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Layering character animations
Is there a way I can combine animations into a bigger action for a scene?
For example:
I have a breathing animation I created in action editor.  I want this to be played in the "background" no matter what other actions my character is doing at the time.  So far for the videos I've seen, the tutorials have been just creating an entire scene in action editor.  Am I wrong to use the action editor is for creation of single actions to be combined into bigger actions like the one I stated above?
My goal is to make a character with a main action, and sub actions ( breathing ) playing in the background.
I have a feeling the NLA editor is how I do this but I don't know it that well.  Also animation nodes would be perfect for this job but not good at it.  I only know dopesheet.  :(
And Thanks all.

Yes NLA ... Just change blending mode from Replace to Combine or Add should work https://youtu.be/mfdufhaiKtI

Can the NLA combine animations to make new animations?  For example an attack animation combined with my breathing animation to form a new one?  I can't save them like I do in action editor no?

That is what you asked and I said Yes and video nicely presents I think :) Is there any specific issue you deal with? Please edit your question. NLA data are saved as any other part of file, but if you area asking if it is possible to "merge" all actions in one action ...you can search for Bake Actions (with cursor above NLA editor), but it generates keyframes at specific steps, means hard to edit later.


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Is there a way I can reload textures or have a hotkey for updates in shader editor?
I'm doing all my texturing in substance painter.  When I export the textures into the same location and replace the file names I've been using for the texture nodes in blender, they don't update automatically.
I guess Blender doesn't refresh it because it doesn't have a way of knowing the texture has been updated.  I've been just reloading my entire blend file.  There must be an easier way to do this.

Turn on the Node Wrangler Addon and put the mouse on the Texture node and press ALT + R

@Emir You should give that as the answer

Turn on the Node Wrangler Addon (edit > Preferences) and put the mouse on the Texture node and press ALT + R

THANK YOU!!  Although this isn't really what I wanted, system limitations I guess!
I wanted it to just update automatically when it detect a change file. But maybe I'm being too lazy. :)

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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What is the best way to animate tension?
I'm doing a tug of war animation where a rope is being pulled by both teams.  The rope should look like it has a lot of tension applied to it but I don't quite know where to start?
I tried applying a noise modifier to the graph editor but it still doesn't look quite right, it's shaking too much.  Is there a good way to animate tension because my method is what I've made up and I'm never right about these things.
Thanks.

You could use a bezier curve, make a middle vertex, hook the vertex to something using ctrl+h (empty works best), use a medium noise on z location of the empty and a low noise on x or y so it moves left to right, and as the rope gets tighter reduce the strength of the z and decrease the scale so its movements are faster and tighter
If you want more detail just ask.

Do you think Scaling would be a bad idea?

A rope under tension gets very very slightly thinner and a bit longer.

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


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Are Displacement maps used to create normal maps?
I know displacement maps actually change geometry.  However, I find them quite useless for my mesh because in order for it to work, you need a high poly count.  I apply displacement maps before I run create normal map.
Am I using them wrong?  What's the point if it only works on your high poly?  If you're talking about VERY basic stuff like floor tiles, I guess they're useful...  On more complex models like landscaping, it it pointless?  You can't export the high poly anyway without creating a normal map.

You would use a displacement map to make a (topologically representative) mesh from an image texture. You are correct, this mesh would be high-poly, as displacement requires subdivision. However, if you have applied the displacement, you can bake the Normal details from the high poly mesh to a similar, low poly mesh (thus saving geometry). No "height" information will be altered in the low poly mesh, but its surfaces will reflect light  in a fashion consistent with the surface angles that are present in the high poly mesh.

One point to true displacement is that some people use higher poly counts than you do.  All the way to adaptive subdivision, which might make a vertex for every screen pixel.
Even at low poly counts, they're useful for low-resolution displacement.  You don't need ten million vertices to turn a height map into low-poly terrain.
That doesn't mean they're useful to you.  Blender has all sorts of tools that are only useful to some people.  In years, I've never bothered to learn how to do camera tracking, for example.
Yes, you can use a displacement map to make a normal map.  Simply use your displacement as the input to a displacement node in your material, then bake your normals.  This is not the only way to make a normal map, nor is it the only thing one can do with a displacement map.
Displacement maps are useful as bump maps without baking as well, because they deform fine without relying on UV tangents, which allows you to use them on deforming meshes with arbitrary meshes and UV maps-- even without any UV maps at all.


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I can't scale down my bendy bones anymore with CTRL+ALT+S
I'm using blender 4.1 I think this function has changed.  When I switch to bendy bones, I am told I can scale the bones down with CTRL+ALT+S to a reasonable size.  Right now when I press that, it just saves a new version of the file.
Right now it looks like this and I tried doing in POSE and Edit mode.  Did they change shortcut?

It's now AltCtrlShiftS..............

Thank you for this.


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I'm getting these static after i scale my mesh - Is this a bug?
My mesh was very small (.002 on scale ).  This was exported from Zbrush.
Anyway, I made it normal size and now I'm getting this static thing on my mesh.  This only happens AFTER I scale it.  Do you know what's wrong?

There are no modifiers applied.

Probably not. May need the normals correcting or back face culling disabled. Please share your file via https://blend-exchange.com/ following the instructions there so that we can have a look.

Looks like it's a clipping issue.  Updated my question.

You said that you scaled your object to increase its size. Did you apply the scale (Ctrl-A > Scale) in Object mode after you'd scaled it? - That can sometimes cause problems.

Yes I did.  It did not fix the issue.  I don't know how many people here export from Zbrush on default settings, but this issue should happen quite often if you do.  Zbrush on average makes your mesh .002 in blender size.  ( Mine is in meters maybe that's why).  I need to always scale up.  However, this is the first time I've had this issue.

So after much digging (thanks to other users experiencing same problem), I was able to remove these after changing my Clip Start to a higher value.  Because Zbrush exports are super tiny in Blender for some reason, I had to zoom in and increase the clipping value to .0001 from .00001
Anyway, whenever you see this issue, just change your clip start to a higher value, it fixes the problem.  I don't know enough about Blender to believe if this is a bug with the clipping.


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Is there a Grey value for Opacity maps?
White present and black is ignored.  If I want a translucent effect, making it gray does not help?  I'm fooled because there are little holes in my opacity map that gave me the illusion that gray is translucent.  It is not?

Translucency and Transparency are not the same things.
Transparency and translucency - Wikiwand
In short, a transparent material lets light go through freely, while a translucent material lets only some light go through and changes it on the way.
Using a half-transparency shader in your material will only approximate the "some light go through" but not the absorption and scattering of light.
There are tricks to fake these effects to some degree, I.E. by modifying your diffuse color in that area, or adding some roughness.
But instead of faking translucency via transparency and other properties, you could simply use the translucent shader node.

You mean the subsurface of the Principled BSDF?

Wait, you gave me a practical answer but my question was more straight forward.
Do Gray values give you partial "see through"?  Or are opacity maps always black and white only?  Based on what you're telling it's "Yes but I shouldn't do it?"

"see through" is transparency. Grey values can give you partial transparency. Note that in Eevee render engine, some transparency blend modes in the material's setting don't support inbetween values (i think "hashed" is the one to use most of the time, but I can't check right now). And no, I didn't mean the subsurface of the Principled BSDF. There is a Translucent BSDF if you want translucency. But if you want only partial transparency, just use any value between 0 and 1 and make sure you set your material to support that if you are on Eevee.

If you have any further issue, please edit your original post and provide more details, like screenshots of your material, or even upload your file on Blend-Exchange and share the link in your post.

I think the OP is only using Translucency as a placeholder word for "not fully transparent". If that is the case, the the TLDR is that yes, black = transparent, white=opaque, shades of grey = partially transparent.

Hi Chris, Apologies, but yes that is what I meant.  in the screen shot I've attached in my post, that's a dark gray strip but it is by no means black.  However, it's completely transparent when I render in eve.  So this led me to believe only black and white values are accepted.

Yeah, if you're using EEVEE, set the Blend Mode to Alpha-Hashed, or Alpha-Blend. The third option, Alpha-Clip, will let you set a threshold (grey level) and it will cut anything below that.

Thanks @ChristopherBennett for detailing the Eevee blend modes, I'm pretty sure the default is "Alpha Clip"? And I tend to set it to "Alpha Hashed" most of the time and then play with the render samples, because "Alpha Blend"  sometimes produces weird looking faces.


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Is there a "magnet" modifier I can use?
The below is a simple cylinder with a torus around it.
I want the cylinder vertices to be "magneted" by the torus when I move it up and down my cylinder.  Is there a way to do it?  I can probably do this with displacement maps but I refer using a shape.

A cast modifier should do that.  Give the cylinder the Modifier and place the 'cast object' (an Empty?) centrally inside the cylinder and level with the Torus.  Parent the cast object to the torus. (child = cast object)
When the torus moves up and down, the swollen part of the cylinder will follow it,

THANK YOU.  This helped alot.  I've also played with the vertex groups on this modifier to create unique types of "bumps".

Glad tp hear all went well - must try your idea with vertex groups!  :)

Yea all you gotta do is weight paint them!.  But you probably already knew that.

No I didn't actually - I'm only a Blender hack myself.

There's also the Lattice modifier


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How to rotate scene via python script?
I'm super new to Blender and working on a script for Blender. My question is how to rotate scene via python script, just like using middle mouse?
Thank you.

Would look at MMB more akin to orbiting our focus point in  the scene.  (see view matrix). Think of the scene as the basis of global coordinates.

For example in this code, I have a way to hide the floor commented out.  Plus the rotation doesn’t apply to all views.  https://github.com/coderextreme/X3DJSONLD/blob/master/blend/importJin.py

Thanks to batFINGER I've found the answer
import bpy
from mathutils import Euler

for area in bpy.context.screen.areas:
    if area.type == 'VIEW_3D':
        area.spaces.active.region_3d.view_rotation.rotate(Euler((0, 0, 0.01)))

That rotates the space, I think.  I want to keep the floor in position while rotating the space.  How do I rotate the floor before or after rotating the space?


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Level zero of multires after "Apply base" mismatch geometry
I am resculpting a bat model from a third-party using multires.
I had a problem with the arm/propatagium junction that got messed up after a Catmull-Clark subdivision since there was a 90° angle, I repaired it mostly but now multires Apply base produce strange results
The GIF below is an inner view of the arm from the wrist looking toward the chest, the "long cave" at the right is the problematic propatagium membrane that clip into themselves at subdivision level 0.
Face orientation is correct beside some clipping at the left and a wild polygon that plunge into the wrist at level zero.

From the outside the membrane get literally inside out, I think the bad topology can be a source of problems, but I cannot see why only level 0 is affected and only at this specific junction. I definitely miss things about how multires and it's Apply base operator work.
I am obviously not a professional and I would like to know what is going wrong and how to avoid and repair that.

Additional constraints
This is my resculpt scene and model with no shape keys, my main scene has the very same model but with shape keys and I use Join as Shapes to create a shape key of the resculpt, this process is non-destructive but require both models to have the exact same topology. Recreating all shape keys and vertex groups is outside my skills and affordable time.
My current workaround is to use a shrinkwarp modifier. That also produce smoother and more visually pleasing results but that is another problem. But I expect some edits to don't shrinkwarps very well so my process is going to get more complicated and I would like to avoid shrinkwarp completely. So.
What is exactly going on ?
How do I prevent that phenomenon from happening ?
And how can I repair my model ?


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How to non-desctructively join meshes with shape keys on export?
I make models for use in Unity so I need to merge various objects on FBX export in my workflow.
So far I successfully used Geometry Nodes to perform my mesh baking tasks, however you cannot use any modifier on a mesh with shape keys.
I have a avatar with shape keys where I need to join a mesh after applying its modifiers. I want this operation to be done on export in a non-destructive way in a single click, preferably using the same Blender native export UI I use currently, but a script that adds an Export button is fine.
Do you have suggestions ?


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CATS plugin blender problem

so I'm still working on the speaker, I got textures working. and now I'm trying the CATS quick decimation. but when I try it gives the error "No meshes found!" some help?

Try Adding an MMD model under the armatures and use the Attach Mesh Option in the custom model creation. I did that, got an error, but it let me decimate after that.


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Distribute circles on sides of a curve
Part of what I want to do for a project is to distribute circles on the sides of a curve similar to the photo below. It's a proprietary tool in Maya.

How can I do that in Blender?

Essentially, all you would have to do here is duplicate the curve, and move the individual curve points along their normal a bit.

A simplified solution might look something like this:

First I resample the Bezier curve so that I get a curve with even subdivision.
Then I duplicate the curves.
The curve index helps me, together with a value for the offset, to create a target value for moving the duplicated curve points.
So that the object can be controlled however over the curve Radius, I scale the normals of the individual points not only with this Offset, but multiply additionally with the given Radius.
Finally, I instantiate objects at the points of the curves, but in alternating order, so that of the curves with even index every second point starting with $0$ is used, and of the curves with odd index every second point starting with $1$ is used.

(Blender 3.2+)


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Adding emission to hair shader
Houdini 20 has a new fur shader incorporating the medulla, a structure within animal fur that makes it appear softer and more volume-like than human hair. Can the emission node be connected to Blender's hair shader output as a volume, to emulate the medulla?

Yes you can connect an emmission shader into the volume output, it will give a somewhate softer look to the hair
here is an example using blender studio's demo file


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Uniform distribution of points
In Houdini, one of its own geometry nodes, the Scatter node, allows points to be distributed across a surface or through a volume in a roughly uniform pattern. That's done using an option called "Relax Iterations". Is there a way to have a uniform distribution of points across a mesh in Blender or would I have to generate the points on faces or vertices?

Geonodes Point Distribution has a Poisson Disk option that lets you specify the minimum distance between instances

Blender has no "relax" out of the box, but you can try to recreate it by yourself using a set of nodes.
For the "Relax iterations" you can use repeat zone and relax points  like this:

Here is relaxing and sticking back to surface:

Then you can pack the nodes and reuse it:

How can I use a density map for the points?

@RobertHintz nope. With different radii, it is impossible, because long distance points will be stopped by short distance points. So that it should be another algorithm.

Even if I use the Join Geometry node?

Here's an example of a solution that can take any input geometry and instances some cones.  You could instance any geometry by referencing it through the Object Info node.

If you need your input geometry as well you can just add a Join Geometry at the end and connect from the Group Input.

Set Material can be placed here to set the material for only the instanced geometry, if it happens to come from geonodes.  Otherwise, all the input or referenced geometry will have the materials you've set up normally.

Such type of point distribution can be achieved in Geometry Nodes with
Distribute Points on Faces node
Select the option Poisson Disk and tweak the Density Max (the maximal expected point density) and Distance Min (the minimum distance between any point). If 2 points are closer than that distance one of them is removed, creating more "relaxed and even distribution.


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Size of instanced objects based on subdivision levels
Is it possible to change the size of instanced objects as the subdivision level of a mesh changes? Like a higher subdivision creating smaller instances and a low-level subdivision level creating larger instances. In the setup below, the size of the instances stays the same as I change the subdivision level of a plane.

You can solve this task with the help of the node Face Area. In any case, it works relatively well in your use case or with quads:

Here I capture the value Area before the subdivision with Capture Attribute.
After the subdivision I divide this value by the newly created size for Area and power this value again with $0.5$. This value must also be captured with Capture Attribute in the geometry, because you use Mesh to Points afterwards.
This way the size of the cone remains constant in relation to the original face.

(Blender 3.1+)

You could use the captured Face Area of the mesh on which your instances are generated, (green
nodes, below):

The linear scale of your instances will vary as the square-root of the area, to keep them in proportion:

Ah, sure! ...it's even easier! Once again, I have thought too complicated.

@quellenform  Ahh!... crossed wires! It took me a couple of moments to spot why yours was any more complicated than mine..  no great shakes, and your pictures are prettier :) You get this one, IMO.


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Radius size in instances
I have icospheres instanced on a sphere and when I vary their sizes, I get unwanted results like the one in the first screenshot.  I want the icospheres to vary in size while keeping their radius like the spheres in the second screenshot. How do I do that?

Please do not post the same question several times, and take a closer look at the search function, because this question has essentially already been answered here a few times! Thank you!

You could Change the random value to float and connect that directly to the Scale


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Distribute Points on Faces and Geometry Proximity
The sphere in the screenshot below was done in an older version of Blender. How can I recreate this using the current nodes in Blender like the Distribute Points on Faces node and Geometry Proximity Node?

A possible variant would be the following setup:

Basically, the node Geometry Proximity replaces the obsolete node Attribute Proximity.
Furthermore, in this example I use the node Store Named Attribute to store an attribute in the geometry, which I then read and use again in the shader with Attribute.
By the way, you can find an overview of the nodes and their changes over time here:
Can't find the node! Which node is available in which Blender version?
(Blender 3.2+)

you can use this node setup:

to get this:

This method doesn't work in Blender 3.4.1.


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Use of volume nodes for hair shader
The papers Physically-accurate fur reflectance: modeling, measurement and rendering and An efficient and practical near and far field fur reflectance model discuss physically based fur shading and describe hair fibers and fur fibers having an inner structure called the medulla which is more significant in fur. The medulla behaves like a volume and scatters light. Would connecting the Volume Scatter node to the Principled Hair shader's volume output make render times really slow?

Sure, it will make it slower. But what is "really slow"? Hard to predict because it depends on your scene, the amount of hair, how transmissive it is, the volume density, the bounce settings and everything else that will interact with the hair, lights, environment, other objects...


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How to implement code into OSL
I want to implement a BSDF into OSL, but I only have a few ideas of how that's done. Do I copy and paste the parameters in the script node?

I've not done any coding in Blender but there seems to be a fairly comprehensive section in the Blender Manual on scripting OSL.


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UV dependency of hair nodes
Are hair or fur grooms created using hair nodes dependent on UVs or can they be made on a mesh that doesn't have UVs?

You can answer this question very simply yourself: take an object like the default cube, delete the UV map under Data > UV Maps and then try to add fur. In the bottom status bar you will get an error message "Mesh UV map required" (and no fur will appear on the cube).


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Rendering hair curves only
Is it possible to render fur or hair created by hair nodes without the underlying geometry like a plane or a modeled mesh?

yes, just hid the mesh or delete it )the mesh, not the hair). it doesn't even have to be parented to a mesh at all.


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Applying an edit of an object to its duplicates
Is it possible to edit a set of vertices on an object, like moving them up and down, and apply that edit to its duplicates?

Yes, if duplicated using Alt+D.

As @lemon said, when you duplicate an object with Alt+D instead of Shift+D, you have a linked duplicate. Changing the mesh on any of the linked duplicates changes the other meshes, too. If you already have made duplicates with Shift+D so that they are not linked, select all duplicates and at last the object with the changes, then hit Ctrl+L > Link/Transfer Data > Link Object Data.

Does this answer your question? Edit multiple text value simultaneously


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Grooming instanced curves
Is there a way to convert instanced path curves into hair curves?

yes, it's possible. You need to use a Realize Instances node to make the instances real curves. It's Nurb curves in your example. I recomment to convert them into Bezier curves first. Once you have these cuves you can convert them into a mesh (edges only) with a Curve to Mesh node without a Profile input. Now, you can apply the GN modifier and you have a hair mesh. Finally, you can convert this mesh into a Curve object (menu Object > Convert To)  and then again to a Curves object (=Catmull Rom curves, the hair curves).

Don't forget to increase the Curve > Additional Subdivisions to 2 in the render settings to smooth the hair curves and set Curves > Shape to Strip. The hair strands are probably very huge now but you can use a GN modifier to set the Curve Radius to something small like 0.005.


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Using Geometry Proximity to prevent overlapping
After watching Geometry Proximity videos on YouTube, I had a thought. I could instance hexagons over a mesh and they might overlap with each other. I could turn those instances into real objects using the Realize Instances node and use the Geometry Promixity node to keep them from overlapping by pushing their vertices away from each other. Something like the hexagons below I've modeled manually. Could that work with Geometry Proximity?

i think you overcomplicate things here. If this is one mesh, you just could randomize the positions of the vertices...couldn't you?

The hexagons are separate meshes.

you wrote "I could instance hexagons over a mesh" -> if you would let it be one mesh, it's 100x easier to stop overlapping as i wrote in my first comment than using proximity node or raycast or whatever because stopping overlapping is pretty complicated...just my 2 cents

@RobertHintz, what's wrong about Chris' proposal? Why do you still want separate meshes for the hexagons?

@AndréZmuda, nothing, I'm trying to come up with a personal workflow for generating geometry in particular.


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Creating a short fur material in Blender
In the Blue Sky Studios movie Ferdinand, I learned that the body fur on the bull characters was created using a material that emulates very short fur. How can I create a material like that in Blender?

hello maybe show a close-up picture of this fur?

@moonboots https://www.cgw.com/Publications/CGW/2018/Volume-41-Issue-1-Edition-1-2018-/Gentle-Giant.aspx

Hello and welcome. Please avoid text written inside images, always prefer typing it directly in the body of the post instead. Image content can't be indexed and thus can't be readily found when searching in the future. Updates are difficult because it can't be easily edited in case of mistakes, nor updated in case of future changes. It doesn't follow the fonts and style of the website automatically, and doesn't work with screen readers.

Please don't post essential information like links, file downloads or additional details in the comments section where it can be easily missed. Instead edit them into your original post with the [Edit] button above. Comments are transitory by nature, are hard to index or search for, and may be erased at any moment.

You could stretch a Noise Texture on the surface of your character, and plug this noise into the Base Color, the Specular and the Normal inputs of your Principled BSDF, in order to have 2 hair colors, a variation in the reflectivity, and a bit of bump:


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Volumetric shading on a mesh
The gif below is a breakdown of the volumetric hair shading of the titular character from the Dreamworks film Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken. I'm wondering how I can apply volumetric shading and a transmissive surface to a mesh using Eevee and Cycles.

What exactly is your problem? You have a Principled Volume node in the Shader Editor and the Principled BSDF node has settings for Transmission, Specular and Clearcoat as well. Or do you need to know how to setup a material in general? The problem with Eevee will be that it does not work with volumetrics in shape of a mesh, it will always fill the entire cuboid bounding box.

@GordonBrinkmann I'm getting to know materials and rendering in Blender.


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Making smaller distribution points
Is there a way to make points from the Distribute Points on Faces node smaller, to look like actual points?

Sure, put a Set Point Radius node after the Distribute Points on Faces node:


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Creating interlocking geometry
How can one create interlocking geometry from scattered spheres, mesh circles, or other meshes? Below are spheres scattered on a chameleon which are then made into scales, all done using a proprietary tool in Maya.

I believe the operation you’re looking for is a Boolean operation. Notably, the proprietary tool seems like it’s little more than a well configured particle system to me.

TheLabCat What kind of Boolean operation do I need to use?

Union, but how to do it exactly depends a bit on wether the spheres are in the same mesh, are particles, or are individual objects.

The spheres were distributed on a mesh using a particle system and I could distribute spheres in Blender using the Ditribute Points on Faces node.


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Cant open blender
I've downloaded blender multiple times and everytime I try to open the program it pops up with a grey screen for half a second and then disappears and I can't get it  to open and I can't use it.

Could you include your operating system and what version of blender you are downloading?

im using windows 10 and its blender 2.79

Open it by typing "blender" command in system console (terminal).  Report any errors listed in question.  https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/21772/how-to-view-the-system-console-message-after-blender-crashes


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Texture rendering as solid color, in spite of mapping?
Newbie to Blender here, running Blender 2.9. I'm following a tutorial to create a city, but getting stuck on applying a textured material. It's only coming out as a solid color. So far I've tried...

Switching between Cycles and Eevee
Adding mapping & texture coordinate nodes (as suggested here: Why is my textured material showing up as a solid color?)
Changing the texture coordinate nodes between "generated" and "UV"
Changing the scale on the mapping

Here is the shader graph I have on mythology  material:

And here is how the material is showing up on the model:

Try changing from Point to Texture in the Mapping node

Are your meshes unwrapped? Are your meshes being created by modifiers, like Geometry Nodes?

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos Unfortunately it had no effect

@Nathan Textures are indeed unwrapped (via "smart UV unwrap") and meshes are not generated (I don't think) they were imported from a map file

Then I suppose I'd need to see a file to tell you what's going on (other than the fact that the mapping node you're showing isn't doing anything.)  With a packed image.

I found the solution and it was stupid. Not only did the texture need to be scaled down, it was coming in rotated at 90 degrees for some reason. Which, due to its imagery, made it just look like a solid color.
Lesson for next time: don't just play around with location and scale settings on mapping, do rotation as well!


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Is there a way to separate an object by material?
I've downloaded an OBJ. file that is all one object besides the materials. Is there a way I can separate them out so I can delete them?

Absolutely. Switch to Edit Mode (Tab), press a to select everything, press p and choose By Material.

The method @brockmann describes is the best to split up the complete object by its materials. Another possibility if you want some pieces staying together although they have two or more different materials would be to go into Edit Mode,  hit Alt+A to deselect everything, then choose a material, hit the Select button under the material slots, then choose another material, Select etc. then go into the 3D Viewport, hit P > Separate Selection.


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Why does Eevee make some meshes glitch and disappear as I move away from them?
I don't see any overlapping faces.
Normals are pointing the right way.
I don't know what else to check. What causes EEVEE to do this?

Maybe you don't see overlaping faces when you are close to your model, but the size of your model isn't good and default clipping size of your camera is wrong. (in blender there is two cliping option, one for the viewport that is in the N pannel in the view section, and one in each camera) You can edit the start and end clip to adjust depending on the scale of your scene.

Oh wow. Thank you. Apparently setting my Clip Start to 0.001 was causing this.. I never would have thought it would do that.

Setting the Clip Start to 0.001 is what caused this.
Setting it to something slightly higher fixes it.


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Blender too slow for my new computer?
I just bought a new computer and I was following the donut lesson of Blender Guru.
When I raise up the number of subdivision of the donut (Viewport) to 3, the problem starts.

I can not smoothly move or rotate a part of the donut (Only 1 anchor point!). When the Blender Guru does this in his video it moves very smooth.
The graphic card is a GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER and the Processor I am using is a Intel 8-core i7. 16GB of DDR4 RAM.
The picture below that are my settings in the workfile. As you can see, I have to bring the drop of icing towards the donut.
I adjusted the graphic card settings. Am I doing something wrong?

Your machine should be fine for Blender, you can even improve the speed of rendering by choosing OptiX as you have an RTX card. I think we need more information around what you are actually doing, can you add a GIF to show this in more detail?

It seems that the base mesh that you're using the modifier on is already having a high vertex count, much higher than shown in the tutorial.

If you're at the sculpting stage, Andrew doesn't have a subdivision modifier on the object anymore.

the subdivision modifier at a level 3 will create 81 faces for every quad in the mesh. Be careful with those settings, it it easy to end up with a number of vertices that is larger than what your computer can deal with. Read: https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/28283/92768

@RobertGützkow I am in the sculpting stage and he (and me) just applied the top icing of the donut.The sculting itself is also going to slow.
Andrew never said anything about taking away the subdivision modifier. The amount of faces looks the same.
I think I am going to start all over and see where I went wrong with the subdivision modifier. It can't be my computer. It must be me. Thanks for the help so far.

@Neil The Optix is also set with the option 'GeForce RTX 2070 Super' on.
What was I doing?: I was in sculpting mode. Making the icing thicker. And that didn't went so smooth as in the tutorial of the Blender Guru (Andrew). In the tutorial you see a result straight away. When I'm doing it.... it goes slooooow.

Can you share the timestamp of the section in the tutorial you are up to?

@Niel The video is called: Part 5, Level 1: Sculpting - Blender Beginner Tutorial.
The timestamp is: 14.19
But I started all over. Because now it works fine. I must have done something wrong before.
Thank you.


text:
Cannot copy mirror some bones between keyframes
I'm working on an 8 frame walk cycle, and I'd like to copy and mirror the poses of the first 4 frames to the last 4 frames. However, for some reason my arms won't copy mirror properly.
Can someone spot what I'm doing wrong?
Here's a link to my blender file:
http://pasteall.org/blend/index.php?id=50223

It looks like your arm bones are not well oriented:

In Edit mode, select the right upper and lower arm.
ctrl R 180 to make a 180° rotation

now it works


text:
World background is not being rendered
I cannot seem to render the world background even though I have set the transparency and the alpha channel.
How can I solve this?

I have uploaded a blend file:

By checking the Transparent checkbox you effectively make the world background invisible. If you want to have the background visible in the render it must be unchecked.

Huh, and a lot of the resources pointed out that this option should be checked. Maybe I misunderstood but now it works. Thank you :)


text:
How to copy movements from one object to another?
I am learning to use Blender and created a simple animation which shows the rooftop coming off followed by the roof support which then disappears from view. The idea being that a new retrofit support would be installed (thought of using the same support but changing the colour when it is out-of-view but will sort that problem later):

Problem is I would like the chimneys and the windows at the top to group with the roof so that they will all move in unison instead of having to animate them individually.
Is there a simple method to achieve this?

if you parent the window and the roof to the roof, won't it give what you want?

@moonboots - Thanks, will give that a try :)

Give a look here.
Basically you can link some properties (one of them is animation) from an object to some other object by selecting all the object (the object that has the animation needs to be the active, so select it at last), then pressing CTRL+L.
A dropdown menu will appear. There you can select which property to link from the active object to all the selected (but not active) objects.

Let me know if it works good.

Perfect! I selected the Animation Data option from the drop-down menu and it works like a charm. Many thanks :)


text:
How to geometrically simplify a door which contains creases?
I downloaded a high-quality door from an online source and this is what it looks like:

But when you examine in wireframe view, there's a lot of edges/creases:

I tried changing the Mean Crease in the Transform option setting to zero but it deforms the door completely:

Are there any other methods of simplifying the geometries of this door (i.e. removing the creases or just having a single face on either side)?

if you deactivate its modifiers you won't have anymore problems with the creases, do you need them?

@moonboots - If it means that there are no changes visually and there will be less geometry data then no, I do not need them :)

it can cause problem if you need some close-up shots of the handle or of the hinges, because they will look sharp and not smooth, but other than that it won't change a lot. By the way, the topology is not very good, you could also completely re-do it.

@moonboots - Thanks, I'm still learning the ropes and the door was taken from an online source. It fits well with the building model I have but if the topology is not as good then I guess I could attempt to re-create it.

well it really depends on your goal, if it stays small in your whole scene and your render image you don't have to care a lot, if you need close-up shots, you'll need to think how to make a nice door.

@moonboots - Good to know, many thanks for your advice!

in the second case you'll probably need to use Subsurf to smooth the object, but it will simplify a lot if hinges, handle and wood plank are 3 separate mesh, as it would be in real life.


text:
Blender 3.3 on Ubuntu 20.04, does not recognize my GPU for HIP
My GPU (RX 5600 XT) does not appear as an option in this menu:

My card does meet those requirements and I have Radeon™ Software for Linux® installer version 22.20 for Ubuntu 20.04.5 HWE installed. I have a similar issue with DaVinci Resolve.
The interesting thing is that when I run blender as root, Both my GPU and CPU appear as options.
Here is some information I get from lspci -vnn
    Subsystem: XFX Pine Group Inc. Navi 10 [Radeon RX 5600 OEM/5600 XT / 5700/5700 XT] [1682:5710]
    Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 77
    Memory at d0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
    Memory at e0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=2M]
    I/O ports at f000 [size=256]
    Memory at fcd00000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=512K]
    Expansion ROM at fcd80000 [disabled] [size=128K]
    Capabilities: <access denied>
    Kernel driver in use: amdgpu
    Kernel modules: amdgpu```

I fixed my issue. After doing all of the things above, what finally worked was logging out, then restarting my device.
It probably also helped that I ran this beforehand:
sudo usermod -a -G video username
sudo usermod -a -G render username
Putting my user in the render/video group(s) seemed to give my access to GPU.


text:
Crashing when switching to cycles
I recently got new laptop (Dell XPS 15 9560) and I've bee having this issue where blender will crash when I try to select cycles as the render engine. I've tried reinstalling and rolling back my nvidia and integrated GPU drivers multiple times. Any suggestions or workarounds? I'm taking a course in blender later this year and I need my laptop for it.
Thanks.

Could you provide more information about how exactly it crashes and when?

Does this also happen, if you deselect the GPU in User Preferences? Which Blender Version?

When I open the user settings window it will crash when I try to navigate to the system tab in the menu, so I am unable to change system devices through blender. With the 1050 disabled, blender will not open at all and will directly crash after the startup command prompt. It is version 2.79b running on wWndows 10. The crash happens when I go to the drop down menu at the top of the screen and switch to cycles. After I click cycles it will close all windows and no longer  show up in task manager. Also any existing blender files set to cycles will not open at all and crash on startup.

This fixed the error for me (taken from another thread):
Turns out my WIndows Update was to blame, installing a .dll file that was breaking both Maya and Blender. This was called igdrclneo64.dll/igdrcl64.dll.  It’s located in C:\Windows\System32 (On my computer it was located in C: \ Windows \ System32 \ DriverStore \ FileRepository \ igdlh64.inf_amd64_250db833a1cd577e.) I moved it to the desktop and now everything works

Thanks so much for all the help. I ended up fixing it by removing some external display software. I had installed Duet Display and it was messing with my GPU settings. Hope this helps other people out.


text:
Rigid Body Constraints Rapidly Twitch
So I'm trying to make a simple car with rigid body constraints, but when the wheels spin they rapidly twitch around. Any help? Everything else works but I can't figure out this.


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Adding multiple shape keys with python and bmesh while creating a mesh
I'm using a python script to generate mesh geometry and to add multiple shape keys in Blender using bmesh. The goal is to have 10 shape keys and each generated vertex is modified by just one of those shape keys.
My first attempt was as follows:
import bpy
import bmesh

# Create mesh.
me = bpy.data.meshes.new('TestMesh')

# Create object.
ob = bpy.data.objects.new('TestObject',me)

# Bmesh.
bm = bmesh.new()

# Add default shape key.
ob.shape_key_add('Basis')

# List of shape keys to loop through after creation.
ShapeKeys = []

# Base name for shape keys.
KeyBaseStr = 'Shape'

# Create 20 vertices.
for iVert in range(1,21):

    # Index of shape key to add the vertex to.
    iGroup = (iVert-1) % 10

    # Check if group shape key has already been created.
    if len(ShapeKeys) < (iGroup + 1):

        # Name of new shape key.
        SetName = KeyBaseStr + '_Set_' + str(iVert)

        # Create shape key and append to list.
        ShapeKeys.append(bm.verts.layers.shape.new(SetName))

        # Shorthand for new key.
        sk = ShapeKeys[-1]

        print('created shape key #',len(ShapeKeys))
    else:
        # Select existing shape key.
        sk = ShapeKeys[iGroup]

        print('using existing shape key #',iGroup+1)

    # Add vertex.
    bv = bm.verts.new(tuple([iVert, 0, 1]))

    # Assign vertex coordinates in selected shape key.
    bv[sk] = tuple([0, iVert, 2])

# Bind bmesh to mesh.
bm.to_mesh(me)

# Link object to scene.
scene = bpy.context.scene
scene.objects.link(ob)

# Set as active and selected.
scene.objects.active = ob
ob.select = True

However, running the code results in an object with just one shape key rather than 10. All ten still appear to be created according to what gets printed and the ShapeKey list indeed seems to hold 10 BMLayerItem objects, but seem to not get binded to the mesh or the object. I also tried the same approach but created all of the shape keys layers before any vertices, but it made no difference.
The question is simple, how to add multiple shape keys while also generating geometry one vertex at a time, preferably using bmesh?
Also asked this question on BlenderArtists but received no answers so far:
https://blenderartists.org/t/problem-adding-multiple-shape-keys-with-bmesh/1122506

Not sure there is any benefit in adding a new shapkey for a new vertex.  The shapekey basically stores a location for all verts in the mesh.   Would use a create mesh, create and manipulate shapekey data approach.. Example here

I see your point in general, but in the real application there will be 10,000 to 100,000 vertices and still just 10 shape keys. Thus making the vertex-shape key ratio a lot larger than the 2:1 in this simplified example.

Not sure I see your point. For that many verts code above will be testing 100,000 times to see if there are 10 vertex groups that are created with the first 10 iterations?  Added answer based on example posted in comment above.

I thought your problem was with the inefficiency of having so many shape keys compared to the number of vertices, but yes, it is certainly not the most efficient to check if a shape key exists inside the for-loop. However as stated in the question, the bmesh approach had the same result even when all the shape keys were created before the vertex creation loop. I'm very interested as to what goes wrong when using bmesh to create the shape keys.

Alternative Route

Not using bmesh verts shape layers.

Created verts with a list comprehension, then reiterated over verts
using the vertex index to index which shapekey layer data.

Pre-made the 10 shapekeys.  Each key is a data layer on the verts that
holds the shapekey location.  The default if not set is the

Test script.
import bpy
import bmesh
from math import ceil
from bpy import context
N = 20 # total number of verts
g = 10 # verts per sk

scene = context.scene
me = bpy.data.meshes.new("Squircle")
obj = bpy.data.objects.new("Squircle", me)

bm = bmesh.new()
verts = [bm.verts.new((i, 0, 1)) for i in range(N)]
sk = obj.shape_key_add(name="Basis")
# make shapekeys
sks = [obj.shape_key_add(name="SK_%02d" % i) for i in range(g)]

bm.to_mesh(me)

for v in bm.verts:
    sks[v.index % g].data[v.index].co = (0, v.index, 2)
scene.collection.objects.link(obj)

This suggestion solves my problem and is thus marked as accepted. However, it does not use bmesh as requested. Still much appreciated!

I managed to figure out how to solve your problem with bmesh only being able to create one single shapekey, because I stumbled about the same problem.
Basically the solution is:

Don't create new Shapekeys in the bmesh and edit them
Instead, create them before, and then edit them in the bmesh

Example:
This doesn't work, because we create the shapekeys in the bmesh
obj.shape_key_add(name="Basis", from_mix=False)
#Adding Basis shapekey

bm = bmesh.new()
bm.from_mesh(me)

#creating new shapekey IN the bmesh
newKey1 = bm.verts.layers.shape.new("Key 1")
newKey2 = bm.verts.layers.shape.new("Key 2")
newKey3 = bm.verts.layers.shape.new("Key 3")

#changing the shapekey vertex coordinates
for vert in bm.verts:
    for SKey in (newKey1,newKey2,newKey3):
        #change vert coordinates, like:
        vert[SKey] = vert.co*2

#back to the real mesh
bm.to_mesh(me)

print(len(me.shape_keys.key_blocks)) # == 2
#mesh will only have two shapekeys, "Basis" and "Key 1"

Whereas this will work, because we have created them before for the original mesh:
obj.shape_key_add(name="Basis", from_mix=False)
#Adding Basis shapekey

newKey1 = obj.shape_key_add(name="Key 1", from_mix=False)
newKey2 = obj.shape_key_add(name="Key 2", from_mix=False)
newKey3 = obj.shape_key_add(name="Key 3", from_mix=False)
#creating the shapekeys BEFORE the bmesh, for the original mesh

bm = bmesh.new()
bm.from_mesh(me)

#getting the shapekeys we already created
existingKey1 = bm.verts.layers.shape["Key 1"]
existingKey2 = bm.verts.layers.shape["Key 2"]
existingKey3 = bm.verts.layers.shape["Key 3"]

#changing the shapekey vertex coordinates
for vert in bm.verts:
    for SKey in (existingKey1,existingKey2,existingKey3):
        #change vert coordinates, like:
        vert[SKey] = vert.co*2

#back to the real mesh
bm.to_mesh(me)

print(len(me.shape_keys.key_blocks)) # == 4
#mesh will have all four shapekeys, "Basis", "Key 1", "Key 2" and "Key 3"

I feel like this answer is similar to the one of batFINGER, but not quite, so I decided to add it.


text:
How can you invert an F-Curve
Basically I have a lamp moving on the Z axis according to a sound baked, then unbaked F-Curve, the problem is it's moving the exact opposite way I need it to, and so I believe I need to invert the F-Curve in someway.

Bake to a prop, find the ramge.  map to [0, 1]
In the code in
https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/39241/15543
I show how to get the minimum and maximum value of an fcurve.  The range of the fcurve. (It is generally always  the case that the minimum is 0 for baked fcurves). The range is  A = max - min .   This can also be done pretty much by eye, picking the maximum and minimum points and noting the values in graph editor..
For sound drivers, (which is very much on back-burner, there is an aubio version for 2.8 coming which bakes up to 10x quicker in my preliminary tests) I used these for control points on an fcurve envelope modifier to map the range to [0, 1]  With the unit range, the curve can be amplified with a generator modifier, or a via a variable with A * fcurve.evaluate()  the inverse is A * (1 - fcurve.evaluate(frame))
The last image of https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/39241/15543 shows a baked sound and its inverse as the amplitude is changed.
Here is a section of that image showing the envelope modifier.

action frame range 1 to 44, fcurve has max 0.3 something, mapped to [0, 1] with envelope
Here is some code from sound drivers to add an envelope modifier. The min and max of the fcurve is the default min and max of the modifer. The envelope control points are added at each end of fcurve and map range to range [0, 1].
        action # the action
        fcurve # an fcurve from that action
        _min # calculated min of fcurve
        _max # calculated max of fcurve

        mods = [m for m in fcurve.modifiers if m.type == 'ENVELOPE']
        # remove mods (shouldn't be any)
        for m in mods:
            fcurve.modifiers.remove(m)
        # add a new one
        m = fcurve.modifiers.new(type='ENVELOPE')
        m.default_min = _min
        m.default_max = _max
        # add a control point at start end
        for f in action.frame_range:
            cp = m.control_points.add(f)
            cp.min = 0
            cp.max = 1

Recommend baking to some custom property to avoid having to bake sound for each animated property. Bake once drive with that.
How to bake multiple audio sounds to f curve?
Unbaked
If you have unbaked the fcurve you can simply select all the kfps of fcurve in graph editor and S Y-1 to invert using scale.
PS This is my little part of blender as a patch needed to be written to expose envelope modifier control points to the python API.


text:
How can I automate a audio file to transformations?
So I am lip syncing, and I am not exactly doing a traditional mouth, I have a single light, and lets say on it's y axis I set a boundary from 0 to 10, then I get an audio file and say at no volume the object is a y = 0, while a max volume y = 10? And of course everything else in between. Would it be possible to do any of that?

Bake Sound to FCurve
Add a single keyframe to the Y location,  open the graph editor and choose "Bake Sound to Fcurve" from the graph editors "Key" menu.
To change the range of the baked fcurve add an envelope modifier.
Combine F-Curve Modifiers with baked Sound
What's the range of values on a sound-baked f-curve?
Rescaling a baked F-curve to values between 0 and 1


text:
Does Baking Texture Atlas also include the normal maps for the texture?
The Title pretty much asks the question - baking a texture that has a normal texture attached also bake the normal map to the texture atlas?

If you use the textools addon https://blender-addons.org/textools-addon/
then you can bake the normal easily

No, the textures atlas is just that, for object textures only, and is adjusted with the tabs below the bake tab..so that you can include or exclude texture properties from the texture atlas. l think that the process could be applied to the normal maps too.. but the manual is not clear on that.. so proceed with caution...


text:
Using one baked texture uv map for other objects of the same overall geometry
I have multiple objects that are walls, all using the same texture, do l have to bake a separate UV map for each or can l reuse the first map, and then apply it to each other wall, there is a link object function, tried it, but only transferred the material not the t baked texture.
regards

Answer:
1. -name all textures
2. -select object you want material assigned to
3. switch to edit mode on the selected object.
4. go to the materials subsection on the tools bar
5. select material you want on the object
6. press assign - and the material is assigned to the selected object -
material is assigned to the object, and can be viewed in the texture view..
repeat as many times as required.
QED


text:
Generating object mask during rendering for data collection
I am creating a synthetic hand dataset for machine learning. I am rendering images of characters with different hand gestures in Blender. At the same time, I want to generate a hand mask for each rendered image to indicate the position of the hand in the RGB image. For example, the hand mask would be an image in which every pixel that is part of the hand at corresponding position in the rendered RGB image has value 1, all other pixels have value 0.
How do I generate the hand mask? My intuition tells me that I need to select all vertices belonging to the hand, then calculate the projection of these pixels onto the image plane. However, I am new to Blender so do not know how to do this or if this is possible.

To be clear: You want a black and white resulting image?

If you are looking to create a black and white image of a portion of a mesh, make the portion you wish to capture a distinct material (top image).
Assign the material a material pass (see yellow arrow), and collect and output that pass in your render (See render stack):

Here's a step-by-step, if this is your desired output: How to put 2 parts of 1 object on different layers?
Hand by SuperDasil on BlendSwap: https://www.blendswap.com/blends/view/81285


text:
Automating Camera and Deformable Object for Image Data Collection
I have a deformable object (e.g. a rigged arm with a hand) in the scene. I want to take large numbers of pictures of the arm from different angles, while the arm is performing different actions. How do I automate this process and save the rendered images directly to a directory?
Would it make more sense to keep the camera in place and just animate the arm to different positions? I am doing this for data collection so I want the arm movements to be randomized and camera angles to be randomized. If this type of randomization is possible, could I also set constraints on what part of the arm is included in each image?

Do you need the frame to frame changes to be truly randomized, or just "noisy"?  If the former, Animation Nodes might be the ticket.  It can randomize your arm movements and also randomize the camera's location.  To randomize the part of the arm that is the focus, you could point the camera to an empty, and randomize the location of the empty along a constraint curve connected to the armature via a hook modifier.  If you randomize every frame, you can just render to individual frames like any other animation.  Sorry this is not a fuller answer, my animation nodes experience is limited.

Okay I have a way to do this without Animation Nodes, which still might be a good solution for you.
I've created a scene with a two-bone armature and a cylindrical mesh parented to it.  That's your "arm".  It is animated to bend back and forth.

I have also added to this example a bezier curve that will follow the deformations of the armature, via a couple of "hook" modifiers.  The control points of the bezier are hooked to the bones of the armature.
The camera is animated to jump around to random positions in the x, y, and z dimensions via a "Noise" modifier added separately to each of the x, y, and z directions.  A different seed for each ensures that they're moving separately.

You will have to tweak the parameters of the Noise modifier to ensure it is jumping around as quickly as you like and as far as you like in the various dimensions.
Back to the curve object, I have also created an empty with a "follow path" modifier, associated with the curve.  I have animated the offset value of that modifier with another "noise" modifier.  Essentially this means that the empty jumps around to various positions along the curve.  The curve, remember, deforms along with the animation of the armature, so basically the empty is always somewhere in the middle of the "elbow."

Finally a "damped track" constraint is added to the camera, which is set to target the empty.
So basically, for every frame, the camera is jumping to some random location, an empty is moving to some random location within the deforming armature, and the camera is set to turn towards the empty.
Here are the first ten frames of the animation output from this setup.  As you can see, there is quite a bit of variation in terms of camera angle.  Hopefully this is sufficient for your purposes.


text:
Wrapping a model around a rigged model
I have a rigged foot model. I want to wrap a shoe model (unrigged) around the foot model.
How can I do so while also making the shoe model follow the foot rig. For example, when the toes bend, the shoe bends the same way.

Shrinkwrap?....

create the shoe mesh in front and side views so that it follows the foot profile, then rig it to the same bones as the foot


text:
How do I show the modifier stack panel when I work in the full screen area mode?
As the title, I wonder if I can use a shortcut to show the modifier stack panel without toggle the full screen area mode.
Thanks!

there is no defined "shortcut" to do that, and since blender window areas are by definition "non blocking" there is no way to let a "modifier stack panel" to jump in your fullscreen area mode, but you have alternatives, at least 2, imho:

reshape a layout to look as desired, ie calling it "fullscreen", set up like this:

use a separate window just for the "modifier stack panel", if you really wish it to go over your fullscreen area. You can duplicate the main window, and then reshape the secondary one to just show the "modifier stack panel", like this:

In linux it's easy to set this secondary floating "panel" as "always on top", but each OS has or can have similar utilities, so that you can always see it even when focus is on the background, fullscreen, area, like this:

It's helpful! Thanks a lot m.ardito!

I'm glad it does :) if you feel it's helpful, you could upvote an answer, and if it solves, also accept it (that's how this site works)


text:
Hotkey of Erase in Texture Paint?
I found my Wacom eraser could work on Texture Paint.
so maybe there is a shortcut assigning to it?
but I cannot find it in preference

I don't use the eraser on my tablet(mine doesn't come with one) but Texture Paint mode has a mix mode in the brush controls called 'Erase Alpha', and that generally does what you expect in that it seems to erase the paint - BUT if you also then switch to 'Add Alpha', you can then recover what you thought was erased.
I don't know about setting up an operator to swap to the Erase Alpha mix mode and back to the last used brush mix mode, but that might be possible, and then you woudl have to map it to the eraser input. I use an add-on called EZ Paint that enables me to toggle erase/add alpha with a short cut key, but that isn't what you are looking for.

Okay i finally figured out how to make a shortcut to an eraser for Texture Paint.
The idea is that i needed to figure out the correct function id for the Blend modes (MIX + Erase-Alpha) and input that into the custom keymap menu
But usually when using digital art softwares for drawing you can have an eraser key that will erase only when pressed.
So i made 2 diferent keymaps one change to Erase-Alpha when PRESED and the other to switch back to Mix when Released.
This basically restore my workflow and avoid so much frustration while Texture painting.
Go in the preferences - > Keymaps -> 3d View -> Image Paint
Go on the bottom and create a new key slot by pressing : Add New then click on the little arrow next to none to open the tab of the shortcut
Then in the field where its written "none" type :
wm.context_toggle_enum
new fields will appear, in Context Attribute, type :
tool_settings.image_paint.brush.blend
in the first "Value" field, type :
ERASE_ALPHA
and in the second, type :
MIX
Now set a key for your shortcut and set the key mode to : PRESS
Repeat the whole operation a second type (create another keymap in the same place) but this time, revert the 2 Values
first :
MIX
second :
ERASE_ALPHA
set the same key as before, but this time set it to RELEASE
that way you will be able to erase only while holding the eraser key, but you can also simply make only one keymap and click it to switch between modes.
Hope it Helps !

THANK YOU for the basis
You actually don't need the second one, pressing the hotkey twice will toggle from one mode to another

Yeah, my setup was meant to be able to erase only when i kept the erase key pressed then automatically switching back when released. but after some testing, this is probably not a good approach, and you should make a toggle key.


text:
Python API: How to pick the last created object?
the circumstance is that I trigger "GPencil Convert to Curve" operator
then it creates a Curve Object deriving from selected Grease Pencil Object,
and also change Bevel depth for the Curve Object
but how do pick the Curve Object

Try this(I am on Blender 2.81a):
(set grease pencil object name to "Stroke")
import bpy

# De-select all
bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='DESELECT')

# Make blender think you are in a 3D drawing area
context = bpy.context.copy()
for area in bpy.context.screen.areas:
    if area.type == 'VIEW_3D':
        for region in area.regions:
            if region.type == 'WINDOW':
                context['area'] = area
                context['region'] = region
                break
        break

# The grease pencil must be active (name = Stroke)
context['active_object'] = bpy.data.objects['Stroke']

# Convert(create a new curve) grease pencil
bpy.ops.gpencil.convert(context, type='CURVE', use_timing_data=True)

# New curve will be the only selected object
obj_curve = bpy.context.selected_objects[0]
obj_curve.data.bevel_depth = 0.04
obj_curve.data.bevel_resolution = 8


text:
Can I bake an animation from a curve modifier?
Basically, I have an object with an array and then a curve modifier to create a conveyor belt that I want to use in Unjty. In Blender, this animates fine by moving the object along the X axis, but of course this just ends up being an X axis translation in Unity. Is there any way to just bake the mesh's animation to keyframes? And if not, is there a reliable way to get animated conveyor tracks into Unity from Blender?

Using bake action should work for you.

Unfortunately that doesn't work because it just maintains the same single lateral motion as originally animated. I need something that will bake the conveyer animation, not an object moving along a straight line.

see if this helps: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/64215/how-do-i-make-an-animation-from-a-curve


text:
Can I turn a procedural displacement into geometry?
I was following this tutorial to create procedural rocks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFsVzDXYOKw
It gives some really nice results (that I admittedly don't fully understand), the only problem is that those results only exist when rendered.  The only thing physically there is the sphere that the many, many nodes get applied to. My ultimate goal is to export the rocks to a game engine, so they need to become actual geometry as at least a first step.  But it's not clear to me how I'd go about this.  Any thoughts?

Yes, you can.
But you need to use different modifiers for this.
First, remove subsurf and use multires+displacement:

You need to use multires for simplicity in creating normal map for game engine. With normal map you can create a detailed object without complex geometry, that important for game engines.

For creating normal map, unwrap your object (U), crate material and put image for baking in it, and in render settings select normal type and press bake.

After baking, save resulted image and setup it as normal map. Now you can remove multires, apply displace (for basic shape) and export your model in game engine.

I would like to expand on @Crantisz good answer, if I may.
The issue you are facing is that the tutorial is generating its textures using the Cycles material nodes, but putting the output into the "displacement" slot of the Material Output node using the Microdisplacements feature.  As I understand it, this means that the sphere's geometry is actually getting modified at render time--it's not just lighting effects as you would get with a normal map--but there's no obvious way to "capture" what is happening to the geometry.
It seems to me that what the "RockGenerator" node group is outputting from its "Displacment" output is essentially just a bump map.  So I suggest baking that bump map to a texture, which you can then use to displace the geometry of a sphere with a subsurf or (as @Crantisz suggests) multires modifier.  You can then use a "Displace" modifier on the sphere, using your bump map as the input.  Once displaced, you can use a combination of baking a normal map (at high geometry levels) and then bumping the "multires" to a low level and applying the modifier for your base geometry.
In doing the texture baking, I suggest putting the output of the "RockGenerator" group into a "Multiply" node and then into an "Emission" texture.  Without the "Multiply," areas of texture get clipped (I multiplied by .2 just as an approximation, maybe a more scientific approach could be used).  We need to essentially "normalize" the bump map, but I do not think Cycles material nodes have a normalize function, hence the "Multiply."  You could use a color ramp to try to get the closest approximation.
This screenshot shows what the geometry looks like with the baked bump map displacing the geometry of a sphere with a multires modifier:

From this point, you would still need to bake a normal map, and also apply the multires modifier at the desired level of subdivisions.

Sounds like you want actual geometry once your modifiers are set up to your satisfaction.
It's not very obvious how to lock-in those modifiers.
You have to be in Object mode, and choose "Convert to Mesh from Curve/Meta/Surf/Text"
you may want to duplicate the rock, and perform a couple of remesh actions on them. I tried Voxel remesh for mine, and followed that with a quadriflow remesh to get the polygon count to a quarter of where I started, using the Ratio input set to .25

This may not be the answer the OP needs, but it's the answer to the actual question.


text:
Help implementing Script node for material
Intermediate Blender user here. I am trying to create a procedural emission shader that only effects areas of an object of a given range of thickness (i.e. if applied to a character could make the characters fingers glow - because they are thinner, but not the arms)
At the end of this stack exchange someone seems to have developed a script that can vary materals according to thickness (the Uniform Depth, script).
Get Object Width In Cycles as Value
But taking the script into textedit and copy and pasting it into the internal script function on the node doesn’t do anything, and trying to link to the file as external script returns an error! Wondering if there are any general tutorials for implementing external python scripts as nodes in materials. Will be very grateful for any help!

The related post you mentioned is not in Python but in OSL. In order to enable OSL you must set your render device in CPU mode and enable the Open Shading Language Option. I tried the code and it was working quite good (except the last part which crashed my machine).


text:
Could not open file for writing?
I have been using blender for a few years and this is the first time I have come across this problem. I am running 2.79 on Ubuntu. I was trying render a short test video for a new project and I came across this error on the top of my blender feed.
"Could not open file for writing"
And occasionally I get the error "Python: RENDER_MT_presets"
There is a triangle caution sign on the left of it. I am trying to write to the same folder of my last 6 videos. I found several videos just saying that I need to change the output source, but that didn't work. I also found this post on the forum.
Deleted .dvd file, and "Could not open file for writing."
I tried changing the permission for the folder, but again it had no effect. I am now confused by this and am hoping that someone could help.

The "Could not open file" error sometimes appears when you delete /move the rendered file and then try to render with that same name to that same location again. Try to change name of the output file.

Check in compositing or materials if any input nodes require a local texture file.

I wonder if the space in your folder name is the cause. If you open a terminal window and start blender from there, you should get some extra error info that may help figure out what the problem is. The RENDER_MT_presets error is referring to the preset menu above the render resolution, this would save to $HOME/.config/blender/2.79/scripts/presets/render/.

Hi John, Thanks for the reply. I'm not sure how to check that. I have never had to go into the deeper settings. I'm just curious as to why this was working 2 weeks ago, but now this is giving me this issue?

You might have relative paths in your input nodes and might moved your blend file or the source images. To check go to the compositing view from scene. To debug precisely, maybe use the toggle system console from window and post the error

You only need to add at the render output settings on the path location the .blend text

In properties window, go to Output tab.
Find Output heading within that tab.
Check the File Extensions box (which is below the Output save path entry).

Not sure why that worked, but it did. Thanks.

Just had the same problem, solved by re-linking the render folder location through the Output tab in the Properties Window, clicked on the folder tab and chose the same folder. Rendered correctly afterwards.

I had this problem, and it turned out to be Linux limiting the number of open files the the process (blender) may use.
Here is an annotated script that fixes the issue.
#!/bin/bash
# find the current limit
blenderProcessID="$(pidof blender)"
currentLimit="$(prlimit  -n -p $blenderProcessID | tail -n1 | awk '{print $7}' 2>/dev/null)"

# Find the current number of open files used by blender:
currentOpenFiles="$(lsof -p "$blenderProcessID" | wc -l)"

# Calculate the difference
delta=$((currentOpenFiles - currentLimit))

# If Blender has less files open then the limit, exit.
((delta > 0)) || { echo 'Number of files used by blender is under the current process limit.' >&2; exit 1; }

# increase the limit by double the delta.
newLimit=$((delta * 2 + currentLimit))
sudo prlimit --nofile="$newLimit" --pid "$blenderProcessID" && echo "Increased open-file limit to $newLimit" >&2

The idea here is that each user has a set of default limits that each new process runs under. This is queried and modified with the ulimit bash-built-in command.
However, once a process is running, the limits must be changed with the prlimit command.
Therefore, if you find you run into this problem often, you might consider changing the default for your user:
echo "ulimit -n $newLimit" >> ~/.profile

which will take effect after you logout and back in (reboot etc.).

I managed to fix this error just by unchecking the File Extensions in Output option, then you have to add the extension manually directly in the final file.


text:
Objects move when initial pearenting is done
So in the bone constraints tab I want to make a bone_a a child of bone_root and I have to use the Make Child Of constraint in the bone constraints tab because of how my rig is, but I do not want any bones to move when I parent them initially, I want them to move when I move the bone, not when I initially parent.

After add Child Of constrain to your bone, Make sure you press Clear Inverse then press Set Inverse button.


text:
Automation for baked rigid body dynamics baking, creating armatures, and transferring to armatures

I would like to streamline the process of creating game ready baked rigid body simulations, and I am wondering if there already exists function, add-on, or script which does this. This would expand the possibility of having more complex effects (more dynamic bodies baked).
Specifically the purpose of whatever function, add-on, and script would be to create an armature at rest position, where there is a bone for every object in the scene, each of the bones' head is at the center of each object, and the tail is always pointing +Z. Afterwards a copy location and rotation constraint would be applied to each bone and linked to the appropriate object, afterwards, each object would be weighed under the vertex weight for the appropriate bone.
I'm not trying to request that someone create, although I'm sure others would appreciate it for creating their own simulations.
In terms of manually creating these simulations, it is a tedious process.
For reference, see this video in which a simulation is created for The Dark Mod:
Blender - bake physics to armature

https://blendermarket.com/products/ossim
This tool provides almost exactly what I am looking for.


text:
How would one achieve a gradient transparency in Blender eevee?

I want to be able to create a mesh that gradually fades in and out in the render mode of eevee similar to this thread: https://blenderartists.org/t/solid-to-transparent-gradient/539625/3 I also don't want the glassy aspect in this thread: Eevee Transparency gradient

Here is the kind of material you can create to have the same result: plug a Texture Coordinate into a (Converter) Separate XYZ, use the Y output (or X or Z depending on your plane orientation) and plug it into the factor of a Mix Shader that mixes a Diffuse with a Transparent node. In Eevee don't forget to choose Alpha Blend in the Material > Settings > Blend Mode. You can put a ColorRamp between the Separate XYZ and the Mix Shader if you want more control on the gradient.

This is definitely a right step in the direction, but I'm having three problems; 1. All though I can see the transparency when I'm loaded into Eevee, I can't see the transparency when I render an image of the object. Not sure if I have to enable a render setting to render Alpha Blend. 2. I would like to be able to control just how far the transparency ends/begins. 3. Some of the meshes I apply the node tree to seem to have a weird concentration: https://i.gyazo.com/342a35492a24eab48c8c49f76e3e7af7.mp4 https://i.gyazo.com/cb4bc37d0e510a3502b28051de182033.mp4

I don't have the exact same result as you, I have a big halo around your object when I watch through the camera but that's because you've enabled its Depth of Field, disable or reduce it. Disable the Show Backface option in the Material Settings otherwise you'll see the other faces by transparency and it will make the object more opaque. For the gradient, as I said, you can control it if you put a ColorRamp between the Separate XYZ and the Mix Shader. Also there's a Shader to RGB that I don't really know.

Thank you very much, Moonbots. There's only one last issue that I'm having with the render. I'm very rudimental when it comes to node editing, so I'm having an issue with the gradient part in the render. There's an immediate cutoff as if the gradient aspect never existed, it shows up fine in Eevee however, maybe it's a visible macro issue, is there any way to prolong the solid to transparent feature perhaps using another color ramp? https://i.gyazo.com/9ac52dd57c88c97a11fbc00974227fe1.png https://i.gyazo.com/333bef476eecad15dc6ef867a2b7b26f.png

I'm not sure why you get this result in render actually, I don't have the same result, I hope someone will tell

It's a macro issue. For whatever reason, Blender render won't acknowledge the fade in rendered image, but saving it as a file will make the fade obvious. Thanks, moonboots. Just need to know how to make the transparent to solid transition last longer instead of it being short.

please prepare a file as simple as possible with just one camera and a plane with a simple material with the mix between diffuse and transparent so that we can test further, and share again. For the gradient control you can put a ColorRamp as I said but I doubt this is your problem here

Sorry, here you go: https://pasteall.org/blend/d9fb45c499194dd68ff98eb5f24411ea I'm also running into an issue where the contrast between the transparent gradient mesh clashes with other meshes via a white border whenever it's rendered as an image not when it render view in Eevee is enabled, it's very obvious. https://i.gyazo.com/663928fef421915866b390967b7ed7dd.png https://i.gyazo.com/0a81215ed0df5b701d1f20e8bcdb7ece.png How would I remove the obnoxious white outline between the two objects?

Here is what I get (if I disable the camera's Depth of Field), it looks normal to me (except I don't know how how the Shader to RGB works so I'm not sure about this part of your material): https://zupimages.net/up/21/33/vbds.jpg ... I agree that the ColorRamp is a bit surprising as its middle is not 50% black, I don't know why...

ColorRamp in B-Spline mode with a third needle seems to give a better gradient result: https://zupimages.net/up/21/33/nxil.jpg

Alright, there's still the issue with that horrid white border that separates the mesh on top of the transparent body. Using B-spline doesn't make much of a difference either whenever I render an image: https://i.gyazo.com/af0e053b927047ed0836dbda9642b337.png Any ideas on what I can do?

unfortunately I can't help because I don't see the same problem when I render...   :((

Good news, as soon as you said "I don't see the same problem" I knew it was an issue with the blender Version I had. I was using 9.1, but when I updated to 9.3 I noticed the border issue was slightly resolved. Same with the image render. https://i.gyazo.com/e01f312041728c7749909a35e44cd7de.png the border has definitely been reduced, but how would I reduce it even more?

https://i.gyazo.com/5c3ae9af8018a8ec6ef75a9390e72716.png I know the problem seems menial, but the render still has the white border that separates the body and equipment if you look hard enough.

This part right here, you can still see the white border: https://i.gyazo.com/073315402c4e91075b5d0f280d27fe77.png

see my render, it's seems ok: https://zupimages.net/up/21/33/uxsr.jpg


text:
Maintainable models and topology
I come from CAD and I am having a hard time wrapping my head around how people maintain models in Blender and other mesh tools. If I want, say, a hole through my model, I seems that I have to commit to the general location of that hole, since it is going to be baked into the topology if the model. If I ever want to change the location of the hole it can be a huge job. It gets worse if I have, say, 30 holes in a row, and want to change it to 35 holes in a row with the same total span width.
I can always use modifiers, but eventually I have to apply them and fix all the edge flows they break. If I need to change something at a later date, I will have to redo the edge flows again. This is especially broken if I want to use subdivision surface modifiers, since I will either need detailed control geometry around my hole’s sharp corners, or I will need to do the Boolean after applying the subdivide and be stuck with a lot more geometry to retopo.
How do people deal with this? I make thousands of retrospective changes to a model as I move through a CAD design process. Is 3D modeling more like painting, where you commit to the structure of the workpiece as you go? Are there any tools that I could use to mitigate these issues? So far, I cannot see the advantage of working directly in meshes besides the output being easily UV-mapped. Because of this it is surprising to me that we don’t see more modeling done in parasolid software and then meshed into UV-friendly topologies using automated tools. Either this is just mathematically very difficult to do, or there are some strong advantages to the mesh workflow that I am not seeing.

That's true, the hole example you mentioned is quite hard to do in Blender in a non-destructive manner (so yes, the boolean modifier usually needs to be applied and then a lot of work goes into fixing the geometry). One way is to use another software like Moi 3D (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5r3xc_Go3o) for the modelling process and then export the mesh to Blender for rendering, for example.

Blender is not the best tool to use for procedural modeling workflow. Its workflow is quite destructive actually. There are better tools like Modo's MeshFusion, Houdini or Moi3D if you value procedurality.
It is possible to create the shapes parametrically and mesh them with clever math, there are some auto-retopology tools out there, but humans can do usually better than that. Maybe in couple of years there will be AI to do that well for us.
Since the workflow is destructive it's important to finalize the design before modeling. That's what concept art, sketches and 2D studies are for. There is some room for experimentation in modeling phase, but it should be well defined beforehand.

This seems like the cold hard truth. I will check out some of those other programs. I will also start studying retopology, as it looks like a good opportunity to learn more about both computer science and differential geometry!


text:
How to avoid flipped looking normals when baking them?
So I ran into this the second time now. The normals on the model flip randomly despite the faces are facing outwards. In this case it happens at the uv seam of the model but other times it seemed completely random. What's causing this?

It all comes dow to marked seams? Or is there something else in the works which I don't understand?
Please help.

hello, please pack the image and share your file: https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/

Use color space: Non-Color  for the normal map in the ImageTexture node, not sRGB. Classic mistake ;-)

Ohh but I cannot change the color space, as you can see under there it's gray. But I will figure it out I probably need to save the picture or something.

That's probably because there is another ImageTexture node (for baking?) that uses the image. In your screenshot, you see the number "2" which indicates there are 2 "users". Click on it to make a new instance. Then you should be able to change the color space.

Yes, I added the texture to both objects. Anyways I needed to save it and now it works, Thanks!

I've just created an account to appreciate the upper guy, get into the point immediately


text:
Whenever I render, the cube appears over the model but everything looks fine on the view port render
The cube appears in if I render the model

what is that cube? something is not good in your settings, maybe take a look at the Outliner, is the eye icon enabled for the cube?

For reference: https://www.take-a-screenshot.org/

Welcome here!
Whenever you need help and post in any kind of website, it would be nice from you to provide more info about what you did, what you expected, what actually happened, what you tried to solve the problem, give screenshots to illustrate all of that, and indicate what software you're using (and its version) as well as your operating system. It will make everything easier and faster, both for us and you.
My first guess is that you disabled the visibility of your cube in the viewport, but not in the render.
Chac your outliner, you might have something like this :

Eye icon is for Viewport visibility, Cursor icon is for selectability, Camera icon is for renderability. The simplest way to not have your cube in the render is to uncheck the camera icon.
If this doesn't solve your issue, you will have to do what I said above: give more infos.


text:
how can I export object position info from blender to text file?
how can I export objects position information from blender to a text file for every frame of an animation?

Same question as this one, but sadly not answered.

This will write the location x,y and z values of the active object(bpy.context.object) at every frame starting from the start frame and finishing with the end frame set in the render settings under Dimensions section, Frame Range. You can change that by changing the for loop's condition. You can format the output as you need as well, just keep in mind you need to convert values you wish to output to strings.
import bpy

file = open("C:\\SomeDirectoryBlenderHasPermissionToAccess\\SomeFile.txt", 'w')
scene = bpy.context.scene
loc = bpy.context.object.location
for frames in range(scene.frame_start, scene.frame_end+1):
    scene.frame_set(frames)
    file.write('Loacton at frame '+str(frames)+':('
    +str(loc.x)+', '+str(loc.y)+', '+str(loc.z)+')\n')
file.close()

If you needed to run it for all objects in the scene you would need a loop within a loop:
...

for every_object in bpy.context.scene.objects:
    for every_frame in range(scene.frame_start, scene.frame_end+1):
        scene.frame_set(every_frame)
        loc = every_object.location
        file.write('Loacton at frame '+str(every_frame)+':('
        +str(loc.x)+', '+str(loc.y)+', '+str(loc.z)+')\n')

...

You can find more info on working with strings here. www.w3schools.com is a wonderful resource in general when learning Python.
Blender Python documentation is usefull as well especially the search function there.
One more extremely useful place to learn is Blender itself. There are some very useful examples that come with Blender here:

Also auto complete function(ctrl+space) is extremely useful in the Python Console:

Martin Z how would I configure that to output more info for each object in a scene? can the order of the output be controlled,

The general idea would be only a few steps: 1. Learn Python. 2. Learn bpy API. 3. Add the functionality needed using your newly obtained skills. :D I think there are many ways to sort the output. You would need to be more specific. See the links I added to the answer.

The drawback to using frame_set is that it updates the scene, that can get expensive for large scenes.

We can read blenders animation data, which allows us to then write that data to a file.
First step is to get the animation data that you want. There is an fcurve for every animated value, these can be found in obj.animation_data.action.fcurves. We can search the list of fcurves to get the curve/s we want. Each curve can also give us the value at a specific frame using fcurve.evaluate(frame). We then format that data as we write it to a file.
The index used with fcurve.find is based on 0=X, 1=Y, 2=Z.
import bpy

scn = bpy.context.scene
obj = bpy.context.object

x_curve = obj.animation_data.action.fcurves.find('location', index=0)
y_curve = obj.animation_data.action.fcurves.find('location', index=1)
z_curve = obj.animation_data.action.fcurves.find('location', index=2)

with open('data_out.txt', 'w') as out_file:
    for f in range(scn.frame_start, scn.frame_end):
        x_pos = x_curve.evaluate(f)
        y_pos = y_curve.evaluate(f)
        z_pos = z_curve.evaluate(f)
        out_file.write('{},{:.3f},{:.3f},{:.3f}\n'.format(f,x_pos,y_pos,z_pos))

Yep, that seems like a lot more elegant way.


text:
All geometry looks glitchy in viewport in Blender 2.8
I'm using Blender 2.8 (release, not beta) for my new project and after adding some objects (just as placeholders, no complex geometry) all geometry around edges looks strange.
This however doesn't occur while looking through a camera.
I have used Blender 2.8 beta before and there wasn't this problem

Check your viewport's clipping. The min value may be too small for your scene, or too large.


text:
Boolean Not Working The Way I Think It's Supposed To
So When I do a Boolean Modifier on the Sphere, and select a torus surrounding that sphere, I expect it to do what it first did in the middle, but it just cuts a hold straight through it.

Hi, can you show or describe better the boolean setup? Not too clear to me...

Change the type to carve and try to change between difference , intersect ... untill you get the wanted result


text:
Blender doesn't follow the coordination of objects. What am I missing?
On the left-hand side, you can see that x = 0 and y = 0 but the object is shifted and It's not related to the grid (x-axis and y-axis). It's not in the center. The same issue happens with the z-axis. The object is way above the grid although z = 0 or even a negative value. I think I'm missing something but I don't know what it is.

Those are delta values for the transform operation, not absolute coordinates in scene space

So check this image please...

...by hitting a "T" key You could switch the left panel and by hitting the "N" key You could switch the right panel. As could be seen on TOP of the right panel, there are values for Location, Rotation and Scale and these are of your interest! Hope it helps buddy.
Sincerely, Jan

As @DuarteFarrajotaRamos mentioned in the comments, those values are delta values for translating object. You can access the co-ordinates of the object by selecting the object, pressing the N key and under transform tab, you could see the co-ordinates of your object. You can change them as per your need.


text:
How can I bake multiple images (textures) into one image texture? EEVEE
Using the MixRGB node, I mixed two images and its factor is another black and white image. I will mix some other images.
I would like to back all these images into one image. How can I do this with EEVEE?
My baking process is simple, it doesn't have emission or other properties that are hard to bake. I also added the images to a plane (terrain) which is not a complex mesh. It is like adding some images together using photoshop.

EEVEE currently doesn't support baking, so you would have to use Cycles instead.
Heres how:

Let's start with this simple hybrid texture

Add a new image texture node, click  + New  and give it an appropriate name and dimension.

Select this new node and find Bake Panel under Render Properties. If you cannot find it make sure you are using cycles.

Let's use the Combined Bake Type. Learn about them here. Click  Bake  and wait for it to finish

Connect the Baked Image node into the PRincipled BSDF Node. Its a bit dark since we did not have any lights in our scene. You can even export this baked texture.

Great answer. Thank you. I choose Diffuse instead of Combined. Then, I unselect Direct and Indirect. Then, I select Color. This way the image won't be darker.

@user2824371 Great! With your settings, you can drop the sample count down to 1 for super quick bake !!

Thank you again for your useful info. You're wonderful :)


text:
How to paint a texture on top of a repeated texture?
I would like to create a ground that has grass and a road in the middle using textures. For the grass, I downloaded an image and set it as a texture with repetition. For the road, I have another texture. Today, I learned how to use Texture Paint mode. It seems that I can paint the road if the grass texture was not repeated. But how can I paint the road texture on this repeated texture? Thank you,

you can mix both textures with a MixRGB, create a new image in the image editor and then paint a black and white mask in texture paint mode to be used in in the fac input, you can set everything and go into the LookDev or Material Preview to see the efect while painting.

Simple and powerful answer :D Thank you so much :)


text:
How to insert space or make a gab between many joined stripped pieces of Audio VSE?
My question is the reverse process of this question: How to automatically join stripped pieces of video?
I have many pieces of audio or clips that are joined together (eg: 20 clips). I need to make some space/gap between the fifth and the sixth clips so that I can insert another clip.
I downloaded the power sequencer Plugin but I'm not sure if it can do it or not.
What's the easiest way to do it?

There are at least two fast methods:
First method
Inside the VSE, deselect all strips then, press b and drag your mouse to box select the strips you want to move. When you have selected them, press g to grab all of them and move them by the desired amount with your mouse. Finish with LMB.
Second method
Inside the VSE, place your cursor inside the strip after which you want to insert the gap with LMB. Then select Strip -> Insert Gaps or press Shift+= and it will insert a gap after the current strip. This is actually the reverse of the method mentioned in the question you linked.
Hope that helps.

The Insert Gaps menu item works for me, but Shift+= doesn't do anything. Is this keyboard map dependent? On my keyboard, Shift+= is +.

The shortcut doesn't work for me either with a German keyboard layout.


text:
Why does baking the armature (as an object) stop the bones from moving?
I want to get rid of the Follow Path Constraint without while keeping the animation of the armature as a whole or as an object. In Object Mode, I baked it by going to Object menu > Animation > Bake Action

It works and now I can delete the Bezier Curve without loosing the animation of the armature. BUT the animation of each individual bone stops! How can I solve this?
Example: Try to bake the armature in the attached file.
Download Blend File

In order to bake the bones actions, you have to be in pose mode. From there you can make a bake of visual keying of bones AND object transforms (just shift select both pose and object in the bake tab).

My great josh :D Thank you so much.. That was quick and useful :)


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Why does it look lighter?
Im working on an anvil, following this tutorial all the way around without noticing.
But now it comes to the texture part and Im totally freak out when it turns out that my anvil is so much lighter than it needs to be, and it affects all the texture thing, you know.
Anyone know why and how to correct?
This is my anvil.

And this is how it should be.

Due to added material slot


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Is there a faster way to select objects?
I'm on Part II: Step 4 of Sims4Studio.com/thread/164/start-finish-access
Every time, I right click each line, I will miss a click, all my previous selections disappear.
I have been using blender for two years off and on. I still don't get it.  I wish the devs knew the level of difficulty they have added to the GUI. Forget tutorials. Every person is hitting their keyboards without explaining which keys or functions complete each action.
This is just one of my 99 problems.

In Blender, selection and deselection operations are included in the undo stack. This means you can use Ctrl+Z to undo any time you incorrectly select or deselect something.
The developers tie so many operations to keyboard shortcuts because it's a lot more time efficient for users that are familiar with them. Most operations can still be accessed through menus, and nearly all of them can be accessed by searching with F3 (or the spacebar in older versions.) You can see (and change) all keyboard shortcuts by going to 'Edit > Preferences' and clicking 'Keymap' on the left side.

Shift + Alt seems to pick groups of objects I want to delete.  B (box tool) does doesn't work in edit mode. Options = Solid Shading + Off Limit Selection to Visible . I can b + cursor over  the item all day, press x, tick delete vertices, item remains. What are the proper options to get Blender 2.70 to remove vertices?

I've never used Blender 2.70 so I'm afraid I won't be able to help with its shortcuts. Seeing as that version was released 6 years ago (March 2014), I'd highly recommend updating to Blender 2.8.x. Not only have there been major improvements to the user interface and technology in general, there's also a far more active community, so you're more likely to be able to get help. The only case in which you shouldn't update is if the scene you're working on has technical limitations that require the old version.


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How to copy NLA strip without creating a new track?
I would like to make many linked copies of a strip. This strip controls the eye blinking. When I press Alt+D, it creates a new NLA track for the new copied strip.
This will end up having a new track whenever the character blinks lol

yes, it doesn't seem logic, but you can bring back the strip on the right track then delete the new created track, or, other solution, press shift A to add the action on its own track

Hi, moonboots I love you answering my questions :) Thank you so much. I would be happy to give you the best answer so please write them as answers :)

Yes, maybe I miss something but it doesn't seem logical, maybe it's worth a report to Blender developers? That said, you can either:

Duplicate one or several times your strip, it will create one new track but you can delete it later (put your cursor over the track's name and press X).
Put your cursor where you want to create a copy of your strip and press ShitA > Strip Name, but it won't keep all the edits you could have made in the NLA "N" panel.

There is an option to duplicate the Nla action strip with the "Repeat" option in the same track.
Simply select the Nla Strip --> Select Strip Tab (Properties Panel) -> Action Panel->Repeat