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Why does my cloth simulation fail after shrinking my cloths down to real world scale (7x smaller)
The framerate reduces to zero exponentially. All the meshes are to scale including the clothes. The cloth-collision and self-collision distance properties where reduced by 7, but nothing changed lag-wise. If I turn off both self-collision on the cloth and collision on the mesh, the lag reduces. With self-collision off, and collision on, the clothes appears twice as large as the mesh. My mesh has around 20,000 vertices.

After 'shrinking' the cloth, do you apply Scale?

Of course I did.

It turns out that my mesh is incorrectly parented to my armature and is using global coordinates instead of actual coordinates. Clearing and reapplying parent fixes the issue, it messes up the weight painting though.


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My model is non-manifold because of the eyelids
How do I model the eyelids without non-manifold vertices from multiple faces? I want my eyelids to look solid unlike the rest of the body. Should I just convert the eyelid to squares instead of cubes, and add a solidify modifier?

That looks like it's non-manifold because of duplicate vertices.  Try select all and merge by distance to see if you have extra vertices.

@MartyFouts The very close vertices make up the thickness of the eyelids. I've merged vertices already.

You should be able to get the thickness while still maintaining a manifold mesh.  Could you make a blend file with just that region of the eye and share it? (How to add a blend file)

@MartyFouts the multiple faces highlighted in orange are causing the error. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QTDBJXaoVOmq0zpACgXGE8vrh1NCKNQG/view?usp=sharing

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Recover unsaved project I've been working on for months?
I misclicked save instead of save as due to jerking my mouse. I was planning to exit out of blender, so the project reverts to default. Lost two character models. Autosave was my backup plan, but it only saved a recent version of my project. How can I recover my file?

Unfortunately that's why you should keep frequent backups!

Look for a *.blend1 file in the same directory. Before the save command is executed Blender renames an existing file with the same name to .blend1 so it is not overwritten and not lost.

@Blunder I was about to add that but run out of editing time! You can also increase the number of backups saved under Preferences > Save & Load > Blend files > Recent Versions. - It won't help this time but might prevent disasters in future!

@JohnEason I don't know how to backup more frequently.

Edit > Preferences > Save & Load tab. Make sure that Auto Save is checked and you can choose the Timer frequency which defaults to 1 minute. Under Blend Files, Save Versions is 1 by default but you can increase that. However, if it's saving backups automatically every minute, you'll end up with quite a few files to look through if you want to restore at a particular time! If you don't have Autosave Preferences checked (click the bottom-left corner hamburger icon), you'll need to use Save Preferences before closing that window.

You can search temp directory on your system for blender-like backup files. This usually works for crashes but might be worth trying finding something there.

@JohnEason This helped, but the solution isn't perfect because recently my autosave backup became unusable after a PC freeze.

I like to work on blend files in a cloud storage service that keeps a version history. dropbox, icloud, google drive... every time I get up from my computer I ask myself “if my computer burst into flames, could I keep working on the project elsewhere?”

Looking for .blend1 file OR File - Recover - Autosave

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


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How do I convert a rig back into a metarig?
I deleted the metarig a while back, and can no longer recover it. If this is not possible, is there a way to teleport the bones of a new metarig to the bones of the rig (last layer only)?

Yes, as you already wrote, the original bones are saved on the last layer. All bones are prefixed by ORG-. You can use them to re-create a new metarig with this script: Rigify->Generate Rig doesn't create all rig layers in the properties ui. There are two versions of the script. The updated one is for Blender 2.9.
To re-create a metarig do the following:

duplicate your rig to create a working copy
select the working copy, go to Edit mode, select all ORG- bones and separate them (P). Note: Do not duplicate bones or the number in their name will change!
switch to the armature with the separated bones. You can delete the first working copy.
edit the new working copy with the separate ORG- bones. You need to rename these bones and remove the ORG- prefix. Open the Batch Rename (Ctrl+F2) and replace the ORG- with an empty value for all bone names.
now you have a template for a new metarig. You have to change the names of your armatures or adopt the names into the script. Let's rename it to _old.metarig (2.9) or metarig.old (check the script)
add a fresh metarig. For the 2.9 script only: Rename it to _new.metarig
double-check the names, make sure the metarigs (_new.metarig and _old.metarig) are visible, run the script. It will "teleport" the bone layout from the created template to the new metarig.
now the new metarig should look like the old template. Check the Advanced Options below the Generate Rig button if the name (rig) is correct and if you want to override your original rig or create a new one with a different name.

How do I display the code for the rig script I want to change?

What do you mean by "...display the code for the rig"? You need to run the script in the linked answer by copy & paste it to a new data block. I've updated the linked answer for clarification.

I'm not sure what blender tab to copy and paste the code in? The python console tab, the text editor tab, etc. I've never dealt with data-blocks.

Ah, I see. Have a look here again. There are now screenshots ;-)

I have a question. How Rigify knows that it is a generated rig not a metarig?

The metarig is an Armature object with custom properties. These store, among others, the Rig Types which are basically the parts of the skeleton (arms, legs, hands, tail, face,..). The generated rig has a completely different structure (custom bone shapes, different bone names, several bone layers incl. the metarig's bones, extra bones for twisting, drivers, constraints, etc). In "Advanced" settings you can define the name of the animation rig and the name for the script that creates the Rigify buttons.

If you want to transfer a metarig from one blend file to another then use the menu "File > Append ..." and chose the metarig from the Object list, not from the Armature list. Otherwise, the metarig is not recognized as a meta rig. Related question: Why is the generate rig button greyed out?


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What rotates the eye for rigs (human)?
The regular eye controllers just moves the eyes out of their sockets when parented to the eye bones or terribly distorts it when parented to the rig. I have no access to reference rigs due to Sketchfab not working in blender 3.0.

Although I've never used it, Sketchfab now works in Blender 3.0 according to this blog from 4 days ago..

Here is a simplified "Eye rig" showing the parts of an armature that are typically used for basic eye control:

The head bone is the parent of the two DEF bones and the CTRL bone.
Each eye has its related DEF bone as a bone parent.  The are the only deforming bones in the rig (and thus, they "DEF" prefix.)
Each DEF bone has a Damped Track Bone Constraint that uses the CTRL bone as a target:

When the head bone is moved or rotated, the eyes move with it, because of the parenting.
The CTRL bone is used to control the direction that the eyes are looking. It moves them as a pair.
Because the configuration locks the degree that they eyes appear crossed eyed, another pair of bones is often used as mechanism bones.  The mechanism bones are laid on top of the Def bones and made slightly smaller.
In this case the DEF bones are parented to the mechanism bones and can be used to adjust the degree of cross eyed look, or to individually point the eyes, and the mechanism bones have the tracking constraints.  It is usual to give the prefix MCH to mechanism bones.  Here is a close up of the left eye showing a mechanism bone in place.

Here is a very basic eye rig example blend file:

It turns out the tails of the eye bones are at the opposite ends of the head bones of the eyes. I'll make sure to use a reference model in the future.


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Does the wiggle bones add-on work in 3.0?
I created a simple two bone rig, and checked the wiggle bones box for each bone in pose mode. I moved a bone, but the other didn't jiggle. This is my only alternative to the soft body simulation, and I need this to work badly.

That's an external addon, not part of Blender so it's best to join the conversation about it here. The last post from the author at the bottom of the thread was posted around 11 hours ago and the current version is downloadable from the first post in the thread.


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How to remove drivers programmatically in the Shader Editor linked to Geometry nodes
I am struggling with this problem. I am on Windows 10 and using Blender 3.5.1.
The set up is quite simple: I've got two noise textures applied to a plane under "Material". I also created a geometry node system whereby the scale values of both textures are controlled from there (i.e., "copy as new driver" transferred to the scales of the textures). See picture attached.

My problem is the following. When I copy the material to another plane (single-user copy), how can I delete the drivers in "Materials.001" using a python script? I don't want for "Material.001" to still be influenced by the geometry node system. Applying the GN system to "Plane.001" doesn't help either.
I have tried this:
import bpy

source_mat = bpy.data.materials["Material"] # Material of object "Plane"
copied_mat = source_mat.copy()
bpy.context.view_layer.objects.active = D.objects["Plane.001"]
bpy.data.objects["Plane.001"].select_set(True)
activeObject = bpy.context.active_object
activeObject.data.materials.append(copied_mat)

which simply copies the wanted material to "Plane.001" but I am stuck as to how to remove the drivers.
I can see the drivers using:
for m in bpy.data.materials:
    m.name
    if m.use_nodes and m.node_tree.animation_data:
        for d in m.node_tree.animation_data.drivers:
            d.data_path, d.driver.expression

which correctly yields
'Dots Stroke'
'Material'
('nodes["Voronoi Texture"].inputs[2].default_value', 'Input_2')
('nodes["Voronoi Texture.001"].inputs[2].default_value', 'Input_3')

I have seen people removing drivers but it's only on shape keys.
Any help or pointers on this would be appreciated.

import bpy

node_tree = bpy.data.materials["Material"].node_tree
node_tree.animation_data_clear()


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Blender Units and Scale
I'm new to Blender and I've followed some tutorials but i cannot figure out how to get the units to be 1 Unit = 1 mm, I have setup the below scene properties and the object has a scale setting shown in second image of 1 on all axis, but the measurement shown is roughly 2.5mm - ~Any idea what am I doing wrong ?
Thanks in advance

I guess the rough measurements are simply not accurate. If this was the default cube it usually has a size of 2 × 2 × 2 meters, and with switching the Unit Scale to 0.001 it should now be 2 × 2 × 2 milimeters and you have actually achieved what you wanted: you changed the unit scale so that 1 unit = 1 mm. The reason the cube is larger is that it's 2 units wide, not 1, because scale ≠ dimensions. For a more in-depth explanation see my answer.

Scale is not dimension. A scale of 1 on all axes means this is the "natural" dimension of the underlying mesh from which the object is built. If you bring up the sidepanel in the 3D Viewport by pressing N, in the Item tab you will find the Scale and below that the Dimensions.

The default cube has an edge length of 2 m, like almost all mesh primitives in Blender have a size of 2 m in at least one axis. This is because they base the size on a unit circle which in mathematics has a radius of 1 and thus a diameter of 2.
But this is rather a dimensionless size of 2 "Blender units". The Unit System settings in the Scene Properties which you already discovered are what translates them into real world dimensions. You could set it to None, then the cube would just be 2 Blender units in size. By default it's Metric, which is why you get 2 m.
However, if you want to work on small models with real life dimensions but don't want to have all these tiny decimal numbers, you can switch the Unit Scale for example to 0.001 which you did (and Length from Meters to Milimeters). So without changing the object or its mesh, the cube now is only 2 mm instead of 2 m.

But that's all got nothing to do with the scale of an object. The scale is a multiplying factor to change the apparent dimensions of an object relative to the original size of the underlying mesh.
So by default all objects that you add to a scene have a Scale of 1 (no unit) on each axis, because they are naturally added in their original, unaltered size. In Blender these are usually Dimensions of 2 m because of the unit circle etc.
To change the Dimensions you can either scale an object in Object Mode, let's say by a factor of 2 which you can achieve by pressing S, 2, Return for example. Or you change the scale by entering new values for the Dimensions like 4 m for example, and the Scale will automatically be changed to 2 as well.

Now the cube has a Scale of 2 and the Dimensions are shown as 4 m for each axes. However, this is just a multiple of the original size. If you would go into Edit Mode and select an edge with the Edge Length overlays enabled, it would show a length of 2 m, although the dimensions in Object Mode show 4 m. That's because the original mesh is not changed, it is only shown translated to a multiple of its size.

To change the original mesh size from 2 m to 4 m you can now apply the scale in Object Mode hy pressing Ctrl+A > Apply > Scale. This way the scale will now be shown as 1, but the cube stays at 4 m length and the edge in Edit Mode will now show 4 m as well.

You could have done the scaling in Edit Mode directly. Scaling in Edit Mode instead of Object Mode changes the original mesh size while keeping the "outside" scale at 1. This scaling in Edit Mode as well as the other method, using Object Mode and then applying the scale, makes a permanent change in the mesh. The new size is now the basic original size and you cannot simply reverse it by setting the scale back to 1.
However, applying the scale or directly changing the mesh is important for many modifiers you can use on an object. Tools like the Bevel modifier use the original mesh size as relation when you for example set a bevel offset of 0.1 m - this will be 0.1 m on the original mesh with a length of 2 m, not the scaled object with a length of 4 m. In this case the bevel might look incorrect as it seems to be 0.2 m instead of the chosen value. It becomes even worse if the object is scaled unevenly on the three axes, which then creates an uneven bevel offset as well. So applying a scale when using object modifiers is very important, but also working on a mesh in Edit Mode can get weird results if the scale of an object is not 1.

You seem to have set your Scene Properties > Unit Scale to $0.001$, and Length to Milimeters (which only affects how the units are displayed, not their scale) so you shouldn't need to do anything else. You might be confused because the default cube in Blender is not a $1$-unit cube, it's a $2$-units cube, so it should show $2.0mm$, but you probably didn't snap the measurement endpoints to the corners so it's a bit larger than the cube as well:

Thanks Kuboå - So how do i change its base dimensions from 2 units to a 1unit or 3 unit ? I guess i can use 0.5 scale but it would be easier to start with an object of the correct dimension rather than scaling it to where i want it to be ?

@DavidLittle You cannot change the default parameters of the primitives. Cube will always be created as a 2x2x2 cube. You can either scale it 0.5 and apply your scale, or edit your mesh in Edit Mode. If you don't know what "applying" means or the difference between scaling in Object Mode vs Edit Mode, you might wanna watch a beginner's tutorial, it's a really fundamental part of Blender. Here's a detailed one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsXSXnMpT9A

thank you - I'll check it out :)


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As a result of rendering animation with Blender3.4, the image flickers. How do I fix this?
I made an animation of about 5 seconds with Blender 3.4.
Rendering with Cycles. Video flickering? and the image will not be smooth.
How do I fix this? You can see the animation from the link below.
See the rendered result on Youtube
The image below shows the settings when rendering this animation. Waves flicker and are not smooth, especially in unguided animations.
Cycles Render Device

Output Render properties

RebderProperties

ViewLayerProperties

DomainSetting01

WaterSetting

The boat object has a main boat mesh, a collision mesh, and a guide mesh,
all of which have very few polygons.
Also, both the water material and the boat material are created with very simple nodes.
(Since the fluid shim puts a load on the PC, I tried not to put any more load on it.)
Please let me know if you have any improvements, such as setting the output.
Best regards


text:
Is there a way to copy the UV transforms of one hand in a character mesh to the UVs of another hand in the same mesh without using a mirror modifier?
Referring to the image, I would like the UVs in the right hand to match the look of the UVs on the left hand.

They look like they already do, it's looks like a scaling issue. Scale the right hand to match the size of the left, I think they'll stretch out and be nearly the same.

I know I could scale the UVs and sculpt them to the shape of the hand. I'm just looking for a way to save time by copy and pasting the UVs. The UVs are too large to copy and paste, so the solution would be to split the right hand UVs apart, copy and paste the UVs, and then stitch them together. I just don't know how I can accomplish this complicated process the best way.


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How do I add a geometry node into a frame without changing the frame?
When I drag a geometry node into a frame, it removes the frame from all the other geometry nodes. I don't want this to happen.

Just try to move more nodes into the same frame and see what happens...

sounds weird. Can you show us a video of that?

A frame always adapts to the size of the contained nodes.
If you drag and drop a node into a frame, it will resize accordingly.
However, if you just create a frame and resize it, it will not contain any nodes yet and will adjust to the first node you put into it.
Just try to move more nodes into the same frame and see what happens...


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Why is the mustache of my model's image texture missing in cycles?
The mustache does not show in cycles at any exposure or color management setting. Displacement and bump maps of the greyscale image texture do not help at all. Bump mapping just adds a bunch of polygonal-looking dark spots all over the mesh, while displacement does nothing. Comparing cycles to Eevee, the original model looks like a different person as the eyebrows are unrealistically desaturated, the mustache is nowhere to be seen, and the skin on the face is mostly one shade of white.
The model was created by UV mapping two images of a person on the stock man mesh that was provided by a blender 3.6 package. Additional non-quad destroying sculpting was done in Eevee to get the head to match the image texture. I did it in Eevee because my computer isn't good enough to sculpt in cycles.

Without seeing material node tree or your file really hard to tell ... Could be too strong subsurfscattering (SSS) ... Or many other things

@vklidu Subsurface Scattering is not the problem. It almost unnoticeably changes the look in cycles. I did not add the material node tree as an image attachment because it's just a UV map node connected to an image texture connected to the principal BSDF base color node. I tweaked every setting on the BSDF node, and nothing helped.

Now you wasted 6 our (or more) your comment doesn't give as deeper insight ... share your simplified file with image packed in blend file (since you need to solve just the mustang you can delete all other parts of body and keep just a lower part of head. To share file use https://blend-exchange.com

Subdivision Surface was blurring out the details of textures in cycles, and I can't explain why unfortunately. You need subdivision surface at extremely low values to preserve detail unlike Eevee. In this question, I was working in blender version 3.6 and 3.6.1.


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Animation node search library present in geometry nodes problem
When I reimported animation nodes to the current version of blender (3.4.1), the geometry nodes and animation nodes library combined in the geometry nodes search box. In the animation nodes tab, the search box doesn't have geometry nodes like it should, but I get the error when adding a node from the search box: AttributeError: Calling operator "bpy.ops.node.add_and_link_node" error, could not be found

Report it as a bug via Help > Report a bug in Blender. There are no developers here.

This is not isolated to Animation Nodes, many other add-ons (like Serpens and MTree) who provide their own nodetree editors and custom nodes have the same problem because apparently the Python template for creating custom nodes Blender provided was erroneous and they inadvertently copied the mistake.
Animation Nodes seems to have fixed that particular problem with this commit. Any other bugs you encounter should be reported there.


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Ray_casting from curve origins doesn't hit any part of the mesh
The terminal prints none, which I guess means the raycast is not hitting anything. To replicate this output. Run the script and navigate to its sidebar in the viewport, select the two nerve curves and the human geometry last, and click on 'Draw Curves On Texture'. Origin locations I verified to be correct, direction axis I verified to be in the correct direction of the mesh, so why does it hit nothing? All because of poorly written API documentation I have to give away my genius code I've worked hundreds of hours on for free. There goes my chance of profiting off of it too! Here's the code: GP_convert

Please provide a minimal working example, ideally just Python code setting up the scene and then trying to raycast and failing, because this way it's readable within the question alone. See: tips on how to ask a question and more tips and if you decide to upload .blend: How to upload a blend file on BSE - good practices and advice

Agreed, this question is simply not answerable without access to an external file which is both a security risk and a long term risk since the link may or may not be invalid in the future. Please add a minimal working example. If it can make you feel better, almost nobody makes profits from random blender scripts ;)

Link above is to the test file and in the scripting window a link to your code on your D drive. Nothing lost yet, but nothing to test either. Nice idea you have - maybe (not seeing the code anyway) it has to do with something similar to baking from cage, so MAYBE you can look at scripts that do that?


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Rip edge : Yellow Ring disabled
When using the rip tool, there is usually a yellow ring displayed around the vertex I want to rip, I just click and drag on that circle to rip out. For some reason, the yellow circle won't show up anymore. Any idea where I can enable it?

If you select the icon on the left toolbar you'll see the circle but if you merely use the 'V' shortcut key to rip, the circle won't appear. That's by design.

Found my solution. In "Viewport Gizmos", Active Object was deselected. I checked the box and the ring is back!

That's the default setting so you must have changed it at some time.


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How to properly export blender objects with children into unity
I have a simple model with the top slide being the child. When I export this model into unity the parent transform is fine however the child transform has a negative rotation of 90 on the x axis.

Untick 'Use Space Transform' and use '-Y Forward' and 'Z Up' in Blender FBX export settings:

If you are also exporting Armatures, set the Primary Bone Axis to -Y and Secondary Bone Axis to -X:

In Unity use the Bake Axis Conversion import setting:


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Is it possible to change the frame offset on a video texture when instancing with GeoNodes?
I'm fairly new to both blender and geonodes (coming from TouchDesigner / AE) and this seems like it should be a pretty easy thing to do but I am having a lot of trouble figuring it out.
I am using geo-nodes to instance a large number of planes, on those planes is a material playing back a video with an alpha channel. I am trying to get the offset of the video to be different either for each instance or simply just at different Z-depth, however the offset control on the image texture node doesn't have a link to it. I tried some other methods like using drivers but the more I looked at it the more it just seemed like even if the offset changed it was going to apply globally to all the planes, not as they are instanced.
Here is a pic of what I am talking about.
I have seen a couple of posts doing something similar with image sequences where each instance shows a single image in progression, but I am trying to get each to playback an entire video, just offset from each other. I have also seen some answers to get instance data to the shader graph by realizing them, but I am unable to figure out how to put those things together so that the material is different for each instance or set of instances.
The only noob solution I've found is to just make different materials for each set of instances but I'd end up with around 100 materials. Any insight would be appreciated.

No.
Unfortunately, the way it is now, each Image Texture node represents a single frame of a sequence each time the node tree is evaluated. In geometry nodes this means each object has its copy¹ evaluated once per frame. In shaders the node tree is evaluated once per frame, so no driver gymnastics will help.
The only workaround, other than creating multiple materials, is to merge all frames into one big image texture, and cut out the frame of interest out of this texture. Or a combination of both methods, multiple materials, each containing an atlas of multiple frames.
¹ - even if multiple objects share the same geonode tree, because it is wrapped in unique modifiers for each object, effectively the parameter passed to the Image Texture node can be different for each object - not that it matters that much as in geonodes image texture don't support sequences.


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Geometry - Simple Subdivision Surface Node doesn't see
I'm making it after Late as usual's(https://twitter.com/lateasusual_/status/1364305410526707713/photo/1) node, but the Simple Subdivision Surface node does not exist in the geometry node. There is just a Subdivide node, but according to the manual description, it seems to be a completely different node, so it is ambiguous to use it.
In addition, the configuration of the Attribute Proxy node seems to be different from the node in the tutorial.
What should I do?
(I'm using a translator, so please understand if the sentence is a bit awkward.)

The geometry nodes have gone through a lot of changes in the last few Blender updates, so tutorials are bound to be out of date unless they're very recent.

Ok, but the tutorial's blender version is 2.93.0, and my blender version is 2.93.1. Also I tested that on blender 2.93.0, but the problem was the same.
Can there be a difference in functions even if the versions are the same?

I wouldn't think the same version could have different functions. That's weird. I have no idea, then.


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Control specularity of texture in compositor
I made a specular texture, and I'd like to have a lamp off to the side that helps it sparkle more. I'm trying to figure out how to get a lamp node to effect this texture only, but I'm very lost.

figured it out. mix a lamp node with a texture, plug the mix into the spec of a copy of the material, then mix the two materials together.


text:
Perspective Camera Tracking markers
When using perspective or affine, should I make the borders of the tracking marker match the shape of the thing being tracked, or leave it as it's default box shape?


text:
GLTF exporting animation (blender 2.79)
This code works for generating the model, and the gltf model performs properly in a gltf viewer. But the model doesn't animate and it's orientation is wrong when viewed through the phone camera on the webpage.
    <head>
         <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, user-scalable=no, minimum-scale=1.0, maximum-scale=1.0">
         <script src="https://aframe.io/releases/1.0.4/aframe.min.js"></script>
         <script src="https://raw.githack.com/jeromeetienne/AR.js/2.2.1/aframe/build/aframe-ar.js"></script>
    </head>

    <body style='margin : 0px; overflow: hidden;'>
        <a-scene embedded arjs='sourceType: webcam; debugUIEnabled: false;'>

            <a-marker-camera preset='custom' type='pattern' url='https://www.sblx.rf.gd/markertest.patt'></a-marker-camera>
            <a-entity gltf-model="https://www.sblx.rf.gd/boner.gltf"
            position="0 0 0"
            scale="1 1 1">
            </a-marker>
            <a-entity camera></a-entity>
        </a-scene>
    </body>
 </html>

since it works properly at https://gltf-viewer.donmccurdy.com/ maybe it has to do with the html code? Any help would be appreciated!

I found out I needed to add a seperate component, called animation-mixer.
<script src="//cdn.rawgit.com/donmccurdy/aframe-extras/v5.0.0/dist/aframe-extras.min.js"></script>
for anyone else in the future who might have this problem. Lots of useful parameters can be found here: https://github.com/n5ro/aframe-extras/tree/master/src/loaders


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Shapekeys Drivers
Blend File

I made my first shapekey react to the left tight X rotation , but it's isn't perfect , how can i fix this? The shapekey's deformation do not start soon enough.
PS: Left thigh forward rotation only for now , once i understand how it work i will set the other shapekeys

Right click your driven value → Open Driver Editor

This will open a graph editor with a curve that goes from bottom left to top right.
The horizontal axe is the driver's value, and the vertical axe is the driven value. You can change the curve's keys coordinates and also deform so that the driven value is as you want depending the driver value. In your case, if you want to make the change happen sooner, you probably want to deform the curve by moving the keyframes' handles:


text:
Not able to render what i have in the Shading window
I'm new on Blender and to practice a little bit on it i am doing the Donut tutorial from Blender Guru. At one point during the tutorial i'm able to see in the Shading window of Blender the Sprinkles on the Dunut like you can see in the following picture:

If i try to render my Donut using the short key F12 i get the following result:

You can see that i don't have the sprinkles on the Donut. Could anyone give me an hint on how to solve this problem ?
Thanks.
Luca

are your sprinkles hidden for the render in the outliner?

Hi thank you for your answer. My sprinkles are not hidden for the render in the outliner, like you can see in this picture: https://i.sstatic.net/M7b06.png


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How do I make sky and grass for scene in Blender
I already have a scene in Blender, but I have been having a hard time trying to make a world in Blender for the sky and grass... This is what my scene looks like so far:

Hello, it all depends on the style you want, the distance from the camera, the power of your computer, etc, you can use particles but it's heavy to calculate, you can use procedural texture but it can look fake, you can use image but it may look bad at certain angles, etc

Here's a suggestion that may help :)
You could make the sky the old classic way and cut a sphere in half:

Select the entire sphere and recalculate mesh normals to the inside:

Scale it and then UV / add image texture of a sky gradient (make sure to disable shadows in the material!):

Select your floor and give it a vertex group called grass:

Add particle emitter set it to hair and mess around with the settings:

Then make two materials one called floor and the other called grass:

Assign the grass material in the render tab for the particle system check this [thread]:
Hit that Viewport Shading button and BOOM! check out your awesome sky and grass :D

For the sky, you could also assign the gradient texture to the emission slot in the principled BSDF shader. It'll help eliminate any shadows.
hope this helped :D

For the sky, no need for a geometry dome, use the world's shader with a nishita sky texture or an hdri

I like how you remade my structure, you get an upvote for that :) Problem is though that I need the camera to spin around really far... I'm basically doing a remake of a Wii Boxing scene where it starts off and the narrator says "round one" but this is in the middle of a concrete road with dirt and grass around with a stadium right beside it... If you'd like to see a Wii Boxing match if you've never seen one, here is one for reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97uofqy_lv8


text:
Need to fill this face in but it has vertices that prevent it from filling in properly
I'm trying to fill the lower part in (in the first picture), but can't because the vertices (second picture) are blocking it from being filled in properly...

It's not a good idea to fill a face like that in one go anyway. Select pairs of opposing edges and fill it in sections.

Can you demonstrate how I could do that with a similar model? I can share the .blend file if needed but would rather not...

I've put an image of an object I knocked up here which looks to be as close to yours as I can get from your images. I assume you're trying to fill the bottom surface? However I can't really see why you couldn't fill yours as I can just Alt-click the edge of mine to select the whole edge and 'F' to fill. Might be worth selecting All and then M > Merge by distance on yours and trying again in case there are duplicate vertices.


text:
How can I fill these vertices?
I'm trying to fill these vertices here:

When I try to fill it with these vertices selected, this happens:

If I only fill with the 4 corner vertices, this happens:

How can I fill the vertices with the mesh only going up to the vertices of the circle?

Hello ! Looking at the grey shade of the faces here, you might have inverted normals that would throw off the automatic face fill. Try realculating the normal or get rid of the internal circular face which would make your object non-manifold if you filled all the faces (would become an internal face)

How can I go about doing this?

Also select the verts that you want the fill to "go up to". The fill command will only use the selected vertices, if you want the fill to include the rest of the verts of the circle, select them as well.


text:
How to fix image texture distortion
I have a wall that I need to put bricks on, but there's distortion around the windows... How can I remove the distortion in the UV Editor?

I would just view it on an axis and UV -> Project From View -- the only difficulty with this method is keeping your selections straight while working

@AllenSimpson I wish you'd answered in an actual answer, because I would've accepted it as the answer... Thanks for recommending that, it worked :)

Is it just that  the geometry has changed without a corresponding change in UV?

.. which would mean you just have to re-map, whichever way suits your workflow best.

Not sure if this answers your question, but I first cut the shapes and extruded them to make the windows, before I mapped the texture and applied it... Not sure how to fix this...

Hi, @prestonferry .. OK, if you edit your original post to include a share on  https://blend-exchange.com/ , then folks could have a look for you.

Allen Simpson answered it, I appreciate your attempt in helping :)

@prestonferry no problem, that's what we're here for :)


text:
How can I make transparent window for cycles and eevee in Blender?
I'm trying to make windows for this building but I am having trouble finding a good window texture that works well in Cycles and Eevee... This is what the building and texture nodes look like so far:

Does this answer your question? How to make a simple plane slightly transparent?

@Emir no, I'm wanting it to be completely transparent but have a bit of gloss, as in the light reflects off like a window... I don't want reflections from objects though...

Glass BSDF should be fine for cycles, although the default IOR (1.45) is best suited for solid thick glass, like a crystal ball, more than a window, so I suggest bring it down a little.
For EEVEE, there are 2 main methods, but with both, it is imperative that you change the materials Blend Mode settings to something other than the default Opaque (Alpha-Blend works well for most applications). Here are 2 examples of EEVEE "glass" shaders below - one uses a custom node setup, the other uses  the Principled BSDF with the Transmission set to 1 and the Roughness set to 0 (or close to it). They work a bit differently, but perform very similarly.:

OR

Is there a way I can make the same material work for both? I'm wanting to make it where I can swap between the two...

Both the "EEVEE" methods I showed, should work fine for both EEVEE and Cycles. Glass BSDF only works (convincingly) in Cycles.

The IOR of 1.45 is completely fine for windows too, if you create real windowpanes with a thickness of 3 to 4 mm. If you just use a single face plane for this of course it looks terrible.


text:
How to Dynamically flip an Action in Blender?
I am creating a walk cycle and I am really tired of manually flipping the animation from side to side whenever I make changes to the walk cycle.
Is there a way to only create a left side action for the walk cycle and have blender dynamically flip the action? It is like having an animation modifier the input is the action and the output is the flipped action.

It might be helpful to people trying to help you if you uploaded an example blend file to the site https://blend-exchange.com and add that link in the question.

there is no need for an example blend file, this question isn't tied to a specific Scenario it is a general question, I am looking for a dynamic way to flip an action, For example let 's say I have action.left and I Flipped this action using paste X-flipped Pose to create action.right. now if I made a change to action.Left I have to go again and use paste X-flipped Pose in order to get action.right, so what I want is a way to have action.right be calculated dynamically using action.left.

If you don't have a blend file might I suggest posting an example images showing what you want.


text:
Bevel modifier for 2-material-object
I'm having an issue when I apply Bevel modifier for an object having 2 materials.
The corners pieces seem always take the wrong material. I cannot set it right with the Material index other then -1m since the other bevels will get the wrong color.
I can isolate the edges adding the extra loops, but I don't want to make the geometry more complicated.

do you want the bevel parts be all the same material, but the other one? or?

@lemon I would like the corner small black pieces of the bevel to be white.


text:
Interpolate hair curve leaves only one strand
I have tried using the Blender hair system a couple of different ways. I am new to blender in general and I am trying to learn to make mods.
I have tried using geometry nodes and the built-in hair assets however, no matter what I do when I add the interpolate hair curves I am left with only one hair on the head. Any ideas why this could be?
Edit: added picture of the before a add interpolate

is there any guide curves yet?

Yes there are. I added a picture to show before using interpolate.

The Interpolate Hair Curves node needs a Surface to interpolate the curves. You can either add the scalp object to the orange "Surface:" socket or use an Object Info Node to add the scalp's geometry to the light green "Surface" socket.


text:
Why is blender crashing with this code line: bpy.ops.gpencil.convert(type='CURVE', use_timing_data=context.scene.transfer_gp_timing_data_toggle)
I selected a grease pencil scribble that wasn't too complex, and the convert tab grease pencil to mesh works very fast on my computer. Blender crashes when executing this line:
curve_obj = bpy.ops.gpencil.convert(type='CURVE', use_timing_data=context.scene.transfer_gp_timing_data_toggle)
In blender python API code:
import bpy

class GreasePencilDisplayAsMeshPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
  bl_label = "Grease Pencil Display As Mesh"
  bl_idname = "OBJECT_PT_GPENCIL_DAM"
  bl_space_type = 'VIEW_3D'
  bl_region_type = 'UI'
  bl_category = "Display GP As Mesh"

  def draw(self, context):
    layout = self.layout
    obj = context.object
    #op = layout.operator("object.greasepencil_to_curve")
    #op.extrude_threshold = context.scene.gp_converter_threshold
    #op.material_index = context.scene.gp_converter_material_index
    #layout.prop(context.scene, "gp_converter_active")

    #display toggle
    row = layout.row()
    row.prop(context.scene, "grease_pencil_display_as_mesh_toggle", expand=False)

    if context.scene.grease_pencil_display_as_mesh_toggle==True:
      #transfer grease pencil timing data toggle
      row = layout.row()
      row.prop(context.scene, "transfer_gp_timing_data_toggle", expand=False)

      #plane extrusion
      row = layout.row()
      row.prop(context.scene, "gp_converter_threshold", expand=False)

      # Get all materials for material loader
      materials = bpy.data.materials

      #material loader
      row = layout.row()
      row.prop(context.scene, "gp_converter_material", text="Materials", expand=False)

# Function to update the extrusion when slider is changed
def update_extrusion(context):

  # Extrude the curve
  bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='EDIT')
  bpy.ops.curve.extrude(move_z=self.extrude_threshold)
  bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='OBJECT')

  """
  # Assign material
  if scene.gp_converter_material: # Check if a material is selected
    curve_obj['data'].materials[0] = bpy.data.materials.get(scene.gp_converter_material)
  """

  return {'FINISHED'}

def update_curve(self, context):
  if context.scene.grease_pencil_display_as_mesh_toggle==True:
     # Get the active grease pencil object
    gp_obj = context.active_object
    if gp_obj is None or gp_obj.type != 'GPENCIL':
      self.report({'ERROR'}, 'Select a Grease Pencil object')
      return {'CANCELLED'}

    # Store the grease pencil's visibility state
    gp_obj_visibility = gp_obj.hide_viewport

    # Convert to curve
    curve_obj = bpy.ops.gpencil.convert(type='CURVE', use_timing_data=context.scene.transfer_gp_timing_data_toggle)

    # Hide the grease pencil
    gp_obj.hide_viewport = True
    #bpy.ops.object.greasepencil_to_curve()

  else:
    # Search for existing curves created by the operator
    for obj in bpy.data.objects:
      if obj.get('gp_converter_origin'):
        bpy.data.objects.remove(obj, do_unlink=True)

    # Unhide the original grease pencil object
    gp_objs = [obj for obj in bpy.data.objects if obj.get('gp_converter_origin')]
    if gp_objs:
      gp_objs[0].hide_viewport = gp_objs[0]['gp_converter_visibility']

def get_material_items(self, context):
  """
  This function generates a list of (identifier, name, description) tuples
  for all materials in the Blender scene, suitable for an EnumProperty.
  """
  items = [('NONE', 'None', 'No material assigned')]
  for mat in bpy.data.materials:
    items.append((mat.name, mat.name, ""))

  return items

def update_materials(self, context):
  items = self.get_material_items(context) # Regenerate items
  context.scene.gp_converter_material.items = items

def register():
  bpy.ops.wm.console_toggle()
  bpy.utils.register_class(GreasePencilDisplayAsMeshPanel)
  bpy.types.Scene.grease_pencil_display_as_mesh_toggle = bpy.props.BoolProperty(
  name="gp display as mesh toggle",
  description="Display the grease pencil as a mesh with this checkbox checked.",
  default=False,
  update=lambda self, context: update_curve(context) # Call update_extrusion when the button changes
)
  bpy.types.Scene.transfer_gp_timing_data_toggle = bpy.props.BoolProperty(
  name="gp transfer timing data toggle",
  description="Transfer the gp timing data with this checkbox checked.",
  default=True
)
  bpy.types.Scene.gp_converter_threshold = bpy.props.FloatProperty(
  name="extrude threshold",
  description="Change the size of the planes created by extrusion.",
  default=0.01,
  min=0.0,
  #update=lambda self, context: update_extrusion(context) # Call update_extrusion when the slider changes
)
  bpy.types.Scene.gp_converter_material = bpy.props.EnumProperty(
  name="materials",
  description="The material to assign to the curve.",
  items=get_material_items,
  update=update_materials
)
  #bpy.types.Scene.gp_converter_active = bpy.props.BoolProperty(update=update_curve)

def unregister():
  bpy.utils.unregister_class(GreasePencilDisplayAsMeshPanel)
  del bpy.types.Scene.grease_pencil_display_as_mesh_toggle
  del bpy.types.Scene.transfer_gp_timing_data_toggle
  del bpy.types.Scene.gp_converter_threshold
  del bpy.types.Scene.gp_converter_material

if __name__ == "__main__":
  register()

If blender is crashing and it can be reproduced every time, you should report this as a bug (Help::Report_Bug).  No one from the development team hangs out on this site.  Be sure to include your crash.txt file from AppData/Local/Temp.


text:
Renaming a Properties with Drivers
So I have an issue with renaming Custom properties that are being used in a driver. As an example, I made a custom property for some drivers. But when I renamed the properties, the drivers associated with the properties just stopped working, and I need to manually change the data path of each driver. Is there a way to change the property's name without needing to manually change each data path? Meaning that each driver that has the properties data path will rename itself.
I also have some concerns if this issue also happened when I renamed other things such as bones. How do I rename it without breaking all the drivers I made?

Scripting would work, but might take some work to be automatic. Sounds like a decent rightclickselect.com feature request.

Can it be assumed that the usage of the prop in the driver is as a SINGLE PROPERTY type variable target, with data_path set to eg ["prop"]

Rename all single prop variable targets using custom prop.
Code slapped together from How to find out what is using an image in a blend file
Searches thru every driver in the blend file and renames "oldname" to "newname"
Test script below, with example call renaming and single property driver variables targets from ["prop"] to ["length"]  Edit last line to suit.
import bpy
from bpy.types import bpy_prop_collection

def rename(oldname, newname):

    def rename(col):
        for o in col:
            ad = getattr(o, "animation_data", None)
            if not ad:
                continue
            for d in ad.drivers:
                for v in d.driver.variables:
                    if (
                        v.type == 'SINGLE_PROP'
                        and v.targets[0].data_path == f'["{oldname}"]' ):

                        v.targets[0].data_path = f'["{newname}"]'
    while next(filter(None, (
        rename(getattr(bpy.data, p))
        for p in  dir(bpy.data)
        if isinstance(
                getattr(bpy.data, p, None),
                bpy_prop_collection
                )
        )
        ), None):
            continue

x = rename("prop", "length")

PS excuse round about way of the script, a better logic would be to return the object, driver, target tuples of matches.

Thanks, it helped me a lot.


text:
Blender Python Column Align
Ok, so I made a python UI for my rig, and here’s the result.

It’s good, but I wanted the buttons to be much closer together. Here’s what mean:

The thing is that I don’t know how to do so. Here’s the code:
r = b.row(align = True)
            r.label(text= "      Right Leg")
            r.label(text= "      Left Leg")
            r = b.row(align = True)
            r.prop(obj, "IK_LEG_RIGHT", text="FK Leg", toggle=True)
            r.prop(obj, "IK_LEG_LEFT", text="FK Leg", toggle=True)
            r = b.row(align = True)
            r.prop(obj, "LRS", text="Stretch", toggle=True)
            r.prop(obj, "LLS", text="Stretch", toggle=True)
            r = b.row(align = True)
            r.prop(obj, "Leg_Squash_R", text="Squash", toggle=True)
            r.prop(obj, "Leg_Squash_L", text="Squash", toggle=True)
            if rig["IK_LEG_LEFT"] == 0 or rig["IK_LEG_RIGHT"] == 0:
                r = b.column(align = True)
                r.prop(obj, "Stiff_Leg_IK", text="Stiff Leg IK", toggle=True)
            if rig["Stiff_Leg_IK"] == 0:
                r = b.column(align = True)
                r.prop(obj, "ankle_swap", text="Ankle Swap", toggle=True)

If there are any suggestions. Please let me know.

Related https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/177368/how-do-i-use-multiple-columns-in-my-add-on-ui

You can use UILayout.grid_flow():

import bpy
class LayoutDemoPanel(bpy.types.Panel):
    """Creates a Panel in the scene context of the properties editor"""
    bl_label = "Layout Demo"
    bl_idname = "SCENE_PT_layout"
    bl_space_type = 'PROPERTIES'
    bl_region_type = 'WINDOW'
    bl_context = "scene"

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        scene = context.scene

        grid = layout.grid_flow(columns=2, align=True)
        grid.prop(scene, "frame_start")
        grid.prop(scene, "frame_end")
        grid.prop(scene, "frame_start")
        grid.prop(scene, "frame_end")

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(LayoutDemoPanel)
def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(LayoutDemoPanel)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

You can also combine multiple grids by using one regular UILayout.column():

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        scene = context.scene

        col = layout.column(align=True)
        grid = col.grid_flow(columns=2, align=True)
        grid.prop(scene, "frame_start")
        grid.prop(scene, "frame_end")
        grid.prop(scene, "frame_start")
        grid.prop(scene, "frame_end")
        grid = col.grid_flow(columns=1, align=True)
        grid.prop(scene, "frame_start")
        grid.prop(scene, "frame_end")

You can use the regular column-row layout.
I assume b = layout.box() in your provided code. If so, add one additional column to the box and set align to True like so:
col = b.column(align=True)

Then replace all b.layout() calls by col.layout() (layout means row, col or another UILayout object), then your code should look similar to this:
col = b.column(align=True)
r = col.row(align=True)
r.label(text="Right Leg")
r.label(text="Left Leg")
r = col.row(align=True)
r.prop(obj, "IK_LEG_RIGHT", text="FK Leg", toggle=True)
r.prop(obj, "IK_LEG_LEFT", text="FK Leg", toggle=True)
r = col.row(align = True)
r.prop(obj, "LRS", text="Stretch", toggle=True)
r.prop(obj, "LLS", text="Stretch", toggle=True)
r = col.row(align = True)
r.prop(obj, "Leg_Squash_R", text="Squash", toggle=True)
r.prop(obj, "Leg_Squash_L", text="Squash", toggle=True)
if rig["IK_LEG_LEFT"] == 0 or rig["IK_LEG_RIGHT"] == 0:
    r = col.column(align = True)
    r.prop(obj, "Stiff_Leg_IK", text="Stiff Leg IK", toggle=True)
if rig["Stiff_Leg_IK"] == 0:
    r = col.column(align = True)
    r.prop(obj, "ankle_swap", text="Ankle Swap", toggle=True)

Great code.
The following code allows me to create a column in a box.
This solved a longtime mystery of mine.

use gird_flow

layout = self.layout
row = layout.row()
gridbox = row.box()
rowgridbox = gridbox.grid_flow(columns=3, align=True)
rowgridbox .prop(self,"add_materialcolor")
rowgridbox .prop(self,"color_pic",text="")
rowgridbox .prop(self,"materialname")

use split

layout = self.layout
row =layout.row()
gridbox = row.box()
# Define methods for splitting
gridboxsplit = gridbox.split()
# Define columns
gridbox = gridboxsplit.column()
gridbox.prop(self,"add_matelialcolor")
# Define columns
gridbox = gridboxsplit.column()
gridbox.prop(self,"color_pic",text="")
# Define columns
gridbox = gridboxsplit.column()
gridbox.prop(self,"matelialname")

It's the same either way.
I think "grid_flow" is a cleaner code.
layout = self.layout
row = layout.row()
gridbox = row.box()
rowgridbox = gridbox.grid_flow(columns=1, align=True)
rowgridbox .prop(self,"add_matelialcolor")
rowgridbox = gridbox.grid_flow(columns=2, align=True)
rowgridbox .prop(self,"color_pic",text="")
rowgridbox .prop(self,"matelialname")

このように各行で列の制御が容易です。
「スプリット」「column」を使うと、
ボックス内の制御が難しくなります。


text:
Contact shadows on glass ( INSIDE view )

I am making an animation with a mesh deforming itself on a 100% transparent surface , but i need to make it so the part of the the mesh pressing against the surface appears darker ,from an inside perspective like the picture i posted as reference
In Eevee
( I am not looking for realism , the fact that glass don't work that way is irrelevant  )

I tried to come up with a better solution than the answer I gave here, but I still have to find one.

Maybe a Boolean?

Duplicate the window pane as a non-rendering cutter object
Give the cutter the 'pressed skin' material
Ensure the cutter and the  pressed object have both 'pressed skin' and 'skin' materials in their slots, even though each has only one of the materials assigned to faces.

When the deformed object is assigned  a Boolean modifier, targeted on the cutter, set to 'Difference', the 'pressed skin' material will shade the intersection:

Ah, that's better than my solution. ;)

@GordonBrinkmann   Yours gets a +1 from me.. depends on the workflow. Yours might be less fuss and more general.

Maybe... I guess both our answers will become a fuss if you want it to be more general - in the example image I already see two different "pressed" materials, the one on the skin and the one on the hair. If there are more parts pressing against the glass this will be annoying. I thought of something for the glass, like "if there is contact (or maybe some overlapping) darken the transparency so that the contact parts look darker". But I didn't get that to work.

@GordonBrinkmann .. Dynamic Paint / Light Path .. those are options, too. Oops! looks like this one is good enough :)

Yes, I thought of Dynamic Paint and Light Paths as well... but Light Paths didn't work as I expected and Dynamic Paint has a similar problem as our solution - you have to adjust it for all objects :/

I imagine that the mesh pressed against the glass surface is furthest in some direction like +X/-X or +Y/-Y? This might not be the best solution, but maybe as a workaround you can compare the mesh's position to some other position (of an Empty for example) in a specific direction with a Greater Than node and use that as a mix factor between a lighter and a darker color. This way you can adjust how much of the mesh is darkened by the position of the mesh itself, by the value to compare it with and by the position of the Empty. The Mix RGB also allows you to not just darken the color, but also maybe choose a slighty different color.

If you just want to change the shader by a plane, you can use this simple node setup here:

result:

Like my version, only that I'm using X instead of Z, an empty instead of a plane and didn't animate it...?


text:
Eevee material specular

Blender 2.8 ,Eevee, this glossy effect on models keeps moving around as i look around/move the camera. Any way of keeping this effect but making it "static"? (i only know how to desable it)
I do not know much of blender,my question may seem weird.
I only know it's bound to the tab material --> Specular

Reflexions depend on your point of view. If you want them not do do so, the best solution, for now, is not to use them, and rather fake their appearance.
One way to do this in 2.8 is to use the "Shader to RGB" node:

The principle is quite simple: from a diffuse shader, you get the shadow information created by the scene's lighting. And you convert that information to RGB data which you can then modify that data as you wish.
Of course, you can use other data as inputs, like the specularity of a glossy shader, an absolute ramp of a normal node, ... And you can combine them as you wish, as well as mix them with textures, ...
It's the basics of "NPR" (Non-Photorealistic Rendering, you can google those letters and find quite some examples of what people did.


text:
How to make a character body deform on wall (or any surface)
I started blender 1 month ago and i have not found a single tutorial about making the body of a rigged character deform when pushing against a surface,i have not found tutorials about rigged character physics interacting with objects at all,alll i found are the same videos for "how to break walls with a cube" and stuff like that,can you help me?
i would normally do the effect on photoshop for a single picture but it's for animation

isn't that called physics or something?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gYsxqNJyu8 i found this vid


text:
Invisible wall in cycle
I have a basic cube mesh that i currently use as a wall
And a basic ball mesh deforming itself on it as my animation
How can make the cube invisible BUT keeping the interactions between the two objects as i render in cycles?


text:
Make render preview faster
Is their a way to make a render preview in the viewport shading faster in cycles? I only know about reducing the samples to make it faster.
Of course at the cost of quality whatever it might be,i often find myself noticing problems in my animation too late, after rendering since i can't preview the animation fast enough before rendering...(i tried to make a smaller preview render of a whole aimation before the real render but it does not help me much)

You can use ctrl-b to draw a rendering box, so that you preview doesn't have to draw the whole view.

You can enable Simplify in properties/scene, which will allow you to create separate settings for subdivision for preview, or to create a hard limit on light bounces so that they'll (as in this pic) just skip to AO (white world) after 2 bounces instead of doing more.
And of course, you can do any of the things that you do to keep renders fast.  I avoid shaders I know run slow (volume scatter, glass, SSS) mostly because of their effect on my preview.

You can change the percentage of the rendering scale. 100% will render in the best quality.

Use smaller values just to see how the final render is getting. More fast.


text:
How to convert current view as camera?
In 3D view i often find myself getting the perfect spot for the camera ,but Crtl alt 0 always ruins it,it always changes the view a lot,and trying to get the same angle by moving camera is also impossible and incredibly time conssuming.
How do i convert PERFECTLY any current view into an active camera?It's no big deal if it changes resolution(once again,align camera to current view is not what i am looking for since it do not replicate exactly the current view)

it should replicate the same view, maybe the Focal Lens of your Camera (available in Data > Lens is not the same as the Focal Lens of your 3D view (available in N menu > View > Lens

(data lense) I don't have a lense option for orthographic mode in Data >Lens ,only Orthographic scale but if litteraly change everything and " cut trough" my model i do have an option for the lense in perspective mode but my view in 3D view is not in perspective mode so adjusting both lense don't change my problem

If you switch to orthographic view in your 3D window you will have the same view as your orthographic camera, so it should also work. What do you mean when you say that it cuts through your model?

I should but i do not have the same view in ortoh for the camera and the current view ,the orthographic view camera goes very far for the model and distord the image like an exagerated fish eye effect,i can't move the camera in this view,just zoom, and when i zoom the camera cut through the model (the angle is so exagerated that it think part of my model is halfway in the camera. I cannot upload a blend file since it's sensible content, i have this problem with every work ,i find the perfect view in viewport and can't re-create it in camera view even with tweakings

Here is a topic where I created a script, that do this Align camera to view precisely and automatically, without manual fiddling and jubi made an addon http://zgodzinski.com/blender/Align%20Camera%20To%20View%20Auto.py

Press NumPad 0 so you will have the point of view of your active camera. With Ctrl+F you will be able to move it like first person, then control your position with WASD and Q and E for go up and down if needed.

I am a beginner so I don't know perfectly but you can use ⎈ Ctrl+⎇ Alt+0 then use ⇧ Shift+f then use the mouse and w a s d in keyboard to change the position. It's very useful

even simpler, he can activate the Lock Camera to View in the N menu, so that when he's un camera view he can move exactly like the 3D view works


text:
How to turn off computer after rendering?
What is the easy way to turn off the computer automatically after blender completed a render* and saving that render?
My computer is not a monster, that would be helpfull so i can render at night

Render from the command line using some shell script (like python) to shutdown after running render. What OS are you using?

Windows 10  And i have no idea of what is command line and same for the shell script thingy : P

Watch this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=46&v=GbGeF56yrm0 and this is the addon link https://yadi.sk/public?hash=gap59AvwMsS7Ew%2B9qSuzKr3AFTEE4gNJwWt5Jzh0jE8%3D

You may have no idea what the command line is, but that shouldn't stop you from clicking on batFINGER's link and reading the resources, they're very well explained.

The Alarm and Shutdown add-on can be used.
Alternatively, you can render your scene from the command line, and then add a command to shutdown after it completes (or fails).
On Windows this would be something like:
"C:\path\to\blender.exe" -b "C:\path\to\your file.blend" -a && shutdown -t 0 -s -f


text:
No render display
I need help please ,i do not know what i did wrong but i cannot view any render anymore
Here is the blend file https://files.fm/u/ggsrxfnp#_
(tell me if the link do not work)

@MaiSasaki This is a community dedicated towards learning from each other, not a "fix my file on demand". As it stands this question is too localized and won't help anyone else besides you. If you just want a fix it is probably better to ask over at Blender Artists

in your camera settings > Depth of Field > Aperture, switch from F-Stop to Radius

You could start from reading rules of this site as you seem to be misunderstanding what it's intended for. People on this site do this as volunteers; don't expect others to do work for you while you post a link to the file and "fix this for me" comment. Comment above means exactly what it tells - it asks for more information.

in the Data menu of your camera > Depth of Field > Aperture, switch from F-Stop to Radius, or set distance to be something other than 0.00

Or set distance to be something other than 0.00


text:
Add autorun script to rig
So I've seen that some rigs like the Cloud rig that it has a script that autoruns every time the blend file is opened. Also, when the rig is linked, the script comes with it. And since I have a rig with a python addon, I want to add functionality just like that. But I don't know how to do so.
I see that the rig uses a custom property, but I didn't understand it.

It has this line on the value. What does this mean?
<bpy_struct, Text("cloudrig.py") at 0x0000014375FF3408>

It's a pointer property to a text block. See https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/194681/rigify-automatically-link-ui-text-file-in-2-8  Set the text block to autorun https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/36821/start-script-on-open-blender-file

If your scripts are in an Add-on, you can use the @persistent decoration described in this answer


text:
How to make a realistic spotlight with defocus effects
I'm trying to use spotlight to project image on a plane, and hope to get blurred images with different defocus level in different position, just like a realistic projector. But actully the projected image is always clear no matter how I change the position of the plane. My node tree of the spotlight is shown below. Is there any way to solve it?

You should check the material of the image. If it is an emission one, no matter the lighting, the image will always be visible clearly.

If you wish to use the light falloff node to control intensity, then you need to use the quadratic output, not the linear output.  You also need to move the light much farther away from the projection screen to give the falloff a chance to work.  If you do this, you do not need to manipulate the XYZ coordinates and you end up with a node tree along these lines:

However, I prefer to have more control over the falloff, so instead of the light falloff node, I use a spherical gradient node and a math node.
Here is my entire node tree for such a projector.

The top part of the tree, in the frame labeled Only project forward is cosmetic and not related to the falloff.  It merely makes sure that the plane I'm using as a projector only projects in one direction.
The second part, labeled Image to Project is, of course, how you attach the image to the Emission node.  In this case, since I imported the image using the Images as Planes add-on, I don't really need the Texture Coordinate or top mapping nodes.
The third part is the "fun" part.

The bottom mapping node is needed to center the gradient.  Without it, the sphere will be centered in the lower left corner of the lamp plane.  By mapping with a (-.5, -.5) offset, I've moved the center of the sphere to the center of the image.  So the gradient looks like this:

The gradient node does the math to give the falloff.  As you can see, the corners are darker than the edges.
The math node controls how intense the light is.  Multiplying by a number smaller than 1 gives a greater falloff.  The smaller the number, the more pronounced the effect.

That's a multiply node, but I sometimes use a multiply/add node.  The multiply controls the effect while the add sets the basic intensity of the light.
Here's an example setup.  The smaller plane is the "spotlight". The larger plane is the projection screen.

Even so, the effect is very subtle unless you move the spotlight farther from the screen.

Thanks for your answer. It's very close to the effect I want. Can I focus on a object or adjust focus distance through this way?

Other than changing the math node to a color ramp and hand tuning the color ramp to get the falloff pattern you want, I don't know of a way. It could probably be done with geometry nodes in 2.93, but I don't know enough to say how.


text:
How to construct a projector using its intrinsics matrix?
A projector can be regarded as an inverse camera, since the image projection is a reverse process of image captured. So the projecor also has its intrinsics and distortion coefficients just like a camera:
$$
K=
\begin{bmatrix}
f_{x} & s & c_{x}\\
0 & f_{y} & x_{y}\\
0 & 0 & 1
\end{bmatrix} \\
D=[k1, k2, k3, p1, p2]
$$
Is there any way to construct a realistc projecter using these pararmeters instead of a simple spot light in blender?


text:
Why I can' see my project? |Eevee render| Blender 2.93
Can anyone help me?
Why when I use Eevee rendering, in render mode, the house looks so black and nothing is understood, and in Render Mode it looks the same as in Material Preview. I'm new to Blender and I don't understand why it looks so.

hello, have you put some lights? Maybe share your file: https://pasteall.org/blend/

https://pasteall.org/blend/cb8944bd37984ba8b546489d453af68e

I shared,and its not working with lights

it doesn't appear completely black here, but what happens if you move the light a bit?

nothing happens

I hope someone will tell, it may be a problem of graphic card as I don't see the same thing as you

The light is just inside the corner of the building. Move it up on the Z axis and it's then fine in render preview.


text:
How can I render a ball with equirectangular camera?
Firstly, I'm a first time user for Blender. I want a equirectangular image so that I can create a texture to use on a sphere object on my Unity project. I'm searching and trying for hours. Here what I came.
I found a soccer ball model.
The idea is to place a camera inside and center of the ball. Change camera view to Equirectangular and render in order to get a 360° image of it.
However, my render result is like that.

I placed lights inside the ball but it still looks awful. I'm not sure the problem is about lighting because it's not dark, it just noisy and black-and-white. How can I fix this? Is there a way to render in Solid View, which is really good looking?
This is the .blend file.

This may be a problem caused by ambient occlusion. Is that setting turned on?

@TheLabCat https://imgur.com/H7Uv3ae there isn't any. I added and poked up a bit but no change.

With the camera on the inside of the ball the normals would be the wrong way, and you're capturing some inner geometry that is constructed that way to give the outward appearance of the segments of a soccer ball.


text:
Cell fracture - setting the start/end points of animation
I'm making a sequence showing how a tunnel collapsed into an old one beneath it. I've been following tutorials and experimenting with Cell Fracture to do the part where the top tunnel collapses down. That's great and I like the effects, but the problem is that it's part of a longer sequence of 800 frames, and I need this short sequence to start at frame 400 and run for 100 frames.
All the tutorials I've watched don't seem to mention how to control the start / end frame numbers. Could I ask for some assistance please?
Thanks

You can keyframe the Animated option of one of the objects, if the object has Animated on, it won't follow the physics. Then later on the Timeline, switch it off and keyframe again:

Once you've keyframed one of the objects, select all the other objects, make sure that the one with the action is the active one, and press CtrlL > Link Animation Data.

Thank you so much for this answer!! It's so easy when you know how to do it! It's working just right, so you've really made my day!

OK - slight problem :( I've run this on a trial with just the cylinder I'm trying to collapse and the technique works. Select a piece, click animate and keyframe. Them move to later and click off animate and keyframe. As expected the selected piece drops at the correct frame, link animation data and all works. However, in my cityscape I can select one piece and keyframe as above and it will stay in place, but wont drop when animate is turned off. I've turned off visibility for all surrounding objects to avoid affecting other objects. Sorry for the total newb question!

maybe share just one of your object so that we can see why it doesn't work?

OK - how do I do that?

Use https://blend-exchange.com/ or another platform like workupload.com

OK will do but will be later one. Thanks!

I made a version with everything stripped out apart from the cylinders to upload, and blow me down the animation works as I want. I guess it's a process of elimination to see what's interfering with the animation?

I'm not sure what's happening, hard to tell without any file

OK. I have spent time eliminating things, and I know where the problem lies. In the timeline, if I add the start and end animate keyframes adjacent to each other  it works well. However, move the end keyframe past two others it stops working. The two others are to do with controlling camera speed. I'm uploading the file shortly.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1G0x-lK3QGXZIdMSNuo1_bLrAu204B09X/view?usp=sharing shows the keyframes. The orange one at 300 frames woks if you put it before  the frame 150 one, and stops working after it.

If you mean that the rigid body stops to work, maybe it's because your cache stops at frame 150? In Scene panel > Rigid Body World > Cache > Simulation End. If it's not your problem, please share your file

Brilliant - that's it! By changing the simulation end to 750 that allows me to put the animate off point to 500 (where I want it) and the whole thing collapses. I don't seem to be able to share the file as maybe my privilege level is not high enough yet, but I can't thank you enough for your help and support here! happy new year :)

great, happy new year to you too   ;)


text:
What are all of these artifacts in my render?
So I have a scene where that white glowing ball gets engulfs the whole scene and then shrinks.  I am not sure what to change.

Have you tried updating your graphics driver?

If you mean the "pixelation" looks like a codec issue, render it as image sequence (to see if it is fine), than you can create movie file from this image sequence.


text:
If I can render 1 frame without running out of gpu memory, does that mean I can render all scenes?
So I had to adjust some stuff like lower texture resolution and lower polys because I kept running out of gpu memore.
I got a frame to render. Once 1 frame renders does that mean the other 2000frames will render? Like does it dump the memory after each frame?
I did notice that after I get that first frame rendered that I can't render again or I run out of gpu memory. I have to close the program and re open to do so.
Is there a cache adjustment I should make?

So far the answer is yes from. I got all my settings for the scene set so that a frame would render then when that frame finished, the rest rendered as well.
I'm sure this is not always the case but this worked for me for my particular scene


text:
Have rotation for the object the same as the face
Hello so I have the following problem. I created a door as a seperate object. I combined this then with another on. I got it to the point where I want it but now I want it rotated a way. That it is on the same rotation as the the face.
Currently I have it like this but as you can see it sticks out. How can I achive this?

Think I figured it out. Select the object > snap to face> same orientation (option or something) then place it. This worked for me I could then place it on the right spot :D

oh ok I misunderstood your problem  ;)

Still thank you for your response :)


text:
My render is looking completely different from viewport shading and render preview
For context I am following the blender guru anvil tutorial. When I finished my anvil some areas in the render look smooth. I tried tinkering with the textures and its values but there are no changes to the smooth areas. I even tried texture painting in the area and it shows in the viewport but not the render.

It looks like you have some objects hidden in the viewport - things hidden in the viewport will still be visible in renders. To exclude the objects you want to keep hidden from renders, move those objects to a separate collection then disable (not hide) the collection by un-checking the checkbox.

I complete forgot about that! Thank you so much!


text:
The Mesh edit helpers disappeared
I was modeling a sword for practice and I don't know what I did but the edit helpers don't pop up when I select a part. I attached an image I hope it helps explain.

to add to Marty Fouts' answer, you can press Shift Spacebar as a shortcut if you want to select the Move tool

Another thing is, the title says "Mesh edit helpers", so I suspect you might have to switch to Edit Mode, in the screenshot you're in Object Mode.

It is not clear what you mean by "edit helpers", but I suspect you mean what are usually called gizmos.  If you look at the boxes in the upper right, you can click on the down arrow next to the one with an arc and an arrowhead.  It will bring up a menu of "helpers" and other things that you can turn on and off:

The ones you're probably looking for are under Object Gizmos and labeled "Move"," Rotate" and "Scale".
Also notice on the left that you are currently in "Scale" mode.  You can tell because the box around the scaling icon is blue.  You can switch modes in various ways, such as by clicking on the mode icon.


text:
How to exclude light from a character
I'm working on a scene where a character is floating inside a cylinder and there's light shining from the bottom. To make it appealing I had to turn the strength to 10000. But my mixamo character can't be seen. The textures aren't visible. I found out that if I turn bloom off it works but it affects the cylinder. Is there a way to enable light to touch the cylinder but not a character. I'm trying for a silhouette style where the characters appear black at the center of the light

I guess you need to use the Compositor. You could also give your character an Emission shader if it works for you

There is probably a better answer, maybe using render layers, but I don't know it. It sounds like you can use a low poly proxy of your character though, for that scene and have the proxy be flat-black, where there will be no reflections. I know this is more a workaround but it may work for you. Otherwise I would play with render layers and the way the light effects that layer.


text:
How do I remove the gun from this model?
I'm trying to make an SCP:CB related game. So i rigged some models and then I get to the guard model. There's a P90 that conflicts with the model. I can't remove it cause I'm a bit clumsy at blender. When I do try to remove it I always remove some parts of the hand as well. Can someone help?
https://www.dropbox.com/s/t09earxu5e5oki8/guard.b3d.obj?dl=0

I don't really know why, but here, this is the cleaned up blend file, I cleaned it manually.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/11poMQAzKw_hVwS5JFI_Ep8DUoA9I8WNv/view?usp=sharing
EDIT: I'm sorry, I was just trying to help. At first, I downloaded the file and messed around with it to find an easy solution, but I can't since I'm currently not an expert. So I cleaned it up manually and send the file to help him. And, as Gordon said, this is not right, I should've gave him steps to do this himself. I'm sorry, I can't delete this answer either since it has been accepted.

This is not really a useful answer. If this would be a site to find people getting jobs done for them, okay. But simply cleaning it without explanation what you have done or how to approach this task best, the asker will not learn anything from it and especially others that might come here later will not benefit from it.

Thanks a lot! Really helped.

oh sorry, I'm just trying to help :( I will keep that in mind next time. Once again, truly sorry.

Hi. I personally appreciate that you are trying to help, awesome. However, this site is no regular forum rather a Q&A site. Link-only answers are discouraged, if the link goes down so does the answer. Please help us making this site a real
knowledgebase and add all relevant steps to your answer, see: https://blender.stackexchange.com/help/how-to-answer, Thanks.

Hello, Albert :). It's really nice of you to help others :). Please don't be discouraged by the downvotes, and welcome to the site.

Go in Edit mode, select all, merge the vertices with AltM > Merge by Distance because the faces are separate, then use L to select the different parts of the gun, and X to delete.

Dang.... beat me to it! :)

Thanks! Keeping this in mind next time I find a model like this!


text:
How do you loop a frame by frame grease pencil animation a limited number of times?
I'm working on an animation where the character is running for 5 or 6 seconds. The actual animation is drawn frame by frame, and it consists of 15 individually drawn grease pencil frames. However, after 6 seconds of looping, the scene changes into something else. I've tried using Offset Time modifier, but it gives me two problems -

it loops indefinitely with no option for me to add an end frame
when I manually add a blank frame after 6 seconds, the Offset Time modifier no longer loops the animation.

Is there an effect, or modifier, or some type of setting Blender has that will let me loop this for 6 seconds and then stop?

You can insert keyframes to switch any modifier on and off at a given time. It's not really obvious but on the top line, to the right the modifiers name, are two icons, a screen and a camera.

The screen makes the modifier be visible in the viewport and the camera makes it visible during render. By hovering the mouse over the icons and pressing I (like "insert") you can keyframe their current state.
So, in your case (assuming you're at 24fps) go to frame 144 and with the mouse over the icon press I. Then move to frame 145, disable the modifier and insert another keyframe. Because you likely want it to stop looping on screen and also in the render, you'll have to do that for both the screen and the camera icon.

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!! That was driving me totally nuts, but your answer solved this instantly. Animating different things in the same Blender file is so much easier now - you are literally my savior! Thank you thank you thank you


text:
Can blender be used to re-target animations to other rigs?
I do this in Maya where you can re-target say a walk cycle from one humanoid onto another. Can one do this in blender?

An action can be assigned to another object in the action editor. This only works for armatures if the bones have matching names.
For more difficult re-targeting just enable the Motion Capture Tools addon that is included with blender. The addon's wiki page includes links to the manual and video tutorials for using it.

At the heart of the system, is the retargeting tool, which allows artists to transfer animations from the imported mocap armature to their own rig.

The blender-retarget addon could help you. To use it, just do the following steps:

Align the target skeleton bones along with the source ones.
And toggle the "Link location" / "Link rotation" buttons.

And that's it, now target bones follow the source ones.
Also, target bones transform can be adjusted at any time.
For more details, refer the README on the GitHub project.

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


text:
How do you do a walk cycle in production?
I am an amateur animator and have only just started learning 3d animation.
All the tutorials that I have been studying teach the character walking in-place. I am wondering whether the character moves in place with the background props moving in the opposite direction so as to give the illusion of walking or do you just translate with offset and actually have the character moving (probably stupid question, but might as well ask it).

Does this answer your question ?  http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/3736/how-should-an-animated-character-be-moved-while-repeating-a-walk-cycle/3740#3740

Thats right, first you create a walk cycle where your character walking in place. When you are done you could:
1st. keyframe the location of the character / armature
or
2nd. Add>Curve>Path and select your character Armature and then shift - select the path an ctrl - P > Follow Path
For me it's much easier to tweak a walk cycle in place and creat the forward animation separately with one of the 2 possibilities mentioned above.

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


text:
Is there a way to import .mx or .mxa files?
A game called Forsaken (1998) has models in .mx and .mxa format. Although I'm not sure what's the difference between them, I'd like to know if there's some import script available for them.

I searched for md3 importing scripts before, I bet there should be some for mx too.

Now there is a at least partially implemented importer (prints a lot of stuff to the console) All you need to do is copy the script in the editor and
edit this (last) line before pressing the run button:
importMX("c:\\path\\avatar.mx", 'Avatar')

The first argument is the path to the file to import, second the object name in Blender.
import bpy
import mathutils
import struct

def read_n_items(file, n, func):
    for i in range(n):
        func(i, file)

def read_struct_from_file(file, fmt):
    return struct.unpack(fmt, file.read(struct.calcsize(fmt)))

def skip_string(file):
    s=''
    while True:
        c = struct.unpack('c', file.read(1))[0]
        s = s + c.decode("utf-8")
        if c == b'\x00':
            print(s)
            return

def importMX(filename, obj_name):
    verts=[]
    faces=[]
    with open(filename, 'rb') as file:
        prjx = read_struct_from_file(file, '8ch')
        print(prjx)
        num_texture_files = prjx[8]
        print(num_texture_files)
        while num_texture_files > 0:
            num_texture_files = num_texture_files - 1
            skip_string(file)
            groups = read_struct_from_file(file, 'h')[0]
            exec_lists = read_struct_from_file(file, 'I')[0]
            exec_type = read_struct_from_file(file, 'h')[0]
            vertices = read_struct_from_file(file, 'h')[0]
            #groups,exec_lists,exec_type,vertices = read_struct_from_file(file, 'hIhh')
        print( 'vertices=%d' % vertices )
        idx=0
        while idx < vertices:
            x,y,z,reserved,colour,specular,tu,tv = read_struct_from_file(file,'fffIIIII')
            print('%d %f %f %f' % (idx,x,y,z))
            verts.append((x,y,z))
            idx = idx + 1

        num_tex_groups = read_struct_from_file(file, 'h')[0]
        print(num_tex_groups)

        while num_tex_groups > 0:
            texture_type,start_vertex,num_vertices,texture_no,num_triangles = read_struct_from_file( file, 'hhhhh' )
            num_tex_groups = num_tex_groups - 1
            print( "tt=%d sv=%d nv=%d tno=%d tria=%d" % (texture_type,start_vertex,num_vertices,texture_no,num_triangles ))
            while num_triangles > 0:
                v0,v1,v2,pa = read_struct_from_file( file, 'hhhh' )
                nx,ny,nz = read_struct_from_file( file, 'fff' )
                print('%d,%d,%d %f %f %f' %  (v0,v1,v2,nx,ny,nz))
                num_triangles = num_triangles - 1
                faces.append((v0,v1,v2))
        print(verts)
        print(faces)
        mesh = bpy.data.meshes.new( obj_name )
        object = bpy.data.objects.new( obj_name, mesh)
        object.location = (0,0,0)
        bpy.context.scene.objects.link(object)
        mesh.from_pydata(verts,[],faces)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    importMX("c:\\path\\avatar.mx", 'Avatar')

Result:
avatar.mx

airmoble.mx

To get started you can extend on the following code, there is also an undocumented 8 byte "PRJX...." id at beginning of the file besides that the format seems to match.
See https://docs.python.org/3.4/library/struct.html for the format strings like: h=uint16 and I=uint32 etc.

Looking forward to try the code tonight. :)

Should I put the file inside some of the blender's folders and run it somehow within Blender, or just run it within python command line? I don't know how to proceed either way though.

I'm having problems when trying to import bpy

@Fabián You need to run it from Blenders text editor, not the console window. Added image to answer.

The .mx format and the animated variant .mxa are documented in the sources:

File-format - .mx
File-format - .mxa

The binary format looks different to the Blender supported formats (at least the ones I have seen so far). You would need to write a custom importer.
num_texture_files : uint16
texture_file_name[num_texture_files] : '\\0' separated strings
num_groups : uint16
{
    num_exec_lists : uint16
    {
      exec_type : uint32 // 0 = entirely opaque, 1 = contains transparencies
      num_vertices : uint16
      vertex(x,y,z,reserved,colour,specular,tu,tv)[num_vertices] : x, y, z float, others uint32
      num_texture_groups : uint16
      {
        texture_type : uint16 // 0 = normal, 1 = environment mapped
        start_vertex : uint16
        num_vertices : uint16
        texture_no : uint16
        num_triangles : uint16
        triangles(v0,v1,v2,pad16,nx,ny,nz)[num_triangles] : v? uint16, pad16 uint16, n? float
      }[num_texture_groups]
    }[num_exec_lists]
}[num_groups]
mxtype : uint16 // always 0 for mx format

The sources of the .MD3 addon show that this format has a at least comparable structure.

@Fabián the itself format isn't C it is pseudo code. To import the mesh only you would need to skip the texture names and read the vertices num_vertices times. The .MD3 addon has all the code snippets you would need.

Yeah I've seen that, although I'm not within the import/export scripting subject, I'm still noob at programming. I was just hoping to insert one file in which makes Blender be able to import the model to begin work with.

ok I recently saw the new comment, I'll give it a try


text:
Video Sequencer Preview Isn't Playing Grease Pencil Animation Strips
I looked around for someone else that had my issue, but I didn't see anything. I'm very new to Blender, so maybe I just set something up wrong.
Anyways, here's the problem. I have several grease pencil animated scenes in Blender. I've added these scenes to the video sequencer and they show up fine in the video sequencer preview too. It scrubs fine when I pull the cursor back and forth and it shows the grease pencil scenes. However, when I play the video sequencer it only shows one frame from the sequence while the video plays. Even when it flips to the next scene it still stays on the same frame. The correct frame shows up when I pause the video or scrub the timeline. But it's always stuck on one frame when I try to play it.
Maybe it's my settings? I have no idea. Can't seem to find a solution to it. I also have a quick screen recording showing the issue I see, and I uploaded the Blender file for anyone that wants to poke around it.

Thanks so much in advance! I'm loving the program so far.

May not be a problem, or a minor bug. If rendering results were screwy, however, then something’s seriously wrong. For now, check things like the view settings for the sequence editor.

tried your file and whilst the preview doesn't update by default, I noticed that when pressing play with the mouse over the preview panel, then it updates fine. it does sound like a bug to me

@wilks That works for me! I was able to get it to play when I did what you said. It isn't perfect but I'll take it!! Thanks so much ^_^

@wilks gave me the answer. When playing the video, hover your mouse over the preview window and then press play. It works when you do that.


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Some of my grease pencil strokes are grey while others are black?
I have a Blender file that is producing some strange Grease Pencil lines. On frame 177 my strokes turn gray, and you can really see it since I have a little color behind the head. The strokes aren't transparent. There are scenes further along in the timeline that also have grey lines, but some are black. I have no idea why.

Things I've tried:

I tried assigning a black lineart material to the lines

I tried switching between view ports and noticed the lines turn black when I'm NOT in solid viewport shading mode -- however, my colors at frame 980 turn black and darker so neither of the views are desirable on render

Here's the colored image in the solid viewport:

I'm mainly trying to figure out how to make all the lineart black no matter what viewport I'm in. It would also be great if I could make the colors stay the same in all the viewports too. As my grass above turns black in certain views which isn't desirable. I would love to learn why so I can adjust my file. Also, here's the file I'm working in if anyone wants to poke around: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1E2e8An5EWVVtsgS6BgQFU-LziXxSdzA6/view?usp=sharing

I just figured it out and wanted to share what I did to fix this in case anyone else had the same issue. I went over to my material list and noticed a blank material at the very top of my list. When I clicked "new" it fixed my lineart so now it is black again. I'm still figuring out the dark color issue, but if I do find an answer I'll post it here.

In my case, I had color strength for new strokes set to 60% I was able to fix it in edit mode by selecting the strokes, then using Stroke -> Normalize Opacity

I was facing the same issue but finally was able to figure it out:
Go to the material properties of that element in Edit Mode, then go to its Material Properties and then simply change the Base Colour.


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How model a long tunnel
In one small city exists underground, two level, tunnel system, partly overwhelmed now, ~200 meters longest diameter. I modeled it by meshing curve. Now I'm looking for idea how texture it with stone and some brick's walls. It is for Unity engine and first person model with enigmatic camera texture working ably so speed should be right with more advanced walls. Additionally how smart work inside tunnel - cameras setup?

Check this http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/9319/adding-a-texture-map-to-a-beveled-curve-or-path and http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/1670/how-to-texture-a-beveled-curve-without-stretching

Andrew Price did a good tutorial on that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sROnLfkPgzA
In general you never create huge models for game assets. You generally create smaller chunks of them and compose them into a big scene within the game engine of choice.

In Neil Hirsig's Blender course, the eighth ~.pdf tutorial is on the subject of modeling a cave. You might find useful information there.


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How to pack addons into blend file?
I am using assets and scatter function of botaniq addon and I would like to upload this to a render farm online - which allows me to upload folders as well.
I tried pack all resources which did not pack botaniq files however.
So how would I pack all assets from botaniq into a single file or folder so I can upload to the online render farm?

Hello, you can't pack addons into a blend file. You'll have to see directly with your render farm how they handle addons.

There is a way to include the add-on inside the blend file, which is called "bundling" the add-on. The process of bundling an add-on is a bit more complex and it involves adding the add-on python script and any other necessary files within the blend file and then using a special script that will register the add-on automatically when the blend file is opened. This way you can share the blend file without the need to share the add-on separately. But unfortunately I don't know the specifics to this method...

You should pack the assets generated by the add-on, not the add-on itself. Most render farms do not allow running code on their computers and that's for a good reason - it's not safe. Ask them for help, maybe they support it, but it makes absolutely no sense to include 5GB add-on with your file when sending to render. That's not a good idea.

First you need to collect all the .zip files of the addons you are trying to install.
Then, upload these to your render farm.
Create a python script to install these, like this:
import bpy

// Install it
bpy.ops.preferences.addon_install(overwrite=True,filepath="addon.zip")
// Enable
bpy.ops.preferences.addon_enable(module="addon_name")

Repeat this for every single addon. Then you can also enable settings for each addon using python. Enable blender tooltips to see the actual python properties.
Addon docs: https://docs.blender.org/api/current/bpy.ops.preferences.html#bpy.ops.preferences
Enable python tooltips: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/getting_started/help.html

Select all linked collections (all botaniq assets) and make them local by going into Objects > Relations > Make Local > All
Then you use Pack Resources to pack all your assets into the blend file as usual.


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How to align object to z-axis when distributed on a plane using geometry nodes?
I have many objects on a plane like this:

Each object on the mesh points the way the plane is facing, however how would I make them align to the z-axis so they are all straight up like this:

just plug "nothing" in rotation like this:

then it will take the rotation of the instance object itself.


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How do I make Distribute Points on Faces Geometry use weight pain vertex group?
I have a vertex group made using the Weight Paint and I am using a Geometry Node to distribute an object across the plane. How do I make the Geometry Node use the vertex group to distribute the objects?

The idea is that there will be fewer objects on the lighter parts and more on the red areas so I how would I connect them?

You just have to plug a Named Attribute with the name of your group...

you can do it like this:

Important is the input value of the group input as float value, put/choose the name of your vertex group in the modifier. Plug your input value in the density (you often need a multiply because vertex just has value from 0 to 1)

Hi Chris I can't get it to work https://snipboard.io/Ng4WSi.jpg What did I do wrong? It's still showing in the blue area with same density as the red area.

Thanks, @Harry McKenzie works if put Named Attribute Node for input of multiply and select vertex group

@HarryMcKenzie: if you provide your blend file and it is a serious question, i will take a look. Contact data in my profile if you don't wanna provide it here.