text:
creating four symmetric holes from one along two axis
I want to create four symmetric holes from one along two axis. While the object(a box) itself is fully symmetric along the Y axis, but is only partially symmetric along the X-axis, so I can't just use one mirror modifier and select both X and Y axis of symmetry. See the picture:

What is the proper way to deal with the partial symmetry along the X-axis and create the second symmetrical hole on one side of the box? At the end I want to have this - if I change the original hole - all other 3 holes change itself automatically.

add a bolean with the difference object set to a cylinder, and apply a mirror modifier on the cylinder with the box object set as the mirror object

could you, please, provide some screenshots?

icosphere cut by a cyclinder

cylinder is mirrored along icosphere

You could use the Mesh > Symmetrize tool (choose the axis in the Operator box on the bottom left of your 3D view):

Once done, you'll need to make sure that you don't have ripped edges like this:

To fix that, add some edge loops with the knife tool and merge the vertices:

Thank you! What is the point of adding extra edges? And why should they be loops?

I've edited my answer, once you've symmetrized you need to make sure that you have a good topology, I hope it's clear


text:
Animate collection instances respectively?
I'm trying to make a dynamic army using animation nodes now, and succeed in generating collection instances by nodes below. Now I want some variation on animation in these instances.

walking animation is set on the original collection and currently, the actions of all instances are synchronized.
I have struggled to make them move respectively but no avail so far. I'm pretty new to Animation Nodes.
I ask for your advice.
thanks

Hello, I don't think this is possible with collection instances. They are supposed to be exact copies of the instanced collection and apart from loc, rot, scale you can't change much between them. You should rather use linked duplicates and separate the animation data if it's possible

Thank you for the quick reply, Gorgious. I really appreciate your advice. I think the linked duplicates could do. I would try it right away. thanks again.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Python scripting in Blender: cannot import pytorch
I'm using Blender 4.0, and my machine runs Ubuntu 22.04.
Here is my basic problem: I have a python file, call it rendering.py, that will set up multiple scenes and render them. I have a second one, call it learning.py, that needs to take these renders and do a machine learning task on them. The specific task is irrelevant, but it relies on the python library PyTorch (at the top of the file I write import torch). When I run learning.py directly, everything works as intended.
The problem arises when I import this module into rendering.py. The top of the file looks like this:
import os
import sys
import numpy as np
from PIL import Image

import bpy
import mathutils
from bpy_extras.object_utils import world_to_camera_view

# Import my own modules
dir = os.path.dirname(bpy.data.filepath)
if dir not in sys.path:
    sys.path.append(dir)
import scriptutils
import learning

If I run this file using Blender's command-line (blender --background  --python-use-system-env --python rendering.py), I get the error message "no module named torch".
I know that it's not an issue with the fact that I import the module from somewhere else, first because scriptutils.py is imported just fine (it's another module that does some minor tasks and imports its own libraries), and second because the error is still there if I copy-paste all of learning.py into rendering.py.
Does anyone know how to solve this issue? Is there some way for me to point Blender directly towards where PyTorch is located?
Thank you!

i am not sure whether you know, but Blender has its own python installation in it. So it is not the same as it is installed on your computer. So if you include python libraries on your computer, they are not automatically transferred to the python version inside Blender. More information and how to solve it here: https://youtu.be/2zGIERHU2mk?si=RW9vBmJhUX_vG3kM

Thank you so much Chris, this solved my issue!

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


text:
Creating a stickman
I'm new to Blender and I have been trying to model a stick man but maybe I can't... I've tried suching online for any videos on tutorias on how to go about it but I can't find any, I need to create such a model, but every time I try I end up with something else, for the head I can create a very smoth one from torus shape which I can create from the main cube, such that I can manupulate the internal radius not like the default tarus fron the blender add tool. If anyone can help I will be greatful... Thank you....

you can easily change the radius for the torus like this: [1]: https://i.sstatic.net/63J23.gif

You can use a circle for the head, then extrude down the vertex, use a Mirror modifier to mirror the shape:

Then give your object a Skin and a Subdivision Surface modifier. To thicken the limbs use CtrlA in Edit mode:

Apply the Mirror and the Skin modifiers, select some edge loop and  simplify the topology with some X > Limited Dissolve:

At the end, duplicate some parts of your mesh to create the eyes and mouth:

+1 although his stickman is red :D and the eyes are rounder :D :D

@Chris mine is red as well but I'm in Solid mode!!

so you know you made a big mistake with the eyes....!? :D

You got me one more time, please don't tell anyone   :((

maybe you can update your answer with a lattice for the eyes and then a shape key to the lattice to correct that? ;D

@Chris I guess it must be doable with geonodes and I count on you for that

naaah....i don't want to steal your answer here.... :D you need it to become the No.1 :D

I wish I understood @Chris ... About the eyes.... But thanks buddy this has greatly helped me a lot ....

I wish I understood @Chris as well  ^^

Maybe @Chris was tired again


text:
How to convert fisheye model parameters calibrated in OpenCV into fisheye in Blender?
I want to simulate a real-world fisheye in Blender, using parameters calibrated in OpenCV. However, I don't know how to map these parameters into Blender.


text:
How to process cel shaders into textures
Can we make textures from cel shaders?

what is a cel shader?

It's a toon shader

If that big group includes  EEVEE Shader to RGB  nodes, then baking to texture will involve a few extra steps.. does it?


text:
Beam Modeling & Curve Geometry Bevel Custom Presets
I'm currently modeling a bridge and I have a lot of square beams to make. The quick dirty way I found is to use bezier curves and playing with the profile of the bevel under the geometry pane in object data properties. I need to give a resolution of at least 1 to my bevel to get the desired squared result.

Do you have any other better way to model this ? I don't like the fact that I have to convert it to mesh than remove the additional non-required loops to keep it as low poly as possible. Also is there any way to add custom bevel profile presets ?
Thanks for your time.

Why not design a bespoke bevel object with a clean square shape?

You're right that's a method I actually had forgot about that I also used on this. I think I'd just like a simpler tool with length and width sliders like in 3ds max. With geo nodes maybe I could do this ?

Geometry nodes will allow doing that easily, currently there isn't any method to easily control width and height of a bevel object. Until then see https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/58564/curve-bevel-function-scale


text:
Quick smoke not working
I was just trying to add some smoke to a scene I made (I'm fairly new to blender and 3D), following a tutorial (then another one saying the same thing), but it doesn't seem to work the way it should. I did everything right, exactly like the guy in this video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtKQwN9P0sE.
The thing is that I tried doing it in a new project too and it worked. So something in the scene is causing this, I supposed...
Any idea ? Thanks

Just tried to do the simulation in another project then append it. It worked. Still, I want to know why I can't just make a new one there

Since it works in the new scene it's hard to say what causes these problems without knowing what the settings are... if it's important to know the exact reason you might consider uploading the *.blend file and add it to your question: https://blend-exchange.com/


text:
Blender to unity, object rotated
I'm working on a video game project with a friend. I use blender and he uses Unity, but we have a problem trying to make a very simple object, a stone.
We made a first stone elongated on the x-axis that seems to work, then another elongated on the z-axis. This one doesn't work well and arrives lying on unity. I tried to apply a -90° rotation on the X axis and it didn't work.
What can I do?

What format do you use to export ?

fbx ! But we found out. I just need to -90° on x, apply, the put 90°.


text:
A restricted view I can't turn off in Solid & Wireframe preview
For some reason I keep getting this strange restricted view only in solid & wireframe viewport mode. Doesn't appear in render preview. See the attached pics to see what I mean. Can anyone tell me what this is and how to remove it please. In solid preview:
And in render preview:

It looks like you've enabled a Clipping Region. Select it again from the menu or use shortcut ALT + B to clear it:


text:
How to skew precisely a specific part of a mesh
I'm trying to bend a object containing patterns at a specific locations. I need the bend to progressively skew the mesh and the patterns.
I've tried different things like using a curve or a lattice, but it's not precise and does not provide what I need.
I also tried directly editing the mesh, but still get the need to skew some part of it.
Here is the starting piece (it's hard to see but note that its height tapers from left to right and the pattern also get thinner):

Here is what I'm trying to get at (on the left bend, quickly mocked up in Photoshop after manually cutting and rotating parts of the mesh)

If I edit the mesh, I'm able to extend by extrusion the cut mesh to find out the place where the skewed point needs to be, so i know where to deform from/to, it's just there does not seem to be a tool to do it.

A lattice would seem the perfect tool, but since we can't exactly align the lattice with the mesh from object mode it doesn't work.
Some advice on how to get there would be much appreciated.

I think that a lattice would be a great tool.  As far as aligning it exactly, well, it's difficult (requires a bit of on-paper math) but it is possible.
However, an alternate, that's easier to set up, is to just use a mesh deform modifier:

In the bottom set of arches, the mesh deformer has been shapekeyed after the bind, creating (linearly interpolated) skew.  Note that the mesh deformer is displayed only in wire, so that you can see the interior mesh.
Note the top set of arches, which shows the setup but with the mesh deformer in the basis shapekey.  Notice that the loop cuts aren't placed evenly, as a lattice would, but are placed arbitrarily, wherever I want.  If you want to using snapping to align these edges with some edge of your base mesh, that's perfectly doable.

Thanks, I never used shape keys before so I'll explore that. I thought that shape keys and meshdeform were more made for deforming over time.

They can be, but any tool that can be used for animation can be used for modelling.  There are no rules regarding it; one can see animation as just modelling over time.

Somehow I can't make it work. Does the mesh used to deform have to be larger ? I had my bounding mesh aligned perfectly with the mesh to be deformed, then added mesh deform to the mesh to be deformed and bound it to the bounding mesh, then added basic shape key, added a second shape key (relative a value=1) and moved vertices for second shape key.

Yes, the mesh deformer needs to completely enclose the deformed mesh.

Just tested with two default cubes and one can deform the other. I actually have an unknown issue where I can't seem to bind my mesh with the bounding box that I created. Clicking Bind does switch the button to unbind but seems to do nothing, as it's instantaneous. Whereas with the two default cubes, its takes up a few seconds.

It seems I have non manifold edges in the mesh to be deformed, maybe that's why.

Well, same problem, not binding after cleaning non-manifold faces.

The problem comes from the default resolution beeing too small. as explained in here. ''While the implementation could be improved to better adapt automatically, the issue is that this is a long thin mesh. Mesh deform involves a grid solver and that grid resolution at 6 or lower is not enough to capture the long thin shape'


text:
I want an already rigged game character (Both Deform and Control) to be able to fall apart/be animated in pieces, and still be usable in unity
I have rigged my character using a deform armature that will be exported to unity, as well as a control rig, that I will use in Blender to animate the character.
The deform armature bones have copy transform constraints to link it to the control rig, and the control rig has the IK for the arms, hands and feet.
Pictures (#1 & #2) show my working setup. Pink is Deform rig, with copy transforms, mutli-coloured is control rig with custom shapes.

That's all working well.
The hard part is I also want to create some animations where the character falls apart (They are robots with limbs that aren't connected to one another). IE: I want the upper arm to be able to disconnect from the lower arm (Both are in a linked bone chain, in both rigs, currently).
I know I could technically just split all the bones in chains on my deform rig, since they will still follow the control rig, and when I want to animate is falling apart, I  turn off the copy transforms influence and I do the animation on that rig, but I am worried about losing the armature hierarchy for use in unity.
I have tried to duplicate the deform rig, separate those bones and add another set of copy transforms to the original deform rig, so I would basically toggle between the control rig and new "broken" rig to animate. But this didn't work, I think because the original deform rig has the bones all connected.
The picture (#3), shows my attempt at this and how when i move the hips on "broken" rig, the whole spine bone chain follows, and when I try move the two arm pieces, mes doesn't move cause the deform rig is still one chain. (Pink is the deform rig, octahedral is the "broken" rig). You can see the two copy transforms there too.

Is there any better way for me to approach this? I'm still fairly new to rigging, so I might not know of a constraint or work flow. I know I could do a quick fix if it was just for an animation in unity, but this is for a game.
Thank you so much!

"But this didn't work, I think because the original deform rig has the bones all connected." As long as bones in deform rig have connected trait, this cannot be done in Blender.  Make unconnected and do a quick test in Unity to make sure that doesn't screw anything up.  It shouldn't screw anything in Blender except auto IK.


text:
How would you model this led strip?
I'm quite new with blender, so this might be a stupid question.
I want to model and render something like the attached image, but I'm not able to keep the light normal to the helix curve. It keeps twisting in a weird way.
I tried with the screw modifier and with the curve modifier and I was not able to model it.
And how would you add the straight end to the strip?
How would you do it?

Here’s one way to do it:

Start with a profile mesh for the strip:

Add a Screw modifier with 0° for the angle and a suitable number of iterations:

Add an Archemedian Spiral curve with the appropriate parameters to get the rough shape, and in the curve properties, set the Twist Method to Z-Up.

Add a Curve modifier to the strip object with the Deform Axis set to Z:

The trickiest parts of this seem to be getting the normals correct on the extruded mesh produced by the Screw modifier and getting the twist right on the curve. Checking the Calculate Order box in the Screw modifier options seemed to help with the normals, and using the Z-Up twist method for the curve produced the right twisting.


text:
How would you animate this surgical thread?
I need to make an animation of a surgical thread similar to this one and I'm wondering what would be the best way to do it?

Right now the best workflow I thought was:
-Adding a middle shape that act as a collision object with a transparent material, and add a very stiff cloth cilinder controlled with a empty hook. Then skin would be animated with some bones.
I want to know if you know a better or more efficient way to do this!
Thanks!

with the curve's handles hooked to bones?


text:
How would you get this light beam effect?
I need to create this kind of light beam style render and I was wondering if it was possible in Blender or if it should be done in post/AE.
I tried different approaches but I'm not getting a good result.
-First approach: volumetric cube: The rest of the light in scene gives it a very washed out look. Maybe isolating just the top emissive part and compositing after could look good.
-Second approach: I tried also adding a particle system with some planes. Each plane had a light beam with an alpha channel but didnt work out.
Do think there's a better way to do it?
Thank in advance,
Jose

There are probably a few ways you can do this through "traditional lighting" (volumetrics and whatnot), however, I think it would be most easily accomplished by using a high brightness for the "light source" and then run the render result through a Glare node in the compositor. Unless there's some special reason you're trying to avoid post, I think this would be the easiest way.

you could use this trick (a Layer Weight as factor between an Emission and a Transparent): https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/227887/how-can-i-make-cone-look-more-like-light ... same topic: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/260698/how-to-create-light-beam-glow-effect


text:
New vertices snap to wrong position, can't change the snapping distance
I scanned my car with photogrammetry and moved the pointcloud from colmap to blender, to reconstruct the faces by hand.
All worked fine in version 2.79. I had the pointcloud visible as orientation in one object and in another object (reconstruction-face-object) I drawed vertices, that snapped to the vertices of the pointcloud (to get that position).
Then I updated Blender to version 2.92.0 just to use a photogrammetry plugin, which gives me the advantage to add an extra OpenGL Point Cloud with colored points (only for extra visible orientation), next to the normal pointcloud and my reconstruction-face-object.
My Problem in version 2.92 is:
If I try to make a new vertex in my reconstruction-face-object and move it to one of my orientation pointcloud verteces from the other object, it first snaps there, which is fine but then jumps to the nearest vertex of my reconstruction-face-object if I confirm the transformation and if the distance is too low.
With higher distances to any vert of my reconstruction-face-object, there is no problem with that workflow.
I tried to figure out how to decrease the sanpping distance, but only found grid snapping stuff.
Do you have any idea how to solve this?
Thx

Ok, after a long search and a break I found the solution.


text:
Eevee Render white blast problem
I set up a short test sequence for an animation and I want to render it with Eevee to render it fast. But as you can see, white explosions occur at some points in the pallets of the tank. I tried many things but couldn't find a solution. Since I don't use Eevee much, I don't know what to do to prevent this from happening? Anyone have any suggestions for a solution?

First Frame

Second Frame

Hello, it's really hard to see what is the problem. Could you post a higher resolution image ?

The images are quite small, it is hard to see what your problem is. Also, it may be helpful to upload your blendfile to https://blend-exchange.com/


text:
Must Vertex Group Edits Remove Current Before Assigning New?
For reference I am using Blender version 2.79 on Linux.
I have a large cylinder without end caps...2160 rectangles. I am manually selecting certain faces and then created Vertex Group. I can then deselect or select the group as expected.
Then I went to change the selection by removing some of the faces...then assign to the same Vertex Group name. When I go to select (I have previously hit assign with a few different faces from the original) the changes are not honored...it reverts back to the set which was originally there prior to the edits. Assign will never alter this group after the first assign. Is this expected? Shouldn't I be able to edit my selection and hit the assign again? FYI, I have not locked or assigned weights.
I discovered a workaround...just prior to editing I select, remove what is there (everything...the group is now empty), make edits, and then assign (if I forget to hit assign I will lose everything and the group will start over empty). Now if I select the correct faces/vertices show up. Is this workaround a result of some behavior which is expected, or is it a bug?

To rephrase this it seems that assign is really "union"...anything previously set which is not currently set is not removed. The only "remove" I can find is to remove all...and then add back in just the vertices I'm interested in.

As it turns out it seems it is just bad wording of how the controls are labeled. When it says "remove" for a vertex group it does mean that. When it says "assign" it is misleading...it should instead say "add" or "insert".
I do wish there were another button "assign" which would set the vertex group state to the current selected set of vertices...removing ones previously selected but not currently selected.

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


text:
Constrain Transforms Empty to Sphere Vertex (Not Sphere Itself)
I'm very new at this, and have found how to constrain an empty's transforms to an object...but I'm unable to constrain an empty's transforms to a specific vertex of an object (I'm using solidified icospheres and the vertex is essentially the "north pole"...but I plan on having several special locations).
It seems that if I place the empty on the correct vertex, select the empty, and then create a transform constraint I can only pick the sphere as a whole for what I constrain to...not a vertex on the sphere's surface. It won't let me go into edit mode in the middle of picking what I am constraining to, and the vertex itself is not individually available for selection.
When my sphere rotates or translates I want several empties to stay on the surface of various special points on my icosphere, and the plane of the original point of mounting the empty should remain parallel to the tangent of the sphere surface (I'm placing empties with xy plane tangent to the sphere surface).
Perhaps this is better done with parenting (though I'd still need constraints for location, scaling, and rotation) plus constraints? Think of it as marking the location of cities on a globe and knowing which way is up or north.

You can use "make vertex parent" to do that:

It is some kind of the invert of the hook:

Place the empty as wanted
Select it
Shift select the sphere
Enter edit mode for the sphere (maintaining the empty selected)
Select the wanted vertex of the sphere + 2 other vertices: because 3 vertices are needed to define an orientation plane
The make them parent of the empty using CtrlP

The result is visible here:

Thank you, that worked! I had been stuck in part by trying to select a non-existent vertex in object mode...I hadn't realized I could select both and then go into edit mode. One question though...will I be guaranteed that the empty will remain tangent to the sphere surface rather than the face of the individual triangle (the picked points are non-colinear points which are close to tangent, but not actually tangent).

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


text:
Extending Animation Nodes
I'm using Blender 2.79 on Linux with Animation Nodes (Python 3.6).
I'd like to add a stopwatch directly as a node within Animation Nodes, without the Invoke Subprogram. Currently my stopwatch works correctly as a script subprogram, but I can't use it as easily as I'd like and I'm also trying to learn how different add-ons can work together (imagine an add-on extending an add-on instead of directly extending Blender...one add-on importing classes from another add-on).
Seeing how an independent script works is easy, I'm having trouble getting my stopwatch script to directly import AnimationNode in my stopwatch, and I'm not sure, but I suspect I need to do this to make my stopwatch part of Animation Nodes. Can my add-on somehow import AnimationNode? My import statements have all failed even when the path is added to where AnimationNode is, e.g., this fails:
from animation_nodes import AnimationNode
ImportError: cannot import name 'AnimationNode'
Would I have to modify Animation Nodes directly without the possibility of extending it via a separate add-on? I really hate the idea of directly modifying someone else's add-on.

Before starting your own fork, try using a script node

Addons are python modules (or package of modules) in the case of animation nodes it is all in submodules. You need to dig into the submodules to find what you need - from animation_nodes.base_types.nodes.base_node import AnimationNode class mynode(bpy.types.Node, AnimationNode): Then you need to register your node and add it to the add node menu. It isn't as straightforward as you would hope. I think adding a file for your node inside the existing addon is going to be the easy way. Have a look at dev guide


text:
Is this Python3? MultiFile Add-On Tutorial
I'm using Blender 2.79 with Python 3.6 on Linux. I'm trying to learn to set up a multi-module add-on and this is my reference:
Multi-file Add-on Tutorial
Unfortunately I am finding in cases the ".append()" or ".values()" code is failing. I am thinking perhaps this is because I am using Python 3.6 and perhaps the tutorial uses Python 2 (I'm completely new to Python as of a few days ago). Is there a Python version mismatch causing the errors?
If so, is there a recommended multi-file/multi-module add-on tutorial around using Python 3.6?

It's python 3.  If you have issues with code re .append() and .values() post the code.  For multiple examples of multi file addons  look in the addons folder. python package docs

It was actually the above URL on Multi-file Add-on Tutorial which had those errors. In one declaration there seems to be a typo where dual curly brackets are used in one case, then square brackets in the other. However, I tried both ways. What I get is that ".values()" are not valid for modulesFullNames in that example. I forget which .append() was complained about.


text:
Animation Nodes: Trigger Action, Save Value if Frame Matches?
I've created a simple stopwatch (Blender 2.79, Animation Nodes 2). I have certain frame ranges I want to time. I have a list which has two elements...a start frame, and a stop frame.
Upon reaching start frame I need to zero my stopwatch by setting a math "subtract" node equal to the current frame. I can easily detect a boolean compare of start frame and current frame, but then I need to push the value into my "subtract" node. I do not see a node for "if true alter some variable in another node, else leave the variable alone".
I'm good with detecting a true/false boolean condition...I'm lost on using that condition to trigger an event to save data for future use...to push data onto a queue or stack or array which I can refer to at the end of the video. Is there an animation node I can use to trigger a write to a math node or append to a list? Will I need to figure out how to link my boolean detection of start and stop frame to a python script, followed by the python updating the math node or list?

While I think it's possible to dynamically change the values of a node with a script, I assume the better option is to use a Script node to store an ID property, e.g. in the scene. For more complex data types than single float or int values you may have to define a custom bpy.propsproperty.
A script with a boolean for the reset as input and a single float for the time as output should work.

import bpy
scene = bpy.context.scene
frame = float(scene.frame_current)

if reset:
    scene['last_reset'] = frame

time = frame - scene.get('last_reset', 0.0)

N.B.: Interestingly, the ID property is only retained if the frame is manually converted to a float. If the float conversion is removed (frame = scene.current_frame), the property vanishes every time the reset flag is cleared.

This seems to be exactly what I need, but I am wondering about something. My AN script doesn't seem to allow defining a class directly in the script. Is this a restriction in the script node that it must be procedural? I was also having trouble using a module and importing that within the script, but I think that's just my lack of python knowledge.

I'm not aware of any restrictions about the script. Defining a class, both within the script as well as in another module (created as additonal text file in Blender with py extension) that I imported, worked for me. Do you perhaps try to import a module that you installed for your regular Python installation. Blender uses a bundled Python version and you might have to install modules for that one separately. If there's a informative error message in the script node, that could also help to resolve the problem.

I compiled this Blender 2.79 from the Fedora 27 RPM so that I could use ffmeg. Otherwise this is configured the same as the stock 2.79. If I import sys, and then run "sys.version_info", regardless of whether I produce the script inside of blender or externally, I see "(major=3, minor=6, micro=5, releaselevel='final', serial=0)". This version of Fedora does have both python 2 and python 3, but since the script from within animation nodes says 3.6.5, I have to assume the internal Blender version is the same as 3.6.5. However, this could be a bad assumption on my part.


text:
Animation Nodes: Dynamic Text?
I am trying to make a stopwatch in Blender 2.79 with Animation Nodes and Cycles renderer.
I have an imported movie strip which is 30 fps, and in the animation nodes I am reading the frame number, then dividing by 30. As I play the strip I can see the number correctly track seconds via a viewer animation node.
I also have a text object. I have this as an overlay in one corner of my video strip when viewed in the video editor. Currently it just reads "0:00:00.00". What I am wondering (since I am new to python on Blender...and fairly new to Blender itself) is what the preferred method would be to bind my text object to be updated from the animation node? I have the decimal time in seconds within nodes, but I just do not know how to copy the information from the nodes to the text object.

You may see https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/50653/how-to-switch-different-sequences-of-characters-with-animation-nodes/50675?s=1|7.6035#50675

You might also want to state if you want to be steered in the right direction or given a complete answer.  You have stated you have nodes presently.  If you show your current work that would improve your question.

Use the text object output node in BAN Blender Animation Nodes.
This is not a tutorial on BAN.

I am still digesting this and other answers, but I have not heard of BAN. Is there a tutorial or description URL which might explain this? FYI, I am trying to understand what direction to go to learn this and still get past this automated text editing hole in the road.

@D.Stimits By BAN he means Blender Animation Nodes. We mostly say AN directly though. Have a look at the documentation, this and this might help you.

Thank you @AtomicBezierSlinger! This got the job done and I was able to learn what I needed to learn. I now have a stopwatch meeting my requirements :) I am curious about one other thing, how to save the nodes of my animation nodes as if it were a library for import, but I'll add that to a new question rather than here.

@D.Stimits.  The adventure continues.


text:
invoke_props_dialog: callback during change?
While creating a custom pop-up (via invoke_props_dialog) with two integer values (in this case representing a start frame and stop frame) I find that the "execute()" method (upon clicking the "ok" button) is when values within my class (derived from Operator) actually get a chance to be used. Intermediate changes to those integers (prior to clicking "ok") cannot be accessed.
I am wondering, if I wanted changes to my start frame integer and stop frame integer to always enforce that start frame is less than or equal to stop frame is there a way to do this prior to clicking "ok"? I am wondering by what method I can take an edit to start frame or stop frame which breaks this condition and force the other to a valid state.
Example, someone increasing start frame integer, as it exceeds stop frame, would force stop frame to increase so as to never break requirements...and to be visible prior to clicking the "ok" button. Is there an ability for invoke_props_dialog to name a callback to run upon any change?

The props_dialog shows Properties, so you can define set/get functions for them like for any other Property to control changes: https://docs.blender.org/api/2.79/bpy.props.html#get-set-example
Example for your case:
class SomeOperator(Operator):
    bl_idname = "test.some_operator"
    bl_label = "Example"

    def set_start(self, value):
        if value > self["stop_frame"]:
            print("start frame has to be smaller or equal to stop frame")
            self["start_frame"] = self["stop_frame"]
        else:
            print("setting start frame")
            self["start_frame"] = value

    def get_start(self):
        return self["start_frame"]

    start_frame = bpy.props.IntProperty(set=set_start, get=get_start)
    stop_frame = bpy.props.IntProperty()

Notes:

You have to define both a setter and a getter (you can't define only a setter, the property will return always 0 if you set no getter).
In the setter/getter you should call the operator's properties with self["property_name"], not self.property_name. This way you can get/set the value without calling your own setter/getter functions (which would lead to infinite recursion).

This looks like what I need. Is there some master API reference which might have told me about set= and get=? I'm looking at link (sorry, not sure how to make that a link, hope this works), and the "parameters" information completely lacks this. I'd like to be able to look up this sort of thing and have not figured out how to do so other than asking other people.

Properties are used a lot, they are not specific to this dialog. Look at the main page of the Blender API docs and read the "Quickstart", "API Overview" etc. articles: https://docs.blender.org/api/2.79/contents.html. Details about Properties are described in the article I linked in the answer.


text:
Cylinder's shape changes completely upon bending using simple diffusion, can somebody help?
I hope things are going good.
I am very new to blender, and I am facing a simple problem that I can't seem to fix. I have created and rotated a mesh cylinder by 90 degrees. Now, when I try to bend the cylinder by applying a simple diffusion modifier, it looks like this instead of looking evenly bent. Bear in mind that I applied the scale and rotation transformations before the bending process by using Ctrl+A; I have also brought the origin to geometry.
Any help would be highly appreciated; thanks in advance!

Do you mean Simple Deform   ? You can't bend edges, those are always straight between 2 vertices. You can only move vertices around to change the edge direction. So you have to subdivide your mesh along the axis of deformation, to bend it.

It's not easy to tell you what you have to do since I see no orientation of your model nor how you want it to be bend, the only thing I know is the Simple Deform is not so "simple" and works a bit unintuitive. Maybe you can get an idea how to bend something in a certain direction by reading my answer here: How to make this tire loop

Hi guys, sorry for the lack of clarification. Yes, it is Simple Deform, my bad. So here's what I did exactly. 1) I deployed a mesh cylinder. 2) I selected the top and bottom faces of the cylinder and added bevels to smooth out the sharp edges. 3) I used the scale tool to make the default cylinder longer. 4) I added extra vertices along the length of the cylinder (I added about 8 using ctrl+r). 4) I used the rotate tool to rotate along the x-axis and lay it flat like a log. 5) I used ctrl+a to apply the transformations. 6) I use the simple deform modifier and that image is the result.

I will try to redo the whole thing to find mistakes in my tracks. In the meantime, I would appreciate your valuable input.

I got it to work, thanks!


text:
2 of my blender files that I have been working on crash as soon as i try to open them. My other files still open and i can open a new one as well
Laptop Specs
Hardware Overview:
Model Name:   MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro17,1
Model Number: MYD92LL/A
Chip: Apple M1
Total Number of Cores:    8 (4 performance and 4 efficiency)
Memory:   8 GB
System Firmware Version:  10151.41.12
OS Loader Version:    10151.41.12
Serial Number (system):   FVFF56FFQ05F
Hardware UUID:    4B912DC4-BD08-5BA2-A1AB-BFB773429A10
Provisioning UDID:    00008103-000605383AE2001E
Activation Lock Status:   Disabled
System Software Overview:
System Version:   macOS 14.1.1 (23B81)
Kernel Version:   Darwin 23.1.0
Boot Volume:  Macintosh HD
Boot Mode:    Normal
Computer Name:    Elvis’s MacBook Pro
Username: Elvis Monteiro (hunt)
Secure Virtual Memory:    Enabled
System Integrity Protection:  Enabled
Time since boot:  1 hour
Storage: 320GB left out of 500GB
Issue:
A couple of my .blend files refuse to open and crash immediately when i try to do so. I'm still able to open other files that I worked on, even ones that i created before these two. I have tried restarting my laptop and also tried creating more storage space by transferring files to my ssd. Nothing has worked.I'm not very good at computers and I'd really appreciate it if someone could look into this and help me get back the long hours i put into these projects.
Here's a screenshot of the blender crash report down below:

Have you tried to open a new file and append the collections or objects of the broken file with the menu File > Append ...?

What can be a solution is to open a new file and append the objects from the corrupted one.


text:
Cannot get rid of loose edges and vertices on plane

I have these random edges and vertices which I can box select and delete, but I am wondering if there is some way to get rid of them quickly since they are all on the same plane. I've tried all of the options in edge mode Shift-g but can't seem to select them all. Mesh cleanup -- loose edges and vertices does not work since they are not floating but sitting on the plane?
Thank you!

It would help to have your blend file with https://blend-exchange.com/ or at least screenshots of the geometry.

Goto edit mode and select few vertices/edges/faces of that plane, then press Ctrl + L to select all the lined vertices/edges/faces and the press Ctrl + I to invert selection (i.e, which are not linked to the selected plane) and now you have hopefully selected the vertices which you want to delete.


text:
How can I get one grease pencil object to appear inside another?
So, I've been having this issue for the last couple of days and I'm sure its my lack of knowledge on how Grease Pencil Objects work and/or interact with each other.
Let me give some details. I originally sketched out my concept as ONE grease pencil object and separated all the layers according to Inks and Fills. After realizing I would not be able to add effects to just one portion of my artwork (namely, the flames, which is currently the only thing I am animating,) I researched how to move them to their own grease pencil object and was successful in doing so.
But I ran into the issue where I always see the flame outside of the skull... When I attempt to put it under the skull by layering the flame grease pencil object over the skull, I still see it through the skull.
Also, for some reason, although I moved the flame into its own grease pencil object, I see the skull grease pencil layers under the fire collection in the layers panel, and when I switch to the skull in the layers panel, the effects that were previously on the flame now show on the skull...

My aim is to only have it showing in the skull's eyes, nose and through the key hole while retaining separate effects on the flame and the skull.
I've included pictures showing what I see.

Looks like you just encountered the most commonly asked grease-pencil question on BSE. You can easily resolve your issue by enabling z-pass in the properties window.
Go to View Layer $\rightarrow$ Passes $\rightarrow$ Data $\rightarrow$ and check off Z.

Since you have chosen to create overlap with more than one grease pencil object, we have no choice but to enable z-pass for both of your objects. Enabling z-pass allows all grease pencil objects to be treated like 3D objects. That means, grease pencil objects can be placed behind or in front of a 3D object instead of having them drawn over the camera window.
Also, since you only have two grease pencil objects, your quickest fix would be to disable z-pass for the one that will show in front. In this case, your Skull.
Within your Skull, go to Object $\rightarrow$ Viewport Display $\rightarrow$ and check off In Front

As a final note, if you're still curious why you have duplicate empty layers in your original grease pencil object, it is most likely because you chose one of the first two options upon separation.

If you don't want empty copies of layers, separate your new grease pencil with Active Layer instead. Your new separate grease pencil object will not contain the same aftereffects that you applied to the original. So, you will have to reapply them.

I know I am extremely late but thank you! This fixed both of my issues.


text:
Animation deflating
Hello blender community
i was trying out a few things for a simple animation
and wanted to copy over a keyframe and found that the animation suddenly
deflates. as hilarious as it is it makes me wonder why that is.
i tried to copy the first keyframe with ctr c in the dopesheet to make it also be the last
frame so i can make it smooth. i put it on the last spot and deleted the one
that was in the row before (because it was unsmooth)
as i read it is supposed to work normally and i believe i have used it before i am now fairly intrigued and confused. i would appreciate if someone can enlighten me.
here is the link to the deflation
thank you everyone in advance for your thoughts!

Please edit your question and include the gif in your post. I don't have an active slack account and can't view your animation.

@Marie to access the link one should have account on slack. Not good. Use internal image here on BSE (2MB limit) or some other free sharing site.

ive tried to show it directly. either the format was not supported or the file is to big and i dont know how to make a gif smaller. linking it gave me the website has denied the request.

In the absence of anything much to go on, are you padlocking out all dopesheet strips (at the left) except the destination strip?  It's a precaution I take because all too often I've dumped copies of keyframes somewhere I hadn't intended.
As a security blanket, I also place the cursor into the destination strip and highlite that strip.
The timeline cursor is also set to where the keyframe is to be pasted to.
You could also try pasting to a point beyond the last keyframe at the destination, drag them back after.
Hope this helps...


text:
cant change the texture of a model
sorry if this was asked before
i have not seen it.
feel free to link me
if it is somehwere here.
my problem is that suddenly i can not change a texture for one model anymore.
when i entered the file it was all pink. i had not moved any texture away.
it found all of them quickly. the one for the problematic mesh only after the
3rd time and now i am stuck with this. the texture is fine and applied as it
should be, but i can not change anything in texture paint mode. i cant even access it and this is what my nodes look like.
that is not the name of the texture and i cant delete the node.
i am using cycles and the latest blender version.
anyone has a clue whats going on?

Your material is a linked library, you have to make it local, then you have to make the texture datablock local too


text:
deformation between keyframes
i am trying some simple animations on blender and keep getting this problem.
between the keyframes that i have set there is suddenly some distortion.
the time before that i got that iwas able to get rid of it by cleaning the keyframes, but not this time.
apologies if that was asked before. i couldnt find an answer so far and i dont know what it is that i am doing wrong.
here is a gif to see my problem.

i am thankful fur every kind of help.

I can't tell from looking at the .gif, but you may find looking at the animation curves in the "graph editor" window to be helpful. look for extreme peaks or steep slopes. If I had to guess, I would say that your animation is trying to spin to 360 degrees or more, and is instead quickly spinning back to 0 degrees. You can correct that in the graph editor by translating the offending keyframe 360 degrees up or down the y axis.

you led me to the solution, thank you very much! :)


text:
Working on small objects in MM but Add menu adds relatively giant objects
I'm Working on small objects in MM but the Add menu adds relatively giant objects compared to scale I am working. I can't figure out how to get them down to size and when I zoom out I cannot see new object.
Is there a way to tell Blender to add a new object in a smaller initial size?

After adding new object press F6 and set acceptable size or radius of the object.
Next time, during session, then you add same object, blender will remember that size.


text:
No FFmpeg Video In Panel (ver 2.79) in Fedora Linux
I am a beginner and have managed to create "Star Wars Crawl" in version 2.79 on Fedora 27,  but cannot see any FFmpeg output option.
I have gstreamer and VLC installed and can properly play MP4 sample files in it.
As a last resort I reinstalled Blender.
What do I need to do to render my animation in MPEG format?

What is 1.79 version? Maybe 2.79? Do you have ffmpeg installed in your system?

Sorry it was a typo,  I am using Version 2.79 and have ffmpeg installed on Fedora 26.

Try to install ffmpeg, if you didn't do this. ffmpeg contents non-free libraries, so it doesn't install by default (instead of Ubuntu).
su
rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm
yum install ffmpeg

[root@study peter]# dnf install ffmpeg
Last metadata expiration check: 0:12:14 ago on Wed 04 Apr 2018 14:54:07 BST.
Package ffmpeg-3.3.6-1.fc26.x86_64 is already installed, skipping.
Dependencies resolved.
Nothing to do.
Complete!
[root@study peter]#

Here's my approach (right or wrong, its what I do):
*A I try to find a setting in the output dropdown that gives me the following encoding options:
*B Pick MPEG-4 (if you need to revert back to MPEG-2 That should still work, just make sure that you go the extra step in the Audio Codec section below this section and set it to mp3 - hint if I am also rendering out sound I set this anyway).
*C I personally try to use the H.264 codec, that does NOT imply that you should, its just what I do. To get a better sense of the codecs, and their respective containers, I recommend looking at to place in the manual.
Place #1
Place #2
*OUTPUT Whatever combination I pick (If I'm still unsure about it), I can see if it is going to work or not, by hard-coding the file extension of my desire, cross my fingers, and render. Sometimes I will get a default extension like *.dvd; sometimes my first extension may not work (such as *.mp4), so I try *.mpg, *.mpeg, etc...
The process seems pretty effective for me.
I will recommend this:
Try to stay away from getting lost in codec availability for your OS for now, as that is a huge topic, and you may even get lost in it. Your Blender implementation of it can probably be solved a lot quicker.

I do not have any "FFmpeg video" option,  when I left click the file format box I only get 3 options for "Movie": AVI JPEG, AVI RAW and Frame Server.  If I have FFmpeg installed and can play a sample MP4 file in VLC I cannot understand why is it not an option in Blender!?

The problem was that Fedora does not default to an active ffmpeg! I downloaded the .gz version and made a Desktop link to it.  I now have the relevant formats.  I had not realized Fedora defaulted to limited formats! I just thought for completeness I would add this comment because it might help others! Thanks


text:
How can i use the fill tool in order to not fill the layer underneath?
I need the square in the image to be filled in and to block the layer underneath any idea how to?

Try moving the Fill/Colors layer above the Lines layer and it should block out the line-art. Layers higher up in the Layer Summary hierarchy tend to hide the strokes that are in the lower layers.


text:
Previous strokes deleted when i add new keyframes?
For some reason when i add new keyframes as to animate, the previous strokes get deleted? on top of that the fills remain too? Im very new and this the first time i've ever seen something like this

you should look up auto-keying (the enabled record button at the bottom-middle of the screen) and maybe also Additive Drawing (the snowflake in the top left)

Do you add your keyframes manually or do you have Auto-Keying on? I would say that the strokes are missing because of onion-skinning, but that doesn't seem to be the case or you would see the faint outline of each brushstroke in the next keyframe.

On second thought, it could possibly have something to do with masking or your layers being in a certain order. Layers higher up in the Layer Summary hierarchy tend to hide the strokes that are in the lower layers.


text:
Blender grease pencil file more than 1GB, causes frame drops to 5 fps during playback. Any tips?
I'm relatively new and have done a couple projects already, issue is beforehand I've never had my files reach more than 1 GB in size so this issue wasn't present. It was until I've started using colors via the fill tool and all of a sudden my playback suffers fps wise. I tried looking through the internet and there are barely any answers regarding grease pencil file reduction since i believe that is the cause of the lag. Im not using any modifiers as of now and im really hoping to find answers here since the project is practically unusable in this state.
I was using blender version 4.1 beforehand facing the same issue and switched to 4.2 unfortunately facing the same problem
I have 16GB of RAM, AMD Ryzen 5 3600 CPU,AMD Radeon RX 5700 GPU, i know my specs arent the best but im suprised that i cant run blender at this point

Do you use a LineArt modifier? That's a consistent performance sinker. If not, it would be worth to share your file (or a mockup one if you can't share your current work), so that we can dig in and see what could be the cause. Grease Pencil can be quite complex.

I actually have no answer for Grease Pencil in particular. It is not even quite clear to me if you already had a large file more than 1 GB and it ran smoothly before you added colors with the Fill tool or if adding colors made the file larger than 1 GB and it started lagging.
So this is just what I say in general: I cannot point out often enough on this site that there is a reason why the FPS setting is in the Output properties. Blender is not a gaming engine, large complex resource-intensive scenes are not supposed to always be able to run in realtime when you start playback. Sure, it tries, but often it does not succeed.
The setting is first of all needed for correct timing of simulations matching the target FPS later on and to be used if you directly render to a video file because other than an image sequence, a video needs an FPS setting. That is why the FPS are located in the Output Properties.
If you need to check whether an animation looks correctly, do so by making a quick viewport render from the menu View > Viewport Render Animation.
If you insist on watching it in realtime in the viewport you can try to make the scene less intensive by reducing complexity of modifiers for viewport display or completely disabling the modifiers for the viewport, disabling visibility of objects that are not needed for checking the motion, disable viewport overlays etc.
But in most cases with very complex scenes you will never or hardly reach the desired target FPS, but of course this all depends on the specific scene and what there is to reduce complexity.
(Sorry, this is no real solution but it is too long for a comment and I often get told my explanatory comments seem to be qualifying as an answer and I should post them as that.)

Hmm, i guess there is no simple fix for this after all. About file size , this is my largest one yet and its a large jump (120mb to 1.08GB) from the previous even though all i've added was more colors. Another issue is that when im in this project my entire blender begins to slow down and become extremely delayed in inputs and even freezes up causing the unresponsive prompt from windows. If this is due to just straight up hardware not handling blender that would be nice to know.

@Whatisdadogdoin Is it just colors (RGB values) or textures? Maybe high resolution textures? An HDRI for the environment? Files packed into the scene or assets? Hard to tell where it comes from without the file. If the only thing that was changed is RGB values, this should not increase the size very much.

Okay this might sound weird but i remembered that I've pasted a fill onto my onto lines layer and it caused the lag in general. So i check now and delete it via multiframe causing the lag to dissapear and the file size change from 1.08GB to 81mb??? Im kind of surprised that it bugged the program out so much but seems to be fixed either way your insight is useful nontheless


text:
Can't export scene in USD
I have a big 2GB scene I need to export from Blender to Unreal Engine and I tried to do it through FBX but got a crash of Unreal in the middle (maybe too heavy on memory usage, I have 32 GB). So, I'm trying to do it with USD but it doesn't present as an export option in my Blender 4.1 for Open SUSE TW Linux. I can't find a proper addon here. I tried to use these but haven't succeed to build them from sources or use a prebuilt one. How can I add USD export to my Linux Blender? Or how could I import the scene to Unreal simpler?

It's there in the Windows version and seems to be built-in rather than supplied as an addon. This is the Manual section about it and the File > Export menu item is "Universal Scene Description (.usd*)".

How to enable the export?

No idea. I don't use Linux and it's there by default under Windows.

What is your installation source? Is it a trusted source? Also, you might be happy to know that 4.2 is released (and the extensions pages you linked are the replacement for addons from 4.2 and up, but that's not solving your issue regardless).

It's a repository package.

So, not from Blender's nor OpenSuse's official channels? The thing is, USD is part of vanilla Blender and shouldn't need any addon, so it isn't normal to not have import/export options. I'm not familiar with OpenSuse in particular. But to me, it sounds like a recipe for trouble if you go out of trusted sources: not only you can get malfunctioning softwares, but you can also get actual malware instead. Blender seems available on software.opensuse.org so I guess you should at least be able to download a legit OpenSuse-trusted Blender from there.

Repository package means it's included in distributive official sources.

Maybe try Blender's snap build then. Or divide your scene in smaller batches and export in FBX.


text:
How to get rid of black reflections on the underside of an ocean modifier
I created an ocean modifier from a plane then applied a refraction node to the ocean with the intent to make an underwater scene but it creates some black reflections depending on the angle of the camera. How do I fix it?
These are the ocean modifier settings:

Is there anything black in your scene (objects, environment) ? Also, a plane object is a bad idea if you want to have realistic water : it should be a cube, an object with volume. Is your camera inside the water, or outside ?

There isnt anything black just the surface and a clear HDRI. I was first just going to make the surface as I was following a video, but I follow the same steps as him and he doesnt have this issue. Ill link the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeQfq-Sc-lM


text:
Can I easily keep just the external faces of this Mandalorian helmet to 3D print? (I don’t want any of the internal geometry)

I have a Mecabricks file of this helmet. Each virtual brick is a part of the model and I can delete all but the ones associated with the exterior but each brick has a lot of detail and so is impractical for 3D printing.
Literally all I need are the external faces so I can easily 3D print it.
Can I easily keep just the external faces of this Mandalorian helmet to 3D print? I don’t want any of the internal geometry.

Does this answer your question? Remove parts of object, which are inside of another object

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/43150/removing-internal-geometry-before-3d-printing


text:
Value of one of my axis does not change when I read the data of my armature
I want to read the data of my armature (specifically each bone) but the problem is the value of one of my axis does not change
This is a part of my code
foot_L = bpy.data.objects['metarig'].pose.bones['foot.L']

for iteration in range(1,15):

        foot_L.bone.select = True
        print("foot_L.location =", foot_L.location)

In a comment to an answer you say, in effect, that the code snippet in your question doesn't reflect the code that's showing the problem.  Please include a complete blend file that does show the problem, or nobody will be able to help you. (How to add a blend file)

If you want the position of the bones as they appear in pose mode, here is the loop for your print.
for bone in bpy.data.objects['metarig'].pose.bones:
    print(f'{bone.name}.location = {bone.location}')

If you want the position of the bones as they appear in edit mode, you don't want to use the object, but rather the armature, and you need to print locations for both head and tail:
for bone in bpy.data.armatures['metarig'].bones:
    print(f'{bone.name}')
    print(f'\t head = ({bone.head[0]:5.2f}, {bone.head[1]:5.2f}, {bone.head[2]:5.2f})')
    print(f'\t tail = ({bone.rail[0]:5.2f}, {bone.tail[1]:5.2f}, {bone.tail[2]:5.2f})')

Although you might want to make the print of the positions prettier.

this was a sample of my code for one bone but with this command, I have not got the correct answer I'm looking for a command for this issue

I understand you
I meant you use the .location command like me in your code but these command does not return a correct value to me
for more explanation, I can say this: I need the location of some bones which are not translated but their position changes because of the effect of the other bones
in my model, I just rotate and translate some bones, and others are influenced by rotated and translated bones


text:
Degenerate Polygon
I lost all of my FBX files so I’m having to remodel them in Blender and import in Unreal.
The parts are pretty basic shapes just cubes with cylinders at different sizes. I’ve imported three with no problem, but then on the 4th import it gives me the error:

Mesh Name: [Block] part name: [Cylinder] could not be created because all of its polygons are degenerate.”

So after trying to remake the model in a fresh Blender project to no avail, and some quick detective work, I’ve noticed that it’s only the cylinder meshes that give me this error.
I went back into Blender, started a brand new project, added a default cylinder mesh, exported the default cylinder mesh to FBX, and then tried to import and again I am met with the could not be created because all of its polygons are degenerate error.
I then went back into Blender in Edit Mode, Mesh > Clean Up > Degenerate Dissolve and dissolved anything within a 1mm radius and still I get the degenerate polygons issue.
If I don’t “join” my meshes in Blender and export the FBX, then every part of the model except for the cylinders get imported successfully.
What am I missing here?

Make sure your import scale in unreal is at least 1, not 0.
That's what I was doing wrong, had accidentally reset my scale to 0 from when I had it at 10.


text:
Rig a character to an existing skeleton
I recently bought a game kit for unity which has rigged characters included.
After importing a character fbx in to Blender from a Unity fbx, I believe the characters were originally rigged in 3DS Max due to the bone naming. The skeleton is in the right order bone wise, but it looks all messed up in blender, which looks like a display issue.
I would like to use the same skeleton on a new character meshes.
Any idea how I could use the same skeleton, so it displays properly in blender and rig my character meshes?

Rigs are not always compatible across multiple software applications. For instance, a control rig created in blender would need to be converted into a "game ready" rig before exporting it to function properly in unity.  A game ready rig tends to have far fewer bones than the control rigs created in blender and other 3D software for animations. Each software, while similar, has its own way of reading the information. It may be possible to constrain your current rig to a rig that blender recognizes for animations in blender that can be baked on the existing game ready rig for use in unity, however if you are unexperienced it may be very difficult for you to parent a new character to a copy of the existing rig with the proper weights.  There are many add-ons and tutorials out there that could help you with this process if you would like to learn more. One of my favorite resources is CGDive. Here is a link to one of the tutorial series but feel free to check them out on discord where you can ask questions related to rigging, find more information, and helpful add-ons.
https://youtu.be/INK__p3CWUw


text:
How do I solve my clipping issue?
Hello fellow Blenderers,
So I'm creating an animation in blender and I keep running into this clipping planes issue. I am using grease pencil, a 2d plane, in the 3d world and that may be causing some issues I'm not familiar with but my issues are that:

I cannot zoom in past a certain point (which is extremely frustrating when trying to draw)
When I toggle the Clip start and end options, making the range larger and smaller I am met with a clipping gray screen anytime I try to move the cursor.
I am unsure, but I turned down the resolution of the overall scene to 640x480 because I am aiming for a vhs recording effect. I don't know if this has anything to do with the clipping I am experiencing.

I have included a couple of screenshots so you can see what I see when the clipping occurs. Any help would be greatly appreciated.


text:
Why won't my scene play in the Video Sequence Editor?
I am having an issue in my attempt to view my current scene in the VSE. I have imported two mp3 files into the sequence editor as well. Every time I press play, the play head barely moves, and when it does, it is very choppy with no sound. I am assuming there is a severe lag happening somewhere.
I have also tried to mess around with the strip proxy and cache after chatgpt suggested the resolution and memory may be an issue causing the lag.
Here is a photo of what I see. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

If it's about lag (low computer resources for the scene), you can test it out by rendering the animation and watching the result.


text:
How can we use same import paths in PyCharm and Blender?
A friend and I are working on an add-on to Blender. It does some complicated geometry work and so we have developed the code using PyCharm and pytest. We have a handful of commands that get added to the menus, with all those classes in one file. The helper functions want to be in separate files, imported into the main script that gets loaded into Blender.
Imports that work in PyCharm, such as
from foo import Foo

Work fine in PyCharm but the files are not found in Blender. If we move the files into a subfolder "modules", they are found in Blender, but in PyCharm we would have to say
from modules/foo import Foo

So that won't do in PyCharm and our tests won't run.
I think we could set up a try/except that will try first one import statement and then the other, but that seems nasty.
I've read other Q/A about this, but they all seem to be from long ago and I am hoping that there is a more modern and effective way to get what we need. I'm open to being told to read things or watch tutorials, and, of course also open to a really easy answer posted here.
Thanks!

You can try setting up a symlink between the blender environment and your pycharm environment so the files are at both locations at the same time and update accordingly

Tempting! Seems iffy to have a symlink in something that's in Git and GitHub, though ... Thanks!

That's how one of the most  (if not the most) popular extension  for blender development for VScode works, so I don't think it's that problematic. YMMV https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=JacquesLucke.blender-development

Thanks! I'll see if that helps us.

All imports in all the files in your addon should be relative: from . import foo, from .. import bar, from .foobar import Foobar, etc. Do not use the wildcard imports: from X import *. Do not use import from a package: from A import B where A is a part of your addon. Do not import the addon from within the addon: import my_addon or from my_addon import B. This will resolve the circular import.
__package__ will be the addon's root folder name which is the __init__.py file.
If you want to access any part of the addon like for using with pytest you should import the addon as a module import my_addon or from my_addon import X.
If you want your addon to be importable without bpy like to be able to from my_addon import utils where utils is a non-bpy module. Move all the top level import in __init__.py inside register() and unregister() functions. So when you import my_addon it does not import any Blender's modules.
bl_info = {
    "name": "test",
    "author": "test",
    "version": (0, 0, 1),
    "blender": (2, 83, 0),
    "location": "",
    "description": "",
    "category": "Generic",
}

from . import this_module_DOES_NOT_use_bpy

@this_module_DOES_NOT_use_bpy.time_it
def register():
    import bpy

    from . import this_module_DOES_use_bpy
    bpy.utils.register_class(this_module_DOES_use_bpy.TEST_OT_test)

    this_module_DOES_NOT_use_bpy.do_this()

def unregister():
    import bpy

    from . import this_module_DOES_use_bpy
    bpy.utils.register_class(this_module_DOES_use_bpy.TEST_OT_test)

    this_module_DOES_NOT_use_bpy.do_that()

Thanks ... I had thought I tried that. One issue is that two of the files in the import refer to each other, so however I set it up, either the Blender import didn't work or my tests wouldn't run. The two files were small so for now I've just combined them. I will have to study package as I have not learned that yet. Your final paragraph is over my head, my fault, not yours. I'll study ore. Thanks!


text:
Blender appears to putting in unwanted keyframes
I’m just starting animating soft body objects, have hit something and I don’t understand why is happening.
I have my model in T pose and the first 20 frames are to get an arms by the side pose.
I committed all bones at the beginning of the animation and have moved the hand IK around until it’s where I want it and also the elbow thingies to make it more fluent.  That works fine.
Now I want to (for this demos purposes) lift the leg up and only move the leg from this point.
I select all and commit the keyframes at frame 20.  I now select the foot IK and move it in the Z direction at frame 28.
Frame 20 to 28 work fine but 1 to 20 have a keyframe now that Blender must have added that causes the foot IK to lift and drop.  The first frame and frame 20 are identical.  Something has been added in between.
The only things I have changed is the IK hands and elbow thingies (1 to 20) and the IK left foot (after frame 20 at frame 28)
Why is this happening?
I don’t want the foot to start moving until after frame 20 and I thought that by committing all the bones keyframes at 20 would have enabled this.
Blender file and video in google folder link.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/19Tcm8kIcrqiBJ6VHtkU4LJsA78_IobVr?usp=share_link
Thanks.
Andy

As you can see in the graph editor, you are using Automatic bezier handle type, which tries to interpolate smoothly between the 3 keyframes available, making the foot to move between frame 1 and 20 also, even if there is no keyframe in that region and the two keyframes at its boundaries share the same value.
To solve, select all the needed keyframes, press right click > Handle Type > Auto Clamped (shorcut V).
This will result in having the foot still between frame 1 and 20, and correctly showing a line between its loc keyframes, stating that no move will happen in that region.

HI, thank you for taking the time to explain.  Andy.


text:
Sliding Edge to exact location without distoring UVs
Something simple, yet giving me a headache. Basic situation, I have a modular wall with UVs and textures. I duplicate the wall and want to cut a hole in it for door. I add 2 edge loops. And here is the problem. How do I slide it to the excact position I want without distoring UVs? If I use slide (GG), UVs are updated correctly, but I can't slide the edge to excactly the position I want. Alternatively, I can select the edge loop and using Transform window put exact location for the loop, yet this way doesn't update UVs so the edge on the UVs stays in the old position. How can I achive combination of the two, providing exact value for location and having UVs updated?
Regards

Nowadays, GG snaps.
I nearly always have my Snap set up with 'Snap To: Vertex', and 'Snap With: Active'. Then, on a measured model, you can work like a carpenter: wherever possible, taking measures and angles from existing parts, by duplication. You can also have 'jig' objects around your workspace, whose only purpose is to be snap targets, having themselves been snapped to your model.
A version of that might be:

ShiftD duplicate a vertex, as a target
G .. (+whatever) the vertex, with a numeric entry
And then GG slide an edge to snap to the target vertex.

Then you can M > By Distance, merge the target into the model.
But for repeated measures, it might be easier to have a jig available to snap to.


text:
Alembic export and reimport misses meshes
i am working with Geometry Nodes and i want to export my instances with animation to alembic. My ultimate goal is to use it in Unity.
I found this tutorial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-CKa69OhZw), though after reimporting to check on the file, it does not show my meshes. the animation is stored, though my meshes are not on top of each point.

(left: Geometry Node. right: reimported Alembic)
I am quite lost and don't know why it is behaving as it is. Any help would be appreciated.

this is how the reimported Alembic looks like. Can't find any mesh information in there.

//EDIT: At the end I've put a solution if you need multiple separate objects instead of one mesh.
I don't know which version of Blender you are using, the link below the tutorial says it works for 2.92 or higher. But Geometry Nodes have changed a lot since 2.92 and maybe this is why you have problems.
For example, in the tutorial he says he cannot use the Remesh modifier on the GN object. In newer versions this is no problem, you just have to use a Realize Instances node as last node before the Group Output and the Remesh modifier works as expected.
And this might also be the reason why you have problems. When creating something similar I had the same result like you - the animation was there, but no meshes. The option Use Instancing on Alembic export dialogue didn't make any difference.
As soon as I plugged a Realize Instances node in the GN nodetree, the imported Alembic file worked as expected. The difference to the tutorial is that you get one object with an animated mesh instead of many animated objects. But if you're planning to use a Remesh modifier on it that should be no problem, on the contrary this makes it easier.
However, since I'm not familiar with using Alembic files in Unity, I have no idea if this helps with your problem.
If you need separate objects: The imported Alembic file which lacks the meshes does indeed have multiple separate mesh objects. So if you want to get the result from the tutorial, all you have to do is select all those animated objects, then Shift+LMB click to select another object which has the mesh you want. Then press Ctrl+L > Link Object Data.
Now you have created instances of the active object on the animated objects. The advantage of this method is, you can now change cubes into cones or whatever you like which is not possible if you realized the GN instances before and then re-imported an Alembic file with animated mesh.
Step by Step:

First you import your alembic file. It has objects indicated by their origin points but they seem to lack their meshes.

Let's say you want the objects to be cubes. Press Shift+A > Add > Mesh > Cube.

I moved the cube to the side so it's not inbetween the alembic objects, but that's just me. Now after adding, usually the cube should be selected by default and the alembic objects are deselected.

Now you have to select all alembic objects while keeping the cube selected and active. This depends on your scene, what other objects there might be etc. In my case I could simply hit A to select all, the cube is the active object because it was already selected. Another way would be to hit B to Box Select the other objects. No matter how you do it, in the end all alembic objects and the cube have to be selected, with the cube being the active object (brighter highlighted outline than the other objects).

Next you have to transfer the object data from the cube onto the other objects. To do that, press Ctrl+L > Link Object Data. Every alembic object should turn into a cube now.

The cubes are much too big. But you can scale them down with the original.

To do that, select the original cube and you can scale it down with S, either in Object Mode or Edit Mode. The disadvantage of scaling it in Object Mode is you will only see the effect after apllying the scale with Ctrl+A. So I suggest you do it in Edit Mode. Press Tab to switch modes, then select the complete mesh with A, then scale it down with S. This way you can immediately see the effect on the alembic objects. You will see that after pressing Tab all objects switch to Edit Mode. Since all their data is linked, it doesn't actually matter which one you select to scale it.

The good thing about the linked data is, you can always change the mesh in Edit Mode and all other objects will get the new shape, too. For example, here I merged the top vertices of the cube to make it a pyramid.

That's it, after you finished editing the mesh you can go back to Object Mode with Tab. You don't have to keep the original cube, you can delete it. If you want to edit the mesh you can always edit one of the other cubes as long as they are linked. If you don't want them to be linked anymore to make individual changes on some of them you can go to the menu and choose Object > Relations > Make Single User > Object & Data.

I am relatively new to Blender and Geometry Nodes. The Realize Instances helped with exporting the Meshes.
I am not trying to follow that tutorial exactly. Just used it as a guideline for exporting.
Yes, it would be way more helpful, if all objects are separate, though for some reason linking a object to the animated objects, or even a newly created empty does not work. I am using Blender 3.

Linking object data should work... Are you doing it as described? What do you mean "newly created empty"? You can't transfer mesh data from an empty to mesh objects, since an empty has no mesh. Do the following: add a cube to the scene with the alembic animation. Next step is you first select all the animated objects. Then select the new cube with Shift and left-click, this should keep the other objects selected and make the cube the active object (the outline is highlighted compared to the others). Then press Ctrl+L  and choose Link Object Data. Now the animated objects should become cubes.

@Coccolino I've edited my answer to give a detailed explanation on how to transfer the data from one object to the others. I hope it helps.

thank you so much for your very detailed description and helping me with this problem. Is it the case, that it is not possible to link any geometry to a "Empty" (Shift+A > Add > Empty > Plain Axes)? It was driving me mad. I exported the alembic again, so it wasn't an "Empty" object

@Coccolino No, an Empty is like the name says, empty. It doesn't hold any mesh data. And it is an object type, it's not like it's a mesh object that simply has no vertices. A cube for example is a mesh object. When you go into Edit Mode and delete all vertices it is empty as well, but still a mesh object. You can add a new mesh with Shift+A in Edit Mode to make it a cube again... or a sphere if you want to. And those empty meshes are the alembic objects - that's why you can give them a new mesh again.


text:
Align multiple object on target mesh
i want to cover my target mesh completely with lots of small objects. I don't want to do it by hand and ideally i can control the size of the small objects and maybe even animate them.
The objects should orient to the normal of the target in that specific location and be placed in a grid. the target actually is not important as it will be deleted afterwards
i did this mockup to illustrate my goal to you guys

my approaches with array and shrinking didn't work out. any help would be greatly appreciated

Hi :). What have you tried so far? Particles? Geometry nodes? Instancing?

Geometry Nodes
With Geometry Nodes, I can start you off, and perhaps some other users will come up with better tips.
a. First, select your main object, go to edit mode and select the target faces where you want  Suzannes to go.
b. Go to Object Data Properties and then with the + sign add a new group.  Assign your selection to this group, and make sure that works by selecting and deselecting.  Call it a name like "loop".

c.Then, in a bottom window open geometry nodes, create a new node tree, and copy the nodes which I have here.  Shift+A will open the list of possible nodes.

If you are unsatisfied with the rotation, you can add an Align Euler to Vector node.

e. Select the group input node, and press N to pull out the options, with the + sign, add an input like this.

f.  Connect the input to the selection node on "instance on points"

g. Go back to your modifier tab and in the geometry nodes modifier  choose your "Loop" group

h.Here is the result:

thank you so much for your detailed step by step. it definitely pointed me towards the right direction. I will have to dive into that whole thing, as I have not worked with geometry nodes before.
my objects are now distributed to every vertex, which is not necessarily evenly spread. is this possible to do this with nodes as well, or do i have to do a even retopo of my target mesh?

As you say, the "Instance to Points" node,  exactly positions the Suzannes on each vertex.   That retopo idea is one approach but not the only one.

Notice that, I can make the main object invisible, leaving only the Suzannes visible by disconnecting it from the "Join Geometry Node".  You can bring in surfaces or objects only to use their points as positions.  I hope this helps.

You can certainly achieve similar effect with Hair particles.

Add a particle system to your object and change it from Emitter to Hair

In Render section, set Render As to Object. In Object submenu, pick the object you want to be scattered - in my case it is Suzanne, the monkey. Checking different checkboxes and setting Scale Randomness produces interesting results, definitely try it :)

In Emission section at the top, you can control the number of objects generated. I distorted a UV sphere as my object to demonstrate - 250 monkeys are enough for my liking.

If you want a grid layout as in your example picture, go to Emission -> Source. Leave Distribution on Jittered, but uncheck Random Order, set Particles/Face to 1 (You want a single object on every grid face) and the Jittering Amount to 0. Higher in Emission, set the Number of hairs sufficiently high - to the same or higher  number as the number of faces you have on the object.

Hope this helps!

You can check out this guide for similar process - covering a plane with trees.

thank you very much for your time and detail tutorial. unfortunately i couldn't get an even distribution on my target mesh with that method.


text:
How to properly export/import to Unity?
First, am rotating so the height becomes the Y axis. Then, am converting it to fbx and saving it inside Unity with the transform set to
As you can see, am leaving the forward as Z and the up as Y. This works fine and all, the scene is even exported with the scale (1, 1, 1) and the rotation (0, 0, 0), but its children have, for whatever reason, a localRotation.y of -180. Why? And how to set it to 0 without rotating it (for scripting purposes, I need everything consistent and I simply can't rotate the object becase that doesn't fix the issue).
Ultimately, I want a localScale of (1, 1, 1), a localRotation of (0, 0, 0) and a localPosition relative to the center of the scene per object (which already works, really only the -180 is the problem)


text:
stuck keyframes on dope sheet

I am trying to make an animation and the problem that I am encountering is that there are a few keyframes that i cant seem to delete inside the DOPE SHEET , they all are highlighted in yellow all the time, i don't have them locked or anything so I am having a really hard time understanding what is going on. I have tried deleting them from the action editor, still nothing changes, keyframes are still there and the rig ofc does what the keyframes are supposed to do

did u scroll down all the way? if yes, pls provide blend file so we can check it out.


text:
Realistic Shoe lace animation
I stumbeled upon this video and I was wondering how to achieve such an animation of tieing a shoe lace: https://www.copenhagenstudios.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/03/CPH40_leather_mix_off_white_light_blue_off_white_light_rose_CPH46_leather_mix_cream_desktop.mp4
It seems there is also a cloth sim added to a rigged shoe lace. Does anybody have a clue how this might have been done? My attempts to rig a shoe lace (even without physics) have not been very successful yet.
Thanks in advance!
Dario

Use a curve with the vertices hooked to bones or empties?

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

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/97749/how-to-simulate-a-rope/ https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/183459/modelling-a-full-windsor-knot-on-a-necktie/

Okay, thanks for the info!


text:
How do you merge unused verticies to a ring of verticies
Ok, so I am a bit new to blender and am struggeling with a problem. I am making a file holder with a screw on cap and that is working fine. The problem is that I used a seperate mesh to make the threads. I did remove most of the excess verticies and everything is fine except that in cura it creates a face across the top. I believe it creates this face because of the extra verticies that are under the mesh. Is there a way to remove excess verticies and marge all connecting points to where the faces of the mesh are connecting?

Would you mind giving us any hint of how your geometry looks? And where you think the excess vertices are and which area makes problems? At least a single screenshot so that we get an idea what is going on there?

i strongly recommend providing two images: 1) what you have now 2) what you wanna have to make it crystal clear what you want. Thx for your understanding.

Hi, Korban, welcome.. it does sound as if you might have to plan ahead for good topology when modelling this one.. it turns out that a picture displaying the wireframe is pretty essential here. You can also share your .blend on https://blend-exchange.com/ . Without at least an illustration, this post is flagged 'unclear'.

Hi, sorry about the confusion. My problem lies where the threads meet the rest of the face. Here is the wireframe mesh: https://files.chipmunk.land/i5qykhex.png           Here is the solid mesh: https://files.chipmunk.land/z8is0p7h.png                 Here is the link to the blendere exchange: https://blend-exchange.com/b/Gk8k4e6l/

You could use boolean but anyway it would need some rework afterwards so you can do it manually instead:
Hide all the faces except the screw, use the Bisect tool to cut off its bottom:

Unhide the rest, cut off the top faces of the cylinder:

CtrlE to Bridge Edge Loops the screw and cylinder:


text:
How can I lift the grid above the mesh itself for the car roof like it is on the car hood? Or just make the grid see-able through it somehow?
How can I lift the grid above the mesh itself for the car roof like it is on the car hood? Or just make the grid see-able through it somehow? It is quite difficult currently to for example select the necessary vertices.

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

X-ray mode - Alt + Z

[EDIT:  I see you're looking to see the "grid" of mesh verts through another one, not the global cardinal grids.  As answered above, use x-ray mode.
I would add to this, try checking "wireframe" on in "Overlays" and adjust the opacity to your liking.]

I'm assuming you just need visual representation of parallel lines at even intervals.   This solution is a little bit old-school, but it's guaranteed to work and might be useful to someone in a similar situation.

You could create a plane and do a simple subdivide...

Set the viewport display to "Wire"

Now you have a portable grid that you can move/rotate (or scale) this piece of geometry exactly where you need it.

X-ray helped (alt + z), but the problem was i had extruded a single vertice, which seems to bug blender out.


text:
My donut is wavy instead of bumpy after using procedural displacement!
Hi I am following blender guru's 2019 tutorial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rh5gAQLtOls) and this is what I want it to look like:
But it looks like this, slightly wavy instead of bumpy:
This is my node setup:
and this is his
What should I do to make my donut bumpy instead of wavy?

It looks like your donut is bigger than his.  Try  reducing the Noise Texture scale a little and increasing the scale on the Displacement node until you get a rougher look.  It could also be that your Subdivision Surface mod has too few levels.

Have you Ctrl-A applied the scale of your donut?


text:
Make several copies of an animated object
maybe it's a stupid question, but I want to make a copy of an animated object that coresponds to its position and deformation every 10 frames, for instance. Like a blown by the wind curtain, a mesh when it is still another when it is moving, like making a stop motion animation, but with trails. I don't know if I'm clear. Hope you can help me.

Please add a screenshot/sketch and/or a link to a video how it should look like

something like this? [1]: https://i.sstatic.net/k3K3R.gif

Actualy, like Dupli-Kate from Invencible, or something like that haha
https://imgur.com/kAfDTaj
You have the animation of a character, bu you want to have a copy of the mesh each x frames. Like its leaving a trail of copies of himself.

I know how I'd go about doing this, but not while only using Blender. If you export your animation as a png sequence with a transparent background, you can then pull it into After Effects to (either manually or using effect filters) pull out every nth frame and hold it in place for however long, adjusting for camera/background movement. As this isn't a pure Blender suggestion, I've left it as a comment rather than an Answer as it may not be of use.

the "tedious" way is to just render the animated object with transparent background as image e.g. png.
Then in video editor you do it like this:

in the lowest insert the whole animation.
and e.g. on 11th frame insert just the 11 frame until the end, on 21th frame insert just 21 png and so on
but i am sure there are more clever ways which aren't so tedious...

Ow, thanks! It's very usefull, this may work for some issues, but i realy need the 3d models, unfortunately!
Very greatful for your help!

And what makes you think that this is not a 3D model?

On blender 2.8 there was a DupliFrame Function. That's more or like what I want. Even so I have the volumes on that case I don't have all of them in the same time.


text:
Use grab tool towards mouse cursor
I want to improve my workflow and move objects without having to tipe the negative sign before moving them. Is there a way of making things move towards the cursor direction?


text:
Is there any out of the box solution to cut diagonally a mesh with multiple cuts?
It is my third day using blender and well, the first time I have asked a question in a stackoverflow-like forum, so bear with me.
I have added a round cube to my scene which I have turned into a sort of platform, now here's what I want to achieve:

I would like to cut the mesh in a diagonal fashion with all cuts ideally having the same distance in between each other and that the resulting meshes also have rounded edges.
So essentially, I would like to end up with a platform that is made out of rounded edge "beams".
Is there any way to do this with the features that blender comes with or would I have to resort to some external solution? Either way I would appreciate any kind of guidance, even if it's a complex solution with many steps.
Thank you very much.

Just add a plane to the scene, rotated 90 so it stands up straight, and 45 so that it is rotated on the diagonal

go to your modifiers stack and add add a solidify and an array modifier,

adjust the values of these two modifiers adding thickness to the solidify and offsetting the planes in the right axis

Now to your round cube add a boolean modifier set to difference with the plane selected as the cutting object.

Hide the planes, adjust the settings and positions of the objects to your liking and you are done.

Thank you! this will do just fine. On an additional note: Is there any way to make the resulting "beams" singular meshes?

@konamiscc duplicate the round cube (just in case you change your mind). Go to the modifiers and apply the boolean, then select all in edit mode.  Press "p" and choose "By Loose Parts", it will save all the pieces as separate objects.


text:
blender camera moving setting
I want to manipulate the camera in Blender. I've managed to make it move along the curve, but I'd like to set it up to move along the curve, pause in the middle to rotate slightly, and then continue moving along the curve. However, it's only moving along the curve without pausing for rotation. I would appreciate some advice.

Pleae add an image of your settings! Window > Save Screenshot menu in Blender then follow How to upload an image to a post. Also see: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/299334/3-6-camera-follow-path-need-to-smoothly-slow-down-the-camera.

i assume, that you have created an object constraint "follow" path, and pressed the animate path button like this:

what Blender does by this, is adding an animation to evaluation time:

so if you select the curve you can see that the "evaluation" field is green.
If you open the graph editor, you will see the so called "fcurve".

if you click on "modifiers", you will see, how the curve is generated:

of course, you can manipulate that by changing values, but in your case, i would just delete that modifier, hover over the evaluation time field and press I to insert a keyframe.
then e.g. go to frame 50, enter 50 in the evaluation time and hover over it again and press I again, your graph editor should look like this:

now just select that one keyframe:

press shift-d x and move it:

then press shift d again and move it to the right and on y axis to 100:

if you play the animation now, it should pause.
during the pause time you can animate you camera as you like.
Hope that helps.

Your comment has been really helpful. Thank you so much for assisting in many aspects.

@biginner If the answer is correct please mark it as such   ;)

If you use the Follow Path constraint, don't click on the Animate Path of the constraint, otherwise it will create a Generator modifier for the curve, you can still remove it: select the curve, open the Graph Editor, open the N panel > Modifiers > remove the modifier.
Now instead create some keyframes on the Offset value of the constraint. You could also create some keyframes on the curve: select the curve, go into the Data panel > Path Animation and keyframe the Evaluation Time.

Your comment has been really helpful, too. Thank you so much.

@biginner If the answer is correct please mark it as such ;) - click on the checkmark left of the answer


text:
blender alpha animation
I want to create an animation where an object starts with a transparency of 0 and gradually becomes 100. However, when the transparency is set to 0, there is still something like a shadow remaining. How can I remove it?

Hello have you set the Blend Mode to Alpha Blend?

Hello and welcome. Please use a title that matches the content of the post. It should read like a question, be descriptive but succinct, unique and identifying, summarizing the problem so that anyone searching for similar issues is likely to find this. Remove anything superfluous, avoid using words like "this", "help with", "issue" or "question about", instead describe what "it" is. Remember, your title is the first thing visitors see, answers you get depend heavily on it. See What is the problem of asking “How do I do this?"


text:
Liquid is blocked by something. what should I do?
I'm doing a liquid simulation in Blender. The water is supposed to flow through a pipe, but it seems to be blocked by something in a diagonal direction and is overflowing instead of continuing to flow. What could be wrong, and what should I fix?

Does this cylinder effector have a wall thickness? Is the mesh manifold? If not, you should check the Is Planar option. Apart from that, why do you have set a Surface Thickness of 0.5? I can only guess the dimensions of the objects, but such a thickness makes me think there is not much space inside the cylinder for the fluid, although it seems to touch the surface. How large are these objects? Maybe it would be best to upload your file, because in my own test it works as supposed.

Thx. it solved. I changed the thickess and mesh option.


text:
Can two liquids affect each other in Blender?
There are two liquids: one has high viscosity and doesn't flow well, and the other is water, so I want the water to push the high-viscosity liquid. Is it possible to implement this? If so, could you give me some advice? Is it possible to do this without using plugins like Flip Fluids?

I don't think you can. Viscosity is a domain property and 2 domains can't interact with each other.

No, just as @Lutzi said, this is not possible with Blender's Mantaflow. Or to be more precise, since the title of your question only says "two liquids affect each other": you can have two liquid sources i.e. flow objects affect each other, but they will both be the same. So, since the viscosity and overall material is set by the domain, you cannot have two different liquids affect each other. They cannot have different settings, not even different colors (even though in smoke simulations you can have different smoke colors for different smoke emitters within the same domain).


text:
Bridge edge loop problem
Hello im trying to use bridge edge loop to make a hole but instead it covers it entirely.

I have tried it on the other side and it works fine.

Bridge Edge Loop is used to connect between two loops not to make holes.
If you want to make a hole then inset the face in which you want hole then select the inset face and then right click (in edit mode) use Loop Tool > Circle then delete the face

Of course you can make holes with Bridge Edge Loops: hole in cube.  Actually in cases like the one shown in my image it is my preferred method. It's all a matter of having the right geometry for that so I guess something is messed up there when in some places it worked and in others not.


text:
.gltf 3D object imported as empty, can't see it
When I import the 3D object that I made of a map using QGIS, it gets imported as an empty class in Blender. I don't think the file is corrupted as it is easily viewable in Microsoft 3D Viewer, so I'm guessing it's something on Blender's end. How can I get this file properly into Blender?

What do you mean by "an empty class"? Please add an image of your Blender window which you can do via the Window > Save Screenshot menu then edit your question and add the image to it.