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How can I use the BI Noise Texture in Cycles?
Okay,so I kept watching the FNaF material video by Emil "Ace" Macko wondering how to make the most accurate FNaF toy material. I tried Then I see the new toy models made by Everything_Animations and the material in the image is the most accurate. So I was wondering,how do you make the exact same procedural texture that Everything_Animations made,but for Blender Cycles?

I found out that the material in Blender Internal is the hardened version of the Blender Original clouds texture with an inverted Colorramp and what I want is that I want to use the same kind of texture for the glossy specularity using the Cloud Noise listed in the description but in Blender Cycles without using an image texture because of seam marks.

I've been trying to mirror the cloud noise texture types from Blender Internal into Blender Cycles but so far I haven't gotten any luck,and in Blender Internal,I've been trying to render it with a blue spot light,an orange hemi,and a white area facing the model's front,but it doesn't show up on the mask and it's cheeks,lips,or tears

Please someone,what I wanted to do is to use Blender Internal textures in Blender Cycles,and now you're hating on me just because you can't give an answer,well that isn't fair to anyone.
Please help me.
I found that the texture is a hardened version of the Blender Original cloud noise but with an inverted Color Ramp.
How do I make this texture,I can't use images because there are seams,please.
Please help me.

The Cloud Noise I'm talking about is most commonly used for specularity for FNaF toy animatronic suit material in Blender Internal/Blender Render.
What can I do to get this texture for the glossy specularity without using an image because of obvious seam marks?

The short answer is "you can't." There is not a 1:1 correlation between Blender Internal materials and Cycles materials. The Clouds material is similar to the Noise node in Cycles, but not quite the same.
The longer answer is that you can make just about any kind of material you need to in either renderer, but you'll have to use different techniques from one to the other. You should start with the Noise node in Cycles, and then tweak it until you get something that looks like what you want. You'll have to play with the settings on the Noise node itself, but you'll almost certainly need to add a Ramp node to control the hardness of the noise.
Anything beyond that is really outside the scope of this site. Please keep in mind that it's not a forum. This is a Q&A site. We love to help, but this site works differently than most people expect. It's not designed to handle conversations, rather it's designed to handle discreet questions with clear answers.
Hope that helps!

I can't...Okay then,can someone please create a node that allows the use of both Blender Internal and Blender Cycles.

Wait a minute,is it possible to create Blender Cycles lighting in Blender Internal?

What if you can just use the same lighting settings in Blender Internal?
Is there a way for that to happen?
Every time that I use lighting in Blender Internal,the said specularity texture doesn't show up.
I wonder why?

It's not as simple as creating a node to use both BI and Cycles. They're fundamentally different. It's like the difference between steering a car and steering a ship. They both have wheels... but you can't just swap one wheel for the other and make your car into a ship.

As for lighting, Cycles is (sort of... VERY sort of) doing the same thing as what BI calls Global Illumination (GI). You can use GI to achieve a similar effect as in Cycles, but the whole reason Cycles was developed is because it's MUCH more efficient than BIGI.

The specular texture doesn't show up in BI because BI's materials are set up very differently from Cycles' materials. It is possible to use spec maps in BI, you'll just have to look into that. Note that BI technically can use nodes, but they're far less powerful that Cycles' nodes. You'll probably have to learn how to use BI's regular, non-node materials.

When I meant lighting,I meant lamps.

Yes, and my answer is the same. The lights are all the same in both BI and Cycles (mostly), but they will look different because Cycles ONLY does Global illumination, and Blender Internal BARELY does Global Illumination.

One more question,can you import material from 3D Studio Max into Blender?

I'm back and I'm finally giving you all the solution to this enigma. A couple of months ago, with a little help from someone and some experimenting of my own, I found the answer. It's actually a lot easier than it looks.

Add a Noise Texture node, set the scale to 8. For me, I set the detail to 16. It's necessary if you want it to be realistic.
Add two Colorramp nodes and set them to B-Spline mode. Set the black color stop on Colorramp 1 to 0.046 and reverse the color stops on the second one. Plug the values into the Fac. sockets of both Colorramps.
Add a Math node and set it to Maximum mode. Plug both Colorramps into the node with the first one on top.
Add another Math node and turn Clamp mode on. Set it to Add, plug the Maximum node into the top socket and set the bottom value to -0.05.
Add a Bright/Contrast node and plug the Add node into the color socket. Set the brightness to 0.2 and the contrast to 1.000. If you want to use the inverted version for matte plastic, set the brightness to -0.125 and the contrast to 1.1 then add an Invert node set to 1 and plug the Bright/Contrast node into it. If you want to use both at the same time, plug them both into a MixRGB node and switch between them when you feel like it. For me, I put an Invert node with black in the color input and I plugged it into the MixRGB Fac socket.
Plug the MixRGB node into the Blender Guru's Less/More node group. If you don't have it, you can obtain it easily online. Here's the link: https://www.blenderguru.com/tutorials/making-realistic-pbr-materials-part-2-metal?rq=PBR
Add yet another MixRGB node and set it to Multiply. Plug the Less/More group into the Fac. of the new MixRGB node. Set the bottom color code to #BCBCBC and the top color to #E0E0E0. The bottom color is for roughness.

After this is all said and done, you'll get something like this:

I hope this helps you all as this has helped me. To make it easier, you can turn this into a simple node group. Create a roughness slider and plug it into the Multiply MixRGB node's second color input. This is the solution to my problems. An answer to the prayers of FNaF modelers everywhere.

Sorry for the three dots in front of hey. Now,every time I try to begin my sentence with a word with a capital letter,it always deletes it. How do I stop this?


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Why doesn't Blender use my GPU?
I have a i7 with 32 GB RAM & an Nvidia 1070, Windows 10.
My GPU shows up in Blender, but when I try to render a still jpeg, it crashes 100% of the time.
In my Task Manager, my RAM maxes out before the crash and my GPU stays at 0% usage.
After about 10 crashes, I updated my Nvidia driver and I've had 4 more crashes. I even tried just checking the 1070 alone under CUDA - same result: 0% usage.
What is going on here?

Maybe changing tile parameters- this blender guru tutorial can have good tips. Eighteen ways to speed up cycles rendering

Do you have a very large scene? If so, then it may not fit into your graphics card's 8gb of VRAM.

source: Stack Exchange

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

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How can I combine multiple textures so that they blend together?
I've seen many examples of this, and I can't seem to find the answer anywhere online. The best I've been able to do is, in Texture Paint, edit the actual texture image file.
But what if I could simply unwrap a texture as terrain, and be able to mix, say, a rocky texture with a grassy one, and have one blend into the other smoothly, rather than an abrupt edge?
I've seen this executed beautifully before, and if anyone could give me any insights, I'd really appreciate it! I feel like it's the missing piece that would improve my creations.

The traditional way to do this was vertex colors. The amount of (say) red would be the blend factor between the textures. Use a node setup like this.

Set the 3D View to Material preview and switch to Vertex Paint mode. Paint black where you want the first texture to show through, and red where you want the second.

Alternatively, you could use a third texture to control the blend amount and paint it in Texture Paint mode.

To give you finer control on coarse meshes, you could also use an image texture instead of the vertex colors as mask. With a sufficiently feathered brush, you can achieve smooth blendig as well.

This is amazing, thank you so much! I knew there had to be a way; I've seen it done so many times. I spent so long trying to experiment with different possible solutions, and it turns out to be much smoother than I thought.

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


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Bend extruded svg around sphere or extrude svg along sphere normals
I am trying to cut out the rebel alliance symbol from a hollow half sphere the size of a golfball to 3D print a golf ball marking stencil. I tried this with tinkercad and already printed it successfully like this:

As you can see, I simply extruded an svg and cut out straight down. This works somehow, but of course it is a straight cut, which especially on the outer curve produces quite an angled border compared to the normal of the golf ball, which makes painting the edges harder than it could be.
Now I wanted to bend the symbol along the normals of the sphere curvature using blender and a technique I found here: https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/115121/116795 , bind object with SurfaceDeform modifier to plane, bind Plane with shrinkwrap to Sphere. And it worked, but it somehow looks ragged especially on the inner curvature:

I have played around with the modifier settings like an offset for the shrinkwrap, increasing subdivision, even using the Remesh Modifier to get a different distribution of vertices along the edges. But nothing was really clean.
Basically what I would really want is to extrude an arbitrary svg along the normals of a sphere - in my imagination this should deliver the cleanest result.
So any tips to improve the quality of the edge curvature or pointers to a completely different technique would be highly appreciated, thank you!

Simpler to cut a hole into the single-skin sphere, and then rely on a  Solidify modifier to give you the thickness-along-normals

That is a very good idea @RobinBetts, I didn't think about that, thank you! I'll try this and return with my findings.

I tried the suggested Solidify on a single-skin sphere, but I didn't manage to get the result I wanted. But I worked out a similar approach - with a little more work and without modifiers, that did the trick:

Create Sphere of approriate size
Use Boolean to cut off lower half to get to the desired half sphere and cut out the desired SVG symbol as I did before
Use "Edit Mode" to remove all inner vertices created by the booleans to produce a single skin sphere with cutout as suggested by Robin.

Duplicate the object, scale it so there is a second, slightly larger version of it - as desired for the thickness
Join the two objects and "stitch" the edges with CTRL-E - "Bridge Edge loops"

I had to select the inner cutouts manually, "select loop" didn't work there. But in the end, the result was worth the effort:

Thanks for your help, I hope somebody finds this useful!
UPDATE: I also found out why the solidify didn't work before, I didn't actually use a singleskin sphere (Step 3 from above), but instead I used a boolean operation to cut out the inner side with an only slightly smaller sphere. Which LOOKED single, but actually was a normal doubleskinned sphere. With the singleskinned sphere, it worked like a charm. So, thanks again Robin for the suggestion, you were spot on, if only I had done it right in the first place, this would have worked perfectly!
So, alternative to my more time-intensive method:

Create Sphere of approriate size
Use Boolean to cut off lower half to get to the desired half sphere and cut out the desired SVG symbol as I did before
Use "Edit Mode" to remove all inner vertices created by the booleans to produce a single skin sphere with cutout as suggested by Robin.
Switch back to "Object Mode" and use the Solidify modifier to get the desired effect with a lot less effort :).

Update 2: Yep, it works :)

Nice clean result!.. Surprised you didn't have a nightmare cleaning up after the boolean !

No, actually the cleanup was done rather quickly, might be because the base cut with the solidified svg was also rather clean. Printer is already on it so I can show off the end result of all this later :).


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Grease pencil overlapping everything
I'm new to blender and I am trying to block out some compositions, but is there a way I can get it so that my grease pencil strokes don't overlap everything I try to put over it? In this case im dealing with an image plane, using blender 2.8, and rendering with eevee.


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My Compositing doesn't output properly
As you can see I have done some compositing in the main window and when I click render none of the compositing I have done is outputting.

maybe the Composite Output node has been disconnected or deleted? You need to make sure it's connected to the end of your compositing chain, find it in Add -> Output -> Composite. A Viewer node will only display its content in Blender, but not write that to disk.

Compositing is a form of what is known as post processing.  As the name implies, post processing is something that is done after the image is rendered.  The way Blender works, first your image is rendered, then the rendered image is sent through the compositor.  So you won't be able to see your compositing applied until Cycles is finished rendering the image.
Cycles tells you what is going on at the top of the render window, in your screenshot it says "Path Tracing" (which means rendering), when it finishes rendering it will start applying your compositing nodes and will say "Compositing" at the top.
Once the entire rendering process is completed (including the compositing), you can change what is displayed with the dropdown menu at the bottom of the UV/Image Editor.

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


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Painting one part of my model causes another part to get painted as well
I have a problem here.
When i'm painting the foot of my character, the blur that appears on the foot is, somehow, mirrored on the leg too, and the same thing happens when i try the inverse. I didn't use any mirror property while working on the model, and none of axes symmetry is active.
What could possibly be causing this?

first thought: the vertices use the same uv texture coordinates, but I guess you unwrapped your character correctly and there is nothing overlapping that ain't supposed to

Well, I hadn't yet unwrapped the model. But now that you mentioned it, the problem is no longer a problem.
Thanks for the tip.

I believe TARDIS Maker is correct in your UV it appears that the painted parts do overlap:

Im almost positive that some kind of mirror is applied automatically; it can be found on that texture paint panel, it may be collapsed in a menu, probably labeled 'Mirror' or something like that, but if not, it will have 3 or 4 options; one being x-axis, one being y-axis, and so on. At least one of them should be checked, un-check it, and it and i believe your problems are over.

This is almost certainly an overlap of the vertices in the UV Map.

Welcome to SE! That is indeed a valid option, however once you have enough reputation, posts like this might be better suited as comments. You could also expand this post to contain some more detail and maybe even screenshots to make it easier to follow what you are saying.

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


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Blender and dental addon
I am a beginner in using blender .
I read about the dental cadcam add-on , and i searched for the script and could not find it .
Where can I get this addon?

was it this? https://sites.google.com/site/blenderdental/ it was feature also on BN a couple of _years_ago http://www.blendernation.com/2012/01/27/open-dental-cad/.. I guess it could be not much up to date with recent blender versions...

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it's about downloading an unofficial addon.

@someonewithpc I guess pretty much all of non-bundled blender addons are "unofficial". I don't see a reason why this site could not answer where to get some addon. Yes a simple google query solves it but there are far worst (aka I am lazy to search) questions on this site.

The answer to this question is going to be a link, which is generally discouraged.

@someonewithpc True, that I have admit is a good argument. Would be probably best to share the code here if someone has it. It looks like the addon is abandoned and the source is lost.

Yeah, that would be a good solution.

@patmo141 might know alternatives

Thank you all for your kind answers , highly appreciated , but situation still same , i only read about this dental addon , but concretely i cannot get it !
someonewithpic good idea , i hope that some one who has the code WILL SHARE IT HERE ! COME ON GUYS IT'S CHRISTMAS TIME :)

..any script version will be ook (older , newer , whatever ! )...thks

You can talk a look at github.com/patmo141/odc_public/wiki. Hope it helps.

I am the author the addon.  I will update the google site to point to the github repository.  The addon has not been "abandoned" but it is certainly not actively maintained or developed heavily.
https://github.com/patmo141/odc_public
Thanks,
Patrick

I was trying to locate the ODC add-in but could not find the internet nor the link you provided https://github.com/patmo141/odc_public helped me with that. Is that add-in still available and compatible with recent version of Blender? Would appreciate your help on this. Thank you, smaciu

Read the wiki at the link above.


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How do I add a new file type to the 'Import' menu?
I want to add a new file type to Blender's "Import" menu. I've looked at the STL and PLY implementations but am still having troubles. Is there any documentation or examples describing the minimal API needed to add a file importer?

Yep, Text Editor > Templates > Python > Operator File Import.

There is a actually a template for exactly this purpose that comes with Blender. Text Editor > Templates > Python > Operator File Import.


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Can I make my own Allow/Deny selection switch?
Let's say I restricted all objects from being selectable from the outliner except for one that I can use to control the state of other object's selectability.
I just need to know can an object's state affect the state of another object's selectability other than using the outliner? And how would I do it?

We can use drivers to control a property from another property. Note that there are some limits, for example, an objects visibility doesn't seem to trigger an update of drivers that use it.

Lets start with three objects, a cube a monkey and a torus.
Add a custom property to the cube (see below), click edit and rename it select_control then set the value to 1, as we enter a whole number it will prevent decimal numbers being entered.
In the outliner, right click on the selectability of Suzanne and choose Add Driver->Single From Target. This will give you an eyedropper cursor, click on the cubes custom property we just created. Note that the value is now highlighted in purple. This applies to 2.78, previous versions you choose Add Driver and then manually edit a driver expression.
Repeat for the torus

Now as you alter the value of the cubes property, the selectability of the monkey and the torus also change.

Drivers can be any python expression and can be edited in the graph editor in driver mode.
A custom properties panel can be found in several tabs of the properties editor, for this situation a property attached to an object makes sense, a scene property could also work. Adding a custom property is as simple as clicking the add button, it can be useful to also edit the property to give it a more meaningful name and adjust the limits if you want values larger than 1.0.

Ah! So that's what those custom properties are for. Thanks for your help.

I think step 2 is a little unclear without either screenshots or further steps on how to add a custom property.

@RayMairlot Not sure that showing an add button is helpful, they are available in most property contexts, the only confusing thing would be which location to use, here I expect an object property is relevant, a scene property could also make sense. Adding a link to the manual should help.

Regardless of the 'add' buton, you don't even mention where a user could expect to find the custom properties. You know custom properties are added in a separate panel in most property contexts, but why should a user who has just come across this question? Linking to the manual helps, but I don't think it takes much to add that the custom property is added via a separate 'Custom Properties' panel in the 'Object' tab of the Properties Editor.


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How can I instantly add a control rig to a character?
Can Blender take a rig with a skeleton like what comes out of Maximo and add a control rig and IK controls for the hands and feet?

Did you try Rigify addon? It does exactly, what you're describing.

I thought Rigify only worked with a characters that has no bones as I've seen only tutorials that always start without any.

Well, yeah, but why would you need to import some other basic rig if you have one already in the trunk?

I used to make FBX files to export these rig with just bones, weight paint and shape keys but no IK or control rigs. This time I wish to do it all in Blender. I guess I could destroy the rigs I already made and start over I suppose.


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Does Blender have a tool to automatically create & set up a control panel for a character's expressions?
Can Blender automatically create a control driver panel for animating and controlling a character's facial expressions? The expressions are all shape key driven.

I am not aware of such a tool built-in into Blender. There is an option to use custom-properties to drive shape keys though. It is not as good as a python scripted interface, but does the job for small rigs.
https://www.blender.org/manual/data_system/custom_properties.html


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How to create true spherical spring?
I want to create object like this:

How can I achieve this?

There is an addon for that: "add curve: extra objects". Once activated, Shift A/Curve/Add curve spirals, then choose spheric and tune the parameters in the operator panel

@lemon Should be an answer, not a comment.

@RayMairlot, should be a duplicate, finally!! So... I'll just add another way to do it, without the addon (even if I don't know if it is mathematically correct)

An alternative way, just to add to the catalogue found by Prashant in another question:

Add a plane and keep only one segment
Make an inclination at 45° in front view
Subdivide a lot (around 100 times)

In front view, select one extremity
Set the proportional editing to enabled and to linear
Make a "blank" rotation (0°) to adjust the falloff
Then in top view
R to rotate
Rotate at the maximum possible value
Rotate again ShiftR to repeat the last operation

Finally, add a cast modifier and let it to sphere with a factor of 1:

Edit: FYI, that can be done with a single subdivided segment kept horizontal. Rotate with linear falloff and grab Z with spherical falloff.

Hmm, interesting one, +1.   :)


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Blender Scripting: Copied Objects not enabled Rigidbody active
[Pre Bug report checking] {Using Blender 2.79 Scripting}
I tried to copy some object, to multiple places and discovered the Rigidbody Active settings did not animate during playback.
The settings did get copied but the selected color was orange not green (which of course symbolizes Active Ridgedbody is enabled).
When I used the hidden Report window text trick to try to transfer the code to my script (via what the GUI is doing) I discovered another deeply concerning issue.
It seems there is no function to assign the object easily and one has to think in a UI way to code it?! [horrors]
ctx.scene.objects.active = object
bpy.ops.rigidbody.object_add()

This function object_add should take the list of objects to assign not need to make each object active first. [super bad]
First problem is the copy failed, second problem the way to activate it is junior patch at best (especially since it maybe resets settings etc).
I must be missing some kind of way to add objects to the scenes rigidbody cache resolver list or something similar. Next problem is if that's true the report window is really not much help to devs/scripting because it's all coded in a GUI-centric way?! To only call functions on the active object or pre selection etc. seems an unfortunate undersight, when an argument to the target objects is my expectation here it's still secondarily to the notion of maybe better if there is a function that is inherited from a subclass level like Object or Mesh. Then one would just call the objects.rigidbody.add() function or something or maybe objects.ridgedbody = new Rigedbody() and the system would look for that on frame zero on all objects and add it to the solver's list/cache etc.
This would make the problem of the resolver disconnect that must occur in rigidbody object_add function obsolete. I would even just fill the default settings in if a none null rigidbody value was discovered (my just-in-time never fail way of thinking (must be the typeless JS coder in me)).
Anyway maybe someone could explain the best way to add a copied object to the solver and make it active because even though the values in the panel are set and copied it's clearly not been activated and showing a green highlighted outline (Bug?). Really though I'd like to see some serious discussion in the tracker on doing something fundamental better as I can see this is a big mess that needs taking by the horns. Still it could be simple to just add an object list argument to what I imagine are many functions only suppose to work on some GUI selected (or active) items. (Again, sorry, but it feels terminally sickly to me)
~
In the end if it's not easy to find from the docs we have another considerable bigger problem, which leads to one guy helping online with super lowlevel stuff like this. "How do I add to the solver what was copied?" or documentation sections for coders if you copy call add solver but then a overridden copy function would do that so it seems maybe the bug is in the copy of rigidbody then?).
Finally I just want to say this is also about encourage and motivating Blender devs to consider major improvements over the way the code is designed. Meaning this is another way of thinking to incorporate in many areas in the future I guess but it's seems they're obviously better methodologies to me, that should get addressed if not long ago, than with high priority asap

Working on the active or selected objects is how operators work.  The context / operator paradigm has been with blender since 2.5. IIRC there was a LOT of whinging then, to go back to 2.49b (and prior) methods where the arguments were passed.   Questions:  How are you copying the object?  why not use bpy.ops.rigidbody.objects_add(type='ACTIVE') to add multiple objects (context.selected_objects)  as active, to the rigid body world. btw, suggest not using the object keyword as a variable (python is forgiving, still not a good idea)

Thanks fro the comments. I won't bother anyone more with this then. I did change it to 'object' for readability but had ob or obj typically originally. Fact is it's wrong so a bad decision was made then because when I make a copy calling on children loop and still no active objects even though they show the values on?,,, It doesn't animate or turn green without adding each one as posted above.

I suggest removing parts of the question that relate to messages to developers or your concerns that this is not how the api should be - this isn't the right place for that discussion and it is making your question longer and more complex than I think it needs to be.


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How to close a half filled hole after boolean difference?
I have used a boolean modifier on my structure, thus willing to make a cylinder-shaped hole in it. For some reason I do not know, once I applied the boolean the two edges of the holes were only partially connected by vertices.
[]
From there on, what method could I use to bind the rest of the hole ?

Have you tried using the Exact solver for the boolean?

Yes, it was set by default on Exact

There may have been problems with the cylinder mesh that you used for the cutout. The exact solver should be able to handle this just fine.

That may be right. Now the problem that I've got is I cannot go backwards anymore, that's why I'm trying to fix it from here on in order not to start the project anew.

If you're ok with having a slightly larger hole, you could just fill it with an n-gon and redo the boolean with a slightly bigger cylinder.


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Smooth shade gives unusual shading
I know this may be a rookie issue, but I'm new to blender and haven't really got a clue what I'm doing. I've been working on a knight piece model and have encountered a issue when shading smooth. I've tried recalculating normals, as well as turning auto smooth on, but neither seem to do much. The shading just looks weird in the render. Does anyone know any way to fix this?

I'd check for double vertices and interior faces then recalculate the normals.  btw, I can see some z-fighting on the neck.

Merge (M) by Distance also go to Overlays and enable Face orientation if all faces are really blue (Recalculate Normals is not working always perfect). BTW hour screen doesn't  look like with Who Smooth enabled ...

Click on Object Data Properties (green triangle) then the Normals down arrow and finally check Auto Smooth.


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When exporting to Unity, my model's mesh is messed up. I've tried normalizing, but that doesn't seem to work

Does anyone know how to fix this issue?

Try to flip normals before exporting. In edit mode, select all faces and press ctrl+N

Note only that as of 2.8+ default keymap recalculating normals is Shift+N

Tried that but it didn't work, unfortunately. I think it might be an issue with the mirror modifier I've applied, but I'm unsure as to why the base of the object doesn't render properly either since I didn't apply anything to it.


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How would you patch this "hole"
I'm trying to fill this hole to make a bowl out of this model. I tried patching it the hard way by taking a mesh plane and slowly transforming it to make the shape I need but I'm sure there's a faster way to do it right?

Remove the half with the hole and use mirror modifier perhaps? Or duplicate vertices on the other side, rotate them along 3D cursor (SHIFT + S to move cursor to the object so it's in center) and press A, then M then B to merge duplicated vertices?

Assuming its perfectly round, set your 3D Cursor to the centre of the bowl, select all the vertices of the bowl, shift-d do duplicate and right-click to dump them in the same place. Set snapping to Vertex, Active and make sure a vertex on the corner of the V cutout is selected last (to make it active)

Set your transform origin to 3D Cursor

Then rotate the new vertices around the 3D Cursor snapping to a verts that puts them in the right place.

Select all and merge by distance.
If your bowl is not exactly as mine you might have some small clean up left to do but this will get the bulk of it done very easily. :)

@OkBNA If this helped you, please mark it as answered so others can find it, if not ask me for more help :)


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Fill hole and make manifold?
I'm trying to fill a hole in a model I found online and I can't for the life of me figure out how to make it manifold. I'm using the F key to create a face around the edges of the hole. I tried to use the Solidify modifier, the merge by distance tool and to just extrude but nothing works. Probably a noobie question but I would be very grateful if you can answer me! Linked is a gif just so you can see the hole I'm trying to fill

Should work. However, you would have to delete the vertices behind it. See: What is non-manifold geometry?

are you sure the geometry around the hole is otherwise manifold when you start?  In particular, are there any overlapped vertices or extra/interior faces?


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Why do my models look broken?

This is just a simple liquid tank model.
I'm doing this with a "path" and after convert mesh, bla bla you understand already what im say(just like a doing pipe). I'm adding glass material.
Even if I do it with a path other than "Path", the result is the same, what should I do?

I don't think it looks broken, this is called refraction. If this should be a tank made out of glass, than the glass normally has walls of a certain thickness and it's hollow inside. What you've dreated looks like it's one solid block of glass. So maybe you could add a Solidify modifier to make walls.

https://blender.stackexchange.com/users/99859/gordon-brinkmann
i add already solidifiy on image
@Gordon-Brinkmann

You have to add some thickness to the walls of the glass tank, otherwise Blender treats it as one solid block of glass - what you call "broken" look is just the strong refraction a very thick glass creates.
The image below shows the difference between a block of glass on the left (i.e., no thickness for the surface polygons) and an empty tank with glass walls on the right (achieved by adding a Solidify Modifier).

i convert the mesh ,i cant add solidify if i add solidifiy modifier
https://i.hizliresim.com/44qLal.png

Did you set the shading to "Smooth"? Maybe you then need to enable Normals > Auto Smooth in the Object Data Properties.


text:
"Render Animation" doesn't refresh bone constraint to rendering frame in 2.8
I have a character that switches from armature control to a rag doll controlled by the physics system using bone constraints. It works fine when playing in the viewport or when rendering a single frame, but does not work when rendering the whole animation.
I found this article that seemed to have the same issues. The response was:
"This is a known issue in our current depsgraph, there is a workaround for it though - enable Extra Object Update and/or Extra Data Update for armature and ant mesh, in Object buttons, Relations Extra panel.
Anyway, not a bug, rather a known TODO for our future new depsgraph. ;)"
But I don't see those options in 2.8. Anyone have any suggestions?
Thanks!
Viewport Video
Rendered Video
Rendered Still
Blend File

I was having a similar problem.  My issue was I had one bone with a Damped Track constraint pointed at a another bone which had it's own Damped Track constraint pointed right back at the first bone.  It should have still worked since the tracking constraint didn't affect the location of either bone's head, but...  it apparently confused Blender anyway.  Ultimately, in order to fix the problem I had to create 2 more bones with no constraints in the same locations of the original 2 bones.  I could then have the original 2 bones point at those un-constrained bones.  In other words, having a constrained bone relying on another constrained bone can cause problems.


text:
How to add a custom propery to a PoseBone, with changed values for min/max ect?
There are a lot of simple examples to add custom properties, but since Blender 3.0 there have been some API changes that made it a bit confusing to create via python some custom properties to PoseBone with some adjustments to its internals.
Can't find a solution...
Here is an example that somewhat worked in 2.9:
import bpy

    # Get the bone
    pbone = bpy.data.objects["Armature"].pose.bones["Bone"]

    # Create the custom property and assign a value
    pbone['myControl'] = 0

    # Check if _RNA_UI dictionary exists, if not create
    if "_RNA_UI" not in pbone.keys():
        pbone["_RNA_UI"] = {}

    # Update _RNA_UI dictionary with min, max, softmin, and softmax values for the custom property
    pbone["_RNA_UI"].update({"myControl": {"min":0.0, "max":1.0}})

I bet there are simpler ways to make it in 2.9, but this one worked for me. It HAS to be for PoseBone and not other types, because it should work for a rig. Of course I want also other options than min/max like "is Library overridable" but I'm breaking this into baby steps.
Problem is that in 3.0 it's broken.

can you pls elaborate a bit more what you want to achieve? i we present you a solution which "just" adds a custom property to a pose bone - i think you won't be satisfied with that? and by the way: the custom property is for "bone" not just pose bone (AFAIK) because the answer would be : bpy.context.active_bone["cp"] = 4

Hi, PrinterKiller, I think it would greatly help respondents if you presented a snippet of failing code? Then, perhaps, answers could come in the form of corrections.

Sorry, updated the question to clarify the issue


text:
compare two same armature structure, rotate first armature's bone to the second position
I have two armature, each has the same bone structure, but the bones' location, length, and rotation is different, how to write python script to modify first armature, make first same with the second?
I want to copy the second Armature's bone position into the first one's pose mode. Not  copy in edit mode.
I try these code:
restPoseBone = bpy.data.objects["Armature"].pose.bones["Bip01"]
otherPoseBone = bpy.data.objects["Armature2"].pose.bones["Bip01"]
restPoseBone.length = otherPoseBone.length
restPoseBone.rotation_quaternion = ??

how to calculate the rotation_quaternion for the pose bone?
this is a demo blender file, I want to copy "Armature2" edit mode position to "Armature" pose mode.
testArmature.blend
http://pasteall.org/blend/31724

What do you want to calculate? Assigning restPoseBone.rotation_quaternion = otherPoseBone.rotation_quaternion works for me

the two armature only has same structure, but all bones have different edit mode position, I just want to make the second armature's edit mode position as the pose mode position for first armature.

The following python code copies the bone configuration from the active object to all selected armatures. You do not need to bother with rotation matrix here because the bones are defined in local space, thus the global rotation of the armatures does not need to be taken into account:
import bpy

# Assume, that context.object is an armature
context = bpy.context
scene   = context.scene
source  = context.object

# Targets are all other selected armatures
targets = [a for a in context.selected_objects if a != source and a.type=='ARMATURE']

# Store the bone data of source:
bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='EDIT')
bone_store = []
for ebone in source.data.edit_bones:
    bone_store.append([ebone.name, ebone.head.copy(), ebone.tail.copy(), ebone.roll])
bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='OBJECT')

for target in targets:
    scene.objects.active = target
    bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='EDIT')

    # Transfer the bones to the other armature.
    # The following works because the bone data is defined in local space:

    ebones = target.data.edit_bones
    for bone_data in bone_store:
        bid =  bone_data[0]
        if bid in ebones:
            ebone      = ebones[bid]
            ebone.head = bone_data[1].copy()
            ebone.tail = bone_data[2].copy()
            ebone.roll = bone_data[3]

    # Note: You might also want to copy constraints

    bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='OBJECT')

scene.objects.active = source

And here is a snippet that copies only the pose from one armature to the other:
import bpy

# Assume, that context.object is an armature
context = bpy.context
scene   = context.scene
source  = context.object

# Targets are all other selected armatures
targets = [a for a in context.selected_objects if a != source and a.type=='ARMATURE']

bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='POSE')
bpy.ops.pose.select_all(action="SELECT")
bpy.ops.pose.copy()

for target in targets:
    scene.objects.active = target
    bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='POSE')
    bpy.ops.pose.paste()

if I don't want to change edit bones' head, tail, roll, I want to change pose bone's data , how can i do that?

oops, my fault. Copy the pose is implemented in Blender: select your source object, go to pose mode, select all bones, then press CTRL C, switch over to the target armature, enter pose mode, then press CTRL V. I add another snippet for python in a moment.

I can not find how to download the blendfile from that page. Could you post it to http://pasteall.org/blend instead ?

yes, this file thanks. http://pasteall.org/blend/31724, I have find a method to copy one armature edit mode bone position to another armature pose mode. I will paste the code here.

I tried the above code to copy from one armature in some rest position to a different posed armature also in the rest position. But, I see no changes, the pose remains the same. The pose is not changed at all. And the above script throws errors, I think python is not happy with spaces or tabs introduced by extra formatting.

I've did more testing and fixing on the script and I got it working by removing some spaces and tabs and new lines. But it seems because it copies the bones in Edit mode, those are just moved in another location are not re-posed. Which I assume the original question was asking. After I copy with the above script the pose from active to selected then reseting the pose is not working. I assume this is because the script was working in EDIT mode not pose mode.


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Rendering with Emission shaders seems effective in Preview renders, but not in final ones
I have 2 floor planes with Diffuse shaders, and 2 light planes with Emission shaders. These are effective in Preview mode, but when I render, all the lights seem to be disabled - the render looks dark. Only if I add a White Background in World will I see the object being rendered with some light, but the floor light from the planes doesn't seem to be effective.
What could be causing this?
Here's the blend file:

Post a blend and/or screenshot and/or describe your problem better. There could be many causes to this.

I have 2 floor planes set to Diffuse, and 2 light planes set to Emission. These are effective in Preview mode, but when turn to Render mode, all the floors and effect of lighting seem disabled and the render looks dark. Only if I add a White Background in World I will see the object being rendered with some light, BUT the floor planes and light from light planes don't seem to be effective.

Are you sure the light planes are not hidden in the render?

very sure. I even try to use all the settings as in the helicopter example that come with Blender 2.74. Kind of strange.

Beats me... Could you post the blend file, using something like Blend Exchange ?

thanks, but sorry my design is confidential info. will try with a simple object to duplicate the problem, will be back.

Please post relevant information as an edit to the post

pls help have a look at the file I shared, thanks.

PROBLEM SOLVED:
The Floor Panes and Light Planes each has to be assigned with a layer, and include all these layers during Render mode.
Thanks anyway.
SUGGESTION to BLENDER DEVELOPER:
The Layer Assignment should be shown in the Outliner Window and user should be WARNED for any layers not included in RENDER.

Somehow, the Floor Panes and Light Planes were NOT AUTOMATICALLY assigned with a layer when created. I strongly suggest a Layer column be added and listed under the Outliner so that it is easily noticed.

@GoldenForest the real problem is that you are in the Local view , just hit   / in the viewport and you 'll be able to render normally


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Is it possible to drive the length of hair particles via texture using Cycles?
I am aware of this question, however it appears to be for Blender Internal exclusively. Is there a way to do this in Cycles (Blender 2.7+)? And would an animated texture work as well?

It works the same way for cycles. Also if you have an animated texture (image sequence or procedural) the animation will effect the length as well.

In the Textures section of the Particle settings for your Particle system, add a new texture.

Now in the Texture tab, change the Influence to Length.

This animation was made by animating the Size on the Distorted Noise texture that is controlling the length of the particles.

Weight Paint offers an alternative to using textures and works nicely with Dynamic Paint.  Vertex Weights for various particle attributes can be selected in the Particles settings tab.

Add a vertex group to the ground plane which has the particle system and make the ground plane a dynamic paint canvas.  For this simple example, I left the vertex weight group name as the default name "Group".
Make the sphere a dynamic paint brush.
The settings are mostly default except for what I've circled in the image.  You mostly just have to assign the vertex group to both the sphere and the ground and change the paint type to Weight
The grass is a simple object named Plane.001, the name is shown in the particles tab as the render object(the object is not shown here, it's on Layer #2).
(i)The ground 'canvas' settings

(ii) The ground particle settings

(iii) The sphere 'brush' settings.


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radially equidistant "melting" of image onto spheroid (head) - reverse of equidistant azimuthal projection
noob here wanting to "melt" a radially symmetrical mesh (SVG at the moment) onto a 3D scan of my head (STL at the moment) to eventually make a 3d printed scalp-conforming hat/cap (so projecting onto a convex spherish surface) in such a way that there is no distortion in distances from the center of the image (in other words the reverse of an equi-distant azimuthal projection (aka EDAP) of a sphere onto a plane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azimuthal_equidistant_projection
Feel free to sacrilegiously suggest plugin X of program Y (any major OS) that is not blender, as I am just starting.
Responding to comments: Yes this is projecting a flat surface image on something sphere like.  Pretend for the moment that the latter is a globe.  At first I thought something like UV Project modifier would work, if the flat image were transformed first in a fisheye lens kind of way.  But lets say the image is projected from above the north pole of the globe.  As the projected image gets close to the equator it gets more and more distorted and any errors will be magnified and be noticeable (especially in a shape that is not quite a sphere like a head).  Also the shape might in some cases keep wrapping to points south of the equator which the projection can't reach.  A better metaphor than projection, especially for an imperfect sphere, might be shrink wrapping or melting (or blow molding if it was on the inside).  The radial distances of points in the image to the center point on both the original planar image and on the spheroid, need to match up fairly well or this particular image will look unpleasantly distorted.  The fact that the other polar dimension is distorted (compressed if you think about it) will not be particularly unpleasant.
For an example of doing what I want see the wikipedia page above and think bout going in the opposite direction from flat map to globe.  Anyway my local hackerspace buddies thought blender had the best chance of working, and I had played with it a little in the past and so here I am.

it's not very clear what you are asking. Could you post some screenshots of what you are trying to achieve? Are you trying to use said SVG file as a texture over your scalp mesh? You might have to convert the SVG into an image and unwrap your mesh

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos, I think the idea is to project a flat surface on a sphere. The vertices of the flat surface coords have to be translated into a sphere coordinate. The angle is depending on the distance from the center (-90 to 90), in each X, Y direction. And the radius is constant as we want to project on a sphere. The only point is a head is not spherical...

Look into the UV Project modifier http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/57420/confused-about-unwrap-vs-modifier-unwrap/57422#57422

A solution based on Python (image and svg found here) :

The script :
import bpy
import bmesh
from math import *
from mathutils import Vector

#Reposition the mesh vertices calculating a 'reverse of equidistant azimuthal projection'
def reverseOfEquidistantAzimuthalProjection( model, propFactor = 1 ):

    rad90 = radians(90.0) #A way to have pi / 2

    modelData = model.data

    #Calculates vertices boundings (relative to vertices coordinates, because of the case of a not centered mesh)
    minX = min( [v.co[0] for v in modelData.vertices] )
    maxX = max( [v.co[0] for v in modelData.vertices] )
    minY = min( [v.co[1] for v in modelData.vertices] )
    maxY = max( [v.co[1] for v in modelData.vertices] )

    #Center in X and Y, we consider here a flat mesh in Z
    centerX = (minX + maxX) / 2.0
    centerY = (minY + maxY) / 2.0
    center = Vector( [centerX, centerY, 0] )

    #Radius of the projection
    baseRadius = (maxX - centerX)

    for v in modelData.vertices:
        pos = Vector( v.co )

        #Position relative to center
        posXY = pos.xy - center.xy

        #Proportionality of the vertex relative to the radius
    #Between 0 and 100% where 0 corresponds to north pole and 100 to south
        prop = posXY.length / baseRadius

        #Conversion to -90 (south) / +90 (north) (in rads)
        angle = rad90 - (prop * pi)

        #Relocation in X and Y : cos(angle) gives the radius of the cut
        posXY.normalize()
        posXY = posXY * baseRadius * cos(angle) * propFactor

        #Set the vertices new coordinates
        v.co[0] = center.x + posXY.x
        v.co[1] = center.y + posXY.y
        #In Z : keeps the eventual Z value and place the point relatively to that
        v.co[2] = v.co[2] + sin( angle ) * baseRadius * propFactor

model = bpy.context.object

reverseOfEquidistantAzimuthalProjection( model )

The first experiment is based on a circle extruded and cut :

I have also try to use the svg symbol of the United Nations. Some difficulties :

The curves are in a lot of parts (you may have to select them all, convert to mesh and join them)
Edges are made 'as they come', so applying the script gives some unwanted results (some edges may have to be removed manually)

thank you for generously creating that code!  To add some keywords that might allow others to find your work: my goal is related to the polar mode mapping  or polar mapping in uvmapper and a few other uv unwrapping tools, and to stereographic projection as in Fig 5 in http://alice.loria.fr/publications/papers/2007/SigCourseParam/param-course.pdf

@user56273, so finally this answer is not your goal ? Do you have a concrete example of a svg which fits the chapter 5 in the document ?

Your answer will suit my needs (thank you).  But for others who might prefer to go the unwrapping route (and don't mind the expensive software), I added the above comment, and with more related keywords someone who is thinking about all the possibilities is more likely to find your useful code.  I am a noob to both blender and contributing to stackexchange, but I hope this page helps others.


text:
Subdividing has warped my mesh. Is there a way to clean up this mesh after adding other modifiers?
I am trying to create an unusual ring in Blender 2.77. After using the subdivision surface modifier on my ring, I noticed the change affected the formation of the vertices, which appear to look like slight dents on the shank (inside of ring). I have lost my earlier files due to a fault in my portable hard drive therefore I cannot carry on working from a previous file. I can start from scratch, but I thought it is better to ask of any possible ways to fix my current file. Modifiers have been added before I noticed the mistake. I am sorry if this does not make much sense, I am still new to Blender and could not figure out this issue. Whatever I researched did not come up with relevant answers.
I have found a file which contains an older version of my ring. As you can see the shank edge has many tris. I have tried to make these quads, but that only repeats the problem. I am guessing this is the reason the shank edge has slight dents in the design. What is the best way to clean up this mesh?

Do you mean you'd like to get sharp, smoothed corners on the left part of screenshot like those from the right ? I don't think this is possible without retopologizing the mesh which may or may not be easier then starting from scratch (as always, this depends on the model).

No sure it's adequate in your case, but I'd go in Sclupt mode, select any brush (the standard inflate/deflate will do), set its strength to 0 so that the shape isn't changed, but turn Autosmooth to 0.1 or something like that.
You will then be able to smooth the geometry with the brush just where needed, without touching anything else.

You will have to:
A) Sculpt it right (99% the way to go, as mentioned in the previous answer)
B) Try masking the "wrongs". Split it and try a combination of Remesh and Subsurf (in that order) until it looks good at the creases while the round areas stay the same. Rejoin the two meshes and then MergeVertex/RemoveDoubles with a high threshold.

authors: Христиан Белов


text:
What are the region-space combinations that can be used for button and panel registration
What are the available regions, and also, which ones can have a button registered to?

While registering any panel we need to specify which space/region should be assigned to, in example: {space: VIEW_3D, region: UI}.
However not all regions are available for every space, and not all regions could have buttons/panels registered to them.

This table has all the space-region combinations that work.

Reference: Blender Space-Regions guide


text:
Python: Blender does not print error
I write Add-on using two callback functions, modal timer operator and binary module. When I develop this Add-on, then I write bug sometimes, but Python sometimes silently "die" and no error is printed to terminal. Do you have any advice?
Edit: problem was in Python binary module. Following code was wrong:
session_SessionObject *session = session_list[session_id];
if(session != NULL) {
    PyObject_CallMethod((PyObject*)session, "cb_receive_layer_destroy", "(IH)",
            node_id, layer_id);
}
return;

because it didn't check for return value of PyObject_CallMethod and it didn't try to "catch" errors from Python callback method. Following code is right:
session_SessionObject *session = session_list[session_id];
if(session != NULL) {
    PyObject *result = NULL;
    result = PyObject_CallMethod((PyObject*)session, "cb_receive_layer_destroy", "(IH)",
            node_id, layer_id);
    if(result == NULL || PyErr_Occurred() != NULL) {
        PyErr_Print();
    }
}
return;

Hey Jiri, Python should always print errors, though sometimes they don't show in as a message in the UI depending on the context, could you give an example script which shows this behavior?

Hi Campbell, I can't give you simple example of the script. The WIP code can be found at github: https://github.com/verse/verse-blender. It is very complex add-on and it uses binary module using pthreads.

Often time codes will create new variables when ones mentioned are not defined, what type of bug did you write?

May be, there is problem with binary module: https://docs.python.org/3.4/extending/extending.html#intermezzo-errors-and-exceptions

I found problem and solution, but I'm not sure if it is right place for such questions (may be, stackoverflow.com would be better).


text:
Detect if characters are selected in text editor
Further to my previous question (print number and index of selected lines in text editor), i'd like to know if it's possible to detect if characters are selected in text editor.

The selection spans from line current_line_index beginning at current_character to select_line ending at select_end_character.
If these coincide, there is no character selected.
So given you know the line and column of your character you can check yourself.
However current_character and select_end_character are byte offsets.
Python uses unicode points. So unless you are using pure ASCII you need to convert the char position to byte offset.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTF-8
The conversion is a bit cumbersome. Something like
from itertools import islice

txt_line = "\u03A0\u2764\u2600\u2602This is a Test"
col = 9
print(txt_line)

ubounds = [0x80, 0x800, 0x10000, 0x110000]
offset = 0

#char is actually an immutable newly created string...
for char in islice(txt_line, 0, col):
    code_point = ord(char)
    for size, ub in enumerate(ubounds):
        if code_point < ub:
            offset += size + 1
            break

print(
    "byte at %d: %d - char: %d" % (
        offset,
        bytes(txt_line, 'utf-8')[offset],
        ord(txt_line[col])
    )
)

Thank you for these explanations, thanks to you I managed to make what I wished. Thank you very much.


text:
Blender model being torn apart after applying scale
I recently created a model to import into Unity, but when I did, the normals were all facing the wrong way. I did some searching and found that this was caused by having not applied the scale to the model. However, when I went and applied the scale to the model, any time I move the timeline or look at an old animation the model objects go everywhere and I have no idea how to fix it. I've removed the armature, applied location, rotation and scale. Does anyone have any idea what I might be missing?
Here's some screenshots to make it clearer:
Here is the model in blender with the scale not applied

Here is the same model in unity - the normals are the wrong way

Here I apply the scale (I've also tried location and rotation)

And finally the model in unity again after the scale has been applied. The normals are inverted to the correct direction but the objects are not aligned correctly

The model also gets torn apart in different ways in blender when I change position on the timeline but I'm not sure why

Here's a model file without the scale applied, highlighting all and CtrlA > Apply scale makes the model parts jump all over the place as shown in the images. This happens usually after I change the position on the timeline

normals are flipped with Ctrl+N in edit mode, also if you can add screenshots or upload  blend file to make the question clear

Image added, thanks. The problem was that before the scale was applied the normals were in the correct position in blender but not in unity. Some other people had this proplem and said that applying the normals would fix it. It fixed the model normals in unity but now the objects are all over the place

Sorry I meant by applying the scale, not the normals

the problem is the parenting relationship you have to disable the parent and apply scale than parent again , i'm looking for an easy way to this ?

Hi thanks for the answer but it didnt seem to work for me. I don't mind redoing some of the work, I was just hoping I could fix it instead. I might redo the rig and delete all any actions and see if that does the trick

exactly the problem is more complex since there is animation and armature influence , sorry i don't have a solution for this :(


text:
rigging of animal's legs
I'm new of Blender but I'm learning fast. For modelling etc. everything is quite ok... a lot of informations can be found online and usually are quite small stuff such as a shortcut etc.
My problem comes with the rigging of an animal's leg. As long as I work with "humans" everything is ok. But animals have something different... while humans have a knee, animals have the leg that bends in two points [knee and heel].
While for humans you setup the IK chain from the heel for an animal I setup it from the paw [animals walk with the knee "high"].
But if I set up the IK chain from here I have two problems:
1. I can create a target just for the first bone that is part of the IK chain [in this case the one that goes from the paw to the heel] but not for the knee. This means that if I stretch the leg and then I compress it again I risk to bend the knee on the other side.
2. The IK chain works great with two bones, but if I add a third one the second and the third appear like "fused together" and the knee remains blocked.
Is there a way to sort this out? Probably is me that still ignore some stuff but I'm keeping this project as something that I can use to improve...
Here is the .blend file:

Thank you in advance
Bes

Yes pls attach a file: http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ or some infographic pictures, that will help.

This is the file... I'm sorry if I didn't add before... I didn't know how to do.
Thank you!

This tutorial could help

Thank you A LOT! I didn't think that I could find a tutorial bettere than the once of youtube... but this actually IS better!!!


text:
Rolling shutter effect
Is it possible to create an artificial shutter effect in blender to render something like this?

When meshes are placed next to each other and parented they look connected.  Then the child can be moved independently.  Also there is [child of] constraint with an influence value.  Both of those concepts can be searched at BSE.  The famous video site that rhymes with noonoob may have tutorials on these topics. Many images appearing on a monitor can be considered artificial or not.

This effect is produced by the camera sampling each frame 1 line at a time, so if the frame is 1080 pixels high and the object moves fast enough it will be composed of 1080 (1 pixel high) frames per image, all stacked on top of each other. Theres a great way to recreate this effect below!

Everything in Blender is artificial. (lighting, shading, ...)
Blender Cycles has the rolling shutter functionality. Go to the scene settings and enable motion blur. In the Shutter Type, select Top To Bottom. Make sure to choose a relatively large shutter time and a small rolling shutter duration.


text:
Long Shadow with gradient depending on length
I am trying to use Cycles to create a shadow effect that will decrease intensity based on the length of the shadow.
But I am only able to achieve this :
What I am doing is I am calculating transparency based on the distance to the point that's rendered. (might be dumb)

I don't want the shadows to overlap.
I wouldn't mind to change the way I do it if there's a better solution.
Scene I am using :

Edit.
This is what happens when I multiply the factor that used as factor to mix the shaders with the Ray Length :

Related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/23934/3710

This isn't exactly related as I want a hard shadow that decreases it's intensity in relation to distance. But the main difference is that mine is a hard shadow ( Size of Light set to 0 ) and theirs isn't.

This seems interesting, though I'm not sure of understand correctly what you would like to achieve. Could you show a 3D view of your scene and a mock-up of the expected result?

I've edited the original post and added overview and side view images. The directional light is slightly angled to cast a shadow ( wouldn't do so otherwise since the Size is set to zero )

Have you tried using the Ray Length output?

I posted another image showing what happens when I multiply it with the factor I am using to mix the two shaders

Just for the purposes of creating an example, what does the material for the background plane look like?

It's just a Diffuse BSDF with Color White and Roughness 0 which is attached to the surface vlaue of the material output


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IK Making Foot, Toe and Shin Bone rotate as it animates
I've been trying to rig this character and for some reason as I'm animating the foot controller, the foot and toe bone decide to rotate and do a 180. The pole target for the knees are moving with the controller and the ik target for the foot is following the entire foot controller. The knee IK seems to be fine, but the foot and toe just instantly want to flip.
If anybody can help that be great!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/57u8et6koybhb7g/IK_Problem.gif?dl=0
EDIT: Hah, I'm an idiot, the pole targets for the toe and foot weren't following the main foot controller, No need for this question anymore.


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How do I use emission, without my object's shape getting lost in the emission?
Not sure if that was the best way to describe it, but I am trying to use emission on a certain object shape but I still want to be able to see the objects shape. I am assuming because the emission is all the same brightness and color, that this is why I can't see the objects shape.
Is there a certain node set up or process I can do besides manually changing several planes to a different emission or material?

You could try with Ambient Occlusion and a color ramp.

And in Eevee he must not forget to activate the Ambient Occlusion option in the Render panel


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Are there good techniques for creating high poly regions within lower poly meshes when using subdivision modifier?
I have been learning to model in Blender using the subdivision modifier, cuts, and support loops. (For an example of what I mean, see this video from Arrimus 3D. I find this technique is quite good for generating smooth and interesting geometries while retaining a pretty low poly mesh to work with.
I find sometimes I would like to add a high-poly region within an otherwise low-poly mesh. Consider the following simplified example:

Here I have a somewhat low-poly cylinder, with two levels of Catmull-Clark subdivision modifier applied. I would like to add an extruded panel (seen in the bottom left of the picture). Do do this, I extrude out some faces and then beveled the corners with a few segments. The beveling tightens up the corners nicely, in effect forcing the sub-div modifier to interpolate over that smaller region.
At first glance it seems ok, but if you zoom in there are noticeable artifacts (most visible w/ the red racecar matcap, but also visible with studio lighting):

I understand that this is likely the consequence of the ngon being generated in those regions. Converting to quads is tricky in this case, because the bevel has higher geometry density than the rest of the cylinder (although I am also new to this and possibly just missing the obvious solution). If I try cutting across the corner quad I seem to get different (but still visible) visual artifacts.
I realize this is a specific instance, but there are other simpler examples of what I mean. For example, consider a scenario like this:

In the image above, I start with a low poly plane and then slice one of the interior quads. I extrude the sliced quad, convert its inner region to a circle, and then extrude once more. At first glance it looks ok, but the normals have some odd artifacts where the high-cut and low-cut regions intersect:

The effects are less pronounced in this example.
My question is: are there some general retopology techniques or guidelines I can follow in instances like this? It seems like a relatively common thing - wanting to create a more detailed region within a low-poly mesh and avoiding artifacts at the boundaries.
You can download the blend file here if you want to take a closer look: Download (800KB)
Thanks for the assistance.

The short answer is subdivision surface doesn't like N Gons. Try to work only with quads,and try to preserve mesh density along the mesh

So the rules for good subdivision topology, which you're violating and which are responsible for your artifacts, are:

Quads only-- no ngons, and minimal triangles.
No 6+ poles.
Put 3 and 5 poles on the most planar parts of your mesh-- definitely not at places where your mesh has a right angle.

There are other rules.  The rules only really matter for non-planar faces-- for faces that are out-of-plane with their neighboring faces-- because any verts created in the middle of a planar neighborhood will still be in-plane, and it doesn't much matter where exactly in the face they get created.  (As long as you don't have any concave faces-- when you subdivide a concave face, the subdivision-generated vert might not actually be in the bounds of your face, leading to double of the mesh and z-fighting.)
One way that good subdiv topology is sometimes communicated is, "Follow your edge flow."  If you look at the top of your circle in N2RPm.png, you can see that you're just laying a grid over your circle and bridging to the edge.  "Follow the edge flow" isn't always very useful advice for beginners, because it's something that doesn't make sense for a while, maybe not until you're good at topo anyways, but that's a good example of not following your edge flow.
Now, given those rules, how do we bridge areas of dense verts with areas of sparse verts?  Something like this:

Notice something especially important: I bridge the higher vert count to the lower count in a planar part of the mesh.  Not where the mesh bends 90 degrees.  Notice, no ngons, no triangles.  All 3 and 5 poles are placed on planar parts of the mesh.
There are limits to bridging like this.  You can drop two verts, or multiples of that, every time you use a new edge loop.  Here, I'm bridging 16 verts to 8 verts.  But you cannot ever drop one vert-- you cannot ever, using pure quads, bridge an even number of verts to an odd number of verts.

In regards to your cylinder: creating holes or extrusions on curved surfaces are no doubt tricky. One standard way of controlling subdivision modifier are holding edges:

This will change the shape of the cylinder also where you don't want it to be changed:

The change will be the smallest if after pressing CTRL + R, and clicking, you right-click to let the loop-cut sit in the middle of the faces. Then you can adjust only the part outside of the curved surface:

Then you could divide with loop-cuts all other parallel segments, so they all have equal dimensions, but you will now no longer have a perfect cylinder, which is not unfixable, but in this case it's easier to just start over with twice as many segments on the cylinder.

Another technique is creasing. Select an edge and press SHIFT + E then drag like with a bevel tool. You will not see a difference unless you have subdivision enabled for the edit mode. The effects are quite bad for low levels of subdivision, because there's just not enough geometry to get a smooth surface. On the GIF below, after selecting the edge, I disable the overlay, then crease, and at the end I increase subdivision levels from 2 to 4.

I tried Nathan's solution above on some planar examples. The first two do not use a bevel, and the third is a working solution the case of the bevel. Note that these solutions do feature triangles at the border, which can be removed after the application of the mirror modifier. The bevel variant looks a little smoother w/ the subdivision applied.


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What's the easiest format to use to create a mesh object?
I think that I have to create a beveled mesh 3D shape out of a stock image. (I am using 2.69 on Linux.)
Say, it's a dollar sign.
I was told to use an SVG curve image and convert it to mesh, and then extrude it, etc.
I've followed a bunch of tutorials and instructions here on how to do that, but it's not working as for example this explains:
How can I convert an SVG to a mesh?
After conversion, the mesh is still a mess off planes, edges - in plane and diagonal - and so many vetices that i don't know how to even select them to fill or do a limited dissolve that people suggest here. Extruding it makes it even more unmanageable.
So, i wonder if there is actually a different format with which i should start?
Or should i just somehow create the object myself, rather than deal with converting some other format?
Or should i not even use Blender, but something else?
I am so new to using Blender, that i don't even know what questions i should be asking or how - even after several days googling this, watching tutorials, and reading what i think is applicable in the manual. The explanations just create more questions.
Thank you in advance.

You could try to reduce curve resolution first and see how it change the conversion of the mesh.

Depending on what you need, but using curves you can use the extrusion in curve properties, or add a solidify modifier to it. If you need a real mesh, you'd better model it manually.


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How to render a wireframe & glow lines effect on a house?
I would like to render this kind of effect:

I would like to render it on a house. The view should be at the top, and the edges of each wall should be a glowing line. I tried the technique from this question but the result is not good with my house. Is a way to create this effect?
With a low layer weight, we barely see the house (only the walls inside):

With a higher layer weight:

I am looking for the wireframe effect as on the right, in Edit mode:

The blend is here : http://www.pasteall.org/blend/36004

Any particular reason why you haven't updated your Blender? It really does help to have the latest version, especially if you're using tutorials or asking questions on forums :-) Sorry for being so nitpicky.

One way to do it is by adding a wireframe modifier to your building, for those shots where you want the wireframe.

instant success:

But don't apply it, else it will modify and change all the geometry of the object. You can disable it from modifying the object by pressing the little eye symbol.
The glow effect could be achieved using composition and a slight influence of the blur node. Or read similar QA threads on this site for suggestions: Glow with depth in Blender?


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How can I link one face data to multiple faces for uv mapping?
I am trying to UV map a tire. It has multiple spokes but all spokes instead of being separate objects are joined with join tool to form a single object. And I am wondering if I can copy one data of spoke to  all the spokes?
CTRL+L copies the data in the object mode but since all the spokes are part of an object, I want to copy one spoke data to all the spokes in edit mode. Or is there any other way?

Thanks!

If they're all the same object then they already have all the same data.

@RayMairlot actually they are not the same object. Think as you are designing a house which has same size windows. One window is made and just duplicated(no linking) and then all the windows are joined. Now when I am in UV editing and I apply texture to a window, I want to link all windows to that original window. But I can't do so because it is an object not multiple objects. So how can I link in edit mode?

You said 'all the windows are joined', which means they're all part of the same object. I think you should use the [edit] button under the question to add this additional information and preferably some pictures to explain what you have and what you want.

as you can see is that each spoke is an individual entity but all are a part of an object. Thanks

Quick answer: No, as far as I know there is no way to copy UV data between chunks of mesh belonging to the same object.
If the spokes are all the same they should be kept as separate objects, as instances sharing the same object data.
Anyway if you still want them as one object then

Select your spokes object
Enter edit mode
Select one spoke
Separate it from the main object using P
Exit edit mode and enter edit mode on your separate spoke object
Edit it as desired, and assign it the correct UV coordinates.
Now place the 3D cursor at the center of the wheel/spokes
Press . (Period key) to rotate around the 3D cursor
Copy your spoke object with Alt + D to make instances
Press R to rotate around the 3D cursor
Adjust the angle as desired and place as many copies as necessary

You may now join them again as before, and they will all have the same UV coordinates, although I think there are better workflows.
Either keep them as separate object instances sharing the same object data and that will keep them in sync automatically, or alternatively, if you need them as a single object, use an Array Modifier.

Delete all but one instance, and add an Array Modifier to the
remaining one. Set it to object offset.
Now with the 3D cursor still in the center of the tire add a new
empty object
Rotate it the same amount of degrees you would rotate one of the spokes.
Assign this empty as object offset to the array modifier
Adjust the number of items as desired.

Now you have a single object but they all share UV data and are kept in sync.


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Does anyone upload to Second Life from Blender?
I have rigged and weighted an object for the company I work for. It works perfectly in Blender.
I have several issues below in which I have no idea what is going wrong. If anyone has had this happen when they've taken things out of Blender and have some sort of answer for WHY they are happening, I would like some feedback. There are so many questions for so many issues. I understand this site does not provide tutorials. That is not what I asked for. I asked if anyone else has uploaded from Blender to Second Life, if so, have they encountered any of the issues below, if so, how did they fix them?
However, in Second Life, we have had an array of issues:
Too high of a vertex count (we reduced the vertices)
Second Life didn't like the triangles on the object and added faces that we didn't want (we removed all the triangles)
My mirrored object showed up as two left feet instead of a right and a left (so far, the most recent haven't done that and I'm not sure what we did differently to fix that.)
The feet were aligned, texture applied correctly, one of each foot, but when you click edit in Second Life, it flings the Avatar really far away. (No solution yet to this.)
And most recently, the aligned, mirrored, rigged and weighted feet are costing 11 prims, which is perfect, but they turn the Second Life avatar that wears the feet to look like a Frankenstein mishap. The feet seem to attach the avatar from blender with the feet to the avatar in Second Life, when all I'm doing is exporting the feet. I only select the feet and it didn't do this with previous versions of the feet. I have no idea what I'm doing wrong and am grasping at straws.
So I'm looking to find someone who might be able to walk me through what I'm doing wrong or have some sort of insight as to something else I could try. I have spent countless hours on these feet and after two weeks, haven't completed ONE project for my boss. I need a Second Life/Blender sensei. =)

This seems like a request for tutorial (which is outside the scope of SE). Please word your question so a definitive answer can be given.

We're all still struggling with the first one :)

I have now successfully answered all of the questions to all of the issues I was having previously!
Too high vertex count - reduced
Small triangles that added material upon import into Second Life - removed
Mirrored object showing two left feet - still unsure how this one fixed itself
Avatar being offset (flung) along the Z axis - upon import into SL, don't include joint positions
Frankenstein mishap, click only feet, export, manually choose the default settings for rigged open sim instead of choosing the automatic one, not sure why.
I may have graduated from Grasshopper level Blender user!


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Is there a way to mirror an object without using the mirror modifer?
Is there a way to mirror an object without using the mirror modifier?
I have a left foot that I want to make into a right foot. I use the mirror modifier and it uses a crooked bounding box and completely ruins my foot. Even when I re-align the crooked foot, it is causing issues in the platform I'm exporting it to. So I'm wondering if there's some way I could duplicate the left foot and somehow flip it so that it "mirrors" the other foot.

Please ignore the flat feet there, I need them for when I transfer weights.

I duplicate the foot so that I don't mess up all the work I've ALREADY done over and over, and move it to another scene. This is the foot I want to mirror so that I may create a perfect opposite for the other leg. Something goes wonky when I do that. It mirrors with a bounding box even when I use empty. This causes me to have to re-align the mirrored foot. Something else is happening too because when I rez the mirrored foot alone in Second Life, it really acts weird. The original foot can be rezzed in world with no problems. This makes me feel like it's the mirror modifier that's causing all my troubles but I'm really not sure.
Here is the crooked mirrored image:

Here is the bounding box, where it shows it's crooked:

Could you add some screen shots of the problem. Also, This answer might help you

I've tried to add an empty already and it still tries to conform to a bounding box that is crooked.

What do you mean by "crooked bounding box"? I can't really see the issue in the screenshots.. The high-poly foot doesn't look crooked or like it has a mirror modifier as far as I can see.

No, this foot does not have the mirror on it. I will upload a photo of what it does when I mirror it.

Weird. Does the empty have any rotation? If not, could you upload your .blend?

I cannot upload the .blend as it's work product that I'm not allowed to release. I just wonder how to adjust the bounding box to be straight instead of crooked and tilted. I think then, the mirror would be fine.

@Candice Well, if the empty isn't rotated I can't think of anything obvious, but if I could play with a .blend I might be able to find something. Would it be alright if you replaced the model in question with a cube in edit mode, and deleted everything else?

Ok, I started over from scratch again. This time, I aligned the bounding box to the foot my boss sent me before I aligned the foot to where I needed it. I hope that may fix the issue. If so I will post the answer. Thanks for helping so much!

So the answer I have gathered with your assistance is this: No, for what I wanted to do there is no way to mirror it without using the modifier.
In my case, I had to align the bounding box of the foot first, then carefully align the foot to the leg of the avatar. I had to make sure I never rotated it in object mode as that would move the bounding box out of where I needed it to be. Once I aligned the foot, I was able to make a copy of it and move it to another scene. Then I used this foot with the mirror modifier, across the y axis, and chose to keep uvs and vertex groups. I also used the foot from the first scene to be what was mirrored instead of an empty. This was perfect.
Thank you so much for your assistance @GiantCowFilms and @gandalf3.

Now we wait to see if it causes issues now that it's rigged and weighted in Second Life upon upload... =) And the answer is no, something is going wrong still in Second Life. /sigh.

You can do this destructively by scaling around the 3D Cursor. Place the 3D Cursor at the center you want to mirror across. Next, choose the axis that you want. Hit ., to set the Pivot Point to the 3D Cursor. Finally scale it by negative 1 along the desired axis.
S then X, Y or Z then -1

I don't want to destructively mirror it. The mirror is doing that on it's own. I'm looking for a way that will sort of invert it so it's the opposite and then maybe I could recalculate or something. I need the Uvs to stay the same, the vertices to be opposite the other foot, etc.

@GiantCowFilms I used your method to invert a mesh, but the textures are now backwards... how can I fix them?

You can also select the object/mesh and press CtrlM and then specify an axis by pressing X Y or Z. This works in both edit mode and object mode.

I normally do mirror it across the y axis, no merge, keep vertex groups and keep uvs. This still is not fixing the bounding box issue. The bounding box is crooked for some reason.

I had the same problem but found a very easy solution.

Select your object to mirror
In the Tool shelf, Tools tab, under the Transform section, click on the Mirror button.

I know this is 3 years old, but what KevanG Studio Answered helped.
Unfortunately missing some steps, but basically:

Click your object (being in Object Mode)
Click on tools tab (default setup) on the left side.
Under Transform Dropdown, click on mirror.

You will not see anything different other than your selected object change outline color (default would turn it from orange to white).
Then hold middle mouse button and it will flip the object mirroring it to what axis you want it to.
Hopefully this helps any one else today and in the future
Cheers

If you look at the top of the properties panel, you will see your scale and rotation is way off. Select the foot in object mode and press Ctrl A>Apply>"Rotation and Scale". That sets Scale to 1.00 and Rotation to zero. Press Shift C to put your cursor in the centre and then in object mode with the foot selected, go to the blender Tools panel on the left and do Origin to 3D cursor. Now add a mirror modifier with x ticked in the modifier. That will also mirror the weight groups.

i know this is quite old now and there are numerous solutions but i think it would be way more simple to just duplicate the object and scale it inside out along the y (x or z) axis and adjust the dimensions so it is the same size


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Why isn't the mesh moving after rigging with Auto-Rig Pro?
I got Auto-Rig Pro recently, I kinda need help figuring it out.
After I skin my bones to my mesh with their custom handles and go into pose mode, I move the armature and not the mesh.
They are bound correctly, just for some reason they are not moving.
If anyone has the time and has Auto-Rig Pro, I have the file on my google drive labeled "help plz".
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Ap6QjKtmTHhvTeKNM5Gdu8N0qKy87Rmv?usp=sharing

You really should clearly warn when you're sharing mature content. Be responsible, kids are on the internet. Also, please provide your full work. In this case, the model and the rig you made. We're supposed to see what you did, not guess it with black magic.

yeah sorry about that, i deleted the rig because if you are using the auto rig then load someone elses blend file with yours, it gets a bit messy from my experience, if you try rigging it, you will see what I mean

You've probably worked this out by now, but in case anyone else finds this in here, the documentation helped a lot:
http://www.lucky3d.fr/auto-rig-pro/doc/faq.html#binding-does-not-work-or-partially-work-help
I went through this one-by-one, and in the end the problem was cause by only two vertices in the same place! After doing a 'merge by distance' (Alt+M) it removed two vertices and suddenly it worked.
It seems a little crazy that it's so sensitive, but I guess there's some reason, and the answer was in the documents. Let's give a shout out to whoever writes and updates documentation - it's probably a very thankless task and we all rely on them. Cheers document person!

I think it's mostly that your vertex groups names don't correspond to your rig's bones. A bone can deform only the mesh assigned to a group with its name.


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Image reference decreases in quality after opening it in Blender
I decided to make a new car project from an image that would find myself.
After a  few searches, I found a picture: https://drawingdatabase.com/audi-a6-2018/
The picture is a hi-res one, however, when I import it to blender via the Properties shelf in the 3D View, the quality decreases to a point where it is nearly impossible to model. By default the site saves as GIF, i've tried saving it in other formats as well but to no avail. Help would be greatly aprreciated.

if I convert it in RVB and Jpeg it works

Thank you very much, i converted it online and it acutally worked!

Convert the image to RVB and Jpeg
Answer submitted by moonboots
thank you


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Real world scale size?
I am working on a project that's a bathroom, it's supposed to fit real world scale, the size of the bathroom should be 2,50х1,5 and the height 2,2. How am I supposed to use these numbers in Blender in order to get the size right?

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/87243/how-to-scale-dimensions-proportionally-to-a-specific-size/87250#87250

I the toolbar on the right, click on the Scene Property tab (the fifth from the top), open the tab Units, then select the units you want (Metric or imperial), then in Length choose the base unit (Meters, Centimeters, Inches, Feet...).
To get the size of the room right, you could sketch it with a few cubes/planes. Add a Cube/Plane, then press N to open the Item menu on the right, set the dimension in there.


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How do I change active grease pencil palette color via python?
I am making script that makes new gpencil stroke and changes the color of it to colors that already exists in palette.
Problem I'm facing is that bpy.ops.gpencil.stroke_change_color() operator only changes color of selected strokes to selected color! And I have no way to select colors in palette by python script.
I don't want to make new colors because I want specific line color, fill color, opacity. Plus, I don't want to make piles of same colors in gpencil palette.

You can change the color of a specific color in a specific palette using this:
bpy.data.grease_pencil["GPencil"].palettes["GP_Palette"].colors["Color"].color = (1, 0, 0)


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How do you add emission to singular faces
So i'm trying to make assets for a video game and I recently hit an obstacle, and that obstacle was adding emission to a certain face on my 3D model.... Can anyone help me out?

With the object in Edit mode:

Select the faces you want to be emissive.
Create a new material slot for your object, if necessary, (+ on the right)
Either create a new emissive material (+ bottom center to copy and overwrite the material in the selected slot, or New if the slot is empty), or if the material is already created, select it from the dropdown list (below the Assign button)
Hit the Assign button.


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Bottom Status Bar Doesn't Show Verts, Faces, Tris Information In v2.9a
I don't see the statistics information that's supposed to be on the status bar running along the bottom of the main window towards the right in version 2.9.

As of Blender 2.9+ scene statistics are now part of the 3D view and integrated into each viewport.
That is where they always belonged, since each specific view could have different visibility and selection states, resulting in different statistics. This now allows showing more relevant information for each independent viewport, reflecting individual variations.
They can be activated from the Overlays Popover in the 3D View Header.

To mitigate the lack of an unobtrusive way to display global scene statistics without a permanent overlay over the 3D View, and still be able to show system stats like available memory, customizable statistics to the status bar was reintroduced in 2.90.1.

Hello :). You can also rightclick on the status bar and simply select what to show.

Jachym, yes good catch. You can probably add a new answer for that, or feel free to  edit it into the current answer. I don't have blender at hand at the moment


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Missing layouts in blender 2.8
I recently updated my blender 2.79 to blender 2.8 and I'm missing some of the new workspace layout tabs that they introduced in blender 2.8. I watched several video tutorials on YouTube they seem to have more workspace layouts tabs. Some of the layouts that I'm missing are sculpting, texture painting and layout.

You should have a '+' button that allows to add layouts:

So foolish of me. I completely overlooked the add layouts button. Thanks a lot for respond


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Why are all weights set to zero when linking my armature to my character with automatic weights?
I'm trying to animate my golem and to do this I obviously created an armature. The problem is when I link my armature to the golem with the automatic weight settings, it sets the weight to 0 (blue) everywhere.
I think it's because my golem is a little like Rayman in style (I mean he has no real limbs and is just some rock animated together but not touching each other).
I tried to paint it in weight paint mode but it's damn long and kinda frustrating because some parts are really close to each other and I can't really paint where I want exactly.
Here is my golem:

please share your file: https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/

Ok after checking several options i figured out that if i link my armature object by object it s automatically weight painted , but it's laggy and i wonder why .... Maybe because i ve got to many faces ?

too hard to know what's your problem if you don't share the object

Ok here is a link to download my blend file : https://www.transfernow.net/files/?utm_source=21bky1y8ybec&utm_medium=&utm_content=fr
the only problem now is that it's laggy and it's impossible to do correct key frames with those lags.

Make sure your bones have the checkbox marked: DEFORMER in the properties of the bone. Also, when you ctrl+P make sure you choose with "automatic weights". If you see no vertex assigned colors, chances are your armature bones are not setup to deform.


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Alt Z, or showing the material colors [material view] seem to have stopped working

render view

materials view

texture view

solid view

Didn't go out of Cycles render, am not aware of doing any changes, what's happening? Now the only way that colors show is through Render view.
I'm cycling through posemode and edit mode BTW when this happened, any clues?

Have you tried restarting Blender or your computer?

i did but no, didn't fix any...

but i observed the obect is the only thing not displaying colors

and the colors also show in texture paint mode >> materials view

and i even need to render in viewport :(

Since you stated that the only thing exhibiting that behavior is one object, you could try checking the object's Maximum Draw Type and set it to Textured. This setting can be found in Properties panel > Object tab > Display > Maximum Draw Type.

If that doesn't help, you can also upload the .blend file to here and allow the community to take a look at it.

OK, i'll try that

WOW, ok thanks! now its fixed!!!
but now i wonder how it ended like that?
maybe i pressed button combinations of its shortcut? is there?


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Baking animations on a Rigify rig with child of constraints does not preserve constraint
I am trying to bake a simple animation made with a Rigify Human rig. My rig is a humanoid mesh (the Unreal Engine mannequin but configured for use with Rigify). I have placed a "child of" constraint on the left IK hand, parented to the right IK hand so that they move in sync w/ the tool or weapon that the human mesh is "holding". A screenshot of the configuration with the right hand selected in pose mode:

A gif image of it playing to demonstrate the (very simple) animation: https://i.sstatic.net/ye8Vv.jpg It's not particularly pretty but this my first time attempting this. The animation works as I expect. I have only placed a keyframe on the right IK hand for now, and the left IK hand follows along.
How the constraint is set up:

Now I would like to bake the action that I have created so that I get an animation with a pose on every frame that respects the constraint without actually having the constraint in place. Following guides I have seen online, I do this by selecting my animation in the dope sheet, selecting the armature in object mode and doing: Object -> Animation -> Bake Animation.
I have tried many combinations of the following options in that tool:

Visual keying
Clear constraints
Clear parents

No configuration behaves as I expect - namely that the left and right hands should keep the same poses they had before, but the constraint is removed. Instead, the left hand goes back to the rest pose and follows the animation from that starting point. The right hand adopts another incorrect pose. Screenshot of the pose of the baked animation on the first frame (this is with the option to enable visual keying, but other options turned off):

Perhaps I am misunderstanding what this tool does? Or maybe baking the rigify rig is the wrong course to take? Should I create a separate skeleton, constrain all its bones to match the rigify rig, and then bake that instead? I'm a little unclear on what best practice typically is when doing this sort of work.
Thanks in advance for any assistance. Let me know if any additional details would be helpful. I have attached the blend file here (pre-bake) if you would like to take a look.

You should be baking action with visual keying + clear constraints-- otherwise, defaults.  Obviously, make sure your animation works before baking (scrub through timeline).  If problems, we'd need file to recreate, as well as Blender version; I understand there have been some changes to the bake action operation, and bugs are always possible.

@Nathan Thanks for your assistance. I baked with the options you described after checking through the animation (it looks correct pre-bake). These are the options, if I understand you correctly: https://imgur.com/a/DGd4IRa
I am using Blender 2.91, and the blend file is attached to the original post in a link at the bottom

Hit enter too quickly - derp. When using those options the arms do not move at all. I can see the right hand IK bone moving (in the wrong position/pose though): https://imgur.com/a/Igpq5vX

Ok, maybe this is not the best answer but it worked:
I duplicated the skeleton (just the deform bones from the original skeleton, NOT the rigify stuff). Then I added copy-transform constraints to all these new bones, mapping them back to the original.
Now on the new skeleton I can bake and everything works. I suspect the issue is that "clear constraints" does something that does not play nicely with Rigify, but am not sure. Duplicating to a new skeleton that copies the original worked.