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New vertices while rotating an object
I'm trying to rotate a few vertices in an object but whenever I try to do so new vertices appear and destroy my object(showed in the video)
https://uupload.ir/view/untitled_nz3x.mp4/
I tried to select all the vertices but whatever I do new vertices happen to creat

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

Some actions like canceled extrusions can leave duplicate vertices.  Try selecting all with A and then Alt + M -> Merge by Distance


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Good uses regarding polys, tris and quads
Since I have been modeling I have been wondering what are the good uses regarding polys, tris and quads. I try to only have quads in all my modeling but is it necessary when the goal is only to render? For export to the game engine, is it possible to leave tris? In short, what are the good uses for each project purpose? Thank you !

Tris and ngons are ok as long as they don't create artefacts, as for game engines I guess your topology needs to be made of tris

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/99369/i-thought-you-should-never-use-triangles https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/2931/why-should-triangle-meshes-be-avoided-for-character-animation/ https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/36270/how-can-tris-be-used-to-an-advantage/ https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/1684/what-is-the-technical-difference-between-an-ngon-and-a-bunch-of-triangles/ https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/89/when-should-n-gons-be-used-and-when-shouldnt-they

Hello and welcome. This question seems to have been asked before in multiple forms over time, and already has various answers but you never acknowledged any of them. We are not sure if you aware of the existing posts but none of the described techniques address your particular requisites, or you simply didn't do any research at all. Could you [edit] you post and clarify how your question differs from the suggested duplicates? Otherwise could you rephrase it to focus on a particular step you are stuck with?

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Scripting error using view3d
Here is what I am trying to do:
import bpy
bpy.ops.view3d.snap_cursor_to_selected()
bpy.ops.object.editmode_toggle()
bpy.ops.object.origin_set(type='ORIGIN_CURSOR')
bpy.ops.view3d.snap_cursor_to_center()
bpy.ops.view3d.snap_selected_to_cursor(use_offset=False)
bpy.ops.object.editmode_toggle()

But this gave error on line 1 that something is wrong with using view3d.
After reading some previous solutions I modified this code to make it work like this
import bpy
for area in bpy.context.screen.areas:
if area.type == 'VIEW_3D':
    ctx = bpy.context.copy()
    ctx['area'] = area
    ctx['region'] = area.regions[-1]
    bpy.ops.view3d.snap_cursor_to_selected(ctx)
bpy.ops.object.editmode_toggle()
bpy.ops.object.origin_set(type='ORIGIN_CURSOR')
bpy.ops.view3d.snap_cursor_to_center(ctx)
bpy.ops.view3d.snap_selected_to_cursor(use_offset=False)==>ERROR LINE
bpy.ops.object.editmode_toggle()

Now I don't know what to do with that error line. Blender closes and I cannot read any error report. I am not a programmer. Hope anyone helps. Thank you.

Some commands require a specific context. For instance, to use the view3d commands you must switch to the VIEW_3D context first. This should do it:

import bpy
#switch context
previous_context = bpy.context.area.type
bpy.context.area.type = 'VIEW_3D'

#do stuff
bpy.ops.view3d.snap_cursor_to_selected()
bpy.ops.object.editmode_toggle()
bpy.ops.object.origin_set(type='ORIGIN_CURSOR')
bpy.ops.view3d.snap_cursor_to_center()
bpy.ops.view3d.snap_selected_to_cursor(use_offset=False)
bpy.ops.object.editmode_toggle()

#restore previous context
bpy.context.area.type = previous_context

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


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How To Create A Circular Camera "Safe Frame"
I am working on an animation. The final output needs to be circular. I have a hard time seeing if my animation fits within the bounds of a circle while I work. I need a way to place a circular frame in front of my camera.
I have built a circular rig (pictured) but I have to key it separately from the camera and it becomes a pain to readjust the circular frame every time I move the camera.
What I need is a way to setup some kind of circular frame so that I do not have to readjust it every time I move the camera.
Thankyou in advance!

If i understood the question.
Activate the Turn around Camera (if u have 2.79 version from Addons)
Add camera align the camera. Click the object and from the toolshelf -> Animation click on the Turn around camera. And play the animation

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


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How to add a Particle Texture?
I am new to blender and working through a tutorial, but I have a problem. I can not for the life of me figure out how to add a particle texture. I must be missing something in the UI. When I navigate to the texture tab I can not find the button. What am I doing wrong?

in case anyone is wondering the tutorial is here:
http://blenderdiplom.com/en/tutorials/all-tutorials/394-tutorial-dissolve-your-logo-in-blender-262.html

Go into the particle tab of the properties window and add a new particle system to your object. In the particle settings look for the Textures panel and add a new texture.
If you return to the textures panel it should then turn into particle texture editing, along with a pull-down menu to choose texture context from.

Wow, thanks so much! I feel kind of dumb, you wouldn't believe how much time I spent poking around looking for this.

You helped me answer my own question https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/173192/driving-hair-from-a-texture/173348#173348. The way the image has to be selected in different tabs is particularly confusing.

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


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animation is not rendered if i set start at 50
when i render my animation the final result is a number of png with no movement (when i edit them in premiere).
Mostly if a set the first frame unlike 0 (at 50 for exemple).
The animation is a particle System hair, with a wind as external force field with a noise to move it. I'm not using keyframes.

Bake phisics animation before render. Press space and find Bake All Phisics:


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How to have a force field affecting only one particle system hair
how can i set a force field to affect the particle system named "alpha" and have no  effect to the one named "beta" ?
I tried to bake using separated levels and i tried also using the field weights > effector group setting into the particle system settings pannel

Fields only have an effect on objects and particles that reside on the same layer. Therefore, one solution is to have particle system 'alpha' on one layer, 'beta' on a second layer, and the force on the same layer as 'alpha'.
To achieve this you can use M to move objects to different layers - simply press M while an object is selected and the 'Move to Layer' popup should appear. Just select the layer(s) that the object should reside on (an object can be on more than one layer - hold Shift to allow you to select multiple). To 'View' multiple layers, simply hold Shift and click the layers in the button bar at the bottom of the 3d Editor window.
With one of the objects (Beta) on a different layer and both layers selected for view, you should see no difference in the scene. However, the moved object's particles will no longer be affected by the force.

im going to test it right now, tnx for support <3

Thanks a lot!
I already tried to use different layers but probably something went wrong.

"layers" became "collections" in blender 2.8. This might be obvious to some but wasn't to me. figured I'd drop it here just in case.

In Blender 3.6 I add force to its own collection, then add rigidbody to its own collection, but force still acts on the rigidbody, Did Blender 3 remove the ability to isolate physics layers??

I think Rigidbody still doesn't permit different collections to be affected by their own forces - despite this being possible in Blender 2.79 using  Layers. You could try raising it as a bug report - or search the bug report database to see if it's already been raised and worked on.


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Are samples correlated to the output resolution?
If I increase my resolution camera output have I to increase the render samples value too?
Are these two setting correlated?

Short answer: No.
Light is sampled per pixel. So if you render with i.e. 200 Samples, Blender takes 200 Samples of each pixel. It doesn't matter if there are 5 oder 219928 pixels.


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Noise in Graphic Editor - Modify the "Restrict Frame Range" multi obj at the same time
I have this
Is there a way to modify the "Restrict Frame Range" value of all obj at the same time instead one by one?
I should set 500 from 750 the "End" setting.


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Different values of sampling on the same scene - cycles
I know that I can set different values of sampling for glossy, diffuse, etc...
I'd like to know if there is a way to set different values for lighted spot and darker ones.
There is a lot of noise in shadows and I need an high sample value, at the same time I don't need an high value for the lighted spots so i'd like to save render time.
Ideas?


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How to use vertex color if defined, or white otherwise?
I'm fairly new to Blender. I have a Cycles material in Blender 2.79. I'm using an Attribute node with COLOR_0 to get the vertex color and multiplying that into the material color.
But if a particular mesh doesn't have the COLOR_0 attribute, it comes through black. Is there a node that can act as a switch based on presence of an attribute?

One way is to define a material where it will use a node comparing value of vertex colors for a factor defining what socket of the next node will be used.

There are 2 cubes and 2 different materials on them (for demonstration purposes). Both cubes have vertex color layer called "Col" (default name).
The color is fed to the Math node set to Less Than which compares values on the input to its second socket (which is 0.001, almost black, color will be black if no vertex color data is present).
Then the output of that is used as a factor for the MixRGB node - the output is either 0 or 1. If factor is 0 bottom input of the MixRGB node is used, If it's 1 - then the top one.
The cube on the right has Attribute node with vertex color layer written wrongly - "Col1" and blue color is used instead of default black. You can setup any color in the bottom input of the MixRGB node.

I guess that works as long as the vertex color is not black!
I don't know how the Attribute node is implemented, but it would be great if it could have an extra "default" input that would be used if the attribute was not present. Or a second output, a boolean.

@GaryO the method shown above works fine and is intended to work when vertex colors are black. Though the node setup in the answer assumes value for the Math node set to Less Than should be 0.001 or any other infinitely small value (i.e not 0). To workaround that use Math > Greater Than mode and put vertex colors into the bottom socket of the MixRGB node as here https://i.sstatic.net/2xRMR.gif. Making Attribute or any node having another input/output is impossible without rewriting Blender source code.

@R El Clein, it almost works. But if you have a whole face painted black, it gets the alternate color. It only works most of the time because with only one black vertex, the actual color is never totally black. See the green triangle face at  https://pasteboard.co/HgD2ddm.png

A true solution would have to detect the presence of the attribute. This seems like a bug to me; I'll submit it.

https://developer.blender.org/T54605

@GaryO in this case this is not a bug, but a feature request as this is a missing feature while everything already present works properly.


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Cycles: Switch shader node in viewport vs. render
When I'm working on my object, I want to see it fully rendered. When I render it, it needs to be almost zero alpha (fully transparent). Can I tell in a shader whether I'm rendering or in viewport?

Why not switch viewport shading mode to Solid or anything else not shaded?

Ah, good idea. I ought to be able to remember to switch it back before rendering, I hope! :-)


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How to create an HDRi environment map with Blender 2.8?
I'd like to create a scene in Blender 2.8 and render an HDRi environment texture from it. Is that possible? I expect I'd create a sphere, texture it appropriately, add some distant objects, put the camera at 0,0,0... but how to set up a camera type to record the 360-degree view as a properly formatted HDRi (e.g. equirectangular float EXR)?


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How to run blender python script with args?
I have a python script that takes command-line args. I'm using it to create some blender objects. I'll run it from the command line (actually from a script on a server). I run it like this:
$BLENDER -b --python my-script.py -arg1 file1.in file2.in file3.out

... and the script runs fine, but I get a message saying "Error: File format is not supported in file file1.in" because presumably Blender is trying to read that file as a blend file.
So how can I prevent that? I just want blender to run my script. (Note that I'd be happy to just run it with python directly, but it seems to be difficult to load the bpy module without being in a running blender.)
This is on Blender 2.81 prerelease on Windows, btw. But I'll want it to run on Linux eventually.

Yup it's a duplicate as Robert says, but just so you know, it's listed under Misc Options in the Command Line Manual Page

The standard double-dash -- that'll work great. Thanks!


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I can only see vertex colors in Vertex Paint mode - otherwise gray
I'm using Blender 2.81 beta. I imported a large glTF model which has only vertex colors. (I can see them in other glTF apps like the web viewers.) After the import completes (it takes a while, 7M verts, 14.7M faces, 182 objects) it's all gray. No vertex colors visible -- neither in the viewport, nor EEVEE, nor Cycles.
However, if I select one sub-object and go into Vertex Paint mode, the vertex colors show up on the active object! (If I select more than one, only the active one gets its colors.) So I know they're in there -- they just don't show up. And I can vertex-paint them out. But they just never show up in the render.
Do I need to do something to get vertex colors to show up?

Figured out a workaround. These objects don't have any material in the glTF, just the vertex colors. So I created a material on one object, basic Principled BSDF, and as the color input I added Vertex Color node with the color set to COLOR_0. Then I linked that material to all the other objects, and it seems to work.
A bit painful, not sure why the importer can't just do that, but it does work for me.

I am new to Blender and I have the same problem but I couldn't figure it out. Can you give more instructions on how you solved the problem? Thanks.

Sorry, it's been too long; I don't remember any more details than I wrote above; but that should be the basic plan -- create a material for your object and use Vertex Color as the color input for it.


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Animating object transforms with python in 2.81
I'm building complete Blender 2.81 scenes from scratch in python. I'm pretty expert in python and 3d APIs in general, but new at the Blender python API. I'm stuck on setting up animations (simple TRS for now).
It seems there are two ways to do it: using Actions, or keyframe_insert. I thought the right way in newer Blender is to use actions:
  obj.animation_data_create()
  obj.animation_data.action = bpy.data.actions.new(name=f'{obj.name}.{path} animation')
  ...
  for i in range(nchannels):
    fcurve = obj.animation_data.action.fcurves.new(data_path=path, index=i)
      ...
      val = kf.value
      blender_kf = fcurve.keyframe_points.insert(frame=kf.time * fps, value=val)
      blender_kf.interpolation = 'LINEAR' # (or something else later)

but when I do this, my rotation animation overwrites my earlier translation animation -- I'm not sure what animation_data and action and fcurve actually contain and how many there are of each. I expect I'm overwriting something.
I've heard (?) that as of 2.8 the simpler approach below doesn't work, though I haven't tried it yet:
obj.location = (3.0, 4.0, 10.0)
obj.keyframe_insert(data_path="location", frame=1)
... and so on for `euler_rotation` and `scale`

and also with that method I'm not sure how to set bezier interpolation parameters on the keyframes.

An action can have fcurves with any datapath.  Example above creates a new action for each path   Unless you are dropping then to NLA for example, only the last created action counts.  Using ob.keyframe_insert (which still works in 2.82 btw, can't see them dropping it really) creates a new action if need be, a new fcurve if need be, and inserts a keyframe(s) at given frame.

Thanks -- if you make that an answer I can select it as correct. Also, how would I set the interpolation params using keyframe_insert? It seems from the API doc that keyframe_insert just returns a boolean, not the new keyframe(s).


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Fast access to bmesh verts/edges/faces from python?
I'm trying to build a large BMesh from scratch in python. I know you can add vertices (or faces or edges) to a BMesh one at a time:
  for v in verts:
    face = bme.verts.new(v)

but this is really slow for many vertices/edges/faces. Is there a batch way to add many vertices at once, avoiding the python overhead?
Googling around I found that the old mesh supported foreach_set() and foreach_get() which were supposed to be fast, but I gather those don't work anymore?

The foreach methods are available to the Mesh not a bmesh and still work. Also  Mesh.from_pydata(...) is pretty quick.

One way to speed this up would be to use a Python list comprehension. It's probably not the exact answer you're looking for, but it may help with optimizing the code.


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Can you paint textures in Blender 2.8x with values > 1? (I.e. HDR)
Is it possible to paint a texture with values greater than 1? I'd like to paint some emissive surfaces to use as lights, and I need large values. It seems the color picker only goes to RGB=1.0. Am I missing something?
(I know I can import an .exr from outside Blender. I'm talking about the texture painting inside Blender.)
As a fallback, I can paint the textures with <1 values and use a math node. But I'd like to paint them as they should be.

I don't believe you can use values outside 0,1 in texture painting.  But you can set up a material to multiply your RGB values by any value you want and then bake to an .exr.

I'd like to paint them as they should be.

Not really sure what that means. Art is trickery. The only rule is, "if it looks good, it is good".
That being said, one way to do what you want would be to texture paint on an image, assign that as the color input to an Emission node, and crank the Emission node strength up to 200 or whatever.
If you feel fancy, you could add multiple textures to a single object with a Mix Shader.

Well, to be pedantic, "as they should be" means, in a linear workflow, the correct amount of light emitted from each pixel of the texture in lux, when used at a predetermined scale. But I take your point; since it seems the color picker only goes to 1, using a vector math node or emission (what's the difference?) to scale it up is OK.

@GaryO Usually you can enter values higher than 1.0, by manually typing into the fields. Currently on mobile, therefore I couldn't check if that's the case for the texture painting area.

@RobertGützkow You can't in the color picker for the texture painter brush.


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Latest nightly blender running in linux VM: "Unable to open display"
I've been rendering on a Linux VM for a while, using my own Blender build, built headless. Now I want to use a GPU VM, and I'm having trouble building my own CUDA build, so I tried the nightly (which isn't headless of course). When I start it up on my VM, I get an error "Unable to open a display" even though I'm running with --background.
root@fa2823c96639:/app# blender --debug --background -f 1 simple-test-scene.blend
Switching to fully guarded memory allocator.
Blender 2.91.0 Alpha
Build: 2020-08-23 23:11:51 Linux Release
argv[0] = blender
argv[1] = --debug
argv[2] = --background
argv[3] = -f
argv[4] = 1
argv[5] = simple-test-scene.blend
Blender 2.91.0 Alpha (hash e4932d1167f4 built 2020-08-23 23:11:51)
read file
  Version 280 sub 39 date unknown hash unknown
found bundled python: /app/blender/blender-2.91.0-e4932d1167f4-linux64/2.91/python
Blender startup at 2020-08-24 14:08:56.580353: 4 cores
Unable to open a display
Aborted (core dumped)

The blendfile I'm using is set up for Cycles with GPU Compute.
What am I doing wrong? Alternatively, is there a nightly headless blender build generated somewhere?

Are you connecting to the VM through SSH?

Yes, though in production it'll be driven by an express app.

This Q&A could help you.

I did look at that (super complicated) example. But both of his "solutions" involve an X server -- either forwarding to one, or running a local one. I'm interested in running it truly headless. Maybe the full build just can't work that way?

OK, looks like I'll have to figure out how to build nightlies/headless with CUDA.


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Align from normal
I wanted to know how can I align my A vertex to my B vertex while keeping a straight and vertex normal's based line. Thanks !

You could use the Knife tool to extend the CB edge:

First, the line you're interested in is not the normal of anything.  "Normal" is a term with a very particular meaning in 3D graphics.  If you're not yet familiar with its usage in 3D, then try to use other words, or else people will give you wrong answers-- "wrong" because they won't do what you wanted them to do.  (A has a vertex normal.  But you do not want to move A along its vertex normal.)
Okay, so we want to move A to the end of the dotted line-- not the B end (I will call the desired point "C".)  That dotted line is perpendicular to the edge containing A that does not also contain B (I will call that edge AD.)  How do we do that?

In edit mode, select edge AD.  "Create custom orientation" operation (hotkey ctrl alt space for me.)  We see our transform orientation change to "Edge".
Select B.  Snap cursor to selected (hotkey shift-s menu for me.)  Change transform pivot point, on the top of your 3D viewport, to cusor (hotkey . for me.)

"S y 0 [enter]" to scale A, along the edge AD, along our custom orientation's Y axis, to a position as close to B as possible.

Thanks ! And sorry for my misunderstooding !


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quality difference in models
As you can see, the main car to the left (Porsche) looks great, but the other cars look so wierd compared to it. I still want the porsche to look the best, but the others not to look so crappy
Beginner here, any advice or tutorial would help.

first off I may be wrong but there doesn't seem to be a lot of reflection on your yellow car (and no trasnparency for the glasses), maybe give it a metal material?

https://imgur.com/a/1pklYZN
I guess its a bit better, but what about lighting/shading?

Yes there should be a shadow under your car, have you checked the Shadow option of the light?

It seems that was the problem, the hdri light and scene lights. thanks

Increase the Metallic value up to 1 for the car, give reflexion to its glass, enable the Shadow and Contact Shadows options of your lights.


text:
HDRI and top view
As you can see, I'm trying to make a car cinematic, with a top view of the scene. I added this HDRI that seemed cool when the camera is horizontal to the bridge, showing only the buildings.
What do you recommend? I'm willing to replace the HDRI if needed, or removing it for a better alternative.
Help will be greatly appreciated.

Sorry, this is totally up to personal preferences and opinion-based, not a specific problem to which a solution can be found.

And HDRI is meant to be used for lighting up your scene first. Being a background is the last thing it can do. The point of view of the HDR is and will always be the camera that took it. If you happen to do a render with a similar camera position and angle than your HDRI, that can work. But you can't expect your HDRI taken from someone on the ground to look in place in a scene where the camera is basically a flying drone. You can maybe try to reorient the HDRI a bit via a mapping node, but that's about it.

Hello and welcome. This question is considered off topic here and was put on hold for being subjective and attracting opinion based answers, because there are no "right" or "wrong" answers and every suggestion is equally valid. For art critique, tips, artistic input, or other opinion based suggestions it is best to ask over at Blender Artists Forum or similar forums. If you can rephrase it to focus on objective questions or solving specific issues feel free to [edit] it so it can be reopened.

You could place a plane with a "Water" material under your scene:

You have to line up the camera carefully, though, so you don't see the parts you want hidden:

The problem is. you might not be able to get the angle you like, and without extra effort, the "cutoff" at the edge may seem unnatural. Perhaps you could blur it slightly in the compositor afterwards.

Thanks for the reply, that did the trick


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how do I animate my very complex model?
Hi I just signed up and I am in dire need of help animating something! I modeled a combine harvester in quite a lot of detail, and I'd like it to drive from point A to point B, passing lots of stuff along the way. It seems the file is already too heavy for my macbook air with 8gb of ram. When I press the space bar to watch the combine go, it very slowly staggers through the scene. It's not able to play at 24fps.
The file is 320 megabytes and contains only the combine harvester, which is made up of 1,150 objects and 10,000,000 triangles. How can I continue with my project of making an animation with the combine when I can't even watch it go smoothly?
Thanks very much.

It seems you already answered your question "the file is already too heavy for your hardware". Optimization techniques exist for a reason. You can hide most of your objects and work on the rest. You could also replace those objects with some placeholders or simplified versions temporarily while working on the project.

Hello and welcome. Please don't post the same question more than once. If your previous question was put on hold, address raised the issues by editing it so it can be reopened rather than post a new one, otherwise see What should I do if no one answers my question?

The art of 3D modelling and rendering is one of "lying", where the goal is to try to achieve the look you are aiming for with as little effort and resources as possible. Failing that you need to either lower your expectations to match your hardware, or improve your hardware to match your expectations. https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/52559/how-to-render-a-scene-faster-in-cycles/52561#52561

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos Thanks for the input. Thanks to everyone. The model I made is my first, and I made it as realistic as I could and made it too complex. I made a lot of objects, so I joined them all together to make just a few to parent them to an empty and more easily manipulate the whole model. While I work on the animation I will do as jeff lange suggested, and set the draw type of the combine as bounds. As I combined all of those objects together I applied a lot of subsurface modifiers which made the file heavier. This was unavoidable, am I right? Cheers!

@jerryjenkins if you grouped together objects that have the same subsurface modifier settings, you wouldn't need to apply the modifier. You can also disable that modifier in viewport entirely so it's easier to work on your project.

Thanks @MarkusvonBroady. I hadn't thought of that. It seems there's a lot I hadn't thought of!


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How to re-randomize the colours from the brick texture node?
I'm making wooden planks with the brick texture node and chose 2 grey colours. As far as I understand, it randomly picks a colour inbetween those two. My result contains a cluster of very similar boards, which doesn't look good.
I tried making a new brick texture node and using the applying the same settings, but the result doesn't change.
Is there a way to randomize the colours again?

I'm not sure you can with the node as is. You can try to add color-affecting nodes after the brick texture node, like a RGB Curves, to play with the end result, or use color ramps as color inputs. But to me it looks like the colors are generated by a form of noise but we have no seed option for that noise. What you can also do, is using your Mapping node to move the texture, maybe you will find a portion that better suits your needs.

@L0Lock Thank you for the response. Found a portion via mapping node.

It's a bit hacky but you can get new random values by feeding the output of the brick texture into a White Noise texture node.

You can either use a math node to add an offset to the noise to modify the randomness, or set the White noise input to "4D" and tweak the W input, but this is more computationally intensive.

Edit: sorry for the non-colorblind friendly colors.


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Can I create f-curves for shader node values in python?
Using Blender 2.90alpha, I already have some fancy python code to set some keyframes on an object + data_path from my external data source. It creates obj.animation_data.action then calls obj.animation_data.action.fcurves.new(path, index) for each channel, and then inserts points into the fcurves.
That works fine for objects.
I'd like to do the same for shader nodes; but the examples I've seen
all use a different method:
shader_node.inputs[1].default_value = 1
shader_node.inputs[1].keyframe_insert("default_value", frame=10)

and then apparently you can get the fcurve afterward using something like this (?)
action = material.node_tree.animation_data.action
data_path = 'nodes["my shader node"].inputs[1].default_value' # rooted at "node_tree" apparently
fc = action.fcurves.find(data_path)
# ... do things with fc
# apparently the fcurve is actually stored in mat.node_tree.animation_data.action.fcurves

but I'd prefer, if possible, to just create the fcurves directly with their data paths. I haven't seen any examples doing it that way and wonder if it's possible for shader nodes (before I dive into it). And if so, how can I make sure I get those data paths right -- is there any API to get the data path for a value?

Some examples of "doing it that way"  https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/111644/fast-keyframe-insertion  https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/64447/how-do-i-add-keyframes-to-a-newly-created-action-with-no-associated-objects  https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/55880/is-it-possible-to-create-instance-with-different-scale-animation-data-but-the-sa  https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/135759/is-it-possible-to-create-an-animation-in-blender-2-8-using-python-that-its-no

See also https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/111326/15543 shader node py console example D.materials['Material'].node_tree.nodes['Principled BSDF'].inputs['Roughness'].path_from_id('default_value')  returns 'nodes["Principled BSDF"].inputs[7].default_value' ie the datapath from ID object, in this case the materials shader node tree.


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Having problems baking normal texture for large object
I'm using Blender 2.93 nightly on Windows, and I have a kind of large model (500k triangles) that I'm trying to bake to a low-poly replica. I created the low-poly cylinder, positioned it on the model (just a bit larger), selected the model and the low-poly cylinder last, with the normals image already selected, and hit Bake. Blender sits at 0% for a while (about a minute?) and then with no errors, the bake status note vanishes. And the normals image is still all black (unmodified).
If I look at my task manager, I can see it's using 50% of my CPUs (16-core) and 30+ GB of my 32GB RAM, so it's hammering it pretty hard.
I tried both CPU and GPU bakes, same result. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong? Are there hidden places I should look for errors?

Turns out it was just running out of RAM (and it's a lot more than 500k tris, maybe 50m tris). I decimated the whole thing, which took a long time, and then I could bake -- just barely.


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Can you rig a set of instances of an object?
I have a cylinder that's instanced along a line with 5 vertices (vertex instances), so I have 5 copies of it. (Note that the cylinder becomes a child of the line because of how instancing works.)
I created an armature with some bones, and parented the line to the armature (with Armature Deform > automatic weights), as I think you're supposed to do.
But now when I enter pose mode and move the bones, the cylinder instances move around, but they don't rotate -- they stay in the original orientation. And they don't bend, as I'd expect them to. (They do have plenty of loop cuts.)
Is this because they're instances? Or is it because the rig is really just deforming the line, and the instances come along for the ride? Rigging multiple independent copies of a cylinder works OK.
So is there any way to do what I want: have a set of instances that are parented to an armature and deform the way they would if they were independent copies? (I need instances because my actual objects are very heavy.)
Running Blender 2.93 nightly from a few weeks ago.
In the image: Left: armature with instances. Right: regular armature.

Could be a tricky one. The picture on the right would Indicate that you may have instances from an instance instead of an instance from the original. All your instances must stem back to the original maybe and not be an instance from an instance from the original.
Try ensuring all instances are immediately linked from the main source.
Don't instance from the original and then instance from the instance.
Instance from the original.
Then instance another from the original
Then another from the original.
I'm sure you get the point.
And if this don't fix your problem, I hope you find your answer. You may aswell just normal copy your work as that will not take much memory anyway.


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How to connect a Field Node to a Group Input Node? Geometry Nodes Question
My question is quite basic: In Blender, you can connect certain sockets to the Group Input Node, which will then allow you to directly change the Geometry Node's settings (Since they are also Modifiers) on the Modifier Properties Tab.
Problem is: certain socket types aren't compatible with each other.
Any "pink node", or Field Nodes, for some reason cannot be connected to the Group Input node, as the image shows.
Am I missing something? I would just like to have a simple Value or Integer Node connected to my Group Input Node, so I can easily control the Geometry Node from the Modifier Properties tab.
Is there a way to connect both sliders in this way?
Or is there an alternative way?
I would be really glad if any of you could help me with this question, thank you

Just open the N-Panel, create a new input and set the type to Integer. If necessary, enter a value for Default, Min and Max.
Then connect the new Group Input to your Node and you can control the value via the Modifier Panel.

You must always connect the output of a node that provides a value with the input of a node that can accept a value.
The node Integer provides a value, just like the node Group Input, therefore the two sockets cannot be connected.

Oh I didn't know you could do that! Many thanks for the aid.


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How to control the speed of an image sequence?
I'm complete beginner in blender...I'm trying to animate an image every 10 frame... what i did was import an image as a plane and change it to sequence in shader editor then I import 3 images...i set the frame=3 offset=2 then turn on auto refresh and cyclic but when i play it the images are animated every 1 frame is there a way to make it animate every 10 frames?

I'm not sure whether you can connect the output from geometry nodes to drivers in Blender, having never had much to do with either, but my immediate thought having programmed other software would be to add a driver to the image frame offset which increases by one every 10 frames in the timeline and then resets to zero every 3 iterations using the geometry scene time node.  Someone with more knowledge than me might know if it's possible or not!

Solution
Let's say you want to display frames 2-7, starting at frame 3, cyclically. Normally you'd do it this way:

If you want 2x playback speed, then this setup will work:
#(frame-start)*speed % frames + offset

Left side has 2x speed, right side has normal speed:

You can test it out – after opening .blend, ✲ CtrlF12, then assign the video to the Image Textures (make it a single user copy for each )
Sequence Settings 101
Let's describe these 3 options:

Frames – specifies how many frames from the video/image sequence will be displayed. If you don't change these settings during the animation, then only that number of frames from the video will ever be displayed - maybe less, if your Blender animation is too short to show them all. Think of it as importing a video to a video editor, and then making a video stripe out of it by cutting its ends (or extending them = adding frame holds).
Start Frame – this frame of your animation in Blender is the first frame of loaded sequence. Think of it as placing a video stripe in the video editor – Start Frame is the x position of that stripe on the timeline. For example, if two of your objects collide at frame 100, load an explosion video and set Start Frame to 100. This value wraps around: setting it to $x$ is the same as setting it to $x - frames$ or $x + frames%$. The settings below will have the same effect (of course only if cyclic is enabled):

Offset – when cutting a stripe out of the video, define the position of that stripe. This is the only drivable field out of the 3. If cyclic is disabled, it has a reverse effect to the previous field: incrementing the Start Frame by $x$ is the same as decrementing this field by $x$ and vice—versa – decrementing this field by $x$ is the same as incrementing Start Frame by $x$ [I hope you don't mind the joke]. The logic of that is simple, moving the video forward has the same effect as starting the video earlier. There is a caveat, however: if cyclic is enabled, it still doesn't wrap, due to how the video stripes are created:

So when the stripe is created, the frames beyond the original video's bounds are interpolated in the extend mode, by showing the frames on the boundary.
Explanation of the solution

Get the current frame and based on it calculate which frame in the loaded sequence you want to display. The first frame in the video sequence has index $= 0$.

FORMULA
F
R
A
M
E

N
U
M
B
E
R
S

frame
-3
-2
-1
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

max(2, frame)
2
2
2
2
2
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

clamp(frame, 2, 5)
2
2
2
2
2
2
3
4
5
5
5
5
5

frame*2
-6
-4
-2
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18

fmod(frame*2, 10)
-6
-4
-2
0
2
4
6
8
0
2
4
6
8

fmod(frame*2, 10) + 10
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
10
12
14
16
18

fmod(fmod(frame*2,10)+10, 10)
4
6
8
0
2
4
6
8
0
2
4
6
8

frame*2 % 10
4
6
8
0
2
4
6
8
0
2
4
6
8

(frame-1)*2 % 10
2
4
6
8
0
2
4
6
8
0
2
4
6

(frame-2)*2 % 10
0
2
4
6
8
0
2
4
6
8
0
2
4

Create a single frame strip at the calculated position in the sequence  So what I'm doing is just take a stripe of length 1, the Start Frame and Cyclic options then become irrelevant, and then calculate the frame to be displayed and use the Offset to position the stripe on that frame.

Chris'es solution has a few problems
The formula
-frame + 1 if frame % 30 == 0 else -frame+(frame % 30)/10

doesn't seem exactly right:

If I divide by 1 (no change of speed), this is what I get from frame -3 to frame 25: (the blurry digits are the video)

So it starts correctly at the specified frame (but displays the last frame before that, not first frame), goes only to (last frame − start frame) in each cycle, and pads the cycles with the first frame.

I'm being dim.  As far as OP is concerned, all I can see needed is...  Frames:1, Start Frame:1,  Offset:  (frame//10)%3, with maybe a + something to start farther down the sequence. You're better than me at this stuff. Are you doing something more general, here?

@RobinBetts yes, it's a general solution, you can take a look at the updated answer.

Thx to John Eason for his idea, you can set this formula:
-frame + 1 if frame % 30 == 0 else -frame+(frame % 30)/10

into the offset of your image texture:

set start frame to 1 and frames to a high number.
result:

tbh i can explain this:
-frame+(frame % 30)/10

which just uses the modulo of frame with 30, so it basically counts from 0 to 29. Then i divide this by 10 to get a full integer every 10th frame. And i subtract the real frame from it to reset it for every frame.
I cannot explain this:
-frame + 1 if frame % 30 == 0 else

which i had to set it before so that it works. I think it has to do with the start frame at 1. But if you set it to 0, it messes all up. But i am sure some other guys can explain that to you ;)

Even easier than I thought1 I didn't realise you could use relatively complicated multiple statements on the Expression line in the driver editor! :^)

Yes you can Blender surprised me too every day

"Then i divide this by 10 to get a full integer" - those integers aren't all divisible by 10, and you don't use integer division //, so the result of dividing by 10 will be floats with up to 1 decimal point, e.g. ${12}\over{10} = 1.2$. "And i subtract the real frame from it to reset it for every frame." - yes, first you subtract current frame, to make sure the frame number displayed is $0$ on each frame; then you calculate the actual frame number to display. Problem is, on frame $30$ you will subtract that $30$ and try to display frame 0… Aaah you know what, I'll elaborate in an answer

@MarkusvonBroady: ah ok, that was my mistake. thanks!


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How to import image and video on the same plane and control their duration
I'm a complete beginner in blender ..i was wondering how to import an image and a video in one plane object and animate them..like playing still image for 100 frame and a video for another

I don't know what you mean by 'same' plane, but I can tell you how to import an image or a sequence as a texture.

File -> Import -> Images as Planes and select your image (not sequence)

That creates a plane with the correct ratio x to y and applies your image texture onto it.

To change the texture into an image sequence, go the Shder Editor and click on the open folder icon of the texture node. Then locate your image sequence and select all images belonging to it (a).

Once you've done that the type of your texture changes to image sequence and Blender will detect how many frames there are. If you want to animate it, either animate the offset, or simply tick Auto Refresh, which will synch the sequence frame with the rendered frame.


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Part of my sphere disappears when in BGE
I'm trying to make a skydome but before I even added a texture to the spear I wanted to see if it was there when I started BGE. Part of it was gone!
can anyone help me?

Only switch of backface culling when you need to see both sides of the face at the same time and both sides should have the same material (it doubles the faces!). Use cases: glass, leaves, paper, curtain
In your case you ALWAYS want to see the inner side of the half-dome. This means you model is incorrect as you can see the outside only. To change that go into edit mode and flip the normals w.

I got it
make a new material and turn off hide back face


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Trying to delete bad face, can select edges but not face
I am using knife project onto an object to make recessed portions. On the edge of object, I would like to inset and do a negative extrude, however, I end up with a thin face I cannot get rid of with delete or dissolve. I am able to select the edges but when I switch to face mode, nothing is there even if visually there is something there. Thank you so much

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

https://blend-exchange.com/b/WaKXGeyA thank you!

First thing select all and merge by distance because you have overlapping vertices. I don't see the part that you show but for example for this part I would select these faces and delete them:

Then same thing for these faces:

And select this whole edge loops and fill:


text:
Particle Board Procedural Texture
I'm trying to make a particle board type texture procedurally for 3d printing and am wondering how to go about it. I attempted to make it with displacement but it turned out too lumpy. Thank you so much!

Particle board is layered in just 1 dimension .. is a procedural texture in UV space OK? (Can your objects be UV mapped?)

I'm trying to add the texture to a flat surface that is to be 3D printed so yes I believe?

that's a yes. A 2D texture will be good. Thanks.

Here's a shot at a procedural particle board, that can be baked to an image for the purposes of modifier Displacement:

As you can see, it's a bit big to be simply illustrated. It divides the UV space into Voronoi cells. Each cell sets the rotation of the UV space about its own center, and fills it with a composite of directed noises and a triangle Wave texture, for a mix of:

A very regular Wave, wobbled slightly, so not completely straight
A stretched Musgrave, for harsh fine grain
Another Musgrave, and Voronoi Distance From Edge, to put in some speckles and directed trenches.

(The above texture is 1K, you could run it as a test before committing..)
This sort of thing can be tweaked for ever.. I've tried to label up the branches so you can adjust them, dispense with them altogether, or replace them with other ideas. For example, it looks as though the trenches could be enlarged / reshaped ..
The result so far is:

It's probably easier to shoot an emissive version of the texture on a plane, through an Ortho camera, than to use the baking mechanism.. the attached .blend is set up for that.
Because the texture is periodic, there will be some Moiré interference with a (periodic) subdivision of your surface, and/or banding from your printer, you might choose some dense random triangulation of the surface, to avoid at least, the first of those.


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Blender freezes after a few seconds of interaction
I've had blender for a few days now and it has been running perfectly fine. But today after a few minutes of playing with the starter cube, blender freezes. After restarting, so much as a click freezes it.
There is no "not responding" message. When moving the window, the screen goes black. After leaving it frozen for an hour, nothing has changed and the only way to close it is through task manager.
Sometimes, even though the screen freezes, the cursor still updates, like the double arrow to resize window.
I'm fairly certain it has nothing to do with my PC's specs because, as mentioned, I've been working on it for a few days now and things have been fine.
Any ideas on what might be causing this?
Thanks

Have you tried uninstalling and installing blender again?

@Ash I have. I've also tried installing an older version, but the same thing happens.

It could be, that you have outdated drivers or your ram is not handling the load


text:
Grid Not Scaling or Changing
I am trying to do a quick project, I have watch hours of tutorials and followed what they are doing but I cannot replicate it in anyway shape or form.
I need to rescale my grid to equal 1 inch but when I do the grid doesn't change when I change the dimensions of my cube it get super small.
This is what I do:
1- Scene --> Units --> Unit System (Imperial)/ Length (inches)
2- Select my object
3- Hit N
4- Set the dimensions
The thing is on the tutorials the floor grid will show 1 inch squares. mine just stays the same no matter what.

You'd have to change that on the Viewport Overlays menu dropdown

@JohnEason I go to that tab and it shows that the Scale is set to 1 inch
If the scene is if the scene is 1 inch and cube is 2"x2" then that should be taking up 4 squares but it doesnt even cover 1.
I should also not that on the scale in the image its set at 0.025 but if change it to 1 then it becomes some crazy number

I've just again checked here since I usually use metric. If you set the units to Imperial, the Length to inches and the Unit Scale to 1/12 you seem to get the result you want without changing the overlay settings at all!


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Cycles material to Blender Render Material
I'm having trouble rendering the materials shown in Cycles render to Blender Render. Is there any way I can convert this?

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/13610/convert-materials-from-cycles-to-blender-internal-render and https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/364/how-do-i-convert-materials-from-blender-internal-to-cycles

Try Material Utilities Specials. It comes bundled with Blender. You may need to enable it in User preferences / Addons.
Also note that the recently bundled versions of the addon may not have the ability to convert materials. In this case, just download the addon from the link above and enable the downloaded version instead of the bundled version.
Then, with your objects selected, press Shift + Q to call the Materials Specials Menu -> Specials -> to BI Nodes Off.

Note that you may need to manually add textures you may have used in your material definitions in Cycles.

Just do clic on the button shown on the image.


text:
Blender Depth of Field is not working
I want to focus on an object and I used Depth of Field (Focus) on the object but blender is not focusing on that object. Blender rendering image normally. I'am using Blender Render.

If you want physically correct Depth of Field, you need to use Cycles render engine.
In Blender Internal you will get nothing, unless you add the effect in post-processing. Enable Compositing and use this node setup:

This reads your scene Z-values and your focal point set from your Camera object and adds the Depth of Field effect by blurring the image.
Also set your F-stop to some reasonable value, so you have something else than a pinhole camera. Only the value in the node has effect, the setting on the camera object is not used with Blender Internal.


text:
Position and Scale resetting on render
I have an FBX model I'm using in blender. I've worked with FBX before in blender with no problems. But every time I change the position, size,  or pose of this one it resets as soon as I render an image, going back to the pose, size and position it was before I changed it. I've tried numerous fixes from the web but nothing is helping. I've never had this problem with any other model FBX,  obj,  blend, or any other. Does anyone have a fix for this?

You probably have a keyframe (animation) on some part or all of your mesh. This gets reset to the beginning everytime. Just find your keyframes and delete them.

There are no keyframes

Would it work if I added a keyframe thats the position I want it on?

Would be easier if you can share a link to your blend, or at least provide some screenshots

I fixed it,  added how as an answer to my question

For anyone else having this problem I fixed it by first make sure you have no keyframes. If there are none and your object still resets position on render position your object how you want it than add that position as a keyframe.


text:
Change the shortcurs for axis lock "x,y,z" after transforming ie:. "g"
I´m trying to change the X, Y, Z, shortcuts, usable after transforming something, usually using G, etc.
But after some trial and error, and extensive searches on the key binding panel, I'm a bit frustrated, there is a way to change those?
Would gladly change to F5, F6, F7, since they are much more intuitive for me.
Besides that is there a way to move in two axis? like X+Y? without changing the camera view.
Thanks guys.

"Besides that is there a way to move in two axis? like X+Y?" Yes press Shift+ Excluded Axis letter, like for XY plane Shift+ Z, The rest is hardcoded I think

Obrigado @Duarte , it would be so cool if it were not hardcoded, is there somewhere to make suggestions and requests for the devs?

Feature requests go on https://blender.community/c/rightclickselect


text:
Can't see scopes, "Waveform, Histogram" no graphs there
I must be doing something wrong, but by no means I´m able to se the scopes “histogram, waveform, etc…” They are blank, clear. Using the 2.8 Beta, any ideas?


text:
How to evenly add thickness to faces in blender
I'm somewhat new to blender. I have a box with one of its faces being deleted. I'm trying to add a thickness of 2cm to all remaining faces; however, all faces will not be extruded by 2cm.

As can be seen, the top face has become thicker than the side faces.

Apply the scale to your object in Object mode with Ctrl-A > Scale and try again.

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/7298/why-is-it-important-to-apply-transformation-to-an-objects-data/ https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/116569/solidify-modifier-adding-non-uniform-thickness-to-the-mesh/


text:
Geo nodes: realizing instances loses uv maps / texture
System: RTX 3080,  Ryzen 5 3600,  16GB RAM,  Windows 10
Disclaimer: I am very new to blender.
Hi everyone!
My main goal is to export the LEGO version of my model with the correct colors (as shown in the second picture). I followed this tutorial but are yet to find a way to export the model nor give it the right colors. The youtube guy said you need to realize the instances before you can export them, so I used the "realize instance" node right before the end. When I place that, I lose the UV Maps / textures of the model. I have tried placing the realize instance in every place imaginable, but to no avail. Screenshots below so you know what I am talking about!
Thank you for any help!
-Jack
How it looks after realizing instances

How it should look

Shading nodes

Geo nodes after adding realize instance

Do you mean the sentence "If you want to be able to export models, the instances must be realized, and some of the settings in the node tree need to be changed to use geometry instead of instances" in the video description? Did you change anything to use geometry instead of instances like he said? Doesn't look like it... I have no time to build the nodetree right now, but I would suspect that maybe the Store Named Attribute node should be switched to something else than Instance, and in the shader I could imagine you should switch from Instancer to Geometry as well...

yes I tried to switch around the node settings but to no avail. If you have any ideas on what to do please let me know!


text:
animate particle system scale changes
I have a particle system on an object, how can I animate the scale of the particles so they change size as the animation progresses?
I ask this actually because I seem to have found out how to do this by accident and I can't fix it. Either its a bug or I've configured something wrong, the particles are trees on a landscape and as my animation progresses, the trees spontaneously change size. I did noticed that when the size changes, sometimes i even see motion blur which makes me think its more likely a setting I set while trying to create randomness not knowing it would have this effect?

if my answer doesn't help, please provide blend file because you didn't show us any settings you made, thx.

I appreciate the help! the blend file is huge so posting it probably wouldn't work. My problem is I don't know which setting I changed that was causing this to happen. Although I did notice yesterday that a setting called Hair Dynamics was enabled, I don't remember enabling that, but I tried disabling it. its rendering now so I can report back later if that or your suggestion ended up fixing it. thanks again!

You can influence the scale via texture and this slider (size) here:


text:
AMD Radeon RX 5700XT not recognized as HIP
Blender 3.3.1 says No compatible GPUs shown for cycles.
indicates requirements as AMD GPU, RDNA architecture, and driver version 22.10 or newer
System is Ubuntu 20.04.5LTS 64 bit, driver is AMD GPU 22.40. card is Radeon RX 5700XT. RX 5000 series is listed as compatible with cycles render on this page:
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/render/cycles/gpu_rendering.html#supported-hardware
that page also says Linux: Radeon Software 22.10 or ROCm 5.3 is required.
I have a newer driver and ROCm version 5.4.1.50401-84~20.04.
Why is this card not being recognized and selectable for GPU rendering under HIP?

Might be worth reporting it as a bug since there's another posting here: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/282460/error-unsupported-graphics-card-or-driver-a-graphics-card-and-driver-with-suppo

You need to use the PRO Edition drivers

@JohnEason - sorry I suspect no. I'm playing with it and the problem seems to be is that I scaled everything down, while I created it probably the measurements were and remain the original. Weird, probably another bug.

@Bob what do you mean?

Also, after restart it started to show more sane numbers, still it's 3.010 vs 3.65


text:
Error Unsupported Graphics card or driver. A graphics card and driver with support for OpenGL 3.3 or higher is required. Blender 3.4 on Linux
Attempting to run Blender 3.4.1 on Linux, Ubuntu 20.04.5LTS if I run via the terminal I see this:
Error! Unsupported graphics card or driver.
A graphics card and driver with support for OpenGL 3.3 or higher is required.
The program will now close.
Graphics card is AMD Radeon RX 5700XT running driver version 22.40. (downloaded today)
This happens only when running 3.4.1, exact same system, exact same setup, if I run Blender 3.3.1 it works fine, only 3.4.x (same on 3.4.0 and 3.4.1 was observed)

Might be worth reporting it as a bug since there's another posting here: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/282465/amd-radeon-rx-5700xt-not-recognized-as-hip


text:
Render strategy for heavy scenes?
So I created a very large scene and was hoping I could get it to render by strategizing how to turn certain objects off in the render when they are too far away to be of consequence or obscured (like interior of a building when the scene is outside of it) My plan was to have different blend files for different buildings and components, then link those into another blend file which will be the full scene. then to actually make the scene do a linked copy and add my cameras and animations there, set the render range in that scene, and change which objects were included in the render vs not. then go on to the next part of the scene in another location, different range to render, different render exclusions etc. But apparently that doesn't work...if I uncheck the show in render in one scene it unchecks it in the other. I don't want to duplicate the scene for obvious reasons. I thought of a separate blender file and linking the entire scene and setting up overrides but it wasn't letting me change the render status. Is there any way to achieve what I'm hoping to achieve here? Or those way better at this than I am...how do you manage things like this? Would render layers help somehow?
The whole scene is majorly taxing both my 13th gen i9/64GBRam/RTX4080 machine and my M2 max macbook pro with 96GB unified. they can render, but only with great difficulty. I have already been careful with simplified geometry, camera culling, texture size limiting etc.

You probably use scenes where you should use Viewlayers instead.
But regardles, if you want to have specific objects show up in specific scenes or view layers independently, you should use collections.
Collections can be disabled on a per-layer/scene basis. They also have extra options which regular objects don't have (enable them in the outliner filter popover):

And You can easily combine viewlayers back in the compositor.
Good thing to know is that layers effectively dividw your render into smaller chunks, so it makes them a great way to render heavy scenes efficiently.
You can also override some properties of the viewlayers:

Typically, background layers don't need nearly as many samples than foreground, especially if it all gets blurred afterward.

Thank you! I think I have some reading to do...Or by chance do you know of a good article or tutorial I should check out? I have tried hard to keep the scene organized, so its pretty well setup into collections. Hopefully the organization is good.

what information do you need exactly?

This video had some great information
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtdczoXVyvQ
That's the kind of thing I was looking for. I still need to learn more, so far I haven't had much success implementing this except for small test scenes.
One problem I run into is I have a large mesh that is the landscape, and it has trees, vegetation etc created with a few different geometry nodes on it, but its that very landscape that is the hardest to render, but I'm not sure what the best way is to separate the different trees and plants into different layers, since they are all mods on that one mesh.

Perhaps break the landscape mesh into several objects?


text:
How to map bought building assets into other objects
I am making a city environment and have purchased a pack of buildings from a 3D asset store.
I have the environment mapped out as primitive objects and am hoping to combine the two with some degree of automation in order not to a) manually place a billion buildings, b) be able to edit pieces and have them update across the environment and c) not have to manually move hundreds of pieces if the environment needs to be changed.
Can anyone point me in the right direction to get started? I know about sharing data across multiple objects and have dipped my toes into geometry nodes, creating groups of simple city buildings on a plane. I think I need to chop the assets I’ve bought into pieces (walls, roofs, roads, street scenery, signs, etc) and work out how to map them into the surfaces of my environment with some kind of logic.
I’m not expecting a set of instructions but if anyone can point me in the direction to get myself started that would be much appreciated.
Thanks
J

Could you please post a screenshot of the environment so we can see roughly what this is about?


text:
How do I make all faces the same size?
When I am making something in blender, I often will use an elongated square but when I do this the faces get longer and that makes it really hard to sculpt the square and I want to know if there is a way around this.

Try using the Quadriflow Remesh Function

hello you can use the Remesh tool in Sculpt mode, but if it elongates the squares you should probably activate the Dyntopo option. Also, with Dyntopo activated, keep in mind that some brushes will create new faces, some won't

Consider [Loop Cuts] to increase vertex density where you decide.

If you have unevenly scaled a cube (or any mesh) as your start point then you should ensure you ‘Apply Scale’ to avoid warped geometry.

If beginning with an elongated square, you may want to first go into edit mode and add some loop cuts by pressing ctrl-r and scrolling the mouse wheel up to add loops. Do this the your other axis and roll the wheel until you get perfect squares.
You can then run a few iterations of subdivide and begin sculpting.
Also: Apply Transformations before you begin sculpting.


text:
Blender 3.1 Edit Mode Cursor Changed From Arrow to Crosshair
Hitting hotkeys while I was modeling and the regular cursor (not 3D cursor) suddenly
changed into a crosshair from the arrow it was before. I just wanna change it back. I can't
find any info on how to change the cursor shape. I tried changing the "precision select" cursor from a crosshair to an arrow in the Windows 11 settings but that didn't solve the
problem. I have seen this question asked before but never satisfactorily answered.

It's always been a crosshair in Edit mode from Blender 2.8.3 right through to 3.4 here. (Just checked back through the versions I have installed here.)

As @JohnEason says... I still have a 2.79 version here, and it has been a crosshair back then, too. From which version did you come to 3.1 that the crosshair is something new to you? Be prepared, a lot more than just the cursor changed since Blender's childhood ;)


text:
Loops cuts and geometry
Beginner here.
Can't work out what's wrong with the mesh to get the below. Have made sure there aren't any doubles and that everything is a quad and the normals are pointing in the right direction,

Also when trying to select a loop it seems to select the faces?

Any help greatly appreciated
Thanks

My guess is it might be the normals. Try selecting all geometry with A, then press Alt+N and choose "Recalculate outside"

Try A to select everything and then M to merge by distance and increasing the distance. It looks like you right clicked after either an extrude or inset and have doubles.

It could also be creased edges, Try A to select everything, then Shift + E and type -1 to clear the creases.

can you share your blend file https://blend-exchange.com


text:
Quickly putting an object or set of objects on a bezier curve projected to a surface
Question:
Can you project an object with an array modifier and curve following modifier onto a curved surface?
Explanation:
I am attempting to put an array of objects aligned on a curve into a fractal type of configuration projected onto a curved surface.
I know that sounds complicated, but my hope is that someone knows how to do this with relative ease.
Attempt:
I believe this can be done with a bezier curve as a parent, which is shrinkwrapped to the surface, while its children follow the path, and an array modifier is used to extend it along the path.  Shrinkwrapping the object itself flattens it, which is not what I would like.
To start, let's leave out the part about the array following a curve, and just look at the fractal pattern of objects onto a curved surface, because I think this is something that a lot of people would run into when making scenes and would be highly useful to do in an automated fashion.
it should be something like this:
Starting with the small complex set of objects, such as the cube and balls to the left, and the large curved surface (spehre) to the right:

How can we get to something like this? (as an array upon the surface) (Sorry it's such a bad attempt at getting them oriented on the surface):

or this: as a fractal modified array or random on surface?

I am attempting to do this with cylindrical type aggregations of objects, which follow bezier curves, which I can project the bezier curves onto the surface, and then make the object follow the curve and set up an array to make it follow throughout the curve, but it does not work out so well to do it with hundreds of objects quickly.
To do it with these cubes, it would look (something like) this:

The problem with shrinkwrapping the bezier curve to the curved surface, is that you have to apply the modification before you can get the cubes to go along the curve, since you want them along the surface after shrinkwrapping to the surface.
If you apply the shrinkwrap after getting the array of cubes and they are following the curve, you get this (nothing happens to project the cubes onto the surface, the bezier curve just gets put there):

So, it appears you must have apply the bezier curve as the parent object after the projection, which makes it difficult to get the ration/translation applied to the cube objects.
Furthermore, the shrinkwrap doesn't completely get the bezier curve along the curved surface:

If I put a hundred bezier curves shrinkwrapped to the sphere (it must be applied in order to get the objects to follow it), then they each have different rotation and translation, in which the object has to be changed to match in order to follow it correctly.  Is there a simpler way to apply an object to follow all of these bezier curves and have the same rotation/translation etc?
I think this method would have huge consequences of use if it could be applied with varying amounts of fractal pattern applied to each portion.
Such as having a standard patch of grass mesh, then applying it to a series of planes created with fractal patterns (random soil arrangement), then applying the standard grass to it in a fractal pattern while varying the grass mesh slightly each time.  It could make a realistic random grass scene with just a plane and a few blades of grass.

I think that applying the shrinkwrap is not enough, as it affect only the curve's control points. Converting the curve to a mesh (and than to a curve again) does the job, but you'll lose all the advantages of curves (the new curve is more a polyline than a bezier), wich was not the purpose of your interrogation. I'll be glad to be in wrong, but I feel that the answer could sadly be "no".


text:
Is it possible to add a driver to a vertex position?
I want to add a driver to a vertex' z position. Is this possible? If it is, how?
When I try to add a driver, all I get is the option to edit source and edit translation.

You could also add Shape Keys and animate the influence, either by adding keyframes directly or by a driver.

To answer the question specifically: Yes. It is possible.
Go to Outliner, switch Display Mode to Datablocks, then you'll see a list of all datablocks for the .blend file.
Expand the list: Blendfile Data > Objects > your_obj_name > Data > mashdata_name > Vertices > Mesh Vertex > Location, then you can right click on X Y Z, and choose Add Drivers or Add Single Driver from the menu.

However, when there are too many vertices, it will be very hard to target the one you want. I would rather use hooks.

This is nice. Alternatively, depending on your need, you may select the object you wanna move, then the one that'll be the mover, enter edit mode, select 3 verts, then Ctrl+P to parent the mover to the movee.


text:
How to hide custom shapes' object for bones in armature?
I'm using custom shapes for a character armature. These shapes are objects that are floating around in my 3D space. They aren't really connected to the armature or the character mesh.
However, when I append the character mesh to a project, all these custom shapes follow along, as objects. This clutters up my 3D view, and I have to remove these objects every time I append a character mesh.
Is there any way of hiding these/putting them into the armature layer/not appending them somehow when I'm appending a character?

Unlink these objects from the scene:
import bpy

bpy.context.scene.objects.unlink(bpy.context.active_object)

Pros:

There will be no clutter, even no extra stuff in outliner
You will be able to still see them in the dataview outliner.
Bones will still use them as shapes
They won't be deleted with file save
It will still work with file linking

Cons:

You will have to link them back to scene to make changes, so do this last
Other people won't know what's going on, it's not standard and I would do this only on personal projects
It might not work with future blender releases, its a hack.

Are there other ways of doing this?  Surely it is not necessary for Blender to append these items!

Nowadays I make a collection Bone Shapes, make sure it's next to the one that is for linking the character(not inside it) and I put all the bone widgets there. When I disable that collection with its checkmark all is tidy and linking and overriding works as expected too.


text:
How to add skytexture to viewport background?
I have a skytexture set up. How do I make this the viewport background?
I use Blender 2.72 and cycles.

As of 2.73, you can do this by enabling World Background in 3D view > Properties panel (N) > Display:

@NaioaiStudios Yes. Also see http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/6744/599


text:
How do I run scripts from a custom button in panel?
I've created a python script that creates a specific folder structure for my projects, and also saves the first instance of my project. I want this script to be run by clicking on a custom button in the render panel. Since this is to be done at the start of new projects I want this button to be part of the default startup in Blender. However, I can't find the information to do these things.
Here is my code, saved in a file called "EinarOptions.py":
import bpy

class EinarOptions(bpy.types.Panel):
    """Creates a Panel in the render context of the properties editor"""
    bl_label = "Einar options"
    bl_idname = "RENDER_PT_layout"
    bl_space_type = 'PROPERTIES'
    bl_region_type = 'WINDOW'
    bl_context = "render"

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

        # Different sizes in a row
        layout.label(text="Different button sizes:")
        row = layout.row()
        row.operator("render.render")

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(EinarOptions)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(EinarOptions)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

This creates a panel in Blender:

After having read through a lot of tutorials and getting lost in the documentation, I still got no clue. How do I create a button(similar to the one I have now, which says 'Render') that executes my script when pressed?
The script to be run is called "CreateFolderStructure.py" and is stored on my harddrive.

You need to define an operator, then reference it from that button.

Related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/2505/599


text:
How do I get invoke_props_popup to work?
I'm trying to get invoke_props_popup to work. But my code produces this error:
Error: Operator 'OBJECT_OT_keyframe_changer' does not have register enabled, incorrect invoke function

Traceback <most recet call last):
    File "(Script-path)", line 63, in <module> ...

RuntimeError: Error: Operator 'OBJECT_OT_keyframe_changer' does not have register enabled, incorrect invoke function

Line 63 is bpy.ops.object.keyframe_changer('INVOKE_DEFAULT')
I haven't been able to find any documentation to help me with this. Why does it not run? Why does it give me an error?

This is the code I have so far:
class KeyframeChangerOperator(bpy.types.Operator):
    """Let's you change keyframe position"""
    bl_idname = "object.keyframe_changer"
    bl_label = "Keyframe changer"
    my_float = bpy.props.FloatProperty(name="Keyframe position")

    def execute(self, context):
        set_keyframe_position(self.my_float)
        return {'FINISHED'}

    def invoke(self, context, event):
        wm = context.window_manager
        return wm.invoke_props_popup(self, event)

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(KeyframeChangerOperator)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(KeyframeChangerOperator)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

    # test call
    bpy.ops.object.keyframe_changer('INVOKE_DEFAULT')

invoke should return: "return wm.invoke_popup(self)", let me know if this works for you.

That worked. Got the script running. Thanks. I was under the impression though, that using invoke_popup would update the float_property everytime the prop is changed. As opposed to dialog, which only updates it when you click OK. Was I wrong to assume that?

You can also use "invoke_props_popup", but then you also have to set "bl_options".

You simply forgot to set bl_options:
import bpy

def set_keyframe_position(flt):
    print (flt)

class KeyframeChangerOperator(bpy.types.Operator):
    """Let's you change keyframe position"""
    bl_idname = "object.keyframe_changer"
    bl_label = "Keyframe changer"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER', 'UNDO'}

    my_float = bpy.props.FloatProperty(name="Keyframe position")

    def invoke(self, context, event):
        return context.window_manager.invoke_props_popup(self, event)

    def execute(self, context):
        set_keyframe_position(self.my_float)
        return {'FINISHED'}

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(KeyframeChangerOperator)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(KeyframeChangerOperator)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

    # test call
    bpy.ops.object.keyframe_changer('INVOKE_DEFAULT')

Dude. I. Love. You.


text:
Is it possible to create a new type of context with Python?
I want to create a new context-panel such as these:

Is this possible with Python? My own context-panel with my own custom panels inside it.

Answer is actually very simple: no. :)
Afaik this is not even in our TODOs - we rather aim at creating custom spaces from py… But no ETA on that either.


text:
Is it possible to remove Blender Render/Internal render?
I want to clean up a bit in my Blender UI, and thus want to completely remove Blender Render.
Is this possible? And will it have any negative effects in working with cycles (create bugs/similar)?

Why would you want to do that? The only difference to the UI when in cycles mode would be a little drop down at the top. If you want it to load cycles by default, change it to cycles, then save the .blend preferences

I optimize everything, according to a principle called Kaizen. If I don't need it, it's better to remove it. And if there is only one render engine, I don't need the drop down menu at all (less cluttered UI) =)

When it comes to loading cycles by default, I'm not able to do it properly. I have done it in the startup .blend. But if I create a new scene, it opens with Blender Internal by default.

You changed to Cycles and pressed Ctrl+U then clicked the message? It should work.

@NoviceInDisguise Yeah. And I do get cycles on startup, but if I create a new scene, the new scene is in Blender Render.

That is most certainly as bug. You may need to re-install Blender.

Cycles can be removed as an addon, but Blender Internal is...internal.

Could you please elaborate?

blender internal is hard coded as a fundamental part of blender, cycles was added as an optional renderer 3-4 years ago.

Are you sure about this? Do you have any sources for this statement?


text:
Does Switching From Blender Render To Cycles Mess Things Up?
So I've noticed that if I've been playing in Blender Render and I switch to cycles after some mesh objects are created etc. in the the scene that many times NOTHING renders or almost nothing.  Why is this?  Are you not supposed to switch these back an fourth off and on?

What do you mean with nothing renders? Are some objects completely missing? If only the materials are missing, this is because Cycles uses another material system and can not use the materials from the Blender Internal renderer. You need to create Cycles materials for your objects.

Ok that's what I mean so basically you can't use objects from blender in cycles and vice versa right?

You can use the objects in both renderers, you just have to give them the correct material.

Did these comments answer your question? If not, let us know. :)

Related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/6446/599

All matierals in cycles use nodes (even if you set up the material in the Properties panel, it will create nodes in the node editor).
Since BI materials don't use nodes by default, when you switch to cycles from BI there won't be any BI nodes in the node tree, yet nodes will be enabled. This will make the material render as transparent.
You can disable nodes (this will restore the old BI material settings, and it will not delete any nodes) by:

Pressing the node icon in the Materials panel:

Disabling the checkbox in Node editor > Header:

If you want to make a single material which works for both BI and Cycles, see Is there a way to have one material for cycles and the BI


text:
Best Way To Add Text Falling From The Sky In Order?
Ok So I have multiple pieces of text in the sky and they are falling down on a rigid body plane (the floor) and it's set to passive not active.  The problem is I don't want ALL of the text to hit the floor at the same time.
The 3D text is set as rigid too and it's set as active (so it falls).  The way I've gotten text to hit the floor at different times is by simply varying the heights of the text falling (text closer to the passive rigid plane will hit first).
I don't like this though.  I wish there was some way using keyframes etc. that I could change from passive to active so I could control exactly when the 3D text would start falling.
Is there any way to do that?  Thanks guys

It is and that answers my questions I just couldn't find an answer on here case closed.  Thank you!  Thanks for directing me to the right spot!

Right click the active/passive property and you will be able to keyframe it.


text:
How Do You Start Animation At A Specific Frame?
For example things might happen in an animation for a few seconds like a flag starting to wave etc. etc. that you don't want anyone to see but you want recording to start 5 seconds into the animation but still have the effects of the wind (or whatever affects) as if that five seconds prior was rendered?
How do you do this?
Thanks guys

Setting the Render Range
What you need to do is to start your render 5 seconds into your animation. You can accomplish this by setting the start frame to 5 seconds worth of frames into your animation.
To determine how many frames are in 5 seconds of your animation, look at the Frame Rate setting in the Dimensions section of the Render tab:

Here we see that the animation's is set to have 25 frames per second (fps). So, to determine how many frames are in 5 seconds, simply multiply 25fps x 5 seconds = 125 frames.
Then, just set your Start Frame to 125:

Another way to specify the Start and End Frames for your animation are in the Timeline window:

For a detailed description of how to set the Start Frame and End Frame for your animation, see the answer here.
You can also read more about render output settings in the Blender Manual.

You're welcome! If this answer solved your problem, don't forget to click the "Solved" checkmark to let everyone know the question has been solved. :)


text:
Images as Planes, can not see the image on the plane
How do I import a *.gif though gimp, onto a plane, in blender. Once I import the image file onto a plane, how do see the image on the plane.

Blender does not support .GIF files you could e.g. export to .PNG from Gimp (PNG has also lossless compression and transparency) For all available formats see Formats.
The easiest way is to enable the Import Images as Planes addon. You find it in the menu: File / User Preferences.

After enabling use File / Import / Images as Planes
To see the texture you need to set the viewports shading mode to Texture:

Behind the scenes the addon has created a plane added a material with an image texture you can check this in the materials properties:

Note: For best performance the dimension of a texture should be a power of 2 (128x128px, 256x256px etc.)

This setup has worked well for me.  I think the image has all the requirements outlined.
In past versions of Blender, using "Textured Solid" had a huge viewport performance hit when working with high geometry counts but this seems to have been fixed for recent builds.
Also, you can also just drop and drag a UV mapped image from your HD folder onto the model to see what it looks like without having to go through all the trouble of loading the texture in as a material asset.  This is very useful when baking.  Also, baked textures usually update in this view automatically.  (I say 'usually' because using Undo will sometimes cause Blender to hold onto the old texture.)  You can fix this using the UV Editor to save the image and then activate the 'refresh' button for that texture, now the 3D Viewport will update the texture to the current version.


text:
Is it possible to get back to `Add mode`?
After for example a Torus has been added, you can specify major segments, minor segments, radii, etc.
After some clicking around i cant seem to get back to these settings anymore.
is it possible? if so, how?


text:
How to add a shadeless texture over an existing texture?
I have a model with a texture and a material. How can I add another texture that is shadeless over the existing texture and use it as a wireframe or other cool effects?

Are you using BI or cycles?


text:
Camera view not saved
I downloaded a model and I adjusted the camera view as desired. However, when I save the file and open it again, the camera view is like it was on the originally downloaded file. Even when I press "Render" the view returns to the old view. Nothing is parented. How is that done and how can I remove it?
Here is the file - http://www.pasteall.org/blend/31636

Reading the other answer, it looks like you might have auto-key turned off, which would reset your camera to the original position. If you have auto-key ON, any change you make will be automatically recorded, even over old keys on the same frame. So it's not entirely necessary that you delete all the keys in order to reposition the camera; you just need to set a key on the frame you want to render (press "I" and select LocRotScale to key all transforms).
This is just my opinion, but I generally work with auto-key turned on so I can avoid this. I'm also too lazy to want to set a key every time I make a change (I'm an animator; that's a lot of changes), so I let it do that for me. This is more of a workflow thing, but it is certainly something to know about. Good luck!
EDIT: Just remember that auto-key is not specific to cameras. It's a general automation tool that will capture attribute changes throughout the scene, such as a transformation or even a material change. You'll find the auto-key toggle button in the playhead in the timeline (the red circle).

Thanks for the answer. I haven't played a lot with camera options, but I'll check it out.

Maybe the camera have some animation keyframes stored.
Open the dope sheet and remove all the yellow square.

Thanks. I missed to notice that the camera has a red line that is connected to the object. What purpose does that serve (I posted the file)?

The line is only the camera limit. The problem are the keyframes. Hold CTRL and press Left Arrow two times. Go in the dopesheet and delete alle the keyframes.

Yes, when I press "Render", the scene is rendered according to the key frames. Thanks.

@Cegaton When I make still renders, I didn't know that a key-frame can interfere after changing the view. Thanks for the video.


text:
How to adjust brightness and contrast on background images?
Is there a way to adjust the brightness and contrast on background images?

I don't think there is a way to do this from inside blender, you'll have to edit the image externally :/

This isn't possible at the moment, you'll have to edit the images separately before loading them in.

You could use textured planes instead of background images, and edit the texture in a material, however this has the disadvantage of only working in material view.

I think it should be possible using compositing. Here I attach compositing node tree with BrightContrast node responsible for brightness on background image (done in Blender Octane version)

I followed this tutorial before to make basic node tree:


text:
How can a Diffuse material not be effected by light?
I downloaded a model from blendswap.com and when I rendered it I got this -
The scene is made up of: the model, plane, hdr map and hemi lamp that is lighting the object. As you can see, the ground plane is not effected by the light. Its node setup is this -
Why is the plane not effected by the light? I even replaced it with other lamps but the effect is the same. Why? How is that done?

This is simply done by setting the color to black. The light of a diffuse material with a roughness of 0 is calculated using the Lambert lighting model.
This model calculates the light that an object reflects as follows:

where  is the intensity of the diffusely reflected light,  is the material's color and  is the intensity of the incoming light,  is the surface's normal vector and  is the normalized vector from the surface point to the light source.
For typical colors  this will give you light areas where the surface faces the light source and darker areas where the surface points away from the light source. But since in your material the color is a pure Black (RGB (0,0,0)) the red green an blue light component will always be multiplied by 0. Thus the resulting surface color will always be black as well, no matter how strong the lightsource is.


text:
How to add glossiness on a cartoon shading?
I know I asked something like this before, but this is more centered on the glossiness. How can I add glossiness on a material that has a toon|diffuse shader on it? Do I have to combine the toon|diffuse and the toon|glossy shaders? But how? The add shader doesn't seem to do a good job, because it masses up the colors brightness or something on the colors. Basically, how to combine the toon|diffuse and toon|glossy shader effectively?

Don't point the mix shader. I want combining with the full values.

Or maybe there are some ways to add glossiness other then the toon|glossy shader? If so, what are they?

ByTheWay - Is there a node that plugs into the fac of the mix shader that the mix shader combines them with the full values?

Or maybe the add shader cobines the brightness of the colors. if that is so, how to combine them (with whatever shader) without cobining the brightness of the colors?

What I want to do is to combine the two shaders, but the colors to stay the same.

Or maybe there is a way to make the add shader only to add the colors insteed of combining them?

Related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/5740/599

A BSDF shader requires three parameters: normal, size and smooth.
If the mix-shader doesn't produce the results you want you can still write your own shader using OSL.
shader Toon(
float diffuse_Fac = .5,
float glossy_Fac = .5,
color diffuse_color = .8,
color glossy_color = .8,
float diffuse_size = .5,
float glossy_size = .5,
float diffuse_smooth = 0,
float glossy_smooth = 0,
normal diffuse_normal = N,
normal glossy_normal = N,
output closure color BSDF = background()
)

{
BSDF = diffuse_Fac * diffuse_color * diffuse_toon(diffuse_normal, diffuse_size, diffuse_smooth)
     + glossy_Fac * glossy_color * glossy_toon(glossy_normal, glossy_size, glossy_smooth);
}

This one was adapted from this BA Thread where you also find pointers on this topic.
You only need to enable OSL in the render settings (this implies that it can't any longer be process by the GPU) and add a Script Node as shown in the image.

You could also try specular_toon() I wonder why this is not accessible from the Add Menu.


text:
toon material from blender internal rendered in cycles render engine?
Is it possible the toon material and specular from the blender internal render engine to be rendered in the cycles render engine by using render layers?

Or, is it possible to render a cartoon scene with diffuse and glossy, but the glossy to be the toon specular material from the blender internal render engine?

Do you mean you have a Cycles scene, but you only want that one object to be toon-shaded, or you want a node setup on how to use the Cycles toon shader?

I mean, Is it possible materials from blender internal to be rendered in cycles?

You can sort of re-create materials in Cycles, but they won't look exactly the same because Cycles is a more advanced rendering engine. If you want the objects that you made in Blender Internal to be rendered on a Cycles scene, use the answer below.

Blender internal and cycles are completely separate rendering engines, only the object surface data can be shared between them. Each render engine uses incompatible material data.
To combine the two render engines you can render an image from each engine and composite the two results together. You can either do this manually by saving one or both of the results to file and inputting the files in the compositor or 2d graphics application. Or you can have two scenes, one using blender internal and one using cycles that can both be input into the compositor.

BlenderCookie has a tutorial explaining this in more detail.

Thanks. About the link -  Is that the same as if the smoke simulation was available in cycles, as it is in the internal?

Because, the internal has no light bouncing, so is it possible that by using this approach the smoke has now light bouncing?

I mean, Is the smoke just visible in the scene as it is in the internal or is the smoke now rendered in cycles?

The tutorial was before cycles could render smoke, so you rendered the smoke with internal and the rest in cycles then composite together.


text:
Is blender more superior with the node editor then without it?
What I mean is - Can you do things in the node editor that would not be possible if it is removed? Is the node editor only a visual representation of other approaches for the same thing?

To specify my last question more clearer - "Is the node editor only a visual representation of other approaches for the same thing?" - For example, in the node editor, Shift/A/Shader/diffuse, is the same as if you go to the material button in the properties panel and click Diffuse.

For Cycles materials most of the node editor's functionality can be achieved in the material tab. What is missing is the creation and editing functionality of node groups. Also, working in the node editor is much less confusing than using the visualization in the material tab.
For Blender Internal's node-materials, node textures and the compositor there is no equivalent in another part of Blender. If you removed the node editor, you could not use these features at all.


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How to put text in front of a greasepencil object?
I am working on a 2D animation, that will have lots of text boxes for the audience to read. I didn't want to be inconsistent with the text, and there will be a lot of text, so to streamline the process I decided to use Blender's text features. However, the text will not render. I've looked through several guides, and none of them go into using text objects alongside greasepencil. If I remove the greasepencil object, and then render, the text will render. However, I need both the text and the greasepencil to be together in the same frame. I've made sure that the text objects are very far in front of the greasepencil object, and don't overlap. I've extruded all the text objects to .01 m, thinking that thickness might be an issue. All of the text objects have been converted into meshes, and they're either red or white in color. Again, they render fine if I get rid of the greasepencil background, but they're completely hidden by the greasepencil art if I put it back in, which doesn't make sense because the greasepencil is very far behind the text objects. Thank you for any help or suggestions!

Hmm. That’s odd. I would search for “in front” settings in the Properties editor with the GP object selected. Will try this setup out myself if I can.

To avoid any undesired glitch, use a little of compositing: create 3 collections, one for GP objects, one for Text meshes and one for camera, lights and other scene stuff.
Create a new view Layer: I named mines GP Layer and Text layer.
In the GP Layer turn off the text collection.
In the text Layer turn off the GP collection.
In the compositor window create this simple node setup, set the rendering film as transparent, make sure that the GP objects have a proper background and you're good to go.

Hey this works! Thanks for your help, I'm a bit new to blender and I've never used the compositing tab before. I think I can work through any future problems now too!

You can render the gb project without the text, then render the text only but with a transparent background
Then combine them in Blender video editing .


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Greasepencil render only renders half of the frames
I'm fairly new to blender but I've been making animations with Greasepencil for a while and haven't had this issue yet. I'm rendering a large video as a png sequence (5000+ frames) with eevee. About 2800 frames were rendered perfectly, but the rest of them showed up as completely blank transparent images.
I thought the problem might be the storage on my computer, but after deleting plenty of other animation files and resetting my computer, the same images failed to render. From what I can tell, there's no difference between the frames that rendered and the frames that didn't.
Here's an image of my settings.

just a question: if you render png anyway, why don't you render "just" the rest of your failed png? or just one to check whether the reason is your setup or your computer? It's just a waste of time to render everything again if you already have rendered (+saved) pngs

Hi, I didn't render everything again. I don't know if it was clear, but I have tried rendering just the failed parts and nothing will work, but everything is fine if it's one of the frames that already rendered.

Alright, I figured it out and am posting the answer in here in case anyone has the same problem.
I think Blender had some kind of limit on how many frames I could render at a time in a project. I'm not sure why, but I was able to render the broken frames by copying the project, deleting the keyframes for what I had already rendered, and then rendering the broken parts.
I put those PNG files in a separate folder, then went back to my original Blend project and added the frames to the video editor.


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How to Apply Modifier on selected faces like applying material on selected faces?
You read it right. So today I learned that we can apply a material on selected faces in an object using "apply" button. I was believing that I could do the same with modifiers and particles but I couldn't find the apply button or any other thread that related to it. So it would be the first thread talking specifically about this and I hope any other beginners will find this thread useful.
Bear with me on this: I am ignorant beginner and I never read the manuals

Well, the simply answer is no, not directly. However you can create vertex groups and assign certain vertices to these groups, and in some modifiers you can limit the effect by choosing a vertex group.

You can also split your object into two separate objects. It all depends on your needs

You can limit the modifier effect to a vertex group, but it won't exist in every modifiers, and also it will affect the adjacent faces. Example with the Mask modifier: