a difference between this and the simpler cube example though - which works fine without the need of selecting the Plane. Here's the code for the plane example :
import bpy
from mathutils import Vector

scn = bpy.context.scene
scn.frame_start = 0
scn.frame_end = 20
scn.frame_current = 0
for f in range (0, 20):
    bpy.ops.object.add(type='MESH')
    Plane = bpy.context.object
    Plane.name = "Plane"
    PlaneMesh = Plane.data

    verts = [(0,0,0), (0,5,0), (0,5,5), (0,0,5)]
    faces = [(0,1,2,3)]

    PlaneMesh.from_pydata(verts, [], faces)
    PlaneMesh.update()
    scn.frame_current = f
    bpy.ops.anim.keyframe_insert_menu(type='Location')

scn.frame_current = 0

Can anyone please help me understand what's going on...?

Related: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/2848/why-avoid-bpy-ops

@RayMairlot I now see its impracticality but what else would be a solution to insert keyframes then?

In this instance, I don't actually think that's the issue, just something to note, but it's hard to tell if I've got the script working because I'm not sure what it's meant to do. The error in the line where you are selecting your object is because bpy.ops does not store the list of objects (the error was trying to tell you this), the correct command is bpy.data.objects['objectName']. But you can just do object.select = True anyway.

@batFINGER Okay thanks... I've changed all names from object now. By using context.object != context.selected_objects[0] is this deselecting all selected objects? And from that I can select the new object and edit thus?

To make an object the context object need to use scene.objects.active = obj. before calling an operator that works on context object.  Anyway, don't use bpy.ops.anim.keyframe_insert use obj.keyframe_insert(data_path, frame=frame)  Can be done without any need to set scene frame also.  Can write up as answer if you prefer.

@batFINGER That would be kind thanks... Tried doing it from your previous comments and I believe I got confused as to what's going on. Would be much appreciated :p

Here is your script (a) doing what I think you want it to do.  It makes a mesh object at each frame, and adds a location keyframe at the frame it was created in script.
If you are using an operator, need to be in, or set the context it requires. Make a new object obj context with context.scene.objects.active = obj.  If it works on selected objects, like say join, need to make sure other objects are (de)selected correctly by setting obj.select accordingly on each.
Going to use bpy_struct.keyframe_insert(...) rather than the operator.  This will be quicker, especially for high numbers.
import bpy
from math import sin, cos
scn = bpy.context.scene

numY = 10
freq = 1
amp = 1
scale = 1

for numX in range (2, 20):
    verts = []
    faces = []

    for i in range (0, numX):
        x = scale * i
        for j in range (0, numY):
            y = scale * j
            z = scale * amp * (cos(i * freq) + sin(j * freq))
            vert = (x, y, z)
            verts.append(vert)

    count = 0
    for i in range (0, numY * (numX - 1)):
        if count < numY - 1:
            A = i
            B = i + 1
            C = (i + numY) + 1
            D = (i + numY)

            face = (A, B, C, D)
            faces.append(face)
            count = count + 1
        else:
            count = 0

    mesh = bpy.data.meshes.new("Wave")

    mesh.from_pydata(verts, [], faces)
    mesh.update(calc_edges = True)

    obj = bpy.data.objects.new("Wave", mesh)

    obj.location = (0, 0, 0)
    scn.objects.link(obj)
    obj.keyframe_insert("location", frame=numX, group="Location")

Thanks! Works exactly how I wanted it to (even if I didn't explain that very well oops...)

Just so I know what's going on what's happening with the last two lines?


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Using python to set object shading to 'smooth'
So I wish to create and object and set it's shading to 'smooth' using python. It seems simple enough but after trying every method I could find on the internet none of them worked for me. Here's a short example script where the object needs to have smooth shading:
import bpy
from mathutils import Vector

verts = [(0,0,0),(0,5,0),(0.25,5,0),(0.25,0,0),(0,0,5),(0,5,5),(0.25,5,5),(0.25,0,5)]
faces = [(0,1,2,3), (4,5,6,7), (0,4,5,1), (1,5,6,2), (2,6,7,3), (3,7,4,0)]

grat1mesh = bpy.data.meshes.new("grat1")
grat1obj = bpy.data.objects.new("grat1", grat1mesh)
grat1obj.location = (5, -5, 0)
bpy.context.scene.objects.link(grat1obj)
grat1mesh.from_pydata(verts,[],faces)
grat1mesh.update(calc_edges=True)

grat2obj = grat1obj.copy()
grat2obj.data = grat1mesh.copy()
bpy.context.scene.objects.link(grat2obj)
grat2obj.location += Vector((-0.125, 1.25, 1.25))
grat2obj.scale = (2, 0.5, 0.5)

bm = grat1obj.modifiers.new("Chop", 'BOOLEAN')
bm.object = grat2obj
bm.operation = 'DIFFERENCE'
bpy.context.scene.objects.active = grat1obj
bpy.ops.object.modifier_apply(modifier=bm.name)
bpy.context.scene.objects.unlink(grat2obj)

I found this online and tried to place it at the end of the script:
smoothings = []
smoothings.append(face.use_smooth)
me_ob.faces.foreach_set("use_smooth", smoothings)

However this just returned an error on the second line, perhaps as it was from an older website.
Obviously using a simple bpy.ops.object.shade_smooth() didn't work and I'm kind of stumped as of what to do here!

If you get an error, please include the text of that error in the question.

@RayMairlot Apologies... On blender 2.79 it returns "Python script fail, look in the console for now..." I don't know of a way of getting a more detailed error response, however.

You need to look in the console. See: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/6173/where-does-console-output-go

Can set face to smooth in bmesh with
for f in bm.faces:
    f.smooth = True

Or in object mode
mesh = context.object.data
for f in mesh.polygons:
    f.use_smooth = True

The foreach set routines need a correctly sized value list for example
values = [True] * len(mesh.polygons)
mesh.polygons.foreach_set("use_smooth", values)

which is the equivalent of the for loop above.
Remember that when blender started to handle ngons (faces with more than 4 verts) it changed the mesh.faces collection was renamed to mesh.polygons.

Thanks! After a while of being a dumbo and thinking that just sticking in 'mesh' instead of 'grat1mesh' it finally worked. oops!

Hey, I was wondering if there is a point in trying to optimize the values array used in the foreach_set with a numpy array like values = np.full(len(mesh.polygons), True, dtype=bool) ? I did a few tests but did not find any speed improvement

Sure python is going to make a list of single value pretty quickly.. it's what is done in between. for example inverting the value for a high poly count.  np.invert(values) is going to pants a for loop and prob also a list comp [not v for v in values]


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My scene is pink
So I'm doing a Minecraft animation and everything was fine and I was rendering and then I check on it and see that half the renders are pink and my characters skins are gone I'm just wondering if anyone knows whats going on and how to fix it (I use Mcprep for textures, I used Mineways for the world and I used the black plasma studios rig)

Pink texture means that the texture files are missing. You maybe changed the textures location or they are not accessible anymore.
Use Find Missing Files operator in Info > File > External Data as in the image to let blender find the files.


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"Context is incorrect" python error, while script moves modifier up in modifier list during rendering
I would like to run a python script, which adds every frame a new Mask-modifier to an object (and deleting the old). While following script works if the code runs in interactive blender window, during rendering it leads to an error message when it calls modifier_move_up().
import bpy

object_name = "Cube"

bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_post.clear()

def my_handler(scene):

    print("Frame Change", bpy.context.scene.frame_current )

    obj = bpy.data.objects[object_name]

    # delete mask-modifier and add new to last but one position
    if obj.modifiers.find("Mask")+1:
        obj.modifiers.remove(obj.modifiers.get("Mask"))

    obj.modifiers.new("Mask", type="MASK")
    #################################################
    bpy.ops.object.modifier_move_up(modifier="Mask")
    #################################################

bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_post.append(my_handler)

Error message:

RuntimeError: Operator bpy.ops.object.modifier_move_up.poll() failed,
  context is incorrect

As far as I understand, I should override the context, but I don't know how exactly and with which parameters.
According to this question (How do I override context for bpy.ops.mesh.loopcut?) I added an override, but with no effect.
import bpy

object_name = "Cube"

bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_post.clear()

win      = bpy.context.window
scr      = win.screen
areas3d  = [area for area in scr.areas if area.type == 'VIEW_3D']
region   = [region for region in areas3d[0].regions if region.type == 'WINDOW']

override = {'window':win,
            'screen':scr,
            'area'  :areas3d[0],
            'region':region[0],
            'scene' :bpy.context.scene,
            }

def my_handler(scene):

    print("Frame Change", bpy.context.scene.frame_current )

    obj = bpy.data.objects[object_name]

    # delete mask-modifier and add new to last but one position
    if obj.modifiers.find("Mask")+1:
        obj.modifiers.remove(obj.modifiers.get("Mask"))

    obj.modifiers.new("Mask", type="MASK")
    #################################################
    bpy.ops.object.modifier_move_up(override, modifier="Mask")
    #################################################

bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_post.append(my_handler)

While running this code in blender I get after frame change following messages (the code itself works):

PyContext 'modifier' not found
  PyContext 'object' not found
  PyContext 'modifier' not found
  PyContext 'object' not found
  PyContext 'object' not found

While I'm try to render this part of the messages changes to...

PyContext 'modifier' not found
  PyContext 'object' not found
  PyContext 'active_object' not found

... followed by the mentioned "context is incorrect" error message.
What am I doing wrong?

Match the area that the operator is called from in UI.
The operator bpy.ops.object.modifier_move_up when run from the UI is done in the properties area.  (area.type == 'PROPERTIES').  Properties has some extra context members, context.modifiers being one of those.
As well as "modifier" the error message is also complaining about "object" not being a member of over-ridden context.
import bpy

object_name = "Cube"

bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_post.clear()

win = bpy.context.window
scr = win.screen
areas3d = [area for area in scr.areas if area.type == 'PROPERTIES']
region = [region for region in areas3d[0].regions if region.type == 'WINDOW']

override = {'window': win,
            'screen': scr,
            'area': areas3d[0],
            'region': region[0],
            }

def my_handler(scene):

    print("Frame Change", scene.frame_current)
    obj = scene.objects.get(object_name)
    if obj is None:
        return
    mod = obj.modifiers.get("Mask")
    # delete mask-modifier and add new to last but one position
    if mod:
        obj.modifiers.remove(mod)

    mod = obj.modifiers.new("Mask", type="MASK")
    override["modifier"] = mod
    # perhaps works without these 2 but hey???
    override["object"] = obj
    override["active_object"] = obj
    # avoid hassles by adding scene here
    override["scene"] = scene
    #################################################
    bpy.ops.object.modifier_move_up(override, modifier="Mask")
    #################################################

bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_post.append(my_handler)

Is it true that this dictionary form of overrride is depricated?  And that context.temp_override() is the new approach?

Seems to be, though nobody is talking about how you're supposed to actually use it.


text:
Cuda Error at cuCtxCreate: Unknown error
I am trying to get my dual GTX 1080 Ti working in Cycles, however no bingo. When I try to render a scene (just the box with nothing else in it) I get the error message “Cuda Error at cuCtxCreate: Unknown error”
I have tried using the 1080 ti, how ever still have the same issue. CPU rending is fine.
I am on 2.79b and all my windows drivers and nvidia drivers are upto date.
Are there any other logs that I can look at?
Below are my specs for the PC that I am using.
2 x Processor   Intel® Xeon® CPU E5-2699 v4 @ 2.20GHz, 2201 Mhz, 22 Core(s), 44 Logical Processor(s)
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 512 GB
2 x Display NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti

No one has any ideas?


text:
How to set the camera in a precise position?
I'm following a tutorial and the creator made the camera into this certain position that I can't seem to follow:

Please upload images using the built-in uploader. See: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/75491/how-to-upload-an-image-to-a-post

The creator probably held CTRL while dragging to snap the camera to the grid.

You need to rotate the camera 90 degree along the Y-axis. To do so, select the camera, then hit R then Y then 90.

If going with rotation exactly as in the screenshot then you can just reset rotation of the camera object. Reset location as well to make the camera staying in the center of the scene.
To do this, select camera, press Alt+R for resetting rotation and Alt+G for scale.


text:
Looping Smoke Animation
I'm working on a game right now and I'm using Blender to create animations, which I render to 2D and implement into my game. I'm trying to use a smoke animation for a power plant in the game and use like a 2 second clip that is seamless and loops perfectly to make the smoke appear to be continuously coming out of the power plant. Is this possible using quick smoke? The solution does not necessarily have to involve Blender, I render to a collection of animation frames which can be played or manipulated however within the game engine.
Thanks in advance!


text:
AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'data'
I'm using a plugin to export my model to a special format, however, upon exporting, I get the error AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'data'.
Here is the exact error message and .blend file:
https://i.sstatic.net/jY64z.jpg
https://files.fm/u/576pcnmc
I posted this as an issue on the GitHub page, and received the following explanation:

...it seems you have an object in your scene that isn't linked to the armature that controls it, so when trying to find the armature to export it's bones the "explorer is giving a null pointer error.

Any idea of how to apply this solution to my .blend file? Thanks!
(I've tried setting parents to the armatures, but that doesn't seem to work)

It expects the mesh to be a child of the armature, possibly also expects only the mesh object to be selected when you export.

It might be related to this bug: https://developer.blender.org/T53065


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Moving an animated / rigged object
I have a model in Blender that is rigged and animated. The object is not at the origin, and I would like to move it there. I can move the object to the origin by selecting the armature bones and transforming them until the object is at the origin, however, when I start playing an animation or export the file, the object snaps back to its original position (as I'm assuming is defined by the animated key frames). How can I translate an object, animations and all, to the origin without affecting the animation?

Do it by make your armature an Root bone.
1. Select your Armature

2. Press Tab to enter Edit Mode

3. Press Shift + A To add new bone. Name it Root or whatever you want

4. Parent your current Root bone (which mean if you move it, the whole armature will move with it) to your new Root bone you just add.
Select your current Root bone, then Hold Shift and select new Root bone.
Press Ctrl + P then select Keep Offset

5. Now you can move your new bone to the origin and whole armature will go with that.

I did this, and the same issue happens

nevermind, I was able to get it working, make sure you use pose mode when making changes to the root bone.

yeah. i forgot to told you that.


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Camera rotates on Z angle (rolls) during following spline
I have made an intricate path for my camera to follow based on the instructions in here, and it almost works fine, except that the camera rolls for apparently no reason. Is there any way to counter this?
The path:

The camera is placed exactly at the location of the first point of the curve, that is also the curve origin. The camera faces exactly the way the curve will start.

The camera is parented to the curve.

The curve is 3D, and the evaluation is already keyframed.

When the animation starts, the camera faces forward and is not tilted.

As the animation progresses, the camera always faces forward, but it start rolling left and right.
Is there a way to keep it straight during the whole animation? Or any way to control the tilt?
Thanks for the help!

You've got at least two options to control the roll of your camera as it follows the path.

Any curve has not only a longitudinal direction, but also a twist, interpolated between its control points. You can see it  by looking at the changing plane of the arrows which constitute the curve's Normal display. In edit mode, you can modify the twist by selecting control points, and after hitting CtrlT, winding the mouse around the selection. The camera will follow the twist.
For better and perhaps more intuitive control of the roll of your camera between control points, you can create an empty, and assign a 'Locked Track' constraint to the camera, with Y as the direction, and the empty as the target.
The empty then becomes a handle for the up direction of the camera,(which now ignores the twist of the path). How you control the empty is up to you.You can animate it, leave it stationary a long way off, make it follow the path too, so it's always easy to reach... all sorts.

Thank you, the first solution seemed to work, although it is hard for me to guess why is the 0 degree tilt, that is the default for all the nodes, caused that much of a roll.

I't not clear from the documentation what the Curve>Twist options 'Tangent' and 'Minimum' are.. maybe someone can draw us a picture :)


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Using drivers to animate the opacity of a strip in VSE
my final goal would be to use Blender VSE for video editing, where I'd overlay a strip over a background video when there is sound in the corresponding audio track, so basically, the volume in an audio file drives the opacity of one video/still image track.
I have followed the instructions found here:
Have a video sequence be driven by an audio track , and it works just fine, except it slows down rendering quite a bit, which is for my long form videos (30 to 90 minutes long @25 fps), just too much time and wasted computing power in my opinion, and since the linked content, 4 years have passed, and a lot of new Blender versions got released, so I just hope there is an other way to make it work.
I tried a workaround by adding a custom property to the sequence, I baked the F-Curve from the audio file, but I can't use that property for a driver, as when I'm adding a variable to the driver, I can't select "Strip" as "Prop":

So as I can select Object, I just select a random object, and past the data path from my custom property, but it gets red, so I can't fool Blender just by adding the data path.
Is there any way to get source for my driver on the Sequencer, so I don't have my source (the Empty) in a hidden scene? Or is there any workaround to force Blender to get the F-Curve defined data from the Empty even though the Empty is being animated on the scene that is not on the Sequencer?
(I have tried that I just manually define the F-Curves using keyframes, that doesn't work either, so the problem is most definitely not with trying to bake the F-Curve from sound, and it clearly works if I superimpose the scene on top of everything, and multiplying.)
Thank you very much for any ideas.


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2.8, how to automaticaly merge overlapping vertices
there used to be a button for this, It looked like two arrows pointing towards each other i believe. It made it very easy to snap one vertex onto another. It was located where the snaping and pivot point options are but I can't find it in 2.8 :(

nvm, found it. It's under mesh options all the way to the topmost corner of the window. :) It's called AutoMerge editing

Screenshot of the tool's location: https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/140029/71058


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How to read a current value of the Cycles material node and write it to file?
For each object of the scene (there are a lot of them) I use a single material.

I need to use the Python script to read the current value of the Color output of the Color Ramp node and write it into a text file for each object in the scene.
Please advise how to do this. Thank you very much in advance.

While getting the info 'generically' of the nodes and outputting that to a file isn't an issue I believe your specific request will run into the same issue as mentioned here. "The object info values are only applied once the scene gets rendered."

Ratt, thank you. I read your question. If reading information from a node is not a problem, can you tell me how to do this or where to read about it?
In general, I want to run a python script once to generate a legend — a matching between the object name in the scene and its identifier from the Object info node (random).

By the way. Maybe someone knows how a random Object identifier is generated in Blender? Then this procedure could be repeated in its own Python script.

Serge, the issue is that since the random value from object info won't be generated when running the script every object in the scene will report the same value. As such every object would be reported to have the same color from the color ramp node.

Thank you, Ratt! So I need to assign a known object identifier myself. But I would not really like to generate individual material for each object (and there may be several thousand of them). Interestingly, and the Object color, displayed in the Display group property, can not be used in the Cycles material?  Or maybe Custom properties of the object could be used for this?