text:
Why can I not achieve a smooth surface when subdividing?
I'm not sure whether I have created the polygons correctly but I can't seem to get a smooth surface when subdividing. Prior to this I also reduced the complexity of the mesh by reducing the number of polygons, but less polygons made it even worse when subdividing. I've also deleted doubles, converted to tris to quads but with no real success. Can anyone help? thanks

Here I have redone the topology but I still get uneven surfaces. I'm also trying to convert the odd tri's into quads but I can't seem to do this without having to rebuild the topology?

The first step is having clean topology consisting of quads only. Triangle faces will cause the issues you're seeing.

The only way is to redo the topology. If you don't want to do it manually perhaps Instant-Meshes can be of help (https://github.com/wjakob/instant-meshes).

Thanks guys! I have re-done the topology - please see last image above ^ . I get better results but i still do not achieve a circular smooth edge when subdividing. There aren't many triangles left but I'm not sure how to get rid of them without having to redo the topology. (I've tried to the tri to quads already)

This is a simplified example how the topology should look like to get good results with subdivision https://i.sstatic.net/aBqOe.jpg

Are you starting from a sphere?

Your re-topo isn't clean enough.For subdivision to get a good result, you need a proper edge flow, which basically means evenly distributed quads along the edge, with opposite sides connecting each other. So that new edges added by subdivision modifier can form a continuous, closed ring. That's why it's better to avoid boolean operations if you decide to use subdivisions later, since boolean almost always messes up your topology. For how to properly cut a hole on a subdivided surface: https://topologyguides.com/post/124120926080/adding-holes-to-a-flat-surface

aha! great, thanks a lot! I'm a blender noob but this all makes much more sense now

@barkest I'm usually a CAD monkey so yes I did start from a sphere. I then used the knife tool to cut out the edges, separate the surfaces, off-set it, and created new faces to build the chamfers. I then deleted some faces to create a more quad-like topology....but from what i've gathered this is not the correct way in building quality smooth surfaces....

I took a default sphere with 32 segments

Into edit mode and select a single vertex. When selected then bevel it ctrlshiftb

with the faces still selected right click and select loop tools. If you do not have them then they are in the add ons (google how to use add ons from preferences). Select circle

this will give you a nice circle shape to work from.

Add knife cuts as shown or alternatively select the two verticies you want to join and press j

Select the circle edges and ctrlshiftr to offset the edge loop you have selected. This will give you 2 new edge loops.

Select the inner faces and extrude inwards three times using the normal orientation

You will end up with this topology

Add a subdivision surface modifier x 2 and set the auto smooth to 60

You can put it into a circular array and tweak the depth/scale of the hole

this is tremendous! thank you!


text:
emulate bool Custom Property
I'm using Custom Properties (/ID properties) to store a dynamic list of properties I expose in a panel (cf dynamic PropertyGroup / Panel).
I can easily handle all of the property types I'm interested in. All except boolean properties. For some reason, Blender does not support ID properties of type bool.
I would like to emulate bool properties using an integer (for example).
My question is: how can I render a panel with a checkbox that will somehow change the value of that integer?
Thank you,

If you want checkbox then you can't, that can only do bpy.props. See http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/2075/assign-datablock-to-custom-property.

But can I create a checkbox and do whatever I want with it? Also, (how) are bpy.props exported using FBX?

A bool property is required: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/35007/add-a-checkbox-in-the-tools-ui/35011#35011

It's actually pretty easy to do:
1 - Create a proxy PropertyGroup that will represent your bool properties: that proxy should have just a "value" field of type BoolProperty. Also make sure the update function of that property will actually change the ID property:
class BoolPropertyProxy(bpy.types.PropertyGroup):
    value = BoolProperty(name="Value", update=bool_property_update)

def minko_script_bool_property_update(self, context):
    context.active_object[self.name] = self.value

bpy.utils.register_class(BoolPropertyProxy)
bpy.types.Object.bool_properties = bpy.props.CollectionProperty(type=BoolPropertyProxy)

2 - When creating your ID properties, if the property is a bool then create and store an additional BoolPropertyProxy:
obj['properties'] = props
for key, key_type in props.items():
    obj[key] = get_property_default_value(key)
    if key_type == 'bool':
        bool_prop = obj.bool_properties.add()
        bool_prop.name = key
        bool_prop.value = get_property_default_value(key)

3 - In the UI, if the property is typed as a bool, use the corresponding proxy instead:
for key, key_type in obj['properties']:
    if key_type == 'bool':
        for bool_prop in obj.bool_properties:
            if bool_prop.name == key:
                col.prop(bool_prop, 'value', text=key)
                break
    else:
        col.prop(obj, '["' + key + '"]', text=key)

The value is stilled stored as an integer, but it's displayed as a checkbox which is much more convenient. I guess the same "proxy" idea can be used for pretty much any type.

ID properties can't be displayed as checkboxes:
import bpy

def draw_func(self, context):
    layout = self.layout
    ob = context.object

    try:
        ob["myBool"]
    except (AttributeError, KeyError):
        layout.label('No ["myBool"] property.')
    else:
        layout.prop(ob, '["myBool"]', toggle=True, slider=False)

def register():
    bpy.types.OBJECT_PT_custom_props.prepend(draw_func)

def unregister():
    bpy.types.OBJECT_PT_custom_props.remove(draw_func)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

They will always display as integer or floating point numbers, and also stored this way.
You need to use bpy.props.BoolProperty() for checkboxes.

I know that ID properties cannot be bool. That's why I want to emulate bool ID properties. But I need bool ID properties because only ID properties are exported in FBX and I need boolean values.

I guess you could simply change the FBX script to use a bpy.props property. Cast the value as needed. There's no difference between ID properties and bpy.props properties internally anyway.

AFAIK it's a much more complicated process/implementation than just using the proxy method I describe in my answer.

Perhaps, but also a smaller overhead (because it would only cast on export).

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Color Mesh Multiple Colors
I've seen How to fill a mesh with solid color, and it is not quite what I would like to do.
Essentially, I am programatically building a mesh in python, then showing the user. I'd like to be able to set each face a different color.
For example, I'd like to do Domain colouring like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_coloring , but in 3D. Is there any way that I can do this?
Help is much appreciated

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


text:
Problem with Fresnel Artifacts in PBR Shader
I'm creating a PBR all-in-one Shader. it is suposed to function as a streamlined connection between substance/marmorset and blender, where u only have to connect the textures into the material inputs and get a PBR metallic/non metallic fresnel shader.
the core structure of the shader is ready and works mostly fine. But the normal maps are not completely working well (maybe there is sth wrong with the normal orientation. maybe somewhere the normal inputs do not get handled as a normal map anymore. but i cant find where). also if you do not have a normal map assigned and you dont put the "normal power" (intensity) to zero, you get strange artifacts. (solved)
(solved)
Also there are strange lines on the mesh surface that should be really not there. i think it has to do something with the fresnel effect.

I dont know what i did wrong but maybe you can help me. Here i created a little introduction into the main functions of the shader.

The problem should lay in the left shader group "demonic inputs". I am not hundred percent sure but i believe this group causes the problem. but i cant find a solution. thx for your help! :)
Here you can download the blend file: Download Blend File

okay i removed the normal map from the fresnel node's normal input for now. this removes the fresnel bug. but i also loose the normal value for the fresnel calculation. if someone has a more professional workaround, let me know :)

For the glitchy normals when not using a bump/normal map: When you have a loose shader node with no connection to the normal inputs, Cycles defaults to the mesh normal to avoid shading artifacts. However, when the shader normal is connected to a group input, this doesn't happen. So the shader evaluation normal instead gets initialized to whatever the group input socket default was. You can fix this by connecting the Geometry node's "normal" output to where your normal map would go (if you had one). This just explicitly tells Cycles to use the mesh normal.


text:
How to Switch Cloth Object Ready for Sewing Simulation into Printable Template
I'm making sewing patterns in blender, i.e. several pieces of flat fabric. Typically I create each piece as part of the same mesh object, and join them with edges so that the cloth simulator will sew them together on an avatar.
What I want is to have a linked copy of a sewing pattern, but this time with all pieces laying flat on a surface for rendering. I can't do this directly because laying the pieces out flat would change the mesh object around the avatar, so it wouldn't be positioned properly for draping.
The solution I'm looking for is to have each piece of fabric be a separate mesh object, and using separate sewing spring edge objects to cause each fabric object to sew together with the others like normal. But I don't see how to do it.

I'm having a hard time visualizing what you want to do—can you show an illustration of how you want this to go?

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0_8STR_7SOccUdSRy1IRGtnaFk
On the left the garment is a single mesh object, set up to be sewn around the model using cloth simulation. On the left the same garment, also a single mesh object, is set up to be rendered and printed on paper, in order to sew into real cloth.

Simple shape-key should cover your needs.
Shape keys

set up your model as needed
under "Object Data Properties" create shape key "Basic" and "Key 1"
rotate parts to flat them into "print" position (with "Key 1" selected)
for simulation keep "Value" of "Key 1" = 0, for flat (print) version set "Value" = 1

More about Shape Keys see Blender Manual

I don't think there's anyway to do what you want. Your best bet is to make an extra copy of the patterns.  You'll have two copies--one for the simulation and one to render as flat patterns.

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


text:
Is it possible to repeatedly loop through cache data?
The animation I’m working on is illuminated by about 20 torches. Currently 1000 frames.
I’d like to use a fire animation, via fluid physics, for the torches, in a efficient way, keeping cache sizes to a minimum.
The technique seems to involve baking and the use of a folder for cached data. However, I don’t really need 1000 frames of torch data. Once a torch is on fire, I want to somehow just use the same 100 frames of cached data repeatedly.

Following vklidu below, these steps seem to work:

First I make the fire animation in say fire.blend. The cache, in my case, is at the same location, in the directory fire-cache.

The scene where I want to use the fire loop is say use-fire.blend.

In use-fire.blend, from the 3D viewport ...

Add>Volume>Import Open VDB

Navigate to fire-cache/data, multi select and import all the vdb files. I ignore the fire-cache/config files, which in my case still have a *.uni extension, as they aren't visible in the import dialog.

Those steps create a fluid_data_0001 item with what I guess to be a puff of smoke icon.
In use-fire.blend, I also append the material 'Smoke Domain Material', used for the fire domain in fire.blend. I set fluid_data_0001 to use that material.
Blender 3.3.1

Create a fire loop animation ... bake cache as VDB.

Add Object > Volume > Import VDB.
Under Properties > Object Data Properties > OpenVDB File change Mode to Repeat

seems to work ok but is it correct to multi-select and import all the  fire-cache/data/*.vdb files? After the import, only the first one is listed in the fluid_data_0001 properties.

Blender works like that :) Same for image sequence ... path contains name of a first file in sequence ... if sequence starts with number 365 a path is ... 0365.vdb ... but yes, at some cases could be more user friendly to mark sequence like ####.vdb to let you know it is sequence, but you can know that from second field "Frames".

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


text:
How do I get the Glare node to output transparent instead of Black background
This is what I have so far:

The rendered image has a transparent background, but the glare filter creates an output with a black background, so after merging the two togheter, the background turns black but I need it to be transparent, what can I do?

I don't think that the Glare node is specifically involved in this kind of issue. It should use the source image's alpha channel already. Seems instead that you unchecked the "Use Alpha" box in the Composite node. Try to re-enable it and let us know if the problem persists.

Ok, thanks both of you for your help, now the background is transparent but I have another problem, the glare remains within the chains and the yellow beam, but doesnt "smear" to the rest of the picture (the black part of the picture)

I'm taking a different approach now because I see its getting too complicated. The original idea was to render this and another animation with transparent backgrounds so I can put one in top of the other, then just add a black background. So I think I should just render them without the glare, save them into a video file, then open the file with blender and add the glare, does this make sense?

Blender 2.92 and above - Viewer is fixed :)
Wrong interpretation of emmissive light on alpha in viewport is fixed now.
The proper way of appearance is to be on Alpha invisible, but still there.

If you check separately R, G, B channels, emissive light (like glare) is there. So when composited over nontransparent pixels emission is there.

Also when saved this "gloving" on transparent BG as OpenEXR file, can be composited same way.

The "Screen" node is actually a "MixRGB" node (select Screen from the dropdown).

Doesn't work in Blender 2.91.2 while actually rendering - saves files without glare on transparency, but only F12 shows it.

OK I did edit from 2.83 to 2.92 ...

I still do Not See the glare over the transparent background

And that is correct. Emission light is not a solid so it has no alpha info Emission has to interact with some background pixels to be composite properly.

... If you still need the "dirty" way you can use old method.

You can separate RGBA, then recombine with the RGB parts contributing to the A instead of the original image. Use a mix color node or something to combine the RGB channels then feed into the alpha of the combine RGBA node. Use a material index mask to splice in anything you want to keep pure(ie the metal lightsaber part of this image)

Since it was not explained clearly, that "Lighten" node is actually called a "Mix" node.

This is a current answer from Blenderartists.org where the topic came up about how Bloom/Glare didn't save with the png or exr even when set to 16 bit.
The node group shown here works to redefine the alpha so that the bloom is in the png when you open in other editors outside of Blender. Very useful for those wanting to do compositing in Photoshop or Gimp.


text:
Are there cases whereby auto weights won't work "no matter what"?
I have a 70,000 poly mesh of a winged creature that i've rigged up as best i can (intermediate artist here). I don't get it. I've triple checked everything - having made sure the mesh is 'closed' (no holes), removed all double verts, cleared the scale and rotation values to zero (mesh at perfect center facing the front), left and right sides are symmetrical, bones point in the correct axis direction (as far as i can tell anyway), naming syntax is all correct, etc, and my armature still won't bind to the mesh after applying automatic weights. I've tried Rigify, the Auto Rig Pro addon, and have manually created my own armature  and still no joy (haven't tried BlenRig, but why should it be any diff). So, my question is: Are there cases whereby automatic weights (ctrl+p) won't work no matter what you do, if for example, the poly count is say over 50 - 70k?  If the mesh is fairly complex (a non-typical biped with dragon wings), will the auto weight procedure fail even if everything is 'in order'? And if this is the case, what do you do when the bind fails? ..skin everything manually?? That would take forever, seeing that blender doesn't have mirroring when you weight paint. I think Maya has mirrored weight painting so that would no doubt save some time, but who wants to go there, right?!  Thanks for whatever info you can offer on this!! (i've attached a screen grab of the bones & front view and will upload the .blend file if needed, but it's info on 'what' i need to do (procedure) at this point more than on 'how' i need to do it. I'm using v2.79). Thanks again..
Tim
Here's the blend file link:

Wait nvm ignore this comment.

Auto weights isn't perfect so doesn't always give a perfect result. The more complex the model the more chance you need to do some manual weight painting after auto-weights.

Yes i knew that, but the thing is is that after auto weights was applied the mesh was totally blue in pose mode. Seems like it would have at least shown SOME red/yellow. I'm thinking of buying the Voxel Heat Diffuse Skinning addon, as i heard it blows away blender's default auto weights algo (either that or pay someone here to help me find the culprit). Thanks for the reply.

The link to the blend file is broken. Don't use Dropbox, but upload to http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/

Oh ok, yeah i was wondering which is the best storage site to link up with.

I just bought and tried out the Voxel Heat Diffuse Skinning addon and it skinned my character perfectly. That shows it's the half-lame algos of blender's default skinner that's the problem; and i was wasting all my time on thinking it was my mesh or something else....jeeshh. I'm still curious as to how others, who don't have the addon, are working around blender's auto skinner. I assume they weight paint everything manually. Apart from that, i guess this thread's closed.

Hey, truthdigger. Do you still use Auto Rig Pro, or did you abandon it in favor of other solutions? If you still use it, I want to let you know that there is a new chatroom for it on this site. Just trying to get the word out in case you sometimes have questions about it and don't get a lot of feedback when posting about it publicly.

There is non manifold mesh in your model. Go to edit mode, make sure you are in vertex select mode, deselect all, from the menu select->select all by trait->non manifold (shift-ctrl-alt-m). There's a lot of geometry in the head, lips, teeth, nose etc. If the model is not going to have complex facial animation or speech, delete all that wasted geometry inside the head. The other areas you will have to just attack piece by piece. Having selected the non manifold mesh you can ctrl-numpad+ a couple of times to select the surrounding verts, ctrl-i to select inverse and 'h' to hide most of the mesh. This will clear the field for you to work on isolated parts.

Wow, of all the tuts i've seen so far i don't think i've ever seen anyone mention this "select all by trait" feature in blender. I bet this will reveal the culprit. Gone to work on it now. Much MUCH thanks d8sconz! ..and everyone else.

In short: your model is not too complex to rig. There must be some other reason that you see this behaviour. More details indeed require us to see the blend file.

Well that's one relief. Thanks doc :). I've included a link to the blend file.


text:
Make an object only visible from a certain angle?
I am modeling a cartoon character with a mouth that is designed to only be displayed on a single cheek, not in the middle. Its parent is a head mesh. I made two copies of the mouth: one on the left cheek of the head, the other on the right. I am wondering if there is any way to make the mouth on the side of the head that the camera is not primarily facing disappear? (i.e: if the camera is directed to the left side of the head, then the left mouth is visible, but the right one is not, and vice-versa.)
Because the camera is primarily facing the left side of the model, I need the right mouth (higlighted) to disappear.

I am using Blender Internal.
Blend file: Blend

Welcome to BSE, is it possible to attach screen shots? And upload your .blend file?

Sure, fixed the OP.

Do you want this to be automatic or using a switch would be fine?

If it could be automatic, that would be great because I am planning on rendering in 8 angles / 8 different cameras around this. But if a swith would be easier, I'll take it. Thanks!

The answer is using a Light Path node, just like Todd just said, but I'm using a different approach and a different node factor, since according to attached images, this has to happen while both mouths would be visible from a 3/4 angle:
1- Create a plane to go directly in the center of your character, The cube in the image here represents your character's head, the two spheres represent the mouth.
2- Assign a simple transparent material to the plane.
3- Mix a transparent shader to the material of the mouths (the spheres in this example), add a Light Path node, Add node>Input>Light Path, use the Transparent depth as a factor. This will make the object that this material assigned to, disappears when it falls behind an object with a transparent material, which is the plane here. Check the image below.
That's it check the animated GIF below to see how this will work, no need to say that from a front view, both of the mouths will show, so you can extrude the far edge of the transparent plane to the left or right to solve that issue.

Is there no way to do this in Blender Internal? If not, I can manage the switch from Internal to Cycles.

I know next to nothing about BI but I think this doable using a script

You can do this easily by mixing your color shader with a transparent shader with the factor coming from a Camer Light Path node.
In the example below I've got a Red Cube with a Green Circle on opposite sides. There is a mirror surface behind the cube so we can see the back of the cube. Initially both side show the green circle.
When I update the green material to include the transparent shader with the camera light path node, you can see that only the circle that faces the camera shows. You can check the back circle by viewing the mirrored surface.

I just noticed that this is not a complete answer due to the fact that you can see the part of the face where the other mouth should be. I'll update it shortly.


text:
How do I join bones which have already been parented to different meshes?
I have a drone model with separate parts. For example, the propeller and the rudder are two separate meshes. I have parented each to individual bones in hope of later joining them into one armature. Unfortunately, when I select all of the bones and hit Ctrl+J, the bones join, but the meshes change position and/or rotation. How do I join the bones into one armature and keep the transformation on the meshes? The reason I want them into one armature is because I plan on putting the drone into BGE.
Here's a link to the blender file:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6_5f6jmSaHOa2VaMkVwRzM4UXc

Did you try parenting the root bones of each part to a (new) single parent bone using the Ctrl-J > Bone option? I think that would work.

Thanks for the help, but that didn't work.

Make sure to apply rotation and scale to all objects (bones and meshes) before joining, and as @AnthonyForwood said, use another root bone

@lemon What do you mean by applying rotation and scale? Do you mean adding a keyframe? Also, I'm not sure if this matters, but each part has one bone parented, so each individual bone is its armatures root bone.

By applying rotation and scale, I mean to be sure all meshes are on the same base (same scale, same rotation). To do this, in object mode, "ctrl + A" (apply) then "rotation and scale". (nothing to do with keyframes). Concerning root bone (adding a bone which is the parent for all), this allow to move the whole and give each part the ability be rotated or move from the referent parent (the root bone), so that your drone has a consistency between all its parts.

OK, good to read that.. ! Have a nice drone !

@lemon I actually noticed another problem. Now, when I enter pose mode, if i move the root bone, none of the other boned move, as if they weren't parented. I went back to before I joined the bones, and I made sure they were parented, then applied rotation and scale and then joined the bones again, and same problem...

I fixed it by simply creating a new armature and following the answer by @ARaddish on this page: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/19313/character-made-with-multiple-objects-one-armature-or-different-armatures


text:
Why are my Textures, Bezier Circles and Boolean Cuts Not Exporting?
When I render my image in Blender using F12, it looks like this:

When I export it to .glb or .fbx and import it into Godot, it looks like this:

I have tried selecting everything in the scene but the light and camera; and, deleting the light and camera and exporting everything.
Do I need to do additional processing? I notice that the letters at the top are exported with the correct texture, but nothing else is textured. The bezier circles I'm using for text curvature aren't showing up either. Also, the cylinders I'm using for the cuts were showing up when I selected everything. Now they're not when I delete the light and camera for export. But either way, the boolean cuts I'm doing with them are not happening.

See: .fbx export why there are no materials or textures. Also you can't export Blender's modifiers. You have to apply them first which is an option in the exporter.

This helped, thank you. I was able to apply the modifiers, and recreate the texture in Godot. The gold color working on one piece was because I had two textures applied, and it actually exported to Godot because it was BSDF.

Good! I should have added that you also have to delete the boolean cutters after applying the modifiers or they would be exported with your model but you obviously realised that (and presumably the exporter handles that if you set it to apply them on export).

Yeah, I did. If you wanted to make your comment an answer, I could accept it. :)


text:
How do I rotate curved text 90 degrees around the face of a coin?
I'm using Blender 4.2.0 (that just got released.) I am very new to blender.
I have extruded text and modified it to fit around a curve on the face of a cylinder (coin). No matter what I rotate though, the curve, the text, in any direction, positive or negative, I cannot get the text to start and end where I want on the circle. It curves around the left side of the coin, and I want it to curve around the top. How do I fix this?
All the answers I've seen seem to be about how to wrap the text around the curved face of a can or bottle.

Hello could you please share your file? https://blend-exchange.com/

@moonboots I got my question answered, but I'm actually not sure how I would attach my blend file. I'm happy to do so. What's the usual process?

I made this file sharing guide. It isn't necessary anymore for this question, but it's good to know for next time ;)

If the way you curved the text object is by using a Curve modifier, then all you have to do is selecting both the text object and the curve, and rotate them around the curve:

If both objects have their origins aligned, it's all it takes.


text:
how can i import bmesh module just like bpy?
I try to install bpy to my local python package.It work well,but I just want to import bmesh is not found.What can I solve it?

I git clone blender git,and run "make bpy" to import bpy.


text:
How do i straighten out the UV islands without causing them to stretch?
I'm still farily new to UV editing in blender, so i'm sorry if i'm asking a question with an obvious answer.
I modeled a custom shape for a knob that's supposed to be on top of a temple. There's only one problem, some of the faces become rotated while others are displaying the checkered texture as straight and aligned. I tried to fix this by straightening the curved UV islands that the knob has, however that in turn led to the faces becoming stretched (and light blue since i've activated the "show stretching option").
Is there any way to straighten out the UV islands that belongs to the knob without causing them to stretch?
Also, how would you place the seams on my model?
Picture of the curved island before straightening it out with "follow active quads":

Picture of the same island after straightening it out:

Picture of my seam placement and my "knob-object":

Take a step back.... how do you imagine a grid texture matching a cone? Is it possible at all? I don't think so. You better try with a proper texture and accept the deformations.


text:
How can I use hair curves with Physics like wind
I made my hair using the new hair assets and curves. Now I want to run some quick simulations to see how they work in my system. How can I achieve this/ Is it possible with hair curves?
If not, is there an alternative to making hair for simulation that is not so PC demanding?


text:
Particles not showing
I have a small animation that uses particles, in my case I want the part of the animation that is between 540-700 frames. I can render it normally and it comes out fine with the particles and all, but I do want to slow down their movement. The speed control doesn't give exactly what I want, but using time stretching I do get the results I want.
But when I try to render (after finding the new frames for the same animation), the particles won't show up anymore. I have to render all the way from frame 0 for particles to show up in frame 1200. Is there a work around?

This is expected behavior. Blender has to build the cache from the starting frame of the simulation: It cannot begin time in the middle of history as it were. What you can do in the particle settings is bake the cache (which will lock the settings until/unless you clear the bake), and that will pre-calculate all particle frames and save the cache to disk, so you can play from any position.

Does that mean I'd have to bake all the way from frame zero or just the range I'd want?

@SilverSaber You have to bake from the start of the cache. You can move the start up, but it will still be the start, not some intermediate point. Blender can’t accurately create particles in the middle of their lifespan.


text:
How can I access the Blur, Smear and Gradient tool for weight painting in Blender 4.2.1?
I can't find any help in the manual on where the tools are. There are apparently in the Blend options but they aren't there either.

In the 3D window, when in Weight Paint Mode, press T to open the toolshelf on the left.


text:
How to make edges of texture brush harder in blender 4.1?
image as visualization for what I mean.

Choose the last Falloff:

Or create your curve by moving the vertices:


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Bridging two edge loops creates weird effect in smooth shading
I created a bezier curve and converted it into a mesh so I can bridge it's edge loop with the edge loop of another object. Before I bridges the loops I joined both objects. I deleted any faces between the edges to be connected. I made sure that both loops had the same amount of edges. I haven't applied any modifiers to either of the objects, just shade smooth. it looks normal without shade smooth. I'm a beginner so if you need any further information let me know.


text:
How do we notify the Foundation of a phishing scam so they can warn Blender users?
Member Huda of the facebook "Blender" groups found an ad that hijacks you over to "https://www.biender.site/", where you see a clone of the 3.83.3 LTS splash screen... and then the links funnel you over to their supposed Blender 2.83 download page where you can download a 1.3MB trojan for god knows what.
If you don't pay attention to the address bar, everything in there looks legit.
Can the Foundation please be informed so they can decide what action they want to take?
Screenshot of ad taken by group member:

so maybe contact them at foundation (at) blender (dot) org

I’m voting to close this question because this is not about using Blender.

I would use the contact details here or here.

Better to notify ads provider.

Ton Roosendaal just tweeted about this. Thanks for reporting it :). https://twitter.com/tonroosendaal/status/1289920735465496577


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Basic cube not moving - only outline moves
I got stuck using basic blender - I was learning from this tutorial here
However, I'm having a problem where the cube isn't moving anymore, only the outline moves:

I have checked and "Affect Only" checkboxes are un-checked:

I also don't think it's a GPU issue because it was working before - something has changed.
Here is some more strange behavior. Anyone know what could be causing this?

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.

newbies are not allowed to insret images sir + It was 2.10MB so system was not allowing to upload.

Is this the issue? https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/204297/amd-gpu-material-in-material-preview-mode-and-rendered-mode-is-entirely-gra

No, not that one. Previously it was woking something seems to have changed.

Origin/locations/parents: All are unchecked. img

Please [edit] your question to provide more info or provide a blend file that shows the issue.  Your question will be automatically queued for review to be reopened.

I went ahead and did the edit - someone help me re-open, becausecause I have to know what the problem is - I've been messing around trying to re-create for far too long, to no avail ;)

I am 99% sure this is a a hardware issue. It could be working one day and not the other for a variety of reasons. Drivers, OS update, a change in blender source code...

I tried 2.83 version → same issue. I now downloaded 2.8 versions it is working fine so far.

i think its the problem of only the basic block . i had the same problem but i can move the duplicate of it. i press tab a couple times and glitched the cube. and i could move the basic block .it only works sometimes though.


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Transparency with a Mirror
I made my background transparent to add a different background to it, I got to get the windows to show the transparency background as shown here

But in my mirror, it shows a black background on the windows.

Is there any work around to this?
Thanks for reading.

What are your settings under Light Paths > Max Bounces for Total, Glossy and Transmission? But I guess, the transparent background doesn't really work with a mirror... because if Blender would render the mirror transparent (since it should be reflecting the transparency of the background) then laying it over a different background wouldn't have a correct reflection of that background in the mirror. Usually the mirror shows the background (if no other object is inbetween) as it is even though it's set to transparent.

By the way, here are answers on working with mirrors and transparent backgrounds, but that's really not helping if you want a new background to be mirrored correctly in the transparent area: How can I reflect a transparent background?

Yeah I was thinking that too that it'll be a little weird rendering the mirror reflection as a transparent. But what do you think I should do? I set my background transparent, but in the reflections I can't leave it blank dark like that. Any tips?

No idea how to get correct reflections for a substituted background. But for the black windows in the reflection: but again: a mirror reflects the background though it is transparent, and windows in the reflection should be transparent and show the background through them as well, not be just black. That's why I asked for your Max Bounces settings, but you didn't answer. And I can see in the screenshot that your background is not a simple Environment Texture there's a mix with Is Glossy Ray etc. so this could be a reason, too. But you don't show your World node setup either.

Yeah, sorry I didn't get to show more info. In this one I use Eeevee, and I tried getting world lighting without its reflections in the glass, https://imgur.com/a/OzY2sSn my glass nodes are mixed with a transparent node. And this is my world sky nodes. https://imgur.com/FKgwssR


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Trying to repeat Quadratic bezier around a Circle in Geometry nodes using index
I want to repeat the quadratic bezier around these points on a circle as annotated in the blender file.
I have tried modulo with index with transfer attribute but I get red wires.
I am unable to upload a picture. Error with the server.
I have uploaded the blender file.
Blender 3.3.1

I am having trouble uploading PNGs and JPEGS any one know why?

Maybe they weigh over 2 MB?

No they were half MB

It looks like image uploading doesn't work currently on BSE.

This version constructs the inner circle and the petal quadratics at the same time, which saves a few nodes, fiddling with control-points for each circle-side? It just has to do the trig. once to figure out where the circle-corners are on the max Y side, and then it rotates instances of the petal into place:

Parameters permit changing number of sides, inner/outer radius:

It would be up to you to further embellish the circle, convert all to mesh, etc.

You need to first spawn multiple beziers, then assign the averaged position as the handles (actually it's not an averaged position, just a sum in your case). Unfortunately, those beziers are cubic; if you really care about quadratic beziers you can ask either how to manually create a polyline to fit a quadratic bezier, or how to position cubic bezier handles so that they are equivalent to a quadratic bezier...

How did you get the image up?

@RobinBetts the same way the blend-exchange image is linked, using an HTML tag


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I got this "glass" effect after i applied a material on some branches in blender 2.91
[EDITORS NOTE - This problem is occurring with an Nvidia GPU, and is not related to the current AMD Driver issue.]

I have 2 branches, and I made a group with those two. The first one worked great, but the second got a very weird glass effect, and not just that one, after I applied the texture in a copy of the first one, it didn't work.
I want to mention that the second one didn't have the body (like gray or something, like the cube from the startup), it was kinda clear.

@ChristopherBennett
no, it's not that, i have Nvidia, in the rest, it works, If I create another blender file and I'm making a cube or something i can see it, but only that thing doesn't work... it's not visible in the solid mode and material preview... and only that one...

Oh, weird. I've seen this (a very similar thing) happen hundreds of times with AMD gpu's but this is a first for Nvidia. Is your texture using an alpha?

idk i'm a beginner. How i see that?

Nevermind, that's likely not the problem anyway. It's possible you changed a viewport setting for the object, or it's possible something just happened to that file (rare, but possible). It's hard to tell without looking at the project. You can upload it here so we can have a look if you want - https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ (Just edit your own question and paste in the link they give you)

ok I will do it, do I have to put the whole file? or just the blender file itself?

Just the project file (.blend) should do.

done, i hope it will work

Let us continue this discussion in chat.


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Align curve control point tilt with snapping target
Is it possible to extrude control points of a curve along the surface of an object and have the tilt of each point automatically align with the normal of the face that it snaps to?
EDIT
I want the beveled shaped to automatically stay normal to the surface I am snapping to without having to manually adjust the tilt for each control point. It starts off right.

But then the tilt changes dynamically as each control point is extruded.

EDIT, still have not found a solution. I have tried using sverchok to make a node tree that would find that closest face of the target object and adjust each control point tilt on the curve to make it normal to the surface but I could not get it to work.

Related https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/50777/how-to-make-a-curve-segment-perpendicular-to-a-face/50779#50779

I don't know if this is what you're looking for but you may enable the project individual elements on the surface of other objects option (with the snapping tool (Face) enabled also).

This option does not accomplish what I am looking for. You can see in your example clip that the tilt on all the control points changes as you add new points. I am looking for something that would keep the normal of the extruded shape perpendicular to the face that the curve is snapping to.


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Assigning HotKeys Using Python Commands
This question is an extension of this:
What identifier of operator must be entered for assign shortcuts
I did not understand how have copied Python command or Data Path
 available I could to determine that it is the context is wm.context_toggle
and attribute is space_data.use_occlude_geometry.
Could someone explain in more detail the thing about where the operators came from?
I found on the official website section initiated to the python, but I can not be guided in it

Since i don't want to add another comment:
You can list all available operators via Info Menu -> Help -> Operator Cheat Sheet and look at the Text Block generated in the Text Editor
The operators are listed by category in this section (at the bottom of the page) of the API documentation.
If you drag down the Info Area you can see a history of recently used (registered) operators
You can hover over buttons with python tooltips enabled.
The context data is listed in this section (available members depend on the area/mode)
The different spaces used by the corresponding editors/areas are listed in this section (subclasses - top of the page)
See also Screen Elements

Once again I'm not really I coder myself, so I don't know a definite answer for this.
I think I figured it out by trial and error myself, I looked up how other key maps were pre-configured by default, tested a few things and tried until it worked.
Googling for the operators is often useful too.
You can also look in Blender Info Editor (by default the header with the File, Render, Window and Help menus) if you expand the editor you will find above the menus is a message history. There and in the Online Python Manual you can find that it is a Boolean Property, and it toggles between TRUE or FALSE. Most other toggles that work like this are also probably Boolean Properties, for which you must toggle with the wm.context_toggle operator.
Some others are actually Enums (enumeration of several possible predefined values) like for example the current 3D View Shading mode, and for those you use the operator wm.context_toggle_enum instead. You can also learn this by inspecting other existing default keymaps.

Good. Let's imagine that I did not know the name of the operator for the tool  which I want to assign a hotkey ( "occlude_geometry").

It show up in the tooltip when you hover the button with the cursor

My actions:

Copies the selected line:
http://s11.postimg.org/6aonrikqb/7_M_X_pe_XN.jpg
2 and go to the Online Python Reference
ttp://s14.postimg.org/c5c5fynpt/7_M_X_pe_XN1.jpg
Search gives one correspondence:
http://s18.postimg.org/bd2rufr55/7_M_X_pe_XN.jpg
As you can see in the screenshot there is no name of the operator
Go on
In the header copy the name of the command:
http://s10.postimg.org/6eocwi095/7_M_X_pe_XN1.jpg

I believe all boolean type properties are always toggled with wm.context_toggle in the keymap. Like I said, inspect other available default keymaps and experiment. It's a trial and error process.

go to the Online Python Reference
http://s17.postimg.org/nmsewdhbz/7_M_X_pe_XN1.jpg
Trying to find needed information by 'Edit Source':
http://s22.postimg.org/bk0rx8mch/7_M_X_pe_XN.jpg
Also there is nothing
Another Tool:
If you imagine that I do not know the name of the transformation operator
http://s17.postimg.org/3l1c0i49r/7_M_X_pe_XN.jpg
That the above described actions do not lead to the desired result:
http://s13.postimg.org/x8v15qw3b/7_M_X_pe_XN.jpg
http://s4.postimg.org/qno2kgbdp/7_M_X_pe_XN.jpg
http://s13.postimg.org/ljrejx2yv/7_M_X_pe_XN.jpg

Maybe I'm looking for is not there???


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Import .obj with vertices' UV specified into Cycles?
I have (1) a .obj file in which I specified the UV coordinates for each vertex, (2) a .mtl file pointing to a diffuse texture map, and (3) the said texture map.
When I import the .obj into Blender Internal, the object is correctly and automatically textured. However, when I import it into Cycles, there is no texture. This post seems to suggest I need to manually set the texture, which is actually fine for me.
What confuses me is, if I am to manually set the texture, how can I use the UV already specified in the .obj file instead of doing another UV unwrapping?

UV maps and textures are independent entities. You can manually pick which UV coordinates to use when creating a material, regardless of whether the texture is imported automatically or not

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos right, but how do I pick to use the uv coordinates specified in the obj file?

When you imported the .obj file, it should have also imported the UV Map that was stored within it. You can verify this under the mesh tab of the properties panel. With the object selected, go to the properties panel (bottom right by default) and click on the mesh tab (looks like a triangle made up of three dots joined by lines).
If you scroll down to UV Maps, you can see all UV Maps applicable to your object. If you have just imported your object and done nothing else, you should see one entry, being the UV Map that you imported along with your object.
Cycles will use that UV Map by default for any image texture in any material that you assign to the object. If you have more than one UV Map on an object you can select the relevant UV Map using the UV Map node, but you should not need to do this unless you have created a second UV Map.

Right, I do see that one UV map appearing, but the texture doesn't get rendered somehow: http://imgur.com/a/u9RyO

Have you actually created a material for the object?

You need to create a material consisting of a Diffuse Shader with an Image Texture node plugged in specifying your image file.

Like this: http://imgur.com/a/KVvAK? I think it works now! Many thanks. Although I still don't get it why this way of setting up the nodes makes it work. I mean, the node tree knows which image to use as texture, OK, but how does it know the UV mapping? It's not surprising that somehow it knows -- after all, the UV mapping is specified in the .obj file which has been imported. Just wondering where this piece of info is saved...

Ohhhhh, stupid me. The UV Map. You explained it perfectly well in your answer.

Yep like that. Any image texture node defaults to the UV map if there is one. It is automatically selected for you and its presence is invisible. If you want you can plug in a UV Map node into the vector slot of the image Texture and you will see nothing changes.


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Create 3D tubes from points with Python?
Given a series of 3D points, I want to generate a 3D tube with any specified radius. To create many such tubes, I need to do this in Python.
My current plan is to first create a Bezier curve from these coordinates with the method mentioned here and then create a 3D tube from this Bezier curve using this method.
Is this the best way of doing this? If not, what is a better way?

Hi! Just curious if you found a solution for this. I'm new to Blender and trying to script a PVC-related design.

@richardtallent Hi! That was quite a ride along the memory lane lol, but I don't think I found a better solution than described in the question.


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Adjacent planes rendered in very different colors?
I defined some glossy (Glossy BSDF shader) planes by specifying the four vertices and vertex order for each. They are separate meshes, and there are small cylinders separating them.

I rendered them in Cycles under an outdoor HDRI lighting.
Strangely, some adjacent planes are rendered in very different brightness, giving me this unpleasant discontinuity.

I checked the two surface normals -- they are very close.
 vs.
Why do I still have this shading difference? How may I fix it?

Imho your question description is not much understandable, and unclear:  "some glossy planes" seems to refer to separate meshes, while autosmothing can work only on a single mesh, but even if it is so, the quite small image seems to show that those planes are separated by some other apparent geometry... that could break auto smoothing relative angle detection. Can you perhaps provide a model (eg: through http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/)?

@m.ardito thanks for the comment! Sorry that it isn't clear. Yes they are separate meshes, the apparent geometry that separate them are small cylinders. So in this case auto smoothing doesn't apply because they are different geometries? I will try to produce a minimal demo model now. :)

@m.ardito Updated and model file uploaded! Thanks for the suggestion -- I think the question now is much clearer.

I believe this is expected behaviour. If you don't want this to happen then connect all your planes and put 'em on a different mesh from the cylinders

@SebastiánMestre Thanks! But why is this expected? Could you kindly help elaborate a bit? I think right now the planes are already different meshes than the cylinders?

@SibbsGambling well, for the reflection gotten from an HDRI to be the same normals have to be EXACTLY the same and in this case it might seem like they are but this is most likely not the case. Or maybe you just found a new bug. In any case make sure that the planes are sharing vertices with eachother and they are set to smooth shading, this should fix your problem
Or maybe you have some flipped normals

@SebastiánMestre Currently the two planes in my final screenshot do share two of their vertices. Will smooth shading help in this case? I thought smooth shading only applies to one plane, instead of two even though they share two vertices? If we only look at the two adjacent planes in the screenshot, the normals are definitely not flipped, but their shadings are still very different...

@SibbsGambling when two (quads) planes that are sharing two vertices have flat shading they have 8 different vertex normals (one for each vertex). When they have been set to smooth shading then the shared vertices have the same normal so normal-based shading inconsistencies / anomalies often disappear. Cheers. Good Luck

@SebastiánMestre Many thanks. I just tried setting each polygon of each object to use_smooth = True, equivalent to setting shading to smooth with GUI, but the problem persists. ;-(

Oh so you're generating this through a python script?

@SebastiánMestre yep

I think this is due only to the HDRI lighting. I tried with a different, more uniform world lighting and all planes are shaded in a more "uniform" way.

I'm not an expert, but even if the two plane's normal are close, or identical, the planes position is not the same (and cannot be the same) respect to every HDRI pixel lighting the scene.
Since this is not a uniform light color, and because a single flat plane can "reflect" just one shade, this is to be taken into account. Probably a real object like that would appear the same.
As said, normals smoothing can't help you here, because all square meshes are separate: if you can join them to appear as a single plane (although with those separating "cylinders" all above them) maybe, but I'm not sure it would give desired results anyway.
Btw, you have some plane with inverted normals, here and there...

+1. Hmmm, I tried with three different HDRI lightings, and they all gave me some nonsmooth shading between adjacent planes, but at different locations. That's why I thought this must be a bug. I am still not very sure if this is a bug... Let me experiment with some more lightings. I enforce all surface normals to be pointing towards the camera. Does this cause the "inverted normals" you mention? Are there any downsides in doing so? Thanks!

I updated the answer with a picture to show some "tile" with apparently inverted normals... they are aside many others whose normals point in the opposite direction so I don't think this is intended by your custom alignment. Also, some mesh parts (one "hand", one "foot") seem to be overlapping other meshes...


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Removing Location Keyframes from LocRotScale?
I am working on a Minecraft animation with the ender dragon.  I first made sure that the flying was correct before I did anything else and by habit i used LocRotScale when setting the keyframes.  Is there a way to convert LocRotScale to just RotScale, removing the location keyframes?

You can do it in Graph Editor. Disable visibility of all other channels and delete keyframes on the channels you want.

Try opening the graph editor with your dragon selected, and go through the drop down menus for it and see f there is a separate key frame sequence for location. If there is, you can select it and delete with x. I'm sorry I don't have access to a computer at the moment otherwise I would provide screenshots and a less vague answer. I will update this when I can.

Right click on the "location" box in the object panel and choose "Clear Keyframes". If there's a keyframe on the current frame, you will also have a "delete keyframe" option which deletes only the key on the current frame (location keys on other frames will be left alone. "Clear keyframes" wipes out all of them)

authors: Артур Гамзатов


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How do I add a texture when Importing from OBJ scan?
I am rather new to using blender, and I have run into a bit of a problem. My boss has been using a 3D scanner, and I am supposed to import the results of the scans. I am able to import them into Blender, however there are no textures or materials. It just shows up as White. How do I import the textures onto the mesh?

do you have a separate JPG file as texture? Or do you have vertexes with colours?

I have a seperate jpeg

Might be that you simply need to set the material to Shadeless, or use the "Material" view. Related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/5283/how-to-show-textures-in-the-3d-view-editor

You'll need to apply the textures later, as an obj file doesn't hold textures (only the mesh).

Go to material, and activate "use nodes"
then on "color", click and select "image texture"

then at left of "open", click and select your texture  then at right of "object mode" change viewport shading to "material" or "texture"

you... are an absolute legend!

thank you. If it worked, accept the answer. If your scanner has vertex colours instead of a texture, the process would be completely different. I suggest you, to remap your UV (usually scanned objects have strange UV maps), and bake the texture to your new UVmap. It is easier to then edit it in external software, like gimp or other, and reimport back.

See this answer for the Blender >= 2.80 version of this. I've also made a video.

Blender imports obj files with textures just fine with Blender Internal renderer as the active renderer. But importing obj files with texture while Cycles is the active renderer is currently not supported. With Cycles you have to create a new material with your texture, as shown above by @MCunha.
So first idea is to check what renderer you use while trying to import the mesh.
Then there was the file format itself.
The Obj file format is made of two files, not one. The *.obj file contains the mesh data. The *.mtl file contains one or more simple phong material(s) with the associated texture paths. And the good news is Obj is a super simple file format in text form. You can open the files in a text editor and edit them to your needs.
When the *.mtl file is missig then there is nothing to import for Blender. No mtl file means no material and no texture available.
When the *.mtl file exists, but the texture paths in the file are absolute, and the texture is at another location, then there is nothing to import for Blender since the textures are not found.
So first thing to check: does the *.mtl file exist?
And if that's the case and the textures doesn't import: are the texture paths in the *.mtl file relative or absolute? Open the *.mtl file in wordpad for example. Have a look at the line(s) with map_kd at the front.
For example, an absolute path would be
map_Kd C:\UserX\myfolder\mytextures\mytexture.png
When you change it to
map_Kd mytexture.png
then this path becomes relative. And when you put your texture besides the obj file, then the texture gets usually loaded - when Blender Internal is the active renderer. As told, Cycles is not supported at this point.

authors: Очкастый красавчик


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Which mirror should I pick when downloading Blender?
I'm just getting into 3-D artwork and more specifically, Blender. I am currently just trying to download the program, and on the download page it gives me the option to download from "Mirror" links. Do these separate links carry the same files and if not, which should I use?

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

A mirror is like a backup download link. If one for some reason goes down you can still download the file. They all contain the same file so it doesn't really matter which one you choose.

While all of them will give you the same file, some will be closer to you (geographically) than others.
All else being equal, you'll get a better download speed with a server that's nearby.

Try the first, if it's slow try the second, and so on, they are all the same file.


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Fluid simulation ignoring spring obstacle?
I am currently working on a water slide simulation in Blender.
I created a spiral-shaped slide using the Spring modifier, and I have deleted the top half of the vertices on it (So so it would have sides blocking the water from getting out, otherwise it would just fall off)
Every time I try to bake the fluid, It just falls through the Spring. I have the spring set up as an obstacle, a cube as the inflow/fluid source, and I have set up the domain cube to cover the entire slide (and the cube).

Is your obstacle and fluid Outflow and Domain on the same layer? If not, place them on the same layer, then free bake, if you baked the water simulation and bake it again.

Have you applied the spring modifier before baking? Go back to the spring modifier, there should be an apply option. If that doesn't work, please upload your .BLEND to http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ so we can further assist you.

What is "Spring modifier" ? Maybe it is Screw ?


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Rendering a video sequence does not Display
I am using Blender to edit my videos, and I've run into a snag. Whenever I try to render the animation, It will only display as black.
My .blend data:
https://www.mediafire.com/?cb9u9lyzzj3mu2f
Does anyone know what's the problem and how to solve it?

If you go under the render tab, go down under post-processing and un-check the compositing pipeline and select the sequencing pipeline. Then try.


text:
Is the iMac 27 5K good for rendering?
Is the iMac 27 running at 5K resolution good for rendering with blender?
GPU: AMD Radeon R9 M295X with 4GB GDDR5
CPU: Intel i7 4.0ghz (Turbo 4.4ghz)

Your "best" is hard to answer. Blender can use CPU and GPU for rendering. Here's an overview of a hundred or so CPU and GPU test renders:
http://blenchmark.com/benchmarks-overview
Here's a sample of the data, where shorter lines mean faster renders:

In Cycles rendering, when you select GPU rendering, several of the initial file preparation steps are completed on CPU, then image rendering begins on your GPU. So a fast GPU is great, but a fast CPU still helps.
So "best" is pretty much always the most CPU, RAM, GPU and VRAM you can afford... but the benchmarks will help you see where economies exist.


text:
Blender animation changes when exporting as gltf
book.blend is the blender animation I created based on this tutorial. When I export this as GLTF, it becomes very different (no bending of the pages, spines scale and move differently).
How can I export this animation correctly? I plan to use this in ThreeJS.
I tried "baking" animations and applying modifiers, but they didn't work.

it's probably because it's not possible to export Blender's constraints which are used in the tutorial. So any part of the animation which relies on constraints won't work outside of Blender.


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Using Subdivisions and Sculpting Together
I watched a video (had to slow it down) and really liked how by doing some box modeling and then using subdivisions you can still have the good topology underneath.  The thing is, it looks like in the video he can sculpt just using subdivision but for me it doesn’t work well.  He goes back and forth between the lower poly object and then the higher and I’m not sure with even the slowest speed on YouTube how he’s doing that.
Here’s the video as I can’t find anything that uses this kind of method of sculpting without doing retopo:
https://youtu.be/abLo3Gqxbak?si=bkH3YZ5sGjfmB7ga

The simple explanation is: he is not sculpting using the subdivisions. He is sculpting with the Subdivision Surface modifier enabled (sometimes switching to disabled) and of course even though the sculpting tool cannot modify the subdivided mesh, sculpting the base mesh affects the resulting subdivided mesh, too.
As you can see in the following two examples, it does not matter if you sculpt with the Subdivision Surface modifier enabled or disabled, you will always just sculpt the base mesh. The advantage of the enabled modifier is that you can already see the effect the sculpting has on the smoothed mesh while keeping a relatively low poly easy to handle mesh.
Sculpting with modifier enabled and disabling it afterwards:

Sculpting with modifier disabled and enabling it afterwards:

Interesting thanks for the info.  Is there a reason he wouldn’t just start with the multires modifier?  Not sure if maybe I’m missing something and this is a more efficient way to model or something … just seems like an extra step.

@OwenS I could speculate why he does that, but how would I know? You need to ask him. I can imagine he starts with the low poly mesh for easier handling due to a low poly count, but this is too low for him as base for the multires. That's why he applies the subdivision before going further. If this is better than directly starting with a higher poly mesh is all opinion and personal preference and therefore debatable. Once you learned doing this stuff you will find which method is best for you personal workflow. There is no absolute answer since nothing of this is objectively wrong or right.

You want the multiresolution modifier, not the subdivision one.
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/modeling/modifiers/generate/multiresolution.html
You can read more about the differences of the two in this post:
What is the difference between a subdivision surface modifier and multiresolution modifier?

Sorry, but you're wrong. This is clearly the Subdivision Surface modifier you can see on the right: sculpting with subdivision, the Multiresolution has a different icon and different settings.

You are correct, I interpreted Owen's question incorrectly. I assumed he was talking about the adjustments starting at about 3:30 in the video. Your answer and his question were regarding the original sculpting with subdivision.


text:
Editing the UV Maps and there's a cutoff in the center. Is there a way to prevent or account for this?
So I'm trying to make custom clothes for a potential job, and one thing I thought I would try is creating some simple clothes and editing the UV Maps to create some custom designs.
I started creating this tank top and the colors match fine, which I can assume is because the design matches cleanly throughout. However, I wanted to try adding a logo on to the model just to make it less simple. Here are the UV maps for the tank top.

If you're wondering why the pieces are split in two, I created this object in Marvelous Designer and all the tutorials I've followed had the shirts split in two. I assume this is to allow for better manipulation of the garment on a virtual avatar.
However, when I export the UV Maps into Blender, the central logo in getting cutoff at the middle.

I have seen 3D objects, including clothes, with logos on them, but all the information I can find has you adding the logo on in Marvelous Designer or through Blender itself, but I'm wondering if its possible to just do on the UV Map in the first place? Am I going about this the wrong way? Or is there something I'm missing?
Thanks in advance for the help.

You could either move the UV maps in the UV Editor until the 2 parts stick to each other, or simply correct the image in an image editor like Photoshop or Krita?


text:
Need help with implementing BlendarTrack recording into blender
I used the BlendarTrack app to record a session with the intention of using the camera tracking data in an animation that I plan to make. The problem I'm having is, no matter what I do, it appears to not show anything besides a black screen. What do I do? (Btw, I am extremely new to blender so I'm sure I might have skipped at least 10 steps, but I do have the 3d model and the camera set up in the right spot).

First question: What on earth do you mean by "a session of blenderartrack"? https://blender.stackexchange.com/help/how-to-ask

@JohnEason blendartrack -if you give it a search you can get a quick answer ... But I agree we can't help with a question asked this way

The creator of the Blendartrack app says (in response to another user having a similar issue to yourself) that you can feel free to send questions to hello@cgtinker.com

Ah ok. A third-party addon in that case, not part of Blender.


text:
Get 'WARNING, currently unsupported 'tf' filter color option, skipped.' error on import of obj and mtl files
I've downloaded an obj file with its corresponding mtl file and tried to import it into Blender 2.9.
I get the following errors from the console:
Read prefs: C:\Users\EarlK\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.90\config\userpref.blend
found bundled python: C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender 2.90\2.90\python
Info: Deleted 1 object(s)

(  0.0000 sec |   0.0000 sec) Importing OBJ 'C:\\Users\\EarlK\\Documents\\Short\\Boy\\BoyOBJ.obj'...
  (  0.0020 sec |   0.0010 sec) Parsing OBJ file...
    (  0.1117 sec |   0.1087 sec) Done, loading materials and images...
WARNING, currently unsupported 'tf' filter color option, skipped.
WARNING, currently unsupported 'tf' filter color option, skipped.
WARNING, currently unsupported 'tf' filter color option, skipped.
WARNING, currently unsupported 'tf' filter color option, skipped.
WARNING, currently unsupported 'tf' filter color option, skipped.
WARNING, currently unsupported 'tf' filter color option, skipped.
WARNING, currently unsupported 'tf' filter color option, skipped.
WARNING, currently unsupported 'tf' filter color option, skipped.
WARNING, currently unsupported 'tf' filter color option, skipped.
WARNING, currently unsupported 'tf' filter color option, skipped.
WARNING, currently unsupported 'tf' filter color option, skipped.
    (  0.1207 sec |   0.1177 sec) Done, building geometries (verts:9580 faces:9308 materials: 11 smoothgroups:12) ...
    (  0.2199 sec |   0.2169 sec) Done.
  (  0.2229 sec |   0.2219 sec) Finished importing: 'C:\\Users\\EarlK\\Documents\\Short\\Boy\\BoyOBJ.obj'
Progress: 100.00%

I've checked for matching names and the correct mtl reference in the obj file.  All good here.
I've searched the web for any answer I could find and still cannot solve this.
Can anyone help me?

I am a programer.  So if the solution to this is altering the code to the MTL file, then point me in the right direction and I'll figure it out.

BTW: Thanks Christopher for tidying up my mess.  Being a newbie, I wasn't quite sure how to do that.


text:
Error When Importing From Sketchup
Every time I try to import a sketchup model into blender, I get the error message below. Does anyone know how to solve it?
Python: Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Users\valer\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.92\scripts\addons\SketchUp_Importer\__init__.py", line 886, in execute
    context, **keywords)
  File "C:\Users\valer\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.92\scripts\addons\SketchUp_Importer\__init__.py", line 185, in load
    self.write_duplicateable_groups()
  File "C:\Users\valer\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.92\scripts\addons\SketchUp_Importer\__init__.py", line 245, in write_duplicateable_groups
    group=group)
  File "C:\Users\valer\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.92\scripts\addons\SketchUp_Importer\__init__.py", line 614, in conponent_def_as_group
    ob.layers = 18 * [False] + [True] + [False]
AttributeError: 'Object' object has no attribute 'layers'

location: <unknown location>:-1

Hi, welcome to the forum! Could you provide some more information as to how you exported the sketchup model? What format did you use and using what settings?


text:
Why is lookDev mode not working in blender 2.9
Good day, I recently upgraded to blender 2.9 and my lookdev mode (material preview mode) is not rendering at all. I can see how my materials look in render view mode but in lookdev my materials just appear grey like in the picture I attached.
This is my lookDev view (material preview)

Here is my render view perfectly working

I did some research and found that I am not  the only one facing the issue. I even upgraded my blender version (it was suggested as a possible solution) but that didn't solve the problem. I am using an HP laptop. May anyone please help me with my predicament.
Thanks in advance

This looks similar to a relatively common issue users began having around February or so where an update to the Adrenalin Drivers for AMD GPU's caused this behavior in blender 2.8 and above . The solution is generally to roll back your drivers to an older version, but before doing that, try enabling "High Quality Normals" under Render Properties > Performance first, and see if that fixes it.

Hello and welcome. Rather than take photos of your monitor post actual screenshots instead. See How to take a screenshot So we don't have to guess if we are looking at a physical issues like reflections or smudges, a hardware issue such as a malfunctioning display, a software level bug or driver, or an or actual artifact or issue with the model itself.

Hi, I am using blender 2.93 and so I don't have the option to enable "High Quality Normals". Is it perhaps hidden in another tab. Thanks for the information on taking screenshot instead of photos. I apologise for my ignorance, I'm new here and still learning the ropes.

My apologies, I didn't look closely enough at the screenshots to see you're using Cycles - "High Quality Normals" is only available with the EEVEE render engine (Which LookDev uses a version of). This is why you can't find the option. Switch to eevee, change it (so you can see in lookdev) and then switch back to Cycles. - https://ibb.co/VqdMvY2

Thank you so much. That actually helped. I can now view my materials in lookDev. Thanks a lot again. This issue really got me thinking.


text:
Transparent shadow catcher under HDRI lighting in Cycles?
This question and its answers give nice ways of creating plane shadow catchers that make the CG objects "interact" with the HDRI world.
My question is very similar, but different in the sense that I don't want the HDRI world ground to catch my shadows. Instead, I want a transparent plane to catch my shadows. Something similar to this short video tutorial, which succeeds under lamp lighting, but fails to do so under HDRI lighting.


text:
Cannot save object renderability in a scene?
As a beginner in Blender, I think my outliner is telling me I have two scenes.

First I only modified renderability in comp, but I realized I need to change renderability in 5.2 too. So I made all Butterfly* objects (not sure if it's the right word) not to be rendered. Then I saved my Blender file.
However, when I reopened the file, the renderability options have switched back. Why can't I save my renderability settings in scence 5.2?

In general you shouldn't have possibility to change something with those objects from the scene "5.2" because the whole scene appears to be linked. The linked data isn't actually in the current file, it's in the library. So probably renderability wasn't even changed before saving.

@MrZak But is there a way to modify the "library"? It's really a pain to toggle renderability all over again every time I close the application. Also I need to change parameters of the camera that appears in the "library". Thanks!

Either toggle it in their origin library-blendfile, or make the objects local in your current file so those settings may correctly be saved there too.

Related - http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/5664/how-can-i-modify-the-mesh-of-a-linked-character

The objects in scene "5.2" won't let you change their options because the whole scene which they are part of is linked. This can be detected by small white sign with an arrow just next to the linked object or any datablock:

It's all about the linking data in Blender. The library is a .blend file located somewhere else (but Blender knows where it is as it can read the data from that file) where that data is stored. To edit those objects you can either:

edit those objects only from the file they were created in.
make a local copy of the objects.

The first way assumes you will continously switch between the different .blend files - change some options in the main .blend (where the object / group / some other useful data is stored), then return back to .blend where objects are imported to (e.g. for rendering), change their locations, etc., etc.
However the structure will be organized - all the data will be stored in its own files and only uneditable entities will be stored in the working file (which is sometimes preferred).
This may be possible with using some addons, like Edit Linked Library and so on. For more info refer to How can I modify the mesh of a linked character?
The second way will let you edit any mesh or object, change it properties, edit everything about it - but full editable copies of these objects will be present in every file, with all the consequences (every file will occupy much more space; meshes might get changes assumed for one project which is undesired for another project etc).
See Change linked object to appended? and Kind of "soft link" of objects between scenes?


text:
Track a pixel between frames using speed (vector) outputs?
With a sequence of frames, I am looking to compute how each pixel moves between two frames (i.e., optical flows). For example, I wish to generate a "pixel movement map" that tells me, for example, pixel '(100, 100)' in frame 1 moves to '(102, 105)' in frame 2.
As this post suggests, I can

enable the desired render layer (ie "vector") and then save the render
  output as OpenEXR file. That format will save all the desired render
  layers (in this case, motion information in 4 channels) in a single
  file...

I now have the OpenEXR images of size '1080x720x3'. The values range from around '-200' to '100'. Given the relatively small motion between two frames in my case, I am sure these numbers are not in pixel unit (also, they are not even integers!).
What exactly are these numbers? How should I process these values to get movement (in both 'x' and 'y' directions; pixel unit) for each pixel?
P.S. -- As I write this question, I realize there will be pixels present in frame 1 but not in frame 2. Not sure how this speed output reflects that?

I've found a solution to my own problem after some research. We need to save all four channels, because

R: pixel displacement in X from current frame to previous frame
G: pixel displacement in Y from current frame to previous frame
B: pixel displacement in X from current frame to next frame
A: pixel displacement in Y from current frame to next frame

as discussed here.
Updates after hours of debugging (sigh...) -- The above statements are NOT 100% accurate. The first two are accurate, whereas the bottom two should instead be

B: pixel displacement in X from next frame to current frame
A: pixel displacement in Y from next frame to current frame

Caveat -- the y-axis seems to be pointing upwards. I need to flip its sign to display correctly on my image.
I used this MATLAB package to read all four channels of the OpenEXR images.


text:
Realistic rendering of mesh together with image?
Apologies for this possibly too vague question, but are there some general guidelines to follow when rendering artificial 3D meshes together with an imported 2D image as the background?
In the attached Blender file (or rendered image), the cube looks so out-of-the-scene. Some reflection from the green background onto the cube should make the cube more realistic in the scene? I don't know how to put it in professional terms -- any suggestions are welcomed!

@cegaton Ah I see. I've packed the image and re-uploaded. Thanks a lot for the guidance!

For this type of thing it is generally advised to use a spherical HDR environment map as a world texture, so that the lighting of the scene perfectly matches that of the background. Results will not be the same with a regular 2D image.

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos Thanks! But I only have a regular 2D image available. :-/

Well you can still use a 2D image as a lighting source using a similar technique. Although results will not be as good, they may still be enough for what you want to achieve

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos thanks! Really happy to learn there's something I can do to improve this! Could you kindly make this answer? Briefly walking through the steps will be wonderful. Thank you so much!

Cegaton's answer seems to be quite complete and cover all points mentioned.

Not to take anything away from cegaton's reply...
If I understand your question, the one thing that makes a mesh appear part of a 2D image is to integrate it into the image such as placing it behind something in the image.   That only needs to be something incidental such as part of a fern or tree branch etc.  You can even duplicate something in the image and place that in front of the cube.

I've done a quick (and dirty) job here to illustrate how simple it can be in Blender to make a mesh/photo mix convincing enough for practical purposes such as for video.  If you're needing an artwork finish, then of course this would be too basic.
I can upload the blend file if you need further information.  I'd do it now but it's 4 AM here.
For anyone interested, I've used a plane placed in front of the cube with transparency set to .008 to cut the tree's trunk shape out of the cube.  That took just a few minutes.  The cube was parented to the plane, then un-parented  again immediately after.  This ensures the plane will mask out that section of the cube.  I think the lighting (Hemi lamp) is aligned roughly to the photo's light source.
It was rendered as a png file (no alpha) using the OpenGL render.
(I did mention it was a quick attempt)


text:
Texture appears differently across surfaces of a complex object?
I am currently using a UV Map node and a Mapping node to control the texture over a complex object.
Weirdly, the texture appears dramatically differently across the object. Specifically, on some surfaces, texture looks just right, whereas on some other surfaces, the texture suddenly becomes barely visible, as shown below.

Here is my model.

How may I make the texture look the same everywhere?
P.S.: Since (1) I am building an automatic pipeline, (2) the object is very complicated in geometry, and (3) it's not necessary to have a specific texture, it's not feasible to specify a UV map, so I am looking for an "automatic" solution like Generated Coordinates.

So what is the question? There is nothing weird about it, if you are using a UV Map node the Blender reading the UV coordinates from the specified UV map, and applying the to the texture. If the density is not uniform then you need to unwrap with the desired density. Without sharing your node setup, material settings and UV Maps there is not much we ca say about it

Thanks for the comment! I've supplemented in the question my node setup -- hopefully, it is clear. Could you kindly help share how to "unwrap with the desired density"?

You use a UVMap node but you don't specify a UVMap name. Can you show your object's UV Map? Did you ever unwrap your object before applying a texture? Blender Unwraping Tutorials

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos Thanks again! Shape of my object is so weird (please see the updated question) that I cannot mark seams (which I think is necessary for unwrapping?). So you are right -- I didn't unwrap my object. Appreciate your kind help!

Well unwrapping is pretty much a laborious manual work of trial and error until you get the desired effect, there is really no recipe for success here. I'd probably start by trying making seams around the edges, but I am no unwrapping expert. Alternatively If don't need a very specific texture shape or flow you may try one of the procedural solutions with a Texture Coordinates node, like Object or Generated, results are much less flexible, but a lot easier to achieve

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos Right, I don't need a specific texture shape or flow. However when I use Generated of Texture Coordinates node, the same thing happens -- on one surface, the texture density seems alright, but on another surface, the texture is super dense. What should I do to fix it? Thanks again Sir!

I have no clue, without seeing your end result, or your node setup its impossible to recommend anything. Please edit your question and provide more details, like screenshots, or a reference image of what you want it to look like, or perhaps a blend file we can look at

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos you are definitely correct Sir. I've uploaded my model and made my question clearer. Please see above. Thanks for your patience and help!

Automatic UV coordinates will yield relatively uniform and consisten texture densities across your mesh, with little effort too, at the expense of control and flexibility.
They will inevitably produce distortions of parts of the mesh, since they are blindly projected from a predefined point, without any regard for mesh topology or shape. They should however maintain an overall constant density distortions aside.

If you wish to have better results at the expense of a lot more manual work you should go with the proper texturing workfow and use actual UV Coordinates by unwrapping your mesh.
This is a manual process, and the texture density will only be as uniform as your UV map quality and unwrapping skills will dictate.
I was able to achieve relatively good UV quality from the U > Unwrap > Follow Active Quads > Even option, with a fresh UV layer, on part of your mesh.
It yielded a relatively good and even quads grid. This is how a good UV map would look.

Again I can't stress enough that by default there is absolutely no obligation that your UVs will be uniform under any circumstances, you have to manually make them uniform by eyeballing and visually scaling every UV island so it matches your desired density.

Also see related http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/73469/uv-stretching-on-a-cylinder


text:
Reproduce the exact 2D image from 3D?
I took photos of an object with a real camera. I then used computer vision techniques to 3D-reconstruct the object and in the meanwhile estimated the camera pose (locations, pointing direction, etc.). With everything in hand, I imported everything into Blender, and my goal is to reproduce the exact real-world photo with Blender.
There are of course errors in my 3D reconstruction, so by "exact" I mean I shouldn't get "zoomed-in" or "zoomed-out" version of the real image from Blender. Given the fact that the 3D reconstruction of the object is pretty good, I expect to see my 3D model "overlaid" on top of the real object if I align the Blender-output image and my real photo.
During my 3D reconstruction, I set my focal length to 5000, whose actual unit doesn't really matter, as the 3D reconstructed object will just have the same unit.
How should I set my camera parameters, e.g., focal length (how to convert 5000 to Python-Blender's space), sensor size, etc.?

Here is the image whose view (not sure if this is the correct word?) I want to reproduce exactly.

Here is the 3D scene.

Rendering the scene above gives this.

So you see, it's a zoomed version of the real image. This is unsurprising because I don't know how to set the parameters of the camera... Focal length may be easy -- just needs a unit conversion? What about all the other parameters like sensor size, etc.

Could you please post some screenshots or even blend file to: http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ ?

@LukeD Question updated as suggested. Thanks!

Focal length and sensor size are literally both settings on the camera.

I've asked something very similar here in the past, so I figured that I would share just in case it's helpful.

Set Focal length to the same value as your actual camera.
5000 sounds way off.  Maybe you missed a decimal and it was 50.00?
Most point-and-shoot cameras are between 35 to 50.
Wide angle is lower, 18 - 30.  Zoom is 80 - 200.
Just looking at it, I would guess 50.
Scoot your Blender camera to the same distance
from your object as it was in the real world.
After looking at the scene...
File > User Preferences:
Add-ons tab > Import-Export tab
enable Import Images as Planes
N to bring up right-panel
right-click on the 3D Cursor Location
and Reset All to Default Values
Add > Mesh > Images as Planes
select the image you are trying to replicate
then scale it up on the X and Y by 5
go down to the Viewport Shading button
(bottom-center)  click Material
so you can see the image.
Be sure to click the Photo-icon
in the top-right panel
so it won't render in your final image.
Click on the Render tab, and under Dimensions,
Resolution:
X:    1800 px
Y:    1000 px
this should give you the proper aspect-ratio
use the Percentage Scale for test renders
select camera, press 0 on your numpad
to go into camera view
set Focal Length to 50
reset camera X rotation to 0
and set Z location to 14
select human.001
Location:
X:   1.0
Y:  -0.3
Z:   9.0
Rotation:
X:     0
Y:   180
Z:   180
Material > Add
Surface:   Toon BSDF
Size:      1
Smooth:    1
Add > Lamp > Sun
Strength 3
Location:
X:     5
Y:     5
Rotation:
X:    -5
Y:     5
Add > Lamp > Sun
Strength 5
Location:
X:    -5
Y:     5
Rotation:
X:    -5
Y:    -5
Click on the light properties
Size:          5
Samples:       8
Max Bounces:  12
Render tab >
Sampling:
Branched Path Tracing    - uncheck square
Clamp Direct:     10
Clamp Indirect:   10
Light Sampling:  0.5
AA Samples:
Render:       25
Preview:       0
Samples:
Glossy:       50
rest of 'em:   1
x  Sample All Direct
x  Sample All Indirect
Pattern:        Correlated Multi Jitter


text:
How do I get Cycles to use GPU on a linux server?
Inspired by this question: Enabling GPU rendering for Cycles?

I have access to a Linux server that is equipped with GeForce GTX TITAN X. Now Cycles still renders everything with CPU. How can I get it to exploit the GPU?
Since I am talking about a Linux server, I guess there are two steps towards this goal:

How to get the GPU ID or identifier with Unix commands so that I can refer to it in Blender?
How to use Python to enable GPU computations?

For enabling the device for use, see bpy.context.user_preferences.system.compute_device_type and
bpy.context.user_preferences.system.compute_device.
To check these from a shell, put the python you wish to execute in a file and run
blender --background --python <file.py>

Or, more concisely for quick tests,
blender -b --python-expr 'import bpy; <python code here>'

For convenience, here's a script which will print the possible and current values of compute_device_type and compute_device:
import bpy

sysp = bpy.context.user_preferences.system

devt = sysp.compute_device_type
dev = sysp.compute_device

# get list of possible values of enum, see http://blender.stackexchange.com/a/2268/599
devt_list = sysp.bl_rna.properties['compute_device_type'].enum_items.keys()
dev_list = sysp.bl_rna.properties['compute_device'].enum_items.keys()

# pretty print
lines=[
("Property", "Value", "Possible Values"),
("Device Type:", devt, str(devt_list)),
("Device:", dev, str(dev_list)),
]
print("\nGPU compute configuration:")
for l in lines:
    print("{0:<20} {1:<20} {2:<50}".format(*l))

If CUDA shows up in the possible values for device type, then enabling the device should be as simple as doing something like this in python:
devt = sysp.compute_device_type = 'CUDA'
dev = sysp.compute_device = 'CUDA_0'

To find the identifier for the device, you can use the script above with a line to set compute_device_type to CUDA before getting the list of possible devices.

Once that's all enabled we must still tell cycles to actually use it; to do this set bpy.context.scene.cycles.device to GPU.

Very clear answer; +1. For me, Device Type:         NONE                 ['NONE', 'CUDA'] . What does this mean? My device type is None, and compute device is CUDA? Thanks!

@SibbsGambling Ah, that wasn't layed out very clearly at all. There are two lines, the first is the "device type" property, its current value, and the possible selections (this is for picking between opencl and cuda). The second line shows the selected "device" (which, if device type is none, should also be none). The "device type" will have no option available besides NONE if there is a lack of detected devices for either opencl or cuda, so that fact that cuda is an option suggests you are in good shape. I've added headers to the little table printed by the snippet, hopefully that clarifies

Awesome! So I have devices ['CUDA_MULTI_0', 'CUDA_0', 'CUDA_1', 'CUDA_2', 'CUDA_3'], and now the GPU gets to run!

But... why the GPU computation is much slower than the CPU computations to render the same scene?

@SibbsGambling Sorry about the delay.. What tile size are you using? Does a larger size  help (maybe 512)?

Happy new year! Let me experiment with the tile size a bit. ;)


text:
How to get a clip's source media starting and ending frame numbers?
I've used the Blender VSE (2.77a) to edit 7 original source media files which are each about 20 mins in length.  I have been unable to get a usable render of the edited video project out of Blender so I need to transition the project to plan B.
My backup plan is to use a different piece of software to recut the original source media using my blender clips as a reference.
Ideally, Blender could spit out an Edit Decision List (EDL) sequential list of every clip in sequencer that looked like this:
'#'; SourceMediaFileName; VseStartFrame; VseEndFrame; SourceMediaStartFrame; SourceMediaEndFrame
I can't find any feature for this type of export in Blender so my other option would be to manually build this list.  My problem is that I'm having trouble locating the SourceMediaStartFrame and SourceMediaEndFrame (those are just random aliases) values.
When I select one of the clips in the Sequencer, the Edit Strip window shows the following relevant data:
Start Frame
Length
Final Length
Playhead
Frame Offset
Each of the original source media was about 77000 frames.  So what pieces of the Edit Strip data would tell me the start frame and end frame from the original source media for each clip?
If it can't be found here, where else would I look?  Is there any easier way to build an EDL of all of the clips in my Sequencer and their start/end frames in relation to the source media?
Any help is appreciated.  Thanks.
-Caleb

Here is a script that prints strip details to the system console.  Note how the python property names are shown when you mouse over the field in the Properties Panel of the VSE. If this answer is heading in the right direction, give me a heads up and can edit to format the output more specifically to suit your needs.
import bpy

context = bpy.context
scene = context.scene
vse = scene.sequence_editor

for strip in vse.sequences_all:
    # Edit Strip Panel
    print("-" * 72)
    print(strip.name)
    print(strip.type)
    # extend for other strip types.
    if strip.type in ['MOVIE']:
        print(strip.filepath)
    elif strip.type in ['SOUND']:
        print(strip.sound.filepath)
    print(strip.channel)
    print(strip.frame_start)
    print(strip.frame_final_duration)
    # Trim Duration (soft)
    print(strip.frame_offset_start)
    print(strip.frame_offset_end)


text:
How do I add in a octagon shape from a plane mesh?
I'm new to Blender and currently watching tutorials on modeling. In this video, at 6:50, the person adds a Plane mesh that is already in a octagon form; it has 4 vertices but looks like an octagon. I've been trying to find out how he did this but can't find out the answer.

Could you be more specific. I see two planes, but not an octagon. You can add up to 2 screenshots to further explain your problem.

The guy does add in 2 planes but they look like octagons as seen by 6:57. When I try to add in a plane in my project, they look like complete circles.

The guy does not have Screencast Keys enabled, but if he did, you would know that he keyed Ctrl + 1 (1, not Numpad 1), which is the keyboard shortcut for adding a Subdivision surface modifier immediately after adding the plane.
If Ctrl + 1 doesn't work for you, you can go to the Properties panel > Object modifiers tab and add a Subdivision Surface modifier manually. Even if you use the shortcut, you still need to tweak the settings in that tab. A normal Subdivision Surface modifier looks like this:


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Texture image becoming slant

I have an image and I need to assign it to a particular slide. I have successfully assigned a unique material to all six faces but this image showing tilted doesn't make sense
The settings I am using are: Right panel > image mapping > extension > clip
and Mapping > Coordinat , Object > cube, Projection > Flat
I have added an image for clarification. Could anyone please tell me why it's happening.

I suggest using Coordinat UV and setting a UV-map for the object. I'm sure you will find plenty of tutorials how to put images on objects in blender.


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How can I raise the brightness of just the voronoi part of this shader?
I found a voronoi setup that looks kind of like stars. I want to increase the brigthness to make the stars look like they're glowing. If I raise the emission, it can add too much blinding light to the scene however. Is there another way I can increase the brightness of the white stars while keeping the blue the same and also without adding light pollution to the rest of the scene? Below are my images and node setup.

If you want to brighten just the "stars", use a second ColorRamp to isolate just the white values (against a  black background). Then, use a math node to multiply this by some value (depending on your desired brightness - higher is brighter) before adding it back to the original (colored) texture.

This is much closer to what I'm trying to get. Thank you! But now I can't get the blue sky. It's all black with white stars. I added my new node setup to my post at the bottom. I'm pretty sure it's identical to yours. My add node doesn't have color options or a fac option though. It just has value options. I'm on Blender 2.91. If you're not sure, I can probably work with this though.

The problem is that you used a Math Node for your add operation. You can see from the color of the input "dots" that it deals in black and white values. I used a MixRGB Node. which deals in color values, as indicated by the yellow "dots". Remember to switch the operation from "mix" to "add".

Oh wow ok. Yup that was it. Thanks a bunch!


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Disappearing Geometry with Geometry Nodes?
Following this tutorial
What should happen is, it should create a Thanos snap cease to exist effect.
To me, my node setup looks exactly like his, but my geometry is just gone after adding a point instance node. I'm also not sure if my empties are setup correctly.
Can anyone help me see what I'm missing?
Here's my blend file

Hello, could you add a little more information in the body of your question ? It should stand on its own without relying on links to external websites which may go extinct in the future

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.

you did "point instance" your own object. Put another instance in there e.g. a cube or a sphere, then it "works" better, but looks like there are even more problems in there...