text:
Array a Group of objects?
Is it possible to array a group of objects?
For example, if I have three objects in a group, (I want to keep them as separate objects) is it possible to easily duplicate them as if I pressed AltD for every single one?

What's wrong with using Alt+D? Also a possible duplicate of Array modifier to create individually manipulatable objects?

@Aldrik I don't want to create individual objects, I want to array multiple objects. (multiple objects in, multiple objects out.) and Alt+D is just too tedious for large amounts objects. :/

This answer was inspired by this answer here
here is a solution that actually allows use to use the array modifier to duplicate grouped objects. It does, however, require one extra mesh.
We begin with our grouped object:

Then add a plane. Go into the object properties for that plane, and enter the instancing tab (called duplication in 2.7). Select faces.

Finally, select your group object then your plane, and hit Ctrl-P to parent them, selecting Object.

Now, finally, if you add an array modifier to your plane, the group object will be duplicated:

Demo file to see final result:

good method but after setting the count to some number and if we want to delete or hide the plane the hole array disappears. How to delete the plane that is unwanted. I donot want to apply the array modifier and just want to delete the plane which we have insert. Is it possible..

@atek during my tests the planes did not show up in renders - but yes, there is no way to hid them.

weird things happen when I resized and rotated the instancer ( "Duplication" changed to "instancing" in 2.8, instancer is able to be hide now ) before parenting objects to it. All object messed up in different locations.

@Albert I tried rotating and scaling the instancer, everything seemed to behave normally. Could you describe more clearly what went wrong?

@GiantCowFilms I created multiple objects 'A1,A2,A3' and then edit each of it ( G/R/S, extrude, etc. ). Parent all of it to the active selected 'B', then parent 'B' to an instancer. Each duplications of 'A1,A2,A3' rotates in random axis. I'm not sure which step cause this problem, probably ctrl a is needed on 'A1,A2,A3' before parenting.

array on z axis also not working in here.

@Albert Still unable to reproduce the issue on my end. Did Ctrl-A fix the issue?

Select all the objects you want to multiply.
Make linked duplicates with Alt-D and place them at the proper distance.
Repeat your last step with Shift-R as often as you like.

Another way for more flexible needs:

Select your objects.
Give them a keyframe with I > location.
If you want a row of ten objects, go nine frames forward and move your selection to the end of your substitute array. Set another keyframe
Enable Dupliframes for each of your objects in the Object Properties, Duplication panel. Adjust start and end accordingly or you'll get a hundred copies.
Use the Graph Editor to set the interpolation to linear with T,2 if you need even distribution of your objects.
Make the Duplis real with CtrlShift + A

This process makes it possible to move, scale and rotate your objects freely.

Wow, I never new about Shift+R.. Here I was pressing F3 constantly.. great shortcut :)

One way to do that is to execute Shift-A / Add > Group Instance > [group name] to instance the group as a single object. Though it's basically an Empty, so we can't put an Array modifier on it, we can still Alt-D on the instance to create linked-duplicates.
Edit: For a more automated tool, we do need some basic scripting. I've written a short operator to do just that. Here's the key part:
for count in count_product:
    loc = center + Vector([count[0] * self.offset[0],
                           count[1] * self.offset[1],
                           count[2] * self.offset[2]])

    dup_obj = bpy.data.objects.new(group.name + '_array.000', None)
    dup_obj.location = loc
    dup_obj.dupli_type = 'GROUP'
    dup_obj.dupli_group = group
    context.scene.objects.link(dup_obj)

It just creates an array of group instances along three axis:

Thanks, though it's more or less the same as selecting the group and duplicating that way.. Maybe some basic python to quickly place 30 or so along an axis?

You could use dupliverts: Define your group, create an instance of that group, make that instance a child of some mesh (say, a mesh that consists of an edge with 30 subdivisions), then enable dupliverts on the parent mesh.

@gandalf3: Edited my answer. I wrote a sample operator, sort of like Array modifier, but for Group instances. Can't upload a screenshot at the moment...


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Invert Fly Mode Mouse Control?
When using Fly mode (Shift+F in the 3D view),
moving the mouse up rotates up, and moving down rotates down. Is it possible to invert this so moving the mouse to the bottom of the screen rotates up?

Not sure if you can customize that via User Preferences... maybe possible, wait for other to answer, I guess. However, when in Fly Mode, I usually use AWSD keyboard button, instead of relying on Mouse gesture direction.

change blender navigation to keyboard? something like unreal?

@KauêLima It's been a while since I've used unreal, if it is something like typical FPS controls (wasd + mouselook) then you might be interested in walk navigation

Yes, it is possible. In 2.82 it's found under Preferences -> Navigation -> Fly & Walk -> Reverse Mouse.

However this only affects Walk, not Fly.

Using the macOS version of Blender v2.80 & v2.82a the settings can be found under Preferences -> Navigation -> Natural Trackpad Direction.

No, this is not possible out of the box with Blender. In Fly mode, the camera follows the direction of the mouse cursor and rotates accordingly.
Alternatively, you can use R to translate up and F to translate down if the mouse gestures feel odd.

R/F translate up/down, rather then rotating the view (mouselook). so it works but not really equivalent functionality.

In newest version, Edit > Preferences > Navigation > Natural trackpad direction

I couldn't find this setting in 2.81, but I do see there is now a Reverse Mouse setting under Preferences > Navigation > Fly and Walk > Walk which does what I want.

source: Stack Exchange

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

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

sort: votes


text:
Save rendered images in different formats
When I try to save the rendered image, all I get is a *.png picture format. Can I save in other formats (.jpeg .bmp .gif) straight from Blender? How ?

See the Output panel in the render settings. It can also be changed post render with Image > Save As Image (F3) in the Save As Image side panel.
If you want to output to multiple formats, this can be done using the File Output compositor node.
For GIF see: Can Blender render animated gifs?

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


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Import SketchUp ".skp" files
I am new with Blender. I changed to it because now I am using Ubuntu. Previously on Windows I used to work with SketchUp, and I still have many projects, that I would like to import *.skp into Blender to continue modeling and or rendering.
Is there any way how I could import SketchUp's .skp file into Blender?

This might be interesting https://sites.google.com/site/alexvaqp/sketchupblender

@iKlsR thanks a lot. It might help me, but is there any way that I could do that without coming back to SketchUp?

I am not sure if there is an importer for this. I poked around a bit and it seems most people export to .dae or .obj and then import into Blender. Your best option I think is to get on a windows machine and export them to either of these formats.

it should be noted that it is possible to run sketchup under wine. some instructions. Possibly the easiest way to set this up would be to use Play On Linux

Yes, I know about that. But on my PC SketchUp crashes at startup...

@GediminasJeremiahGudelis if you have a copy of windows you could try using a virtual machine. You could even grab a free preview of windows 8 or something like that.

I'll try to do that on my friends PC (with Windows) to avoid harassing for installing heavy ppa, witch would be temporal... Thank you so much.

There is an importer that only works for Windows/Mac.
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?360406-Sketchup-%28SKP%29-importer

There isn't a direct importer for .skp files into Blender. Given your situation of being on linux at the moment, your best option is to get access to a windows machine and export to either .obj or .dae and import into Blender. If you are using the free version of sketchup, you might have to go through a few more steps.
There is an article of an extension on how to do this here.
To run Sketchup on Linux you can use wine for instructions With a web search this was found.
Or perhaps an extension on Sketchup might be http://sketchup2blender.com/blendup-get-started

You don't to use a Windows machine, just the 8 hour trial version of SketchUp in Wine in Ubuntu.... You can download the exe's here...

@wilf Yes, that and using a virtual machine were also suggested in the comments on the question.

17000 views, this needs a better answer. Will update it soon.

if video helps I found https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFDQq2zVhuM

.skp is a closed file format, this means the specifications for the file are only available to

developers with access to the SDK (Software Development Kit) and therefore have accepted the licensing terms for the SDK (which is incompatible with Blender's license).
developers who are willing to stick time into reverse engineering it.

It is unlikely that blender will get a way to import .skp files directly because there are several alternative ways to get models from SketchUp into Blender. Exporting as Collada .dae format from SketchUp works very well.

Keeping all the layers
The best procedure is that shown by Sixthlaw in this video. Because if you export it directly as .dae you loose all the informations regarding the layers and you will have many surprises. So is better to follow this procedure:

Export your model to .dxf from SketchUp
Download and install Autdodesk-FBX-Converter to
convert the .dfx to .fbx
convert the .fbx to .obj

Now you can import it in Blender.

go to import ->Wavefront(.obj)
set Forward: to Y Forward
import the model

Softpedia? Is there an official source to get that app?

Thanks. I don't really need this app myself, I just feel uncomfortable with download hubs and don't want people to get infected with adware, etc. (:

I know this is old, but if you came accross this like me you can try convert them to .kmz then change the file extension to .zip and extract the files and see the .dae and textures.

Blender 2.83.5 crashes when I try this method.

Recently, I came across this as an issue as well. The AutoCAD converter I had tried using didn't work out too well. But I was able to, after installing the latest version of Sketchup 8, export directly from Sketchup in the .obj format and import directly into Blender. Of course you have to remember to turn on the plugin in the User Preferences menu.
The exporting options, like the other answers have stated, don't tend to work out too well. The file loses translation in between programs. Merging layers and codes or omitting them altogether. I think the first time I tried using the .dae it turned a bracket into this weird spikey ball vector. So I don't recommend it.

There is an import option available, called sketchup_importer_0.18_win64. I used it to import .skp files directly into Blender.
However, the guy who wrote the software, has to upgrade it to the latest version of Blender, and (even worse) he only wrote it for Windows, not Linux.
Now, others stated running blender in Wine, but I would rather use the importer from him.
My options at the moment are building in SketchUp, open an older version of Blender, import and save, then open the latest Blender. All in Windows.

That could work, although using Windows may not be an option. I'd be surprised if it worked only on Windows, though maybe it uses some Windows-specific API or something.

Ah, that's good! Although nobody can actually use that to help unless they get permission from the person who wrote it, as they don't seem to have included a license file.

A new addon release for sketchup to blender users
Addon
Video

New? There have been no commits for 2 years.  Need blender 2.77 with python 3.4 or 3.5.  Is not available for linux.  Is mentioned in another answer.

@batFINGER I think the question is not for Linux its about importing sketchup model into Blender

I am using Ubuntu (in the question)


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How can I add Lens Flares/Halos?
Is there an addon, or an easy way to add lens flare effects or light aberrations in Blender? I've been using Blender for a while now, and it's very time consuming to always have to export to another software to do them, and sometimes it's impossible if the scene is complex.

Do you mean light glares/flares that analyzes an image and add the flares/glares on top, or custom flares (i.e. you position it where you want it)?

either one I guess. I know blender has the com positing capabilities with the glare node and such, but it's not very versatile...

In what way? The glare controls are robust enough, and if you want more or less flare, you can adjust the contrast.

lens-flare shader
There is an OSL lens-flare shader by iReboot (aka Dylan Whiteman) which may interest you.
From his blog post referring to a lens-flare shader originally written for the Renderman language by Larry Gritz & Tony Apodaca of pixar, iReboot writes:

I decided to try and port this to OSL - (...) I added a few features, such as
  user definable images for lens-flare elements and have got to a point
  where the shader can now be released.(...) - along with video tutorial links

In addition to the OSL shader mentioned by zeffi, you can try these:

Blender Internal(2.79 or less) only:
You can use the Halo material with the Flare option enabled to fake lens flares.
Cycles and BI:
Using Compositing nodes:
You can use a Glare node set to Ghosts to make a lens flair.
For chromatic aberration, you could use a Lens Distortion node with the Dispersion value set to something greater than zero.


text:
Microscopic Material in Cycles
How would I make this material in cycles?
Thanks

Seems a lot like a tutorial request, but it's a common question so I'll answer anyway.

The foundation of a shader like this is the Fresnel function, which you can access with either a Fresnel Node or the Layer Weight node. From the wiki:

Dielectric fresnel, computing how much light is reflected off a layer, where the rest will be refracted through the layer. The resulting weight can be used for layering shaders with the Mix Shader node. It is dependent on the angle between the surface normal and the viewing direction.

In this case, the Layer Weight's Facing output might be better since it gives a more linear falloff whereas Fresnel is more exponential.

Here Fresnel is passed through a Color Ramp to change the colours to a range of blues and purples before connecting to the Color of an Emission shader. A procedural Noise texture is used for the bump map, and some transparency is mixed as well. The transparency is mixed more where the surface is facing the camera using the same Facing output.

can you share the theme you're using as well? :)

It's a slightly modified version of Amaranth (which comes default with blender since a couple weeks ago) with browns rather than pinks.

it seems quite some people were looking for this material instructions. Thanks btw :D


text:
Viewport Animation Paths

Modo has gotten the ability to edit the motion path directly from the viewport. Cinema 4D and Maya has this as well.
Is there anything like that in Blender? What would it take to build it?

There is an add-on for that called Motion Trail that allows you to edit the curves in 3D space. You can enable in the User Preferences under the Add-on tab.

I didn't see it in blender directly, had to download the script from the wiki.

Currently it is included within the "contrib addons", these addons haven't yet been approved for inclusion in the stable blender releases, they are however included with most svn builds available at graphicall or built yourself between releases.

It's also worth noting that you can get SVN builds from the buildbot (including the contrib addons)

There is a reason that there isn't a real-time motion trail editor addon, the current desp graph makes a mess of the data, especially with IK factored in. It seems that it is computationally impossible the way that the animation data is stored and used with Blender. They are working on a new desp graph that I think will allow it, but don't quote me on that.


text:
How can you animate time?
I've tried animating the "Time Remapping" settings, but get the "property cannot be animated" message. Is there a way to animate the time of a scene?

@gandalf3, Well that's approaching feature-request/bug-report territory. You should have (still can) rollback/edit the question if the changes were not beneficial. As it stands this is a duplicate and can/will be merged.


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How can I generate camera shake?
I would like to generate camera shake in either a render or in BGE.  How can I accomplish this?

Well, the extremely lame way to do this would be to just move the camera; in an animation you could just take the graph editor, insert some keys, then just move the values ever so slightly around so that it jitters.

Related: http://www.creativeshrimp.com/handheld-camera-tutorial.html

this plugin https://blendermarket.com/products/quake-motion-camera does the magic and its not an affiliate link its just a suggestion for you if you want to try it out, adds camera shake with one click of a button

You could insert a single keyframe for the location on the camera (if you dont have any movement) and then, in the the graph editor, add a noise modifier to the curves in the properties panel (N key). Adjust the values of the modifier so you can get the intensity and movement that you like.

Remember to add one noise modifier to each channel.

Recorded hand held shake

Select | Select Camera and (optionally) View | Camera or numpad 0.
In the Timeline window:
Enable Frame | Auto-Keyframing Mode | Add & Replace or simply use the  button.
Hit play (Alt+A) and enter trackball rotation RR or grab G mode.
Move your pointing device around to generate the shake.

Note: You can get a more controlled (or violent) effect with different frame rate during recording.

As has been mentioned - fcurves modified with noise can do this.
For the game engine you can use an action with noise too (access action through the action actuator).
Note that while noise modified fcurves on camera are a start, you may want to have a very basic camera rig, I've seen this done before where an empty parent controls the camera, and there are 2 children, one the camera, another empty object with noise applied. The camera constrains to the noise empty using Copy Transforms constraint.
This has the advantage you can do regular (non-noisy) animation to the parent, and the constraint can be animated so you can adjust the noise level over time. - Of course if you wanted to go further you could blend different types of noise easily by adding more empties+constraints and blending those in too (to simulate different terrain).
Since the game engine wont do constraints, something more complex like this would need to use python scripting.


text:
Procedural Vue-like materials with Cycles
Is there a way to make procedural materials like the ones here in Cycles for rocks, sand, landscapes, etc.?
Here's an image of what I'm trying to achieve:

I'm not sure what your question is. Cycles does have procedural textures if that's what your asking.

Thanks for the fast reply, my question is more can this be done with blender cycles for example materials like this http://nukeation.deviantart.com/art/My-Vue-7-Material-Palette-110562439 with blender procedural materials ?

Here's what I whipped up in a few minuets. Is there something specific in those examples that you want to know if is possible to recreate in blender?

Thanks , can you give a screenshot from the node editor so that i can use this for learning how to make a material like this for example with the  cycles node editor

Here is the node setup. Note that this used the experimental cycles displacement (see this for more info)

@gandalf3 Hi, why don't you add your comments and node setup as an answer?

@stacker I added an answer, but the question is a bit broad.

I would say yes.
Here is an example I made in a few minutes entirely with material nodes:

Node setup:

Note that the color ramp near the bottom of the screenshot is going from 0 to 3 (to make the displacement stronger). To make colors darker or lighter than 1 or 0 you must type the values in directly.
Also note that the above image is rendered with Cycles experimental displacement.
To enable this you must enable experimental features in Properties > Render settings > Render > Feature Set:

This enables the Displacement settings in Properties > Object Data.

Thanks , for the node setup . Now if i want every rock different then i must you add the new vector tranform node . It allows to change coordinates between different spaces, World, Object or Camera

@bside That would do it

You forgot to add the Veronoi Crac node setup (and possibly the ColorRamps values and colors - tried to figure out a nice setup myself)... for the rest, the setup is working very nice for a Sea Shell I'm making. Thank you!

@DerGolem I've uploaded the .blend. Enjoy :)

Oh, thank you! In the meanwhile, I used a Standard Voronoy/Intensity which also worked well. Thank you again, Gandalf. Your answers are like mini tutorials. Always very well done.


text:
Using blender as a python module
How can I import Blender modules into any external Python IDE and use its features from the IDE itself?
I found the tutorial "BlenderAsPyModule" but I am unable to follow it… specifically I could't find any such directory as "bin\bpy.pyd", as is specified in the link (under the section named 'Windows').
I am using Visual C++ 2008 express SP1 (whose download link is given in the above linked page), and cmake on a 32-bit Windows 7 machine.
Here is the output log of generating build files using cmake with Visual Studio 9 2008  :-
Blender Skipping: (bf_collada;bf_intern_ctr;extern_redcode)
Configuring done
Generating done

and here is the output log of compiling (release build) the mvs solution file (named 'blender') :-
1>------ Build started: Project: buildinfo, Configuration: Release Win32 ------
1>Generating (some_path)/blendersvn/blender/source/creator/buildinfo.h
1>-- Found Subversion: (some_path)/svn/bin/svn.exe (found version "1.8.0")
1>Build log was saved at "file://(some_path)\blendersvn\cmake-build\source\creator\buildinfo.dir\Release\BuildLog.htm"
1>buildinfo - 0 error(s), 0 warning(s)
2>------ Build started: Project: blender, Configuration: Release Win32 ------
2>Compiling...
2>buildinfo.c
2>Linking...
2>   Creating library (some_path)\blendersvn\cmake-build\lib\Release\bpy.lib and object (some_path)\blendersvn\cmake-build\lib\Release\bpy.exp
2>Embedding manifest...
2>Build log was saved at "file://(some_path)\blendersvn\cmake-build\source\creator\blender.dir\Release\BuildLog.htm"
2>blender - 0 error(s), 0 warning(s)
========== Build: 2 succeeded, 0 failed, 121 up-to-date, 0 skipped ==========

It appears that there are no errors in these two steps. Is that correct?
Also, I copied bpy.pyd that lies inside bin\Release\  (instead of inside bin\ as mentioned in the link) into \python27\Lib\site-packages\, but there are no .dll files in the bin\Release\ directory to copy.
And then (just to add) here is the ImportError:
>>> import bpy
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<pyshell#0>", line 1, in <module>
    import bpy
ImportError: DLL load failed: The specified module could not be found.

Am I missing any part of the process or doing it wrong?

How did the build go? That file should exist if you set the WITH_PYTHON_MODULE flag to ON.

Your need to give more info - msvc or mingw? what versions? 64/32 bit?, what windows version. I maintain blender-as-a-python-module, but I mostly use Linux so rely on others letting me know if other OS's need fixing.

@CharlesL the build went fine supposedly....also there is only 1 folder inside bin/ ,named debug , that contains blender.exe...however when I click on the blender executable, it throws the follwing system error : the program cant start because python33_d.dll is missing....

@ideasman42 I have updated my question with those details....also it would have been easier and helpful for beginners if there was some step by step screencast showing how to do this thing...:)

@apratim, this feature is not meant for beginners, its experimental for devs who are already building blender and may even be removed at some point (though at the moment I see no reason to do so). Screencasts can be nice but can't be maintained when there are changes to the build process. Developers should be able to follow text instructions if there well written.

@ideasman42 Ok...but where do you see the problem is in this case where there is no such directory bin\bpy.pyd.....also does it work with python 2.7? Or 3.3 is essentially required?

@apratimankur, added a Troubleshooting section to the wiki page.

@ideasman42 have updated my question with more details...see if I could be helped...and thank you for taking time to add the Troubleshooting section...

@apratimankur, I rather not put version numbers in docs since we do update python versions. But added this note ---
(if Blender us using Python3.3 then there is NO WAY to use another version - 2.7/3.2/3.4 will all fail).

@ideasman42 ok...so is it just the python version that is causing the problem? like the absence of *.dlls in bin/release/? and which blender version would support python 2.7?

Maybe, I cant say, I got this working once on a Windows-VM without doing anything special, but the wrong python version will fail for sure.
Blender2.49 was the last stable version of blender to support python 2.x series.

Voting to close this question, its less a question and more a request for support on building a specific configuration of Blender.

@ideasman42 the question shouldn't have been closed, I'm a programmer and need to use blender module, having problems with building, wished this quesiton had an answer

This site is about using Blender, problems building Blender are out of scope. Note that MSVC2008 is no longer supported. (Only MSVC2013)

Related: https://stackoverflow.com/a/11102681/321973


text:
Blender release life cycle and versioning
I was trying some older versions but version numbers and release versions are not clear to me.
For instance how can I know what is the most stable release of a given version, say 2.49:
The folder listing looks like this:
...
Blender2.49/    2009-Jun-04 09:24:18    -   Directory
Blender2.49a/   2011-Jul-11 16:08:09    -   Directory
Blender2.49b/   2009-Sep-16 09:53:26    -   Directory
...

So, which one is the stable release, is it the "newest one"?, so what does the letter a stand for, is it alpha?
How is it related with the software release life cycle common acceptance?

Usually letter differences in versions (i.e. 2.49b) are small changes in that version: a few bug fixes, small tweaks to tools or UI. Generally the most stable version will be the newest.

@CharlesL I'm not sure if the date in the listing is the build date, I'll assume it is.

AFAIK, the letter doesn't stand for anything. It is appended to the version number when there is a bug fix release with minor changes after the initial release, and incremented with subsequent bug fix releases. So 2.49b is the latest version of 2.49.
The date refers to the last time the directory or file on the server was modified:


text:
Fluid simulation not baking
I am trying to bake a fluid simulation in Blender 2.67. Here is a mockup of my scene:

My scene is set up just like the picture, with a sun lamp above a mesh that is supposed to be a riverbed.
The liquid Domain object encapsulates everything except for the sun lamp, and it covers all edges.  Inflow and outflow objects are specified, one each, with the inflow velocity set to Y: -1.0, Z: 1.0.  All liquid simulated objects are enabled.  The mesh is set to Obstacle.  Settings are very, very low:  25 resolution for final and preview, 4.0 second start/end span for 100 frames (real-time), and smoothing set to 0.0, for a whopping 463 KB estimated memory space.
My issue is that when I try to bake it, after specifying a valid directory, nothing happens, except that the status bar appears, my computer saves the baked cache correctly, and then it's as if nothing happened.  Nothing in the menus changes, preview and render both act as if the event never occurred.  I'm also using Windows 7 64-bit with Intel Mobile Express Chipset Family 4 (graphics card).
That's not a lot, so I know it can't be my memory or graphics card issues.  Here is the relevant .blend file. What could the problem be?

I don't use the fluid simulator much but it seems the problem can be fixed by adding some depth to the inflow object. Currently it's just a flat plane. Just extrude it a bit on the Y axis and bake.

I extruded both the inflow and outflow objects out by 0.05.  Then I located my (completely empty) cache folder and baked.  I did absolutely absolutely nothing between these steps.  Blender again outputs the files to two folders: Fluid and FluidTest1_.  I then press play on the timeline and in preview, render, wireframe, object, and textured mode I see no sign that water ever existed.  It is starting to look like a file-location error (or even a bug).

@Stopforgettingmyaccounts I did nothing to the file except extrude the inflow object. Turn your preview and final settings up a bit.. try 60. I don't think 25 will show. You can also try deleting the cache folder before baking again.

I am having the worst day with comments right now.  So, here is the file: https://i.sstatic.net/T2n9n.png.  The water should be coming in a reasonable direction from the inflow object.

@Stopforgettingmyaccounts... select the inflow object, tab into edit mode and hit Ctrl + N to recalculate the normals then bake again.

Nothing changed.  It's still looking like the water is shriveled up on the side of the riverbank.  I heard once that the domain "becomes" the water.  Is there anything wrong with my setup, then?  If worse comes to worse, can you just give me the file with the fixes you made (carefully outlined, if possible) so that I may analyze it?

@Stopforgettingmyaccounts... blend-files generally shouldn't be used to 'answer' questions. Answers should be self contained. I am following your steps exactly and I have reproduced all the errors per se. The domain is now the water object after you have baked. You can select it and hit bake again OR Follow these steps: 1. delete the current fluid cache. 2. recalculate the normals on the inflow object 3. hit bake. You have managed to get the water showing so you might just be missing a simple step.

Without the .blend file, people would be guessing the issue for hours.  Also the issue may have been due to a bad settings configuration that nobody could guess without seeing my .blend file.  It conveniently sped up the process by probably 10 times.  Also, after performing your instructions, it works (for whatever reason since I swear I did those at least 20 times before).

@Stopforgettingmyaccounts... Ok, great. In conclusion.. as I said before.. answers need to be self contained and people need to know exactly what they are doing to see where they went wrong etc. so poking around a modified file makes little to no sense and is not as helpful as actually guiding the person through the steps.

I feel Blend file can be valuable as a troubleshooting step, narrowing down the problem, etc. But yes, in this case, the answer is: Fluid inflow needs to be a volume, so modifying the inflow plane into a cube works.

@MikePan In some cases yes. What I mean is use them as examples for questions/answers but not as 'fixes' to problems, that really helps nobody. See http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/a/169/12

I had the same problem and for some reason when you scale down the Fluid
object it stops baking, so I had to scale it up for it to work. Now that might mean that you have to bring up the resolution for small fluid objects.
That at least worked for me! Hope it helped.

It doesn't stop baking if Fluid object is small, it might be that resolution of simulation is not enough to preview the baked results and appears to be absent.

I had a similar challenge, try the following:
1. select domain object and press tab to enter edit mode, then subdivide.
2. press tab again to enter object mode, click subdivision modifier and increase render to 2.
Bake and watch it simulate.

I also had this problem and solved it by changing the directory of the cache_fluid - files. Maybe the path was too long, I don't know, but after I changed this to my desktop it worked just fine.


text:
BGE: How to set the Constraint Axis to an object coordinate
I need to constrain an object using the axis of another object (my problem is related to the axis direction: there is no "distance between objects" constraint; you have to use the local or global axis to check). So, I made this parented object that tracks the whole time to another one, and from it I want the Y axis.
Using this tutorial for reference, I did the following:
#CONSTRAINT
direction = cont.actuators['Direction'] #the constraint actuator
face = sce.objects['Facer'] #the facing object
faco = face.localOrientation[1] #here we are (this gives me a 3x3 matrix)
                                #but i only want to use the Y value
                                #I’ve tried out even 0, and 2 but wont work

def constra():
    direction.direction = faco #this isn't running as it should
    cont.activate(direction)

There are no errors in the terminal. It's just not doing what it should do. I think I'm wrong, and he didn't want the orientation of the object, but some other stuff maybe...

Not certain if it's available within BGE but in the 3DView you can create new Transform Orientations. These orientations are based on the xyz orientation of the selected object at the time of creation. It may be possible to create a new one at the time you want to match the object movement and use that transform to move. OR... create empty, copy target orientation to empty, make empty the parent of object to move, move empty, unparent, delete empty(or reuse it next time).

Does the object need to be parented? I will make an example that presumes it doesn't. If you explicitly need parented objects, this script will not work as it is.
If you transform the orientation matrix of the source object into an euler and then pass it on to the target object's world orientation as a matrix, you should get what you are looking for.
In a nutshell: get matrix -> change to euler -> modify euler -> change to matrix -> give to the object you want
Hook this up to a TRUE level pulse triggering sensor with a frequency of your choice.
import bge
import mathutils

sce = bge.logic.getCurrentScene()
face = sce.objects['Facer']
facY = face.worldOrientation.to_euler()[1] #Now we have the Y-axis rotation
facTar = sce.objects['Facingtarget']       #This is the target object we modify
newRotList = [facTar.worldOrientation.to_euler()[0],facY,facTar.worldOrientation.to_euler()[2]] #Now we have a list
newRot = mathutils.Euler(newRotList).to_matrix()   #Now we have the matrix we need
facTar.worldOrientation = newRot    #The orientation has been modified

Solved another way, unfortunately I was already using the orientation system on the same object, so I was needing the precise matrix to give the actuator, but now works, so I don`t worry anymore, thanks.


text:
Advice on how to understand UV unwrap a rounded object
After UV unwrapping a rounded object, drawing and painting a texture on it with a different program is difficult! It's not precise. I can't paint lines accurately, because it's spherical! Maybe you guys understand. How can I accurately and precisely paint and draw in a different program, on an a warped UV?

I don't know what you mean by spheric. But this tutorial from BlenderCookie might help.

you need to explain more why the work-flow you have is problematic. because it's spheric is a bit vague.

Stretching
First of all, you should make sure that your UV map is free from stretching as much as possible. It is impossible to make it complete stretch free unless you split every triangle. If you plan to draw on the texture only in the 3D editor, that might be a possibility.
To check stretching, assign a checkered texture, like the built in in blender.
Also, in the UV/image editor, in the left panel (hit N), under display, you can check the stretch checkbox. It will color code stretching. Pure blue means no stretching. Various nuances of light blue, cyan, green, and all the way to red means more or less stretching.
There are two kinds of stretching to select here, angle and scale. I mostly use the angle stretching.
Cylindrical mapping
To make it easy to paint latitude and longitude lines, you can use cylindrical mapping. In the 3D editor, in edit mode press U and select Cylindrical projection. The projection is relative your view. Press 5 and 1 on the numpad before doing the projection.
However, this technique will give you serious stretching at the poles. The top row and bottom row in the texture will be be concentrated to a single vertex.


text:
How can I create a water material in Cycles?
I'm creating a scene with large amounts of water that will be readily visible, containing refraction and at various angles. The scene is an indoor long-course swimming pool, about 50 meters, all of which would be seen by a camera above 5 meters above the water's surface. This is being fluid-sim'd, but there are no quickly-moving objects or people, so any water movement is slower and in bulk. The "remove bubbles" option is enabled.
I've tried using a Mix Shader of Refraction BSDF and Reflection BSDF with the factor coming from a Fresnel node, but the results appear either too glossy or too transparent and overly colored. How can I make the water appear realistic? Changes to shaders (refraction to glass)? Or is tweaking colors sufficient?

This is a good question, but a bit subjective ("What is realistic"). Can you make it a bit narrower in scope/more specific?

@RolandiXor I gave specific details on the scene I am creating and what I am trying to achieve. Would this be sufficient now?

yeah better now :)

It is very important to add some small scale displacement to the water surface. This small scale detail is present even in closed spaces due to minor drafts of air, especially in large pools of water. My personal experience is that for best results you can use a combination of animated voronoi textures, like perlin noise does.
This small detail makes it possible to have areas of water that are slightly more refractive or reflective than others. To separate the refraction and reflection parts, you use a standard fresnel factor connected to a mix shader node.
This is my example shader:
(play with index of refraction to achieve a different ratio of refraction to reflection depending on the angle of viewing)

And this is the resulting water:

Of course on indoor scenes you will need many samples or clever lighting to avoid too many fireflies.

Could you provide a blend-file pls? I fail to reproduce your example in blender 2.75a. The water is black and the stuff which is behind the water doesn't shine through. Thanks!

Hey, just to inform you that the pictures used in this answer are not visible.

I've found that using a simple glass glass node works. Also it would help to mix in a refraction node and set the IOR to 1.333, which is the IOR of water. If you want foam use a voronoi crackle texture node and invert the alpha so that the "crackles" give the reflection as white and it looks foamy. You will have to tweak the setting to get it looking the way you want it. The look of your water also depends on your lighting. Always Model, then Light, then create your materials and texture, and finally post processing.

Ah, the voronoi does help quite a bit. I multiplied it with something a bit grainy to help as well.

this was my result

Ah, beautiful. Could you include the .blend file as well?

No I did this on my old computer and I was able to save the image, but not the .blend when it crashed. I would have if I had it. Sorry.

Ah, OK. No worries.

You know I did find the .blend. Here it is. It should be in your e-mail inbox.

I would reccomend you to also add a screenshot of nodes for waves, cause not all people know how to make them(converting noise texture with multiply or in other way)

Large scale water (almost opaque) looks very different than small scale water (very transparent). Fast water(whiter, low reflectivity) also looks very different than slow water(clearer, high reflectivity). So unfortunately there isn't a simple answer.
Since water is transparent, the lighting and environment which it's in is very important. A drop of water in a blank world is going to be invisible. So realistic lighting and proper environment for it to reflect off helps a lot.

If you're doing a fluid sim, fast/slow won't matter; the reflectivity changes (at least in Blender) are due to the presence of additional surfaces within the water, with the gaps between them causing refractions as they rush past.

Here is another example for a lake water with very deep and strong reflection;
Nodes:

Result:

I did not let it render much samples(only 3) so the image is low quality, but you can see so water shader looks amazing;)
Hope this answer helps you to make lakes and rivers;)

The Glass BSDF node offers essentially everything that you want.
The IOR you will want to use is 1.333 (from a Blender Artists post), and you'll pretty quickly get a good look for stationary water. If you want foam, you'll have to get a little bit clever with your implementation, but water by itself works pretty well just with the single shader.
If you're using the newest version of Blender, it is also possible to do SSS to mimic the effect of light in water.
Example: My attempt at making a standard water.

Here's one with SSS; it's not realistic, but could be helpful for portraying deep water (i.e. oceans).

In short, I'd strongly recommend using a simple Glass BSDF for your water, and if you run into issues trying to work around it, rather than trying to build the water from scratch using reflection/refraction. Cubes aren't the best way to show this; I put mine inside a "container" because otherwise you get to see the glass reflecting on itself, but this shouldn't be an issue with a more complex model.
Note that the second render got more samples, so any quality discrepancies are likely due to that.

Here's a video I rendered out quick of the first shader in action:
http://youtu.be/yGFLFL04TxU

The Glass BSDF shader in Cycles should work pretty well. Change the IOR: value (index of refraction) to 1.333, and you should get perfectly clear water. If your looking for a murky type look, use a Mix Shader to mix the Glass BSDF with a Diffuse BSDF.

Here take mine. Added stuff from above. Btw. I use EEVEE

Your answer would be much more useful if you explained the nodes. Just dumping a picture of the node tree, while helpful to some people, is really not the best.

Glass shader and transparent shader goes to mix shader and IOR in glass shader to 1.33. Remember to crank up the transparent value in render setting to around 8 minimum and light bounces to 4 minimum.

Can you add some more detail with a screenshot of your node setup and render result?


text:
Is it possible for light sources in Cycles to have nonphysical falloff like in BI?
In BI, we have the traditional OpenGL choices of constant, linear and 1⁄distance2 falloff, along with some parameters to tweak the falloff formula.  This allowed for a variety of artistic styles, and getting even illumination from lamps that couldn't be put far away.
Cycles is more physically realistic.  What about 3D works in which we don't want such great realism?  Is there a way to make all the light paths between two objects, or between one object and all others, obey alternative laws of radiation physics?

possible duplicate of changing the intensity falloff of light sources using Cycles nodes

@David That question is newer and is already being closed as a duplicate of this one.. Why close this older question as a duplicate of the new question?

@gandalf3 The answer to the newer question is better.

Yes. There is a node called Light Falloff
you can plug in to the Emission shader strength.
It has three outputs: quadratic or Linear
or Constant You my even do some math with the ray
length and plug the result in the Light Falloff
node strength and use the Constant output.
The example is only a demonstration nothing useful.


text:
How do I create metal materials in Cycles?
I'm trying to make a gun for an alien space ship and I need to know how to create a dark gray metal look. I have tried mixing a Diffuse and Glossy BSDF, but it isn't quite what I am looking for. I need some light falloff to help get that "extra touch", but I don't know how to do that.

Have you tried an Anisotropic BSDF? BlenderGuru has a nice tutorial about anisotropic shading in Cycles.

No because anisotropic shading is bidirectional mostly I don't want the light to splay out I want it to kind of diffuse across the surface but still be kinda shiny.

Are you asking for a node setup? That's a bit of a tutorial request and there are tons out there already. Google "Cycles Metal Material Setup" should show some good results. You can also download a node setup from blendswap.com

ok I'll try that

@OwenPatterson there are a few nice setups in this blend: http://www.blendswap.com/blends/view/56470

I would recommend applying a normal map, using a glossy shader and then bumping up the roughness to your liking.
Example

Here's what I did
Glossy shader color (hex)
616161

Roughness amount
0.05

Normal map

Where did you get the normal map?

OMG the results rock! THNKs

I created it using mapzone. It's free software but it takes a while to learn, unless your already skilled in texturing. You can keep the texture

When recreating real-world materials you need to have a good mental model of how they behave and interact with light from different angles. Collect as many images as possible of the material, preferably under different lighting conditions. This collection can be an ongoing library of images for future reference.
If looking for tutorials, don't limit yourself to Blender centric tutorials or even specifically ones for Cycles. Material shading techniques are largely generalized concepts that apply to any type of shading system -- which is great because you get the best of the Blender world and the best of the terrabytes of non Blender tutorials.

You likely need to look into Fresnel or the layer weight node. Also metal does not look like anything without something to reflect so add a HDRI light source. Last add a texture to your roughness. You might also want a good bump map.

authors: Дмитрий Ксель


text:
Set face texture
I want to set texture for faces. I put together a quick example using the "Cube" and an existing BMP as the texture file on disk. I am in Object Mode. I set the Viewport Shading to Texture.
The code is:
import bpy
import bmesh

texturak = bpy.data.textures
o = bpy.data.objects["Cube"]
me = o.data
ol = me.materials

img = bpy.data.images.load('d:\\canwall1.bmp')
texturak.new('ColorTex', type = 'IMAGE')
texturak[-1].image = img

mat = bpy.data.materials.new('TexMat')
mtex = mat.texture_slots.add()
mtex.texture = texturak[-1]
mtex.texture_coords = 'UV'
mtex.use_map_color_diffuse = True
mtex.use_map_color_emission = True
mtex.emission_color_factor = 0.5
mtex.use_map_density = True
mtex.mapping = 'FLAT'

if (len(me.uv_textures) == 0):
    me.uv_textures.new()
while (ol):
    ol.pop(0,update_data = True)
ol.append(mat)

for texlay in me.uv_textures:
    for tf in texlay.data:
        tf.image = img

I get the cube, then the texture, I add it as a material. From there, I found no good examples on internet. The only working stuff was for Blender 2.5 and some guesses from the answer of my previous question here.
So for this time I tried to set all face-images to the image I load. But all I get is a purple cube. Now my guess is that "something happened" (woohoo), but as well as "something is missing" (no woohoo this time).
My question would be to those more experienced, that what is missed here actually, or is there a better way to set material / texture to a face / faces?
Edit: To extend my question: I want to have more textures per mesh; this is why I want to set the texture per face.

Do you need to do it with a python script or a manual solution is enough?

I need it from Python, because I want to make an importer script.

The following sets the face texture of face 0 for the active object:
import bpy

obj = bpy.context.object
img = bpy.data.images.load("//example.png")
obj.data.uv_textures.active.data[0].image = img

# To make renderable:
mat = bpy.data.materials.new("Example")
mat.use_face_texture = True
obj.data.materials.append(mat)

For cycles see: Different image textures for one material (Cycles).

Last line is "(mat)" and not "(material)", but works cool. First I checked the stuff was purple too (see question's problem), then I realised it may be the texture: I converted that to PNG from BMP, and it worked pretty cool.

Corrected — glad you got is sorted. :)


text:
For which formats are Cycles materials completely and accurately exported?
I'd like to export my scene to one or more of the file formats listed in the File → Export menu:  .3ds, .dae, .obj, and so on. Which, if any, of these formats records all the details of Cycles materials – all the types of shaders, RGB curve nodes, all the texture types, and so on?  If I make a complicated material in the Node Editor, will the visual appearance of the rendered object be properly conveyed to someone using 3D Studio or Wavefront? I'm not worried about meshes or most other things, just materials.
Lacking any of the software which would normally use any of the exportable formats, I have no way to check by direct experiment.  Even if it did work – and even if Blender can re-load an exported file and the scene looks okay – I can't be sure if I just got lucky and unwittingly avoided some tricky feature.

I don't know enough to answer outright, but maybe this will help?  I believe if you made the materials with Open Shading Language OSL, 3ds max (beast 2014) can also use it.  But that's complicated. Other than that, most render engines are very different from each other, often fundamentally different.  You'll probably need to specify what render engine will be used.  I think you could recreate simple cycles materials in another application, but probably not perfectly.  I know of no export of cycles materials.  Perhaps take screenshots of your material settings for someone else to recreate?

As far as I know, nothing. Since the materials are node based, there are almost infinitely many possibilities of combinations of nodes to make all sorts of materials.
It's not as simple as having certain sliders for certain things.

OSL materials transfer best, as James pointed out.
As far as I know, Cycles cannot currently export it's own materials. Blender Internal can sure export textured things though.
Anyway if your scene is already built up with Cycles your best chance for going to 3Ds Max is first .fbx and then .dae.
About file formats:
.3ds is old.
.obj is old too, but has worked well for me, especially concerning mesh-only models.
.dae is great with textures, optimized for gaming.
.fbx is great with textures, optimised for autodesk :)
dae and fbx should probably support shaders, but as stated before, Cycles doesn't support exporting them yet anyway.
more on .dae

Cycles Material Export directly from Blender to Other Applications is not possible as far as my knowledge is concerned.
Every application deals with the Materials in its own way. This is especially true for Node based Material editors.

However,good result can by achieved by 1st baking the textures (in BI) , assigning them  (with diff, normal, spec, emissive maps), creating required materials for all parts, then exporting them.
This ensures that your material is exported with atleast Diffuse map properly assigned. You'll have to work some more to assign your other maps.
Make sure you keep all your textures in your file root folder or sub folder and your texture maps are correctly pointing at them.

Answer: the .blend format. In other words, you can't export Cycles materials.
Under the hood, Cycles shaders are just a collection of OSL shaders. The way that OSL-capable render engines work is fundamentally different from render engines from just a few years ago. Instead of simply combining the diffuse, specular, and reflective components of a shader, they calculate radiance closures which tell the render engine about the surface, but do not give the final pixel color. See the OSL Introduction page for more details.
The only way you could possibly hope to completely and accurately export a Cycles shader is if you planned on using it in another OSL-capable render engine. Some include Arnold and Spectral Pixel. However, this is not yet possible, and is unlikely to happen, since each OSL-capable render engine has to implement the closures (Diffuse, Glossy, Subsurface Scattering, etc.) themselves, so there's no way to guarantee the same implementation.
So if you have a render engine you like, you had better create the materials using that software.


text:
Texture Image Material is flipping the PNG file I Input
Here is an image of my Blender workspace:

As you can see, the image of the Spanish flag is flipped state on my plane.
Have I missed something here? All I did was add an image to the plane.
Is there a way to add another image on the opposite of the flag too?

If you want it to look right from this side, there's a few quick solutions for that:

Rotate the plane 180° around the Z-Axis
Flip the texture by inverting the value under Mapping > Scale > X
UV-Unwrap it from the side you're looking from with U > Project from view (bounds) (you might have to press Ctrl + Numpad 1  before).

If you want it to look right from both sides, you will have to duplicate the plane, offset it a tiny bit and unwrap both sides accordingly. But it's very rare that flags look correct from both sides, because printing that without the other side being visible is difficult.

You're probably looking at the "back" of the plane, then.
To fix this, pick any one of the below options:

Mirror the plane on the X-axis. Do this with SX-1Enter or CtrlMXEnter.
Flip the plane's normals. Press Tab to enter Edit Mode, press A to select all vertices, and then look in the tool shelf at left for Flip Direction under the Normals subheading (it's about halfway down the list).
Flip your camera around. Put the 3D cursor at the center of the scene, change the pivot point to 3D Cursor by pressing . (period), and press RZ180Enter
Create a UV map. This is probably the best and most flexible solution, but it requires a little more work. Press Tab to enter Edit Mode, select all the vertices with A, and, since it's only a plane, simply press U and select Unwrap. Then, in the UV/Image Editor, you can move the UV vertices to make your texture display correctly.

In the UV editor, press the mouse by the cube, press 'R' and type in 180.


text:
How can I get faster render times for a single image?
When rendering a single frame, either by pushing F12 or from the Properties → Render menu, is there any way to speed up the process? I know about rendering animation through the Python console to speed up rendering time, but can this be applied to a single frame of animation?

Are you asking how to render a single frame from the console?

dont understand the question, I think you could re-phrase, are you asking how to make a screen-shot?

Lindsey, the question is in danger of being closed, please clarify exactly what you mean and then 'flag' to reopen. Thanks.

Do you mean to do a quick openGL rendering of your animation like a playblast animation?

there are several possibilities depending of your scene setup and renderer (blender internal [BI] or Cycles), but beware, most of them are lowering your overall quality. But we're faking all of the time in CG, so why not here too ;)

Reduce the number of subdivisions if you're using one or more subdivision surface modifier
BI: Reduce the number of mirroring surfaces (if any)
BI: Reduce the number of area lights and replace them with several spots
BI: Turn down Anti-Aliasing
Cycles: Reduce the number of samples
Cycles: Disable the usage of caustics
Cycles: Split your scene in different passes and render with a different sample count (less samples for simple passes, more samples for heavy passes)
Cycles: Disable motion blurring
Cycles Use the direct light Integrator preset (changes your scene appearance too - be warned)
Decrease your image resolution...

The possibilities are really countless and depend heavily on your scene - so it's really hard to give a specific answer in your case.
You can save a file with F3 when you're above the rendered image.
Greetings, Thomas


text:
Why does the zoom sometimes stop at a point?
I often find that I can zoom in to a point, but then cannot zoom any more, even when there is a lot of room to zoom to the meshes on the scene.
This is particularly annoying in the following scenario:
I often land up left clicking on the scene and the 3D cursor shifts there. I use Shift+C to shift the 3D cursor back to the origin. However, this also centers the view on the cursor and shifts the view to show all objects, and sometimes this zooms things way out – at this point, if I try to zoom in, I can zoom in to a point (using the pinch/zoom on trackpad), but then it stops zooming in.
How do I zoom in after that? Is there anything else I am doing wrong in this case?

By the way, you can use Shift-S to snap the cursor without moving the view.

Explanation (Brief)
Blender's 3D navigation uses a central point to orbit around.
In practice this is good for modeling an object which you rotate about a lot to see from all sides(think of a potter using a wheel).
However this makes it awkward to explore a scene or model an object from the 'inside', for example.
There are some ways to use Blender without this being an annoyance. ... read on!
Explanation (Detailed)
Blenders view is constructed by 3 elements.

location: the point of interest that orbit when rotating the view-port (the center of the screen).
distance: the zoom level (distance from the location).
rotation: value for yaw-pitch-roll (around the location).

linked to API reference.
Typically users don't need to worry about this detail, however zooming will only change the distance which is an offset from location (where 0.0 is zoomed in as far as possible == no offset).
Solutions
Early on using Blender I was quite annoyed by this limitation, of course there are ways to set a new view-center, common way is to select an object and press numpad ., but what if there are no objects where you want to look at? .. or the object is very large? (a terrain mesh for eg). Sometimes I found myself rotating the view 90d, panning, then rotating back - which seemed an unnecessary workaround.
Here are some ways to navigate in large scenes or scenes with no obvious center...

View Dolly: CtrlShift + middle-mouse or Shift++/-works similar to zoom but translates the view center (like panning forward).I think this is the most direct answer to your question, but listing other methods too.

Walk/Fly Mode: ShiftFAs with dolly this can move the view back and fourth (using the mouse wheel), but you can also look around using the mouse and WASD keys, its a mode all on its own and has pros and cons which are better explained elsewhere.

Auto Depth Preferences>Navigation:useful in combination with Zoom To Mouse Position, Using these will make sure the distance is always the value under the mouse cursor, this means you have to consider where you click when moving the view but can also be very handy since it gives you a lot more control.If you work with large scenes - like a game level for example, and want to move around a lot, I'd recommend to try these options. See this video for a demo.

Border Zoom: ShiftB: Also sets the center-point when zooming.

Center the view around the mouse cursor:AltMiddle-Mouse (click) This will take the position under the cursor and make it your viewpoint center.

Center the view around the 3D cursor AltHome

NDOF (N-Degrees of Freedom), also known as a 3D mouse, hardware you can use to navigate a scene with Blender, See devices made by 3dconnexion. Blender's 3D View supports this, allowing you to explore a scene. Walk/Fly modes also support NDOF devices.(Note, this is not a promotion of 3dconnexion, in fact there are very few companies who make such hardware, So currently Blender only supports 3dconnexion)

Whoa. View dolly which is different from view zoom blew my mind. I recommend Auto Depth to everyone. It's the first thing I turn on. Should be a default, really.

@Wray Bowling, the reason its not default is many users like not to have to be aware of their mouse placement when using view operations. By default you can click anywhere for view rotate for eg, but with auto-depth you have to take care to place your mouse somewhere that isnt going to change your depth too close/far.

Might be useful to mention Alt+Home to center the view at the 3D cursor. If you enable 'Cursor Depth' in the User Preferences to place the cursor on the surface of objects, I find this is the quickest way to specifically place the center of view

If just the new Walk mode was available as default viewport navigation method... MMB down, move mouse to rotate in FPS style, MMB up to end rotation. + / - and scrollwheel to move forward / backwards.

If you've got 4+ mouse buttons i recommend mapping one of them to the numpad dot function. I did that a couple years ago and it improved my flow a lot. (I use the fifth one for pan because i find shift+rollerdrag annoying)

Alt+Home was the trick! It seems I accidentally messed up my view center.

Update: As of Blender 2.8, "Center view to mouse" is now alt+MMB by default, and it works wonders for me. Otherwise this is still an amazingly useful explanation and should have its own page in the user guide, really.

I tried all of these but none of them worked except Auto Depth. Unfortunately Auto Depth is unusable if you have a large sphere around your scene because it zooms mile if you accidentally zoom over that.

@Zak thanks, updated answer.

In Blender, when you zoom in or out or rotate the viewport, it always does so around a center point. You can find this point by rotating your display using the third mouse button and finding the spot that always remains in the center. Your problem arises, because Blender essentially reaches the minimum focal distance to that center point, and does not allow you to zoom any further.
You can't override this feature of Blender, but you can instead shift this center point to a more useful location. You can do this in a number of different ways:

The simplest way is just by panning the screen (Shift + third mouse button)
To reset this center to the origin, press Shift+C, then Alt+Home
To set this center to an object in your scene, select that object, then press the decimal point on the numpad (numpad .)

By doing any one of these, you are essentially 'shifting' the viewport camera that you look through, instead of just zooming it in or out.

I would like to add to this. If I'm not mistaken, the reason the zoom stops is because the perspective camera that you're essentially looking reaches the maximum focal length.
By resettling the view on an object, such as with "numpad ." you are actually moving the camera closer, whereas before it was strictly zooming in and out.

Many of these options don't work on a Mac. There is no third mouse button on my mouse (it has a clickable scrollwheel, but that does not behave as a third mouse button, since it is mapped elsewhere by the system). There is no home button. There is no numpad - I have mapped the numpad and the digits from 1-0 work, but the period (.) doesn't work on a Mac, even after mapping numpad.

@Anand You can emulate a three-button mouse on a Mac. Check out http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/124/how-to-emulate-a-number-pad-and-3-button-mouse/130#130

@Jonathan Williamson, this isn't related to the focal length of the camera, its simply that there is zero distance to the view offset (internal limitation, explained in my answer).

@ideasman42 ah thanks for that. I was never away of View Dolly, that's insanely helpful!

@Anand You can also get a three-button mouse for the Mac. The Mac I'm using as I type this has a gaming mouse attached that works WAY better with Blender than the "Magic" mice.

Shift + C did the trick for me.

There's a limit on how far you can zoom in. If you want to continue zooming in, you'll have to reset your view (as mentioned in a previous answer) or do one of the following:

Press ShiftB(when not in a camera) and select an area. Blender will zoom into that point.
Press NumPad . this will zoom to the selected object, or objects.
Adjust some of the view camera settings in the Properties area (N)

One major fix for this problem is modeling on a larger scale. Modeling small objects will require more zooming. Keeping objects to scale(proportional to the real world) will generally make modeling easier.

How do I select an 'area'? Do you mean a mesh or such? I have my cube selected, but clicking Shift B does nothing. Pressing (.) when not seeing current object does nothing. Will try playing with the Properties area...

Shift B will bring up a selector similar to Box Select. Dragging the box will zoom to match the part of the screen you selected.
As for (.), you need to select an object then press (.), this will zoom the view camera too the object.

Typically when you can't zoom in as far as you'd like, it's because you're in perspective view instead of orthographic view. You can toggle between the two by hitting the "5" key on the numeric keypad. You can tell what view you're in by looking in the upper left corner of the viewport. It'll tell you the view you're in (such as "front ortho" or "front perspective").

This is by far the easiest and fastest way to solve this :).

this should be the accepted answer

this was it, i was zooming into everything and all of a sudden i couldn't anymore and had no idea what i did to cause this.

For using a laptop, if the Numpad . doesn't do anything, turn off auto perspective mode in user preferences and turn off perspective mode with Numpad 5:

Simple solution

Open the User Preferences > Input
Type Center View into the search field.
Assign a key to Center View to Mouse like for example the key left from the 1  on the keyboard (^ ), which is pretty well accessible without having to move the hand off of the standard position.
Click Save User Settings. Done!

Go into the 3D View (of course perspective, as we all like it the most), zoom in until it slows down - position mouse cursor into the direction you want to zoom in (which is normally already the case), press the assigned key.

For me it has a shortcut by default, Alt+F.

Sure it does have a shortcut, but it is not really handy, to press Alt+F. But it is your decision.

Just to update the answer for 2.9x
The depth option in Preferences -> Interface -> Navigation -> Orbit & Pan

Other answers claim that it's just because at some point you reach the maximum focal distance and you can't zoom anymore. But this doesn't happen normally, it just seems that some setting has been messed up. My workaround is to just create a new project and import the objects that I have so far created, and everything start working normally again.

Note that the accepted answer is by a developer of blender and is therefore probably quite accurate.

This isn't a very realistic solution for most projects either...a blend file isn't just a bunch of objects.

This is exactly what happened to me, I accidentality pressed some key (or combination there-of) and then could no longer zoom.  I think it was some kind of operation involving the camera.


text:
Why is Limited Dissolve irregular?
Why is Limited Dissolve irregular?
Tested on a simple circle:

It removes vertices, but not evenly as one might expect on a perfectly symmetrical mesh.

The method used in 2.68 only worked well for dissolving areas that were flat (in this case, vertices with co-linear edges) since it worked in a single pass, but wasn't good progressively reducing detail like in the example you show.
Committed an improved method r58879, This will be in any recent build or version 2.69.
Update:
The reason the result with 6 sides won't necessarily be equilateral hexagon is the order of dissolving vertices which have exactly the same difference in edge-angle (as with a circle) is undefined.
For this example to work the limited dissolve code would need to have checks to determine the order of dissolving vertices in the case where they have equal angles, There are a few ways this could be accomplished but I'm not convinced this is so important to support.
Such a case is fairly specific and not really the intended use of this tool, so I think its outside the scope of limited-dissolve to solve.
Though if it could be supported using the current dissolve code, I'm not totally against that either.

Thanks! Though it still seems pretty irregular.. Tested with r58917


text:
How to correct surface normal for translated object
**Edit - I'm willing to pay a $15USD bounty via Paypal for the accepted answer to this question.
I have a script which generates random points on the surface of a sphere and then places cone objects at each point.
Using the emitter.closest_point_on_mesh call I can get the surface normal from the sphere at a spot very close to the generated point and then apply that normal to the rotation of the cone object, thereby pointing the cone out from the surface of the sphere at an angle that very closely approximates the normal from the sphere surface.
However this only works when the sphere is at the world origin point. When I move the sphere, it no longer works. The cones no longer point away from the sphere surface at the normal direction.
I've tried different techniques involved multiplying the sphere's matrix_world value by the normal, but I can't seem to find the right combo to make it work.
Any help would be GREATLY appreciated!
import bpy
from mathutils.bvhtree import BVHTree
import mathutils
import math
import bpy_extras
from bpy_extras import mesh_utils
import timeit
from random import random
from math import radians
from mathutils import Vector
import bmesh

scn = bpy.context.scene
objs = bpy.data.objects

def DeletePreviousParticles():

    for o in bpy.data.objects:
        if o.name.startswith("particle"):
            objs.remove(o, True)
    #select sphere to update window
    sphere = bpy.data.objects['Sphere']
    bpy.context.scene.objects.active = sphere

def PlaceParticle(emitter,src_obj, point):

    dupCount = 0
    maxObjectDimension = 2

    new_obj = src_obj.copy()
    new_obj.data = src_obj.data.copy()
    scn.objects.link(new_obj)
    new_obj.animation_data_clear()

    new_obj.location[0]=point[0]
    new_obj.location[1]=point[1]
    new_obj.location[2]=point[2]

    new_obj.name = "particle_" + str(dupCount)
    dupCount+=1

    #calculate normal from surface of emitter
    partLoc = new_obj.location
    surfaceNormal = emitter.closest_point_on_mesh( partLoc )[1]
    print('surfaceNormal' + str(surfaceNormal))

    #the following line does not work when emitter object is not at world origin point
    new_obj.rotation_euler = surfaceNormal.to_track_quat('Z', 'Y').to_euler()

def Main():

    emitter = bpy.data.objects['Sphere']
    src_obj = bpy.data.objects['sourceParticle']

    print("starting------------------------------------------------------------")

    DeletePreviousParticles()

    me = emitter.data
    me.calc_tessface() # recalculate tessfaces
    tessfaces_select = me.tessfaces #[f for f in me.tessfaces if f.select]
    pointList = bpy_extras.mesh_utils.face_random_points(1, tessfaces_select)

    totalPoints = 20
    pointCounter = 0

    for p in pointList:

            if(pointCounter<totalPoints):

                mat1 = emitter.matrix_world
                adjPoints = mat1 * p

                PlaceParticle(emitter, src_obj, adjPoints)

                pointCounter +=1
            else:
                break

    print("done")

Main()

Here's the source file:

@rjg - Thanks again for your help! I've made a 15 Euro donation to the Blender Foundation as requested.

Only 15$ for (probably) 3 hours of work writing this nice answer and no upvote? :D

Hey brockmann. The $15 was just an incentive for someone to take the question seriously, not intended as a contractual payment for work. And how do you know it took him 3 hours to write the answer? Most of the questions on this site have no cash bounties, why the need to villainize this one? Also, I did not request him to write an addon, was just looking for help tweaking a couple lines in my script.

Easy @ToddMcIntosh Don't take it serios, just kidding... However, pretty cool you made the donation though.

@ToddMcIntosh Thank your very much for the donation! No worries, I answer questions on here because I enjoy helping in the community.  Writing the add-on didn't take long.

@brockmann Ok, I get that you were joking, but as a freelancer I'm pretty aware of the whole "please work for free" mentality that some people have and I was trying to be up front that the cash bounty was just an incentive for a prompt response. If I needed a lot more help from Richard, I would totally need to pay him an hourly wage. Cheers.

There are two problems in the script, the location and the rotation of the cone objects aren't correct.
The location is incorrect because the script currently sets it to the position of the randomly chosen point, not the location of the closest point on the surface. These coordinates can be retrieved through the return values of closest_point_on_mesh():
(result, location, normal, index) = emitter.closest_point_on_mesh(point)

The global coordinates are therefore:
emitter.matrix_world * location

If the goal is to align an arbitrarily chosen axis of an object with the normal, then the problem that needs to be solved is to find a rotation matrix. This matrix has to rotate the vector of the local axis to match the normal vector exactly, assuming that the vector is normalized.
One way of determining the rotation matrix is through the Rodrigues' rotation formula. It requires an angle and an axis of rotation. The angle $\theta$ between two vectors can be determined through the dot product, which is defined as:
$$a \cdot b =  \|a\| \|b\| \cos(\theta)$$
It follows
$$\theta = \arccos\left(\frac{a \cdot b}{\|a\| \|b\|}\right) $$
Any rotation angle in range $[0, \pi)$ radians or $[0°, 180°)$ can be used unambiguously. If $a$ and $b$ are unit vectors, then their magnitude is one and the division isn't necessary.
In order to rotate the vector, an axis for the rotation is required. Two vectors that a linearly independent define a plane and the cross product $a \times b$ is the normal to that plane, which is perpendicular to the two vectors.
Blender already implements the Rodrigues' formula in mathutils.Matrix.Rotation(angle, size, axis). Assuming we have a normalized vector $a$ that we want to align to vector $b$, the rotation matrix can be determined by the following code:
cross_prod = a.cross(b) # Axis used for rotation
dot_prod = np.arccos(a.dot(b)) # Angle in radians (ambiguous if >= pi)
rotation_matrix = mathutils.Matrix.Rotation(dot_prod, 4, cross_prod)

This could actually be optimized and not use arccos altogether as explained by Kevin Moran.
You can chose an arbitrary vector for $a$ as long as it isn't linearly dependent to $b$. For your specific application it makes sense that $a$ is either one of the global axis or one of the local axis of the cone object in the global coordinate system. For the latter you will have to decompose the world matrix of the cone object in order to determine it's rotation matrix and multiply with the desired axis.
# Determine the vector that will be aligned with the surface normal
if axis == 'X':
    axis_vector = mathutils.Vector((1.0, 0.0, 0.0))
elif axis == 'Y':
    axis_vector = mathutils.Vector((0.0, 1.0, 0.0))
else:
    axis_vector = mathutils.Vector((0.0, 0.0, 1.0))

# Apply the existing rotation of the object when the local axis is used
if use_local_axis:
    (old_location, old_rotation, old_scale) = new_obj.matrix_world.decompose()
    axis_vector = old_rotation * axis_vector

The adjustment of both rotation and location can be combined by creating a new world matrix for the target object.
new_obj.matrix_world = (mathutils.Matrix.Translation(emitter.matrix_world * location) * mathutils.Matrix.Rotation(angle, 4, rotation_axis) * mathutils.Matrix.Scale(1.0, 4))

Below you can find an implementation of the described solution as an add-on for Blender 2.79.

bl_info = {
    "name": "Create and Align Objects with Surface Normal",
    "author": "Robert Guetzkow",
    "version": (1, 0),
    "blender": (2, 79, 0),
    "location": "3D View > Tools > Create and Align",
    "description": "Create objects that are aligned with the surface normal of another object",
    "warning": "",
    "wiki_url": "",
    "category": "3D View"}

import bpy
import bpy_extras
import mathutils
import numpy as np
from bpy_extras import mesh_utils

class CreateAlignSettings(bpy.types.PropertyGroup):
    emitter = bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=bpy.types.Object,
                                        name="Emitter",
                                        description="The emitters surface is used to create"
                                                    " and align objects on it, according to its surface normal")

    dupli_object = bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=bpy.types.Object,
                                             name="Dupli Object",
                                             description="The object duplicated along the emitters surface")

    axis = bpy.props.EnumProperty(name="Axis",
                                  description="The axis of the duplicated object that will be aligned with the surface "
                                              "normal",
                                  items=[('X', 'X', 'X-axis', 0),
                                         ('Y', 'Y', 'Y-axis', 1),
                                         ('Z', 'Z', 'Z-axis', 2)],
                                  default='Z')

    use_local_axis = bpy.props.BoolProperty(name="Local Axis",
                                            description="Use the possibly rotated local coordinate system of the "
                                                        "duplicated object, to determine the axis orientation in "
                                                        "global space. If disable the global axis is used and the "
                                                        "object's rotation is ignored.")

    number_duplicates = bpy.props.IntProperty(name="Number of Duplicates",
                                              default=0)

class CreateAlign:
    @staticmethod
    def create(emitter, dupli_object, axis, use_local_axis, number_duplicates):
        # Remove previously created duplicate objects
        CreateAlign.remove_dupli_objects(emitter, dupli_object)

        emitter.data.calc_tessface()
        surface_points = bpy_extras.mesh_utils.face_random_points(1, emitter.data.tessfaces)

        for idx, point in enumerate(surface_points):
            if idx == number_duplicates:
                break

            CreateAlign.duplicate_and_align(emitter, dupli_object, axis, use_local_axis, point)

    @staticmethod
    def duplicate_and_align(emitter, dupli_object, axis, use_local_axis, point):
        new_obj = dupli_object.copy()
        new_obj.data = dupli_object.data.copy()
        bpy.context.scene.objects.link(new_obj)
        new_obj.animation_data_clear()
        new_obj.parent = emitter

        (result, location, normal, index) = emitter.closest_point_on_mesh(point)

        # Determine the vector that will be aligned with the surface normal
        if axis == 'X':
            axis_vector = mathutils.Vector((1.0, 0.0, 0.0))
        elif axis == 'Y':
            axis_vector = mathutils.Vector((0.0, 1.0, 0.0))
        else:
            axis_vector = mathutils.Vector((0.0, 0.0, 1.0))

        # Apply the existing rotation of the object when the local axis is used
        if use_local_axis:
            (old_location, old_rotation, old_scale) = new_obj.matrix_world.decompose()
            axis_vector = old_rotation * axis_vector

        normalized_axis_vector = axis_vector.normalized()
        rotation_axis = normalized_axis_vector.cross(normal)
        angle = np.arccos(normalized_axis_vector.dot(normal))

        # Create a new world matrix with the position of the closests surface point
        # and the rotation to align with the surface normal
        new_obj.matrix_world = (mathutils.Matrix.Translation(emitter.matrix_world * location) *
                                mathutils.Matrix.Rotation(angle, 4, rotation_axis) *
                                mathutils.Matrix.Scale(1.0, 4))

    @staticmethod
    def remove_dupli_objects(emitter, dupli_object):
        children = emitter.children

        for child in children:
            if child.name.startswith(dupli_object.name):
                bpy.data.objects.remove(child, True)

class CREATE_ALIGN_OT_create_and_align(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = "create_align.create_and_align"
    bl_label = "Create"
    bl_description = "Create duplicated objects that are aligned with the surface normal of the emitter"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER', 'UNDO'}

    def execute(self, context):
        settings = context.scene.create_align_settings
        CreateAlign.create(settings.emitter,
                           settings.dupli_object,
                           settings.axis,
                           settings.use_local_axis,
                           settings.number_duplicates)
        return {'FINISHED'}

class CREATE_ALIGN_OT_remove(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = "create_align.remove"
    bl_label = "Remove"
    bl_description = "Remove duplicated objects"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER', 'UNDO'}

    def execute(self, context):
        settings = context.scene.create_align_settings
        CreateAlign.remove_dupli_objects(settings.emitter, settings.dupli_object)
        return {'FINISHED'}

class CREATE_ALIGN_PT_surface_normal(bpy.types.Panel):
    bl_label = "Create and Align with Surface Normal"
    bl_category = "Create and Align"
    bl_space_type = "VIEW_3D"
    bl_region_type = "TOOLS"

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        layout.prop(context.scene.create_align_settings, "emitter")
        layout.prop(context.scene.create_align_settings, "dupli_object")
        layout.prop(context.scene.create_align_settings, "axis")
        layout.prop(context.scene.create_align_settings, "use_local_axis")
        layout.prop(context.scene.create_align_settings, "number_duplicates")
        layout.separator()
        layout.operator(CREATE_ALIGN_OT_create_and_align.bl_idname)
        layout.operator(CREATE_ALIGN_OT_remove.bl_idname)

classes = (CreateAlignSettings,
           CREATE_ALIGN_OT_create_and_align,
           CREATE_ALIGN_OT_remove,
           CREATE_ALIGN_PT_surface_normal)

def register():
    for cls in classes:
        bpy.utils.register_class(cls)
    bpy.types.Scene.create_align_settings = bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=CreateAlignSettings)

def unregister():
    for cls in classes:
        bpy.utils.unregister_class(cls)
    del bpy.types.Scene.create_align_settings

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

Porting to Blender 2.80:
Note that I haven't ported this to 2.80, because calc_tessface and related functions have been removed and I didn't know whether you had special requirements for the point selection. You would need to use a different approach to determine random face points.
Other necessary changes include:

Matrix multiplication is @ instead of *.
Annotation would be used instead of assignment for the properties.
The tool sidebar doesn't exist anymore, therefore the panel should have bl_region_type = "UI"

Instead of sending me the offered money, please consider donating it to either one of these organisations:

Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders
Blender Foundation

I will update my answer tomorrow since it's late at night, with a more detailed explanation about the rotation.

Also, I didn't mention that in the file, the origin point of the cones is at the tip, so I would use Z instead of -Z in the surfaceNormal.to_track_quat call as I am doing.

Ok, after testing it out, this definitely was the answer! In addition to your changes, I also had to change the line PlaceParticle(emitter, src_obj, adjPoints) to PlaceParticle(emitter, src_obj, p) as I was incorrectly multiplying p by the emitter.world_matrix value. After both changes, the script works great! Thanks. Please send your paypal email address and I'll send the bounty.

As a bonus question, if I wanted to have the ability to bias the rotation of the cones towards the global Z axis by a small amount (say 0-15 degrees), what would be the additional code to do that? I'm currently doing it with a Copy Rotation constraint on each cone object that references an empty above the sphere, but I'm sure there's a cleaner way of doing it in code.

@ToddMcIntosh I've updated my answer, it now includes an add-on. You can enable Local Axis and rotate the cone object in order to adjust the axis. Instead of sending me the offered money, please consider donating it to one of the listed organisations.

Awesome, thanks too @rjg

Thanks @rjg for the extra effort in explaining the additional rotational bias I was asking about. The addon was not necessary for me personally, but maybe it will help someone else in the future. Cheers

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


text:
How do I copy the normal axis orientation from a mesh face to an Empty hooked to the face OR a bone parented to the face?
EDIT: Ok, my question/explanation doesn't seem to be clear enough, so I'll try to restate my goal.
The end result I'm trying to achieve is to hook an empty or bone to each separated face, BUT using the face normal orientation so that the faces can be animated by each hooked empty/bone and the rotation will occur with respect to each face's normal.

I'm trying to find a way to rotate faces of a mesh on their normals. Currently it seems one needs to separate the faces to individual objects in order to control rotation from an empty/modifier/constraint. However once the faces are separated, and Transform>Origin to Geometry is called, the orientation is not based on the original normals of the mesh face.
How does one copy the original normal orientation of the mesh face to the separated object data?
Is there another way to control rotation of mesh faces (assuming the faces have first been separated within the mesh object)?
I should also mention that I'm wondering about a non-scripted solution, as I could probably figure out a script to do it, but was looking for simpler solution first. Feel free to post script solutions though if you want.
Ideally, a solution that allows mesh face rotation on the individual normals based on an external input without separating faces to objects would be preferable.

What do you mean by "external input" ?

I mean being able to control the face rotation by another object like an empty, or bone. I want to hook an empty or bone to the face, and then copy the normal orientation from the face to the empty/bone so that animation can be done on the faces from external hooks.

So basically turn the orientation of the face into a rotation transform (based on the normal)?

Yes, for the empty/bone that is hooked to the face.

Yes you can do this, all accessible from interface but included keys

Enter Editmode (Tab)
Change to face-editing (CtrlTab, F)
Select all (A)
Mesh -> Edges -> Edge Split (CtrlE, D)
Change orientation to normal (AltSpace, N)
Change pivot to individual origins (Ctrl.)
Rotate about the Z axis `(R, ZZ) ... move mouse:

You don't need to separate faces to different objects, but you have to separate them. One way is add EdgeSplit modifier, set angle to 0 and apply it. When you have separete faces, just set Pivot point to "Individual Origins" (it's where you setting Median, 3D cursor, etc.) and Transform Orientation to "Normal". Now if you press [R] for rotation, you can press x,y or z for locking rotation to one axes in global world, but if you press x,y, or z again, the rotation will be around each individual face normal. Hope it will help.


text:
Animation Nodes - How do I read the Particle Count with the Object Attribute Output node?
I am currently trying to drive the particle count of various instances of an object (containing a particleSystem) dynamically for each instance.
I'm using a loop subprogram with an Object Attribute Output node.
The one thing I can't seem to get right is how to point to the particle count in the Attribute Output node.
What I need is basically a one-line version of this:
bpy.data.objects['Plane'].modifiers['ParticleSystem 1']
bpy.data.particles['ParticleSettings'].count = value

Any help would be much appreciated.
Update with Node-Setup:

The full python line to read that setting is:
bpy.data.objects['Plane'].particle_systems['ParticleSystem'].settings.count

According to the Animation Nodes documentation the attribute field of the Object Attribute Output node is relative to the object which would mean you would use:
particle_systems['ParticleSystem'].settings.count

or alternatively:
modifiers['ParticleSystem'].particle_system.settings.count

Whether this actually works is dependant on how the developer wrote the Animation Nodes addon.

Thank you! Sadly it didn't work. "Attribute not found" I updated my post with the node setup.

Interestingly this doesn't produce an error within the node. But all nodes objects still have identical particle counts. In this thread [link]http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/45985/animation-nodes-is-it-possible-to-instance-nested-instances the author of the addon used modifiers["Array"].count

Can you elaborate on that?

You are replacing the 'ParticleSystem' string with the actual value in use correct?

sorry, I hit "Enter" a little too early - still have to get used to that. - Yes, I tried it with "ParticleSystem 1" which is the actual name. I also tried modifiers['ParticleSystem 1'].settings.count which also returns an error.

You can only have one particle count for the 'ParticleSystem' particle system. If all the object nodes are pointing to the one particle system, the count will be the same.

Your alternate syntax should read:
modifiers['ParticleSystem 1'].particle_system.settings.count but I'm not sure that's your issue if all your object references are pointing to the same particle system and you want them to have different particle counts.

Oh you are right!! The instancer node only creates new instances of the object, but uses the same particle system. Duh! It felt so close! ^^  Thanks for pointing this out!

Then your answer is totally right. Only now I have to find the right question to ask. Thanks for your help.

after some research and tests this code works for me:
modifiers["name"].particle_system.settings.count

where "name" is the text string used in the modifiers tab
IMPORTANT
You must set an input in the value slot
otherwise it gives an error "Value has a wrong type"


text:
How to render individual objects (one per frame)
I have a quick question for anyone who may know...
I have in my scene multiple objects and I want to render each of them individually.
Is there any possibility to render each of them individually without putting them one by one in another layer and rendering it?(I have 58 objects...)
I want to make an animation in 58 frames where in every frame there will appear just one of them.
I've put a unique index on every object, and I want for example... in frame 1 to display just the object with index 1 and so on..
If anyone knows please tell me, thx :D

I cant put 58 objects... each of them in another layer... rly now

You have one for every single frame?? You can use the material index pass in compositing, but I think there is probably a better way to do what you are doing. We need more information :/

If you need to use the material index pass, I can write an answer later tday.

I have an electronic scheme and I need each of his elements in another image... How can I render it using material index?

Do they overlap?

no, they don't overlap

Give them all a unique material ID, and use the node I  the compositor to separate them

k, I will try it, thx for idea :D

@J.D related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/42204/how-to-output-id-masks-as-seperate-files-for-compositing/42209#42209

You can easily do this by assigning an Object ID index to each object that corresponds to the frame in which you want the object to appear.
Then in the compositor, you set the alpha channel using the IDMask node. The trick is to then add a driver to the Index value so that it uses the frame number as the Index value on each frame change.

To add the driver, right click on the Index field in the ID Mask node, and select Add Driver. Then, with the node still selected, open the Graph Editor and switch to Driver view. The default driver type is Scripted Expression, and all you need to do is enter the value "frame" in the Expr field of the driver settings. Now when you change the active frame on the timeline, the ID Mask node will update the alpha channel to filter out all other objects and just show the object with the Object Index ID that matches the current frame number.


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How can I create an animation within a cloth simulation?
I have been trying to create an animation (in which an avatar moves her arms) and I want it to run while a cloth simulation is happenning. I have tried this, but the cloth disappears in the simulation because of the animation, which is running at the same time. How can I make this work?

I have just solved this.

If you have solved this then please answer using the answer box below.

I have solved it: I created the skeletal animation as if there was no cloth simulation happening at the same time. After that, I created the cloth simulation and applied the collision modifier to the avatar. After baking the cloth simulation, I played the animation and it worked: the cloth responded to the skeletal animation and did not disappear.


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How to integrate knoll to soil?
I want to add some knolls onto a ground surface by using textures. Currently it looks terrible and I don't know how to integrate it properly.
What is the best procedure to do this? At the moment the stones do not look integrated into the knoll, there is a sharp border around it and it does not look natural.
I would like to use the bump map of the stone texture and then to texture paint over this bump with the sand texture stamp. How can I realize this in blender?
Additionally I want to work in Cycles. Does it make sense to create the textures in Blender Internal mode at first and then add the created texture to a material in Cycles mode?
I suggest this method because the handling of texturing is much easier in Blender Internal than in Cycles.
The current picture is like this:

Related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/1126/how-to-have-a-nice-visual-join-between-two-colliding-meshes

Using cycles textures with an image you can take advantage of the true displace feature available with the experimental feature set

What this does is using a musgrave as factor for mixing both color and displacement textures