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Blender 2.9: hollow cylinder has "Normals" problem
I want to make a cannon and I am using a hollow cylinder for that. But as soon as I create it, I am seeing an issue with the normals.

I can flip the normals but then the inside faces are blue and the outside faces are red. The same when I try to recalculate the normals.
How can I fix the normals so the faces are blue on the outside and inside?
Thank you for your help,
Peter

Hello :). You need to add new faces to the inside. Solidify modifier should be a fast and easy solution :).

thank you Michal, I will try that tonight.

Hi Michal, it works perfectly with the Solidify modifier. Thank you so much!


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Need help rigging basic low poly rifles for animation
I am in the process of rigging a rifle to animate and to export to unity. However for some reason either the world location of the object im rigging does not seem to change properly, resulting in the animation being implemented in unity and subsequently teleporting.
Or the object itself tears apart and does not move as required whenever in pose mode.
The parts of the weapon are parented to a single armature bone, and I need all the parts of the weapon (that do form a solid) to move when the armature is moved.
Anyone that knows what could be the problem?
I've tried : weight painting the blue areas, parenting the side parts of the rifle (stock etc) to the main body while the body is parented to the armature

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Help for wall pattern
Anyone knows how to do that type of wall pattern please ?

Best regards

Hello :). Do you need actual geometry or a texture?

A geometry would be better but someone just told me how to do that below ! Thanks anyway :p

Yeah, moonboots is the best :)

You could:

Create a plane, subdivide:

Give it a Decimate modifier / Collapse mode, with a ratio of 0.5, apply:

Select all in Edit mode and CtrlT to triangulate:

Then CtrlF > Poke Faces:

Bring a bit more chaos with some vertices move if you want, then select one triangle center and ShiftG > Amount of connecting edges to select all the triangle centers:

Move them up:

Thank you so much !

Use these Modifiers to make what you want
and this is my plane :

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


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Where is major segment in blender 2.9x
I'm a new for blender
i'm watching on youtube about adjust major segment but i find not found this menu on blender 2.90.1
Where is major segment in blender 2.9x

Hi! What do you mean exactly by "adjust major segment"? Could you provide more info?

This is version 2.8 and now 2.9 it seem change again
https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/111079/blender-2-8-object-first-time-settings

Ah! If you mean the Redo Panel, it didn't change from 2.8 to 2.9. It still appears in the bottom left part of the 3D Viewport window in which you executed the command.

hi all
plz advice me , why this menu disappear on my blender ?
https://www.img.in.th/image/h60Stu

When you add a torus, you have the Adjust Last Operation panel floating in the 3d view. It may be collapsed so just expand it.

The panel is only available after an operation and once you perform another operation it disapears.
These settings are specific to Add torus operation, other operations will have other kinds of settings in the same panel.

Thanks for your reply but why my menu disappear ?
https://www.img.in.th/image/h60Stu

Yes, it does dissapear when you do another operation. It is available temporarily only right after the operation.

that it mean i can change this only one time ?

You can change it as many times as you want before you perform another operation, but then the settings are finalised and are no longer available.

thank a lot, i got it. :)

Can I open it again?


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Symmetry error, false center
So if u can see the photo, my center at my symmetry was wrong, anybody can help me?

the center of the symmetry will be your origin, where is the object origin?

As mentioned in the comment by moonboots, the origin of your character might not be in the center of your object. The origin is indicated by the little orange dot in the viewport.
In Object Mode you can set the origin. Select Object → Set Origin → Origin to Geometry in the menu of the viewport to center it. This should fix it.

In addition to the comments and answers above, you need to set the origin (the orange dot) of your mesh in its centre in order for symmetry to work properly. The easiest method would be the one indicated by Blunder (i.e. setting origin to geometry). However, it does not always work as wanted and, therefore, you may want to specify the exact origin of your mesh. I do this by positioning 3D cursor at specific vertex and fixing the origin to 3D cursor position.

Select the mesh

Go into edit mode

Select a vertex along the central line of the mesh

Press Shift+S and swipe to Cursor to Selected

Switch to object mode, select Object→Set Origin→ Origin to 3D Cursor


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I extruded a face before i aplied a subdivision surface can i still make a face between vertices?
I hope the title didnt confuse you its a bit hard to explain since im new and dont know everything yet.
So let me explain in a bit more detail.
Im trying to make a lipton ice tea glass in blender.
I started with placing a cylinder and made it into the bowl/top of the glass(check the pics for a more clear understanding). I deleted the top face so its a open cup.
I then added a solidify and a subdivision surface but didnt apply them yet.
Now here is where it went wrong i extruded the bottom of that glass to make the trunk/beam (which goes to the feet).
But the top and bottom of that beam are open. When i select all vertices on that line and fill it in by hitting F it makes a plane but it isnt connected to the glass because of the subdivision surface.
Im sorry i find it a bit difficult to explain hopefully my pictures are understandable. At the end all i want is to close the hole in the bottom of my glass so it wont spill fluid.

this is my model

Here you see the hole from the top

the botom of the beam

Here you see the vertices i filled in by pressing F. As you can see it doesnt make any contact to the actual glas. This is the topview/inside the glass

So long as modifiers are unapplied, you can "deactivate" their influence in the preview by clicking the Viewport Preview button in the modifier settings. This can be very handy, as it lets you see the mesh without the modifiers (which can make some faces/edges/vertices hard to see with the modifier(s) on - also things like the Solidify Modifier make it seem as if there are faces where there are none (until it is applied)).

I just re-read your question - It is also possible that the problem you're having is because you're trying to add a face in the "middle" of an interior. Faces in Blender have a direction, and generally blender is good at knowing which are facing "inside" and which are facing "outside". However, if you add a (bi-directional) face in the middle of (perpendicular to) an "interior" corridor, blender gets confused as to what is interior and what is exterior any more (because the face you added has both and "inward" and an "outward" face). If this is the case, you will need to alter your topology.

Im still a newbie to blender so im not getting everything but it was a solid vertex/plane but when i extruded it it vanished. Im following the blenderguru donut tutorial and he  applied the subdiv and solidify before he made an extrusion. and i didnt. So it was bassically the in and outside allready. all i did was extrude. And the face should only have a top or botom side since the beam should be solid. i guess if i delete the subdiv add a face and add the subdiv it might help. w8 a sec

If you want my honest advice - and I've given this before because I deeply believe in it - when doing the donut tutorial, everytime you make a mistake, close the file, start fresh and do it all again from the beginning. The repetition will make you way more comfortable with the keyboard shortcuts, and will help you memorize the method. Also, you will often find you missed things that Andrew said the first (or second, or third, etc..) time around. I know it sounds like a cop-out, but trust me, it works. You'll be able to get your "creation time" down to 4 minutes start-to-finish by the end.

yeah thats true i used to learn english(im dutch) this way we where given 50 words and everytime i didnt know 1 i started all over from the beginning. it worked since i was probably the highest scoring in english from my class 9,7/10.  But my grammar aint there.

@CristhopherBennet i think i fixed it after reading your answer i decided to do what i commented on your answer. i deleted those 2 modifiers added/filled in the vetices with F and added those modifiers again and

now it looks like this. its connected now i just have to makeup it a bit to remove those rinkles it seems to have worked. Thank you for your comment and time.

To remove the "wrinkles", inset the bottom face. The reason this is happening is because the bottom face is an n-gon (face with more than 4 vertices). Blender prefers quads (exactly 4 vertices per face), especially for shading, and very especially around curved, smoothed surfaces. You can often get away with n-gons, however, so long as they're in the middle of a flat face, which is why insetting the bottom face will fix your problem.

And for the record, your English is practically flawless, and your grammar is no worse than the majority of people (including native english speakers) on the "internet". Proost!


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sculpting the nose from cube
As a beginner, I am following this blender tutorial for sculpting the nose but I still cannot not figure out how to smoothen the nose as shown @4.08min at this link https://cloud.blender.org/training/stylized-character-workflow/5d3a1bd54bc3ff1bb9513d3e/
What setting am I missing? I also noticed my nose mesh seems to be of quads instead of trias...

in Object mode you can boolean the nose object to the head. Or you can sculpt the nose from the head only, you don't need the nose object. If you want your topology to triangulate, enable Dyntopo.

@moonboots thanks! looks like sculpting from the head is better! How do I smooth the resulting sculpt... it looks a bit course relative to the head....

it depends what you call smooth, if you want to flatten, press Shift whatever brush is selected


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Adjusting the size of several layers of 2d animation slightly crook the look
I'm trying to make an animation for school project. I made a face from several layers because I'm still very new to it and I'm drawing it using pc . When I tried to adjust the size of the whole thing, the face became slightly crooked and out of place. Here's the example:

^This is the face before I change the size.

^This is the face after I changed the size.
Is there any way to prevent it? Anyway thanks in advance.


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Animation 2D all frames moves at once
I'm trying to make a 2d animation for my school project. When I was making and arranging the frame, it was smooth process first. But after a while, when I tried to move one keyframe it moved every other one on the same layer at once, it wasn't like this before. Example:

I tried to move only one of the frame.

but it moved all at once.
Can anybody help?Thanks!

I already found out the answer. The proportional editing needs to be turned off.

I am really surprised! I didn't know that proportional editing affects keyframes too.

Sometimes it's a bit annoying. But its good if you want to move all of the keyframes at once.

It is also done by Shift+Click, i think so


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Can't select object in edit mode
So I am a beginner in blender and trying to make a tree with sapling tool. I made it, added texture on leaves and I wanted to do the same to the bark but I faced a problem. When I want to select bark in edit mode to unwrap it, I can't. I only see these particles, these threads.
Do you have an idea how to transform the bark into an object and unwrap it?

Ctrl +tab thats it, then choose vertice

The tree's bark is a beveled curve, not a mesh object. You have to convert it first. Select the tree in object mode and hit alt+c then select curve to mesh. After you can unwrap it.

Thank you so much!


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Branch starting not from bark using hair particle system
I am new at blender and I ran into a problem creating a tree using particle system hairs. I tried following a tutorial which shows how to make branches separetly (I creatied them from images in another layer, made them into a group) and use them when making a tree's branches. I have done it. Problem is that my branches don't start from the bark, their middle is on the bark, their start is on the other side of the bark. I don't know how to explain, so this is how it looks like:

And this is how I would like it to be (I photoshoped it):

So can you please tell me what to do to achieve what I want or maybe how to make a tree in another way? The reason why I have chose this kind of making of a tree is because I will you it in a game and I need it to have as few faces as possible.

Possible duplicate of Leaves (emission) from point This answer is for leaves, but the principle is the same.

Thank you! I didn't know how to name the problem so I could find the solution, but this helped!


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Just installed for the first time. Blender closes instantly upon starting up
I apologize if this is a common issue, but I cannot for the life of me understand how to startup the program. I just finished installing for the first time, yet Blender will not even run. I had to do a fast 'print screen' capture of what happens when I execute "Blender.exe". The command prompt will briefly flash with the message "found bundled python: C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.79\python", and the main screen will appear before disappearing and closing altogether less than half a second later.

So far I have done a clean install of Blender, repaired it, made sure I had Microsoft C++ package 2013 installed, updated my drivers, and even reinstalled python. Nothing has worked. Is there any solution to starting it up for me without it suddenly crashing/closing immediately afterwards?
As for PC specs, I use Windows 10 Operating system, and my G-card is an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080. I have an i7 intel processor and 16 GB of Ram installed. Please let me know if you need any more information!

Try the zipped version.

Similar issue? https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/110039/blender-2-79b-crashes-on-start-v2?noredirect=1&lq=1

I have had a problem similar to yours when I first started out with Blender.
Firstly, I would recommend first running a debug on the program to identify what exactly could be the error. You can do this from the Command Prompt on a Windows machine. To do this, open up the Prompt (Win+R, type 'cmd' and then hit enter) and you'll want to navigate to where your Blender executable file is located. The easy way is to right-click on the Blender shortcut on your desktop (if you set for one to appear at installation), select 'Properties', and the copy the Target folder, then return to the Command Prompt and type 'cd' and paste the destination folder (cd C:/…/Blender).
Once that's done, simply type 'blender --debug'. Blender should run now, and if it instantly closes you'll now be able to see why.
What helped me when I had that problem was that I checked with two different programs to see if my drivers were updated. I know you said you have already updated them all, but there are some outdated drivers that one piece of software will not pick up, or it is not in the program's list of drivers to check (i.e. Intel driver checkers seem to only check Intel drivers and not exactly all of them), so it might be a good idea to look for a reliable software to check your drivers with. I use DriverEasy combined with the Intel Driver and Support Assistant to make sure all of my drivers can get updates, even ones outside of the ones IDSA looks at. We often thing our drivers are updated, but there's always some that are missed that are crucial to some program function.
Hope it helped! Good luck and happy Blending!

Try to start Blender via PowerShell. Go to C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender, then Shift + Right Mouse Click over a blank area and choose Open PowerShell window here. Type ./blender -d and press Enter. It's like running Blender with double-click over the icon, but the PowerShell window should keep opened also if Blender quits. In this way, you could see if there is any error and, if yes, at least what kind of error is.


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Texture image tranparancy with multiple background colors
I'm trying to put an image with a transparent background onto an object in Blender. The object has 2 colored lines running across it. No matter what I try I can't get it to work.
This is what I'm trying to achieve (I've used a text object to demonstrate). The reason it's upside down is because it's an open pizza box:

I've tried using the below method but then I've to manually set the background color which works if there is only 1 background color:

I've tried to connect the image directly to the principled BSDF but that makes all the faces that have the material transparent. I've searched and read many topics on this forum but everyone of them seems to set the background/transparency color manually which doesn't work in this case.

What exactly is the image texture? What is transparent or how does the alpha channel look like? In the material node setup above, where do the colored stripes come from? From what I see it looks like you have plugged an image with black text into the lower input of the Mix RGB node over this orange/brownish color, mixed by the Alpha which - from the viewable result - seems to be a black square with white text on it. I can't see where the colored stripes are in this material. Your screenshot doesn't show the Viewport Shading, is this Rendered or Material Preview?

The image texture is a black text with a transparent background. The colored stripes are just 2 lanes I created with loop cuts that I then colored using a different material. The view is Material Preview but it looks the same in Rendered view.

If you add a material to a certain face, than this is the material on that face. So if you have a red material on one face and then assign the text material on the same face, this replaces the red material. If you go into Edit Mode and have no faces selected, then go to the material tab. Below the material slots you have three buttons, Assign, Select and Deselect. Click on the red material. If you now press Select it will select all faces that have the red material assigned to it. I suppose the faces with the text material won't be selected - you assigned the text material to them.

I get that when assigning a new material to a face that it replaces the old material. But seeing as the image is transparent is there no way of having both? Like layers in Photoshop or something. So that the material that produces the stripes is still on the faces but the material with the transparent image is put on top of that. Or should I just use the text object I created to achieve that?

No layers like in Photoshop. One simple possibility would be make three versions of the text material. Instead of the brownish color you'll make one with white, one with red and one with green. If the text is placed by UV mapping, than this would normally work. But a proper or better way would be to maybe create a single material with the stripes created by a  Color Ramp for example and the text laid over it with its transparency.

Following your approach, you have to create 3 different materials, one white + pizza, one green + pizza, one red + pizza.
They share the same node tree except for the color of their mix RGB node.
Image nodes are the "photoshop layers", and the mix rgb lets you choose the blending options (add, multiply, screen, ....).

Yep, that's exactly what I meant.

Thank you to you both! Will try this.


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Changing bevel angle
I am working on a model, and now I have stumbled upon a problem. I want to change the angle of my bevel, but all this while its still non-destructive. Is there a way to do this, without the need of applying the bevel modifier?
The thing is easily representable with the default cube, that's why I am showing with it.

One way is to bevel by percentage of edge length.

Set Width Type > Percent
Uncheck Clamp Overlap
Add loops and slide them to control the angle

Aside from @Jachym's method, you can also do something like it with a custom 2-segment profile, with the central control-point set to Vector, and clipped against one edge of the graph...

... but as you can see from the tilted cube in the illustration, it still means introducing a (bad topology) extra edge.
It would be very nice if Blender had asymmetrical bevels: if you could, as it were, move the end-points of the custom profile, instead of introducing a new point in the middle.

Nice! This is the method I wanted to show, but couldn't make it work :).

@JachymMichal  yes ... but actually I've 'always' used your way.. better topo for subdiv. Actually haven't done that, either,  much, I usually just model destructively.


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recommended brushes to replicate this sculpture
As a beginner I am wondering could some-one give me some tips regarding the most suitable brushes to replicate this picture.

Thanks!

I mean you can literally do this with any brushes, just dig deep enough into mesh with Layer set to subtract (if you are a beginner, you can easily press ctrl to make it subtract from your mesh instead of add), then you can tweak it with any other brushes and just learn them and try to use them... I don't think there is a specific manual to do this exactly.

@MikoCG...great thanks for the tip.


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why do I get this strange looking image after a boolean operation of 2 cylinders?
I have used boolean difference to merge the 2 cylinders. However, the resulting image does not look healthy...I would like to fix this before I move to sculpting
Have i missed a setting?

Hello, maybe show how your topology looks like and what you're trying to achieve, if you want to make a hollow cylinder you can simply extrude a cylinder

It looks like Z-clipping, maybe there is second object left in there or there are duplicated faces... show us topology, try to move it or merge vertices by distance


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remesh a certain region of a mesh rather than the whole mesh
I would like to remesh the eyeballs to a significantly finer detail so that I can apply the crease brush. I attempted the remesh modifier but it appears to apply the refinement to all of the mesh...and also the crease brush does not do anything.
Is there a setting I am missing?

you could use a simple Draw brush with a Strength of 0 and Dyntopo enable, but why don't you simply enable Dyntopo and use the brush you want?

@moonboots. thanks. I used the 2nd option for this new model. My first model was too big poly wise that the tool was not responding.


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3d printing - How to push out internal face so as to reduce infill material
I am attempting to print a head sculpture but discovered that there is too much "wall thickness" which would result in needless internal infill during 3d printing.
I have been using various brushes trying to "push out" the internal wall so as to reduce the wall thickness in behind the mouth/nose etc.
The highlighted red line indicates the hollowed out portion.
Any tips?

Just an idea... Duplicate the mesh, make the duplicate unselectable, give it a different color, maybe make it semi-transparent. Now edit the original mesh, hide the outer shell to only modify the inner vertices. If you didn't make the duplicate semi-transparent, you can turn the X-ray mode on. Now you can use proportional editing mode or sculpting to bring the vertices close to the outer shell and you have a visual cue when they intersect. Perhaps you also want to use solidify modifier to get some margin (min thickness) as well...

sounds promising! I will investigate. Thanks!


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How to create a certain tree bark geometry and wrap it around a hollow cylinder
I would like to model a tree bark for 3d printing as attached.
I am aware of these tree bark textures that one can import and use with a displacement modifier but I find it doesn't work well for 3d printing or at least as a Newbie I cannot manage it.
So would it make more sense to manually create the "protrusions" as shown my red marker using Bezel curves and somehow wrap it around the existing cylinder mesh?
Or perhaps there is an effective sculpting brush I could use?

Thanks

yes sculpting is probably the best thing to do

@moonboots:ok, Il try the blob brush.

why not the default brush (Draw)?


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remeshing in sculpt mode creates a mesh across the gap
I have a single mesh object to which I have assigned armature. Upon a remesh in sculpt mode, an additional mesh is created across the gap which I dont want. Is there some tolerance setting that needs adjusting. I dont know how to measure the distance across the affected gap. Thanks!


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how would this non-manifold be rectified? - Split the single surface at its surrounding vertices
I created a single face with the F key based on a closed loop of edges. It result in a non manifold as it is not split at each of the highlighted vertices. I tried the split option but to no avail.
How can I fix this? Any support is welcome. Thanks!

Are you perhaps looking for the Face->poke faces command ? Or maybe you instead wanted to do a Grid fill instead of F ?

I think you mean n-gon instead of non-manifold? Have you tried selecting the n-gon and hitting ctrl+t (triangulate)?

I have accidentally overwritten the model but thanks for the tips. They are noted.


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Print color render 20 x 30 inches
With Blender 3D, can I print a custom size color graphic of the model? I want to print 20 x 30 inches in high definition.

Possible duplicate of Output for Print?

@metaphor_set Yes, it would be.


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Freeze cloth simulation at a given frame
I had created a room in blender 2.8 .Here it is:

 I used Cloth simulation for a bed sheet. It was 50 frames long and I liked the 22nd frame.This is it  (Leave the cylinder):

 Now I want to make a camera moving animation but I cant 'cause I created a cloth simulation which plays along it. I want help to make the sheet a 39th frame to be an own object, how can I ?

Why it is a problem for camera animation? Use Dope sheet.

if you mean you don't want the cloth animation to play anymore you can apply it: go to the sheet modifier panel and click Apply at the frame you want, now it keeps its appearance


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unexpected motion
I downloaded an open source character in order to use it in a Blender Game. This character contains a body and an armature.
The issue is :
when I put physic type as character and run Blender game engine, the character moves alone very fast and very far from my scene. I can't find what is causing that. I would like him to just fall on the floor...
Any idea?
Thanks in advance!

do you have any weapons or other objects attached or touching him? If so set those objects to no collision. I had the same problem when i first made my first game. He should no longer fly away from the scene. Also, make sure he is set to character physics.
Regards, Elijah. (p.s. hope this helps. If not tell me please and provide me with the .blend file and I'll work it out.)

Hi Elijah, Thanks for your answer.
As I know there is no weapon. There is just a walk implemented with keyframes brut even if I delete it, it's still the same.


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Use python to modify bone and mesh pose
I have downloaded this rigged avatar. I also have a list of 3d positions corresponding to different body parts (left/right foot, hands, knees, elbows, head, ...).
What is the best way to set the avatar's body parts to the same locations?
I tried this:
bpy.data.armatures['Armature'].bones['forearm.L'].tail = (1,2,3)
but it does not update anything.
I also tried this in Edit mode:
bpy.data.armatures['Armature'].edit_bones['forearm.L'].tail = (1,2,3)

However, this only changes bone position and not attached mesh. It also mirrors changes to forearm.R.


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When texture painting it uses the cpu to render the effects insted of gpu
The issue is when I'm texture painting when I paint the object blender is using the cpu to show what is happening instead of the gpu. This is becomming an issue as it will take anything froma minute to a few to show the effects.

I have a gpu and a cpu when I paint the object as in in texture paint or uv image editor. when I see the results on the 3d view port render through the cpu instead of the gpu.

Screenshots are necessary here. As far as I can tell, GPU is for rendering Cycles for final render as well as render view, but Blender uses CPU for screen rendering and there are ways to make it multithreaded now but still performance depends on how many pixels you are attempting to paint into per face - smaller brushes work better.

Okay that answered my question.


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How to capture Depth data of smoke
So me and a few people we going to do something for a competition and for my part in this I need you get the smoke and objects depth data. So how should I do this?


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Is There A Difference In What Render Engine I Use For Exporting Edited Videos Or Frames To Videos?
If I have an edited video and I want to export it would there be a difference in what render engine i have set it to?

The choice of the render engine has no impact on the video export. Video rendering has nothing to do with the rendering of a 3D scene.


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How to change a specific colour in an image
I have an image with 3 colours I wan to take them out and change lets say blue to a different color
I have image 3 colours Red, Green, and Blue.
I want to turn Blue into a different colour.
Current setup.

When separating colors, it is separating the primary colors.
This means red's hex will be: FF0000
Blue's hex will be: 0000FF
Green's hex will be: 00FF00
This means if you have a hex of 00FBFF and separate the colors, and only keep green, the 00FBFF will become green, because it's still got the G in it.

So when trying to change the color blue, you can't change the color blue and then combine it back with the other colors because it won't be blue. It won't function properly because you connected a different color with blue.
When separating RGBA, instead of changing Blue into BW, and then using color balance, create another Combine RGBA node and plug the Blue from the Separate RGBA into the B input (To create a proper input for B). Next, create a Hue/Saturation node, and plug the new Combine RGBA into the Hue/Saturation node. Finally, add a Mix RGB node and plug both Combine RGBA nodes into each input. Change the Mix RGB node into an Add RGB node, and plug the Add RGB node into the Viewer and/or Composite.
Now if you change the hue in the Hue/Saturation node, the blue color alone should change.

This is because we separated blue from the rest of the image, and then changed it, and replaced the color blue with something else. It works because it is separate until after the combine RBGA node.
Before

After (I change blue to the color yellow because why not
)
I hope I explained this well, and I hope I helped.

Yellow because 90% get yellow.


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Weird axis arrows appeared
These things started appearing from nowhere when i click an object.

When i try to move the object, the axes move, the object doesnt.

I assume i just touched some setting by mistake

Basically you have set it so transformations only affect the origin of the object, to disable this setting,
go to Options then disable Origins

There is also a very similar looking thing that one can accidentally enable under Gizmos > Object Gizmos

Hey :). Also, Transform origins is under Sidebar > Tool > Transform (if you don't have toolbar enabled). I don't think Object Gizmos are related here, which 'thing' do you have in mind?


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Explosion effect is getting stopped by domain
When i make my explosion, everything is good, but when it builds up, the smoke reaches the walls of the domain, causing it to stop there. I made the explosion from a video and in order to ask, i joined the youtuber's discord server, where they told me to expand the domain and bake it again. But that makes my explosion bigger, it doesnt give it more space. Do you have any advice?

Did you scale and bake sim again or scaled and played only? There is sometimes issue -sim use previously stored cache. Also to get the same amount of details you will need to increase domain resolution accordingly.

@vklidu I scaled up, baked, saw its not good, let all free, rescaled, baked again and so on. I know about the resolution, my pc isnt so good, thats why i sacrifice some quality for some better fps

Experiment with "adaptive domain". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29yfS-icS3M

@FilipFranik Thank you, i use the same video of Iridesium for making the explosion. Now when i was waiting for answer, i tried to experiment with adaptive domain, it seamed like it would do the job. Now after you confirmed that this is the way to go, i will keep on experimenting with it.

@TheMadTomato1209 I'm also just a beginner, but I successfully followed exactly that tutorial using adaptive domain.

@FilipFranik i did as well, i just cant make my explosion be free in my domain, each time i resize my domain, it resizes the explosion as well, it doesnt give it more space,which is what i want

@TheMadTomato1209 upload your blend via https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com

I solved it! I had to increase the "add resolution" property under adaptive domain and decrease "threshold" to .01

Make a cube then scale it. Press Ctrl +  A Apply > Scale.
Then turn it into a fluid, domain type. Finally increase the resolution. In the Shader Editor, use the Principled Volume and connect it to the Volume to be displayed in the rendering.


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Nodes look different
I assume that i touched some setting ,but i dont know what.
I use blender 2.79 now, and yesterday i was working on some material, doing some experiments. When i liked the result, i took a screenshot of the nodes:

Now i finished the modeling of one object and i wanted to make the same material for it, but when i went to the node editor, added a new material and nothing showed. Then i saw that there was "Use nodes" box and it was unchecked. I checked it and got this:

What was even weirder is that by changing the color from the material properties panell, i changed the color of it in solid view. My question is: How did i enable that and how to go back? If any further info is needed i will put it

You changed the render engine from cycles to blender internal.

@Carlo thanks, that fixed it!


text:
How to "glue" a rigged model to an animation?
In Blender (2.90.1): What steps need to be done to combine a rigged character model (from a .blend file) with an animation from a .fbx file?
What I've tried so far is this:

Open the model from the .blend file.
Import the animation from the .fbx file.

The result can be seen at this screenshot:

The (thin black) stick figure represents the animation from the .fbx file. Pushing play at the timeline plays its animation.
Now the question is, what needs to be done to transfer the animation from the stick figure to the cowboy model? I.e. How can you make the cowboy walk?
You help is very much appreciated.
Thank you!

In Pose mode, there's an option to add Bone Constraints (Below the Bone Context).

Select Add Bone Constraint - Copy Rotation, and select the corresponding bone in the other rig as Target.
"Corresponding" is a bit arbitrary, since for example, the cowboy rig doesn't have hip bones. So you will need to play around a bit with the options available, like Invert.


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My keypad numbers shortcuts doesn't work! Help!
Hey so I just started using blender! I'm on a macbook pro, using the latest Sierra update. I know you can use the numbers on the keypad for different rotation and orthogrhapic views. I do have checked the box "Emulate Keypad" in the preferences, which should allow me to use the numbers on my macbook, yet absolutely nothing happens. I've tried pressing fn and everything, but nothing works... Any idea on how to solve this?
Thanks!
Marco

When you use "emulate numpad" then you can use the top horizontal numeric keys as if they were the side-squared numpad. If you macbook pro has a complete keyboard, you should be fine without that setting, afaik

Numbers, not function keys.

Hey thanks, I know but this still doesnt work, those keys does nothing when pressed  when "emulate numpad" is on :(

I FOUND IT! Thanks to Josh's answer! I just clicked on the view button, and it also shows what keyboard shortcuts they are set too. Apparently they were set to be "ctrl 1" etc. instead of "numpad 1"! All I had to do was use the CTRL key with numbers !

"file - load factory settings", Thanks #JoshSanfelici...

You can anyway access to these functions in the view menu, until you will be able to find how to make the numbers work.
Try also the "file - load factory settings" option, then check the  "emulate Keypad" button and don't forget to save your preferences settings.
Hope it helps.

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


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Is there a easy way to make cloth with this type of details(like lace) at the edges?
REFERENCE PICTURE:

Could you enlighten me with some technique or the tool with which I can achieve those details that are indicated in the image like maybe lace at the end of the umbrella.
And once a part is achieved there is some way of repeating the pattern.
A big thank you in advance.
Any way to repeat that process around the model.
https://sketchfab.com/models/0ad160d8515949169e2f09e912879a20

Not sure which dynamic behaviour you are expecting but you could use vertex parent, maybe, have you tried? See https://www.blender.org/manual/editors/3dview/object/properties/relations/parents.html#vertex-parent-from-object-mode

you can try this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q06lPp2PNG4

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


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Rotate HDR picture from background with Blender Render/Internal, not Cycles
I tried to rotate it with cycles and nodes, it works, but I am not yet an experienced in making materials with nodes in cycles, so I would prefer to stay in blender render, and if possible rotate the HDR background image as it is done with nodes in cycles, but with the Blender Render. I cant find a way to do it.
thanks in advance guys.
sorry my bad english.

You can rotate the HDR background image in Blender Render (Internal render engine) by using the Mapping Size property in the Texture panel.  Use the X axis if you have a normal setup and increment or decrement from the default 1.00 setting.  You range of change is limited to +/- .9 before you will receive distortion.


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How to make such cogwheel in 2.82?
I am watching a video for tank track, and now i have reached to the drive wheel. It needs to have pointy surface in order to move the tracks. The guy in the video made a circle, selected all vertices and then used "Checker Deselect" to select vertex, then skip one and so on. Then he scaled it down, making something like a sun. But when i try to scale, it doesnt even move. I tried with move and rotate, i tried to extrude, but still no result. Does anyone know how can i do this?

so your problem is that you can't scale down a selection of vertices? Have you set your pivot point to Median Point for example?

@moonboots Ok that helped! Im still quite new to blender, thats why my mistake is stupid. Thank you

But when i try to scale, it doesnt even move.

You can scale with the scale tool - press and release alt and then s, or select in the tool panel:

Or you can just hit s to use interactive scale operator.
You should also make sure you have the correct selection and that you are using the transform pivot that you want, that you can select here:

Love the size of the red arrow. :)


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Blender interface is looking different
I recently started in unity and for making models, i went for blender. I was watching tutorial, but the guy was having a totally different interface from mine. I wasnt even able to find some stuff. I am using 2.82. The video is from October 2018. Here is the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFN4F9dmpIQ
Here is my photo:

I don't know if i have to arrange my panels in a certain way, or it is from the version.

He has an old version with dark skin. Since 2.8 version interface was redesigned and changed.

Ok. I decided to fiddle around with it and i see that the things are just moved in a different way.


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Two Framerates at Once - Render 24 and 12 FPS at the same time
I'd like the camera to move at 24 FPS but have everything moving at 12 FPS.
Is there a way I can do this in Blender?
I'm rendering using Eevee.
Thank you.

Since the FPS is mostly a playback speed, you just have to set 12 fps and make the camera move twice as fast or set 24 fps and make everything else move half as fast...

Put everything you want to appear at 12fps in NLA Strips and add Stepped Interpolation modifiers:

Hope this helps! Peace and God bless!

This is perfect, thank you! Don't think I ever even noticed that the NLA also had modifiers.

So, if what you essentially want is 2x fast motion, then just change the Time Remapping option's NEW from 100 to 50 which is located in Output Properties > Dimensions.
But, by 12 FPS, if you want the same frame to get repeated two times, then first render out the animation into a image sequence and then see this


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'List' of Properties in NLA Strip Pt.2
In relation to 'List' of Properties in NLA Strip. see that part for details...

How can I get the list (and its custom properties) saved into a "specific" NLA Strip, so the item(s) in the list update to whatever NLA Strip is active (and so it can be accessed 'per-Strip').

Thank you for any help you can give.

sorry it took so long to get back to you with an answer for part 2.

It's cool, it took me this long to figure out Pt1. ☺

As it turns out, for reasons I should have known, you can't do precisely what you want.  Perhaps this will work well enough in its place.
The problem is that in order to add properties to a class, that class has to inherit from one of three classes and NlaStrip, the class you would like to add properties to does not inherit from any of them.
However, every NlaStrip includes an Action and Action does inherit from ID, one of the necessary classes.
This won't be an exact substitute because a single Action can appear in multiple NlaStrips.
As you will recall from my answer to part 1 I attached custom properties to the Scene data type but warned that

Scene might not be the correct type

It's not.  When you attach a property to a type, you get one instance for each thing of that type.  Since you want a unique instance for each NLA Strip, the property should be attached to the NLA strip.  But as I said above we can't do that so we'll attach it to each Action, and access the Actions through the NLA strip.
Revisiting the code from part 1, this means that the setup should now look something like this:
import bpy

from bpy.props import StringProperty, FloatProperty
from bpy.types import PropertyGroup, Action

class myPropertyGroup(PropertyGroup):
    """Group of properties representing an item in the list."""
    name: StringProperty(
           name="Name",
           description="A name for this item",
           default="Untitled")
    custom_prop_1: FloatProperty(
           name="Custom Property 1",
           description="a floating point property",
           default=0.0)
    custom_prop_2: StringProperty(
            name="Custom Property 2",
            description="a string property",
            default="")

bpy.utils.register_class(myPropertyGroup)

Action.myStuff = bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=myPropertyGroup)

Now you only need to find the NLA Strip you're interested in and then you can access the properties using code like
strip.action.myStuff.name = "Inigo Montoya"

As to how to find the strip, there are several ways.  Here's a brute force method that walks through all of the strips and notices the active ones:
object = bpy.context.active_object
animation_data = object.animation_data
nla_tracks = animation_data.nla_tracks

strips = []
for track in nla_tracks:
    for strip in track.strips:
        if strip.active:
            strips.append(strip)

for strip in strips:
    print(f"{strip.name} {strip.action.name} {strip.action.myStuff.name}")

I was wrong before; I actually do want it saved to an action, so this should work perfectly (once I figure it out). I think I tried doing this already, but suppose I missed something.

Worked beautifully. I'd tried using the Action in the past but didn't know how to use the for loops to access that information. Thank you so much for the help and for supporting those with less experience than you.

@Smail You are very welcome.  I really appreciate the thought behind your bounty; but it is too generous.  I don't need the reputation but keeping it would help you.  I know bounties are supposed to be non-refundable, but maybe you can ask an admin if there's a way to cancel it.  Clicking 'accept' was all I would every ask for.

You helped me through the early days of figuring out how BPY works; helped me move towards independence as a programmer. Keep it, it'll do more good for you than for me. I'm not really sure what it's even for anyway. Heh, besides, it's not like I get nothing from it. You'll remember my name should the time come again.  -- Seriously though, it's the least I could do.


text:
Render 2 at Once - Faster than One?
Simple question, I'd like to know what would be faster overall:

have 2 or Blender projects open (same PC) and have both rendering at the same time
just have one open and let that one have all the GPU to itself

If one has a benefit over the other I'd be very curious to know.

You can start multiple jobs at the same time, but they don't render any faster.
In my experience, one will grab most of the resources and the second job will go along at a snails pace until the first finishes.  You also have to worry more about going over the total amount of resources in your machine.  The one advantage is you can start them both and go to bed without having to worry about it.
If you want unattended batch rendering there are services for it, or blender can be set to start a render through the command line; you could create a batch file for multiple jobs.

Yes, computer power is limited. Anything that requires more resources than those available, will result in a slowdown.  Also, rendering on GPU doesn't mean that the CPU is idle. There are plenty of calculations that use the CPU regardless.

It will strongly depend on your scene and rendering setting.

As some common scenario, GPU's VRAM for example. Let's say we have a scene, there are a lot of particle system, numerous rigging system, some simulation baked data, and animation as well. As a common user, you cannot know how much memory that GPU need nor Blender itself until it ask for them.
Having not enough memory to keep thing inside GPU will strongly slow down for rendering process, due to some bandwidth issue. So if the same time you open two instance of Blender, they then need to share those resource together, which might cause a more frequently memory swap. Dramatically slow down rendering process, then the answer will be → "No, slower than 1 instance"
But in other way, said you got some calculation script inside rendering time, and maybe access outer API for some further calculation, and that process can be done by only single process/thread. eg. a simple but calculation intensive Python script without multi-process ability. Than some processor will be spare in rendering time, in this situation, multiple Blender instance can utilize those spare/free resource.

→ "Yes, faster than 1 instance"

General speaking
Not until you try it, you won't know which one will be faster.


text:
Rig Fur Tufts to a Body
I have these tufts of fur that are on arbitrary points on the body of my character. There isn't an easy single bone I can just attach it to.
I know about parenting to Tries, but that's not quite perfect. This mesh is being exported to Unreal. I'd prefer to have the fur tufts joined to the base mesh of the character ideally.
Any ideas?


text:
Respect the current "quad" when using transform.translate
I have a modal operator that calls bpy.ops.transform.translate('INVOKE_DEFAULT') as part of its code. Having written code that adjusts the position of the mouse cursor (before transform.translate is called) to be in one of the 4 quads, I was dismayed to find that the mouse position didn't matter.
Rather than moving in respect to the quad where the mouse is (the behaviour observed when using the transform tools normally), it moves it based on which quad the transform.translate tool was last triggered in.
By 'moving in respect to', I mean that if you're in the quad view that looks down on the Z axis, I expect the translate tool to move the object on the Y and Z axis. Because it ignores which quad the mouse is actually in, it makes it impossible for me to have code that dynamically switches between the 4 quads.
How can I choose which axis transform.translate uses when the 3D Viewport is in 'quad view' mode?


text:
Rounded caps on a Bezier Curve pipe
This may be a simple question.
Essentially I am procedurally generating random 3D figures using a bezier curve and bezier circle bevel object, however, one of the only things I can't figure out how to do is how to round the end caps of the object.
I have tried using a taper object like suggested here but have had only limited success.
This is about as close as I've gotten:

I should note that all of this is done through Python and I'm not modeling any of this by hand. So any suggestions for how I can make the rounded caps programmatically would be greatly appreciated.

It seems that in your that you didn't increase the resolution of the curve/surface object enough: https://i.sstatic.net/4jxx0.png. Did you?

an alternative : metaballs ?

Ah, of course it would something as simple as that. This is perfect thank you. Just to be clear for future searchers. Carlo's answer solved it.

There is a built in solution now, for anyone else that comes across this issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuCVcg9UfOA&lc=UgwnFuu_l8dzawDBXzh4AaABAg

Increase curve resolution
As stated in the Blender Artist thread you linked, you'll need to guarantee enough resolution to your curve in order to see the effect of the taper object in the starting and ending tip. In your image you are using something like 12, while the following image has a value of 512.

If you need to keep the polycount low, you could also vary the resolution of the curve only locally. A possible workaround could be yo interpose a "strategic" handle very near the tip without altering the overall curve aspect. See the difference between the had and the tail in the image below despite the curve object resolution is left untouched. The following curve has 3, not two handlers:

This should work fairly well too depending on what the user wants. Only problem I see with this solution is that unless the user creates a taper curve specific for every generated curve object, since the taper curve is applied along the whole length of the curve object the rounded caps will stretch or shrink depending on how long the curve is. In extreme cases it may start to look as if there's pointy ends or hard cut tips. If this is not a problem or a taper curve can be created for every curve length then this is a simpler method.

They are surely some of the limitations of this kind of approach that one user must face. I agree with your comment @DuarteFarrajotaRamos.

I don't think Blender has any built in tool or mechanism to produce those automatically.
Either use the typical Array + Curve modifier setup instead, with a start and end cap objects, or if you don't need the objects to actually be merged or a watertight mesh use some spheres as independent hook objects at the end vertex of your curves.
See how here How do I add a non-deformed end cap to a tube?
These are the basic solutions from a user point of view though, I am no coder but I think these can also be achieved programmatically through the python API


text:
Getting Cycles\EEVEE render pipeline events using Python
How to to get info about the different render pipeline stages while image is being rendered, such as time?
For example we are using OpenTelemetry and we want to collect render
stages info\status using Python.

loading scene graph
loading textures
render
saving file

Etc.

the console output? are you running on windows or unix or linux?

The Tasks runs on linux,
we wonder if there is some call back or events we can pull info from, using python.

were u able to find a solution?

Nope,one of blender developers offered us to develop this feature.

You can directly render your animation (example myblend.blend) from the terminal using the following command:
blender --background myblend.blend --render-anim

which will give you output progress in real time as it renders as shown in this example:

You can also store the output directly into a text file by appending the syntax > output.txt (overwrite file) or >> output.txt (append to file) to the command:
blender --background myblend.blend --render-anim >> myoutput.txt

You can also start an interactive Blender session in the terminal with a python console (do import bpy after starting) to do the other functions via python like (1) loading scene graph, (2) loading textures, (3) other types of rendering, and (4) saving a file.
$ blender --background myblend.blend --python-console

Here you can run any python command like import bpy and bpy.ops.render.render() and see the output progress in real time:
[akiko@akiko-system]:~/Desktop $ blender --background temp.blend --python-console
Blender 3.2.1 (hash a2d59b2dac9e built 2022-07-05 23:53:28)
Read prefs: /home/akiko/.config/blender/3.2/config/userpref.blend
Read blend: /home/akiko/Desktop/temp.blend
Python 3.10.2 (main, Apr 26 2022, 10:33:12) [GCC 9.3.1 20200408 (Red Hat 9.3.1-2)] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
(InteractiveConsole)
>>> import bpy
>>> bpy.ops.render.render()
Fra:1 Mem:13.17M (Peak 13.19M) | Time:00:00.13 | Mem:0.00M, Peak:0.00M | Scene, ViewLayer | Synchronizing object | Cube
Fra:1 Mem:13.17M (Peak 13.19M) | Time:00:00.13 | Mem:0.00M, Peak:0.00M | Scene, ViewLayer | Synchronizing object | Cube.001
Fra:1 Mem:13.17M (Peak 13.19M) | Time:00:00.13 | Mem:0.00M, Peak:0.00M | Scene, ViewLayer | Synchronizing object | Cube.003
Fra:1 Mem:13.17M (Peak 13.19M) | Time:00:00.13 | Mem:0.00M, Peak:0.00M | Scene, ViewLayer | Synchronizing object | Cube.005

Here is a list of more commands: https://linuxcommandlibrary.com/man/blender


text:
how to display a wireframe in one view (front) and textured in another view (top) of the same object
I split my screen into different views but I cannot get different viewport display in each view for the same object.
For example - front view -> wireframe
- top view -> textured
Any suggestions are appreciated! Thanks!

Like this? https://i.imgur.com/YsQmqxO.png

Hi. From your picture, it looks like I can use the viewport shading wireframe in one view and solid in the other one. I was focusing too much on the viewport display options in the object properties window.

I don't know of a way to make a single object display setting local to a single viewport...


text:
Possible to add a fillet on the inside of this mesh?
I have the following drainage tray for printing but I would like to add a fillet on the highlighted edges so as to minimize leakages.
I have tried beveling on this selection of edges via ctrl b but unfortunately does not produce desired results.

Any ideas?

All the triangles will cause problems

How much does preserving the exact shape matter? If you're open to (slight) modifications, you could select the base (bottom) face(s), extrude them very slightly on the Z axis, then scale inwards slightly as well. It will help you create the shape of a "beveled lip" (despite the triangulated sides), but it will increase the height of the object slightly (unless you do something else to mitigate this).

hmmm.. ok I will try that and get back to you.  In the mean time  I deleted the vertical tria's and hid the bottom surface and then I selected the edges (ie, the highlighted edges in picture). At this point, is there a way to merge them to leave one edge? Then I could extrude on z axis?

Hmmm, not sure. Will selecting ithe whole "ring" and pressing M (merge) and selecting "By Distance" help? Have an undo step ready, though because the density of your verts may cause some (wanted ones) to get deleted unintentionally (depending on the size of your mesh - it's hard to tell from the image).

The merge by distance helped me create a bevel feature but unfortunately I ran into another problem when attempting to slice it for printing. Thanks anyhow for the new ideas.


text:
rotating the hand with its bones to another position makes it distorted
I have connected the hand with the bones as shown but now I need to move the complete model to another location before I articulate the bones into a final position. However, the hand becomes distorted. Is there a setting I have missed?

It looks like you are scaling the model. If you do that or any translation on the mesh alone with an unaffected armature connected, you’re going to have problems. Besides, the mesh is patented to the armature, so you should move the armature.

@TheLabCat: Thanks. I had the armature hidden. Didnt realise all connected entities needed to be shown prior to rotation


text:
Rendering photo realistic views of 3D printable objects
I would like to make realistic pictures of my 3D printable objects blended into certain backgrounds.
For example, 3D printable objects created in Blender and merged into a photo taken of my shelf.
What blender processes must I learn? Some suggestions would be appreciated so I can google them.
Thanks!

Hi :). For this you'll need a basic shadowcatcher setup + FSpy to match the camera angle :). Lots of tutorials on YT to do exactly that.

Thanks for this tip!


text:
move vertices of nurbs relatively to neighboring vertices
Is it not possible to move vertices relative to each other in when editing the nurbs curve? When I select a vertex, the neighboring ones tend to follow it, i would like to avoid this. See attached gif.

This never happens with me, unless I turned proportional editing on.

From the circle that appears when you click and drag, I suspect that proportional editing is turned on as @thelabcat says.

I see that there is proportional editng in the move tool and at the top of the window (proportional edit mode). This latter option unchecked now works for me. The former option in the move tool seems to have no influence...thanks


text:
Mesh Tool - Edge Offset
Is there a way to improve the resolution of curve B?
I have performed an edge offset via add-on Mesh tools of curve A to get Curve B but there are too few vertices.
I would like these highlighted regions to be more rounded. Thanks!

You can select the part you want to be more rounded, subdivide it so you have more geometry to work with.
Then scale it by 0 on the X axis so you have a straight line, select the vertex in the center of this line and move it back along the X axis with proportional editing activated to get a smooth curve.


text:
documentation for Math Function -> XYZ Math Surface
I struggled to find any documentation on the definition of math functions for the module XYZ math Surface.
For example how is the "Tan inverse" written?
Thanks!

Here you can find the script https://archive.blender.org/wiki/index.php/Extensions:2.5/Py/Scripts/Add_Mesh/Add_3d_Function_Surface/
https://svn.blender.org/svnroot/bf-extensions/trunk/py/scripts/addons/add_mesh_extra_objects/

@FFeller: thanks! Looks like the math definitions are in the safe_list in linked script.,


text:
how to make a clean flat cut in sculpt mode and close the resulting edge loop?
Currently I am sculpting for a 3d print but I need to make a clean cut at the bottom as shown so that the first layer adheres to the print bed. What steps do I take to make it flat at the bottom and close the resulting edge loop?
THanks

the Line Project tool allows you to cut off along a straight line, press Ctrl to make it perpendicular to the view, move the cursor a bit and press F to invert the part that will be cut off:

@moonboots...wow thats very useful! Under my nose. many thanks!


text:
If I Put In OpenEXR Frames For HDR Would I Be Able To Use Blender To Export The Video As HDR
If I were to make 120 HDR Frames would I be able to use blender to export it as a HDR video?

Your EXRs are scene referred, and while Blender cannot encode to HDR10 or Dolby Vision, those EXRs are perfectly acceptable to encode to HDR via Resolve or like software.


text:
How to make a Dr Strange portal
How would I be able to make the the sling ring portal. The best I have been able to  to looks quite bad and I don't know what else to do.

The file

Increasing the Motion Blur from 0.5 to 1.0 made a big difference. Having watched Infinity war just a few days ago, I would say the rotation is too slow and it is to symmetrical. I also recall small amounts of blue flecks.

How Would I be able to add the adjustments you have mentioned.

There are three core ideas to recreate the portal VFX from Dr. Strange:

Motion blur
Rotating the particle emitter
Asymmetry in the particle emission

The look of flying sparks can be achieved by using motion blur in combination with an emissive material for the particles. The particle emitter should be a circular mesh. It's also important how the particles are emitted, since in the movie they fly away from the circle in a tangential direction while seemingly unaffected by gravity. This can be achieved by spinning the emitter, setting the normal velocity to zero, setting the tangential velocity of the particles to a suitable value and deactivating gravity. A more subtle effect in the movie is that even when the portal is fully open the emission intensity and particle distribution wobbles slightly. This can be achieved by removing segments from the circular particle emitter. The amount of wobble depends on the speed of the emitter's rotation, lower speed results in more wobble.

You can download the project by clicking on the link below:

A quick breakdown of how a scene with the portal was filmed for the movie and the result with the added VFX can be seen in this video.

For the different particles I can just go into the shader for the instanced object and use particle info and colour ramp to get variation in the particles right?

@Yohello1 Correct. For instance you could use the particle age to change to a different color or reduce the strength of the emission. The shader in my example is very basic.

@rjp Then I would have to render in cycles I tried some thing like that some time ago but it would inly show different colour in cycles.


text:
Is there a way to pack all simulation results in to one file?
So I have a simulation that I will do on one computer then move to another to do the rendering.The reason is because computer A is faster at simulation but bad at rendering computer B is horrible at simulation but is great at rendering. So would there be a way to put all of the simulation files together(Packing doesn't work).


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How to get objects to show up as one of 3 colors or more
So if I were to have a particle system and I had it emitting a object that has emission shader on it how would I get the emitted particles to be one of 3 colors with out having to create 3 particle systems and 3 cubes
Giant cow films

Input -> Particle Info -> Random socket.
You can move colorramp slider to adjust presence of the color


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Compositing and motion tracking the object is bright but see through
The object will end up transparent but I don't know how to explain it.

This is a compositing issue I have tried using a mix node and aplha over node with different FAC values and get a product worse or the same.

The file google drive

In a properly encoded RGBA buffer, the RGB represents the quantity of emission of a given pixel "window", and the A represents the degree of occlusion of the geometry.
The proper approach here is to simply take your rendered image and apply an Alpha Over your background, at a "full" 1.0 factor.


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How to copy paste a node setup from one file to another
I have one file with a node setup that I want to use on another file how do I do this with put doing it node by node.

One option to help keep things organised is to create a Node Group from your setup.

Select all the nodes you want in your group
Ctrl G form a Node Group from them

Give the group a name by typing it into the field on its node. Click the shield  on the right. This will give the group a fake user, so it won't be garbage-collected and deleted when saving the source .blend, in the event that it's not being used by anything else in the file.

Now, in any other .blend, you can hit File > Append.. look up the source .blend file.. and the group will be found in the 'Node Tree' folder. Clicking it makes a local copy available under the  Shift A > Group listing in the Node Editor.
You can   Ctrl AltG un-group the node, locally.
(You can create libraries of any of the entities in a .blend file this way, to be linked or appended to other files)

if the append option is greyed out make sure you are not in edit mode

Go into the nodes and select which ever nodes you want and then choose copy under the node dropdown. Then go to your new material and choose paste from the node dropdown.

These are 2 different files I had tried that.


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Access and using geometry nodes as functions in Python
How can I use the Geometry nodes graph in python or at least get access to one of its node functionality?
For example I want to use the Attribute Sample Texture Node along side editing vertex group values.

Hello, could you specify if you would want the node's behavior in a stand alone environment or if you would want to create a geo nodes modifier, and add a node setup which contains an attribute sample texture node ? I don't think you can do the former, while the latter is definitely possible

thanks for the comment,
instead of writing my own function, I wish i could access the node functionality from python and even better along side with bmesh.


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low level version for bpy.ops.object.visual_transform_apply()
I'm try to create lower level version for
Object > Rigid Body > Apply Transformation
bpy.ops.object.visual_transform_apply()
I`m not see any option to retrieve the objects transformation data from the rigged body simulation.
Any tips about that?


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How to circumscribe a cilinder around an irregular shape using edges of irregular shape?

How can I create a cylinder using these edges shown in the picture?
Is there an easy way or any tutorial?
Cylinder not with only 7 faces, round shape.

I would recommend adding a new cylinder with more sides in this case.
Press Shift+A to add a new object, and select Mesh > Cylinder.
Before you click or do anything else, you should see a small collapsed box in the bottom left corner labelled Add Cylinder. Expand it, and change the number of vertices (first option).
If you're looking for a good beginner tutorial series, I would recommend you follow the Donut Tutorial Series by BlenderGuru.
Edit:
Here's a lengthier method if you want to build off the starting mesh.
If you want to keep the original shape, first duplicate it then work off of the new object.
With the object selected, Tab into edit mode. Press 2 to enter edge select mode, and while holding Shift+Alt, click on one of the horizontal edges on the top, and bottom. This should have selected the top/bottom edge loops.

Now, right-click (or left, if you're using right-click select), and select Subdivide at the top of the menu that pops up. This will add additional vertical cuts in the middle of all the faces.
Now, hold Ctrl+Alt and select one of the original vertical edges. This should select all the vertical edges. Next, go to the Select drop-down menu in the top left corner, and select Checker Deselect. Now only the newly added edges should be selected.
Now, you can press S to scale, then Shift+Z to scale in XY axes only. Scale it up a bit, and there you go, the mesh is closer to a cylinder. If you want a clearer view of the mesh while scaling, press 7 on the Numpad to enter the top orthographic view.
If you wish to add even more sides, you can repeat this process.
If you're looking for a smoothly shaded cylinder, follow the process below.
In edit mode, select the top and bottom edge loops using the same shortcut as before, then right-click and select Mark Seam. Then, Tab back out into object mode, right-click and select Shade Smooth.
The last thing you will need to do is to go to the Object Properties tab (the icon is a green triangle with squares on each corner), and go to Normals > Auto-smooth. Enable auto-smooth.
This is the result using one iteration of subdividing the surface.

thank you #stphnl329 for your quick reply.
You are right, in this example the first option is adding a new cilinder using the center of this example, but in other examples you only have some edges.
You must think that probably both object centers are different.
I need a cilinder exactly fitted to those edges (at least 3) not "approximately" fitted.

Hmm okay, I'll go through a bit lengthier process in detail if you want to build off the original source mesh.

I'm sorry and thank you for your reply. I think my example wasn't good, I was talking about the vertical edges to look for that reference, but the original shape is similar to a star and top and bottom surfaces are not like this example.
So I'm sorry again, but think in a big shape so you cannot use the top or bottom area, and the only references are those edges I pointed in the picture.
I'm thinking in Add > Circle and then using Snap tool, but I don't know how to snap only 3 vertices of the circle to the edges without loosing the perfect circle-shape.

I'm not sure of any method that you can use to automatically center and resize the circle to fit all the points. I would probably eyeball it or modify the other object, but it all really depends on what your end goal is.

thank you all. I finally adjust the adges of the original shape to the external cilynder using the snap. Snap-Edges center and left-clic + Ctrl.


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Movie editing in 2.8- how to recombine previously cut strips back into one strip
After cutting a strip, how do I recombine the cut strips?
I can move them together using move G  and Snap Shift + S , but that simply butts them together (at the handles), it doesn't make them back into a single unique strip for purposes of using modifiers- the software still considers them separate strips and evidently strip modifiers (like color balance) can't be applied across multiple strips.
I'm talking about times when it would be impractical to simply use the history editor (undo, Ctrl + Z ).
I guess my question is applicable to anytime I might want to treat adjoining strips as one unique strip for the purposes of applying strip modifiers, is that correct?

Does this answer your question? Is there a way to join two strips in VSE?

Oh.... after working with that more I see that it does seem to work... I had read that through before and somehow didn't understand or read it correctly, but now that you mention it I re-studied it and yes it does seem to work the way I want. So I guess I need to play with it a little more to understand the difference between cut and hold-cut, which would be a different question. Thanks!

To answer the second part of my question, I found out about the "Copy to Selected Strips" button.


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Middle mouse button does not move the user perspective
I'm new to Blender and 2.81 is way too different.
I was using the press & hold middle button normally, tried to create a new plane with PBR materials (previously prepared with Youtube tutorials).
Then I typed x, y & z many times to cycle lock/unlock view. No do.
Tried unchecking the transform options "origins" & "locations", nothing.
Tried loading the factory settings, still can't move around with the middle mouse button. Auto perspective unchecked as well.
Just noticed the screen zooms in to the object when pressing Shift + C
Same problem 3 years ago.

Is emulate 3 button mouse unchecked in the user preferences?

It is unchecked, did not work. Thanks for your support.

I just tried to check that little magic box and now it works with Alt + LMB

I know it is not the exact solution BUT it works and now I can finish my logo which is what I wanted.
Thanks to Nate_Sycro27 for the idea, turning Emulate 3 button mouse enables you to move the user perspective pressing Alt + LMB
Path to enable this option on Blender 2.81.16:
Edit>Preferences>Input>Mouse>Emulate 3 Button Mouse
Right here!

If the middle button is not working, that is probably the mouse, not Blender.

The mouse works perfectly. The middle button as well. It was working fine and suddenly it stoped working. I read a lot of people with the same issue over the years. I even included an example with the same situation 3 years ago, it's not mouse.

Check your keymap preferences. Click the edit drop down from the top of the window, click preferences at the very bottom, and navigate to where I am in the attached picture. Is rotate mapped to your middle mouse button?

Thanks for your support, just checked my settings and they are same as yours.

You are welcome. Your mouse is in the 3D viewport when you are trying to rotate of course, correct? Have you tried restarting the program?

If by restarting the software you mean uninstall and installing again... I'm leaving it as my last option... will try it next week. Thanks again man!


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How to make a tree using as few faces as possible?
I have to make a tree and use it in a game, but when I use sapling tree add-on I get too many faces and I need them to be as few as possibe. Can you tell me what is the best way to make this kind of tree? I want it to look more realistic, I don't wat to make low polly tree. Also I tried using hair technique, but it didn't work for me:

are you supposed to make close-up to the trees? Otherwise you could simply cross several planes with pictures of a tree taken from different angles, with alpha layers to make each plane transparent?

yeah he means that

well he should give some precisions because it would change a lot of things, if he needs some close-ups on the branches he can do it with Image Textures and Hair particles, if the tree is several meters away, no need for Image Textures, etc... A tuto made by CG Geek on this topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQUO9yL2vYQ&feature=youtu.be&t=2382


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Blender boxing object tool
what would be the fastest way (for you) to outline or boxing a complex model into a simple geometry ot of quads?

Is there a script out there that can do a simple hitbox outline ?


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simple Retopology
what would be the fastest way (for you) to create a simple geometry ot of quads for this complex structure?

The simple geometry of quads is for the hitbox in the engine where i want to use the structure. The engine want all shapes to be square. So it only needs to have the open door, i dont realy need the windows open.

What engine are you using, what kind of game will it be? What will the object be colliding against? Is the player supposed to go inside? I need more background information to help. Always good to upload blend file as well: https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/

I would probably first create the outer wall collision surfaces then go in and add the inner walls afterwards something like this :
Make a copy of the building model and move it to a different layer. This copy will become the Collision model.
1: Select all the inner walls and the box room on the roof. Assign these their own vertex group.
2:Hide this geometry.
The building appears to have two ground levels......
3:In Edge select mode select the outer lower edges of "ground level 1" and assign these a vertex group.
4: Select the lower outer edges of "ground level 2" and assign these a different vertex group.
We will be extruding these ground level vertex groups up along the Z axis to be level with the top of the walls so need to keep a reference hight.......
5: Select one of the walls top most faces and assign it its own vertex group.

With the inner walls hidden and the 3 vertex groups selected, invert the selection then delete what is selected.
6: Select vertex group "ground level 1" and with snapping enabled extrude up to the hight of the Upper wall face.
7: Repeat for "ground level 2" vertex group.
We can now delete the vertices of the wall upper face vertex group.

8: For the outer walls inner surfaces we can use a solidify modifier.

Unhide the Inner walls and box room and manually create collision surfaces for them.


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Smoke renders, but not fire in 2.79 Cycles. However, both are fine in rendered viewport
I have a scene with a rocket launching, so obviously fire is pretty important. However, after setting up the shaders and simulation, I can't get the fire to render. Strangely, the smoke is still rendered and the fire still emits light on the rocket, but doesn't appear below the rocket or shade the resulting smoke. Even stranger, the rendered viewport (ie 3D View set to Rendered) renders the scene perfectly. I'm at a complete loss. Here's a photo of the two views and my domain material:
And a closer image of the domain material after I redid it (still didn't work):
How can I get the fire to render? Thanks!

Could you add the .blend with https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/?

cegaton was right, it's a known issue with the viewport -- disabling Transparent under the Film tab and using a big plane behind my subject with a holdout shader let me render the flame correctly, then I used a lighten blend mode to composite it in Affinity Photo. Thanks, everyone!


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When importing an SVG file, there is no color
I have a question about importing SVG files to blender. I am a beginner and I've been watching this tutorial, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zthvZvw-yJE. And when he imports his SVG file into blender it is in color. When I try to import my SVG file it shows up black. Can you help me solve this problem.
I use Boxy SVG editor and Inkscape. I've tried both and it still is black in blender.
Thanks

what Blender version are you using? I think colors didn't work before 2.8 or 2.9

blender version 2.93.1

https://www.blendernation.com/2019/07/16/daily-blender-tip-318-import-svg-files-with-colors/ try this method...it helped me

Change the colour mode from CMYK to RGB when exporting from Illustrator. This can be done under File > Document Color Mode> RGB Color.

The OP is asking for Inkscape and Boxy SVG editor, not Illustrator


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Can I use an HDRI for reflections only, and not have its light affect the scene?
I have my scene perfectly lit without the use of a HDRI, however I would now like to add one just so I can have some world reflections in my glossy objects. I can't seem to get the HDRI reflecting in my objects without it also adding light to the scene, though. Is there any way to use an HDRI solely for reflections, and not have its light also affect the scene? I am using Cycles.
Thanks

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/49337/how-to-use-multiple-hdris

Or you can use the Is Glossy Ray input from the Light Path node.
With this setup, your World color stays the same, but reflection rays show your HDRI.
Color 1 is your world background, Color 2 is your HDRI.

Using Using Light Path input

Using solid grey World color

Hi, I still can't get your set-up to work. I've added a screenshot as an example, but the reflections and overall light still seem to be tied together. In my example, I would like to have reflections in the sphere but not have the scene light up too. If I set the background strength to zero, obviously there are zero reflections and everything is dark but for my scene lights. If I increase the strength, reflections appear as I want, but the rest of the scene lights up too. Am I missing something? Sorry if I'm just being dumb. I'm new to Blender. Thanks.
https://imgur.com/a/WqF6mWc

Hello, you're not dumb, it's complicated :). All materials reflect light to some degree, so you cannot entirely eliminate lighting changes to your scene. The reflections of your HDRI bounce around and can affect other objects.

To sum up: What you're looking for isn't possible (because physics), but you can get closer with these solutions :). As in real world photography, Photoshop might be required for perfect result.

Sure, you need to go into the Properties panel > World > Ray Visibility, and deactivate Diffuse.

Hey :). Just tried this, and all diffuse rays render as black. Am I doing something wrong?

hello, I'm not sure what you mean, if you deactivate Diffuse, the HDRI won't enlighten the scene anymore, so you need to create some lights, your solution is good though

Oh, that makes sense, thanks :).


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What's the point in modelling the base mesh?
On a thread, I saw someone mentioning that sculpting leads to triangle faces which I myself saw happened to me lately but I find myself sculpting for the final touches even after modelling it 60 percent. Is there a point in modelling at all if I can just sculpt the entire thing from start to get the same result (I really don't wanna model the entire ting from start to final product) ?

This is my personal view, based on my own experience, so some others may see things differently: Sculpting from scratch is possible, but works best with purely organic forms which don't have a lot of lengthy or technical structural features. If they do have these, then it can be expedient, I believe, to begin with a modeling process instead of a sculpting process. You can use both processes, of course, and alternate between them. It can sometimes be efficient to begin with a modeling process and move over to a sculpting one, once the overall structure is in place, and you now want to create finer details. You can also get a lot of good use out of booleans when sculpting because the resulting topology issues aren't yet a concern. Also, bear in mind that sculpting only leads to triangle faces when Dyntopo is enabled. If disabled, sculpting brushes only push vertices around, but don't actually change the topology, which is one possible approach that might be more compatible with a workflow that switches back and forth between modeling and sculpting. So don't discount the use of both methods. I would never want to suggest that one of these methods is always preferable to the other.

I see. I was modelling a female character and stuff like joints looked better when I sculpted them in instead of making cuts with knife but the tutorials kept using the knife cuts instead of just sculpting them in so I thought there was a un-written rule followed there

Yeah, I think maybe what was going on there, if I had to guess, is that the author of the tutorial was focusing on creating a low-poly base mesh, which would later either control or be converted to a higher resolution mesh. In this case, it might make sense to use the cuts, since the poly count remains currently at a minimum.

One thing I didn't make clear about the possible advantages of beginning with  a modeling process over a sculpting one, even on an organic character, is the "sense of proportion" problem. This is more an artistic consideration than a technical one, but sometimes it's easier to start with modeling because it gives your whole subject a sense of proportion that you can then reference as you continue to develop it. This is harder to gauge when you start sculpting right off the bat. Or, at least, it takes more time to finalize the base shape without the aid of modeling tools.


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Fricked up my under-arm joint topogroaphy
It has a really wierd shape and I'n not sure how I messed it up this bad. I could have solved it if i didn't apply the subdiv modifier for sculpting. Basically looking for any idea or possible solution. Feel free to answer whatever you feel like could save the joint so I can look forward on having it animated

I was able to do it by selecting the edge loop before the joint, hiding it and deleting the whole arm and rebuilding it from those vertices by extending it.


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Python code for EDIT Mode, Mesh -> Separate -> By Loose Parts
Python code doesn't appear, Edit mode, Mesh--> Separate --> By loose parts
It physically separate objects but no Python code appeared in INFO.

Can confirm same behaviour in 2.91 alpha.  The operator call is bpy.ops.mesh.separate(type='LOOSE')  Consider filing a bug report.

just need to enable python tooltips: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/69762/how-can-i-find-out-the-variable-name-in-python


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weird bump on object and dont know how to remove
was following the BlenderGuru tutorial on making a coffee cup. was making the handle when i finished i noticed there was a small bump, pimple like, on my mug. the point its on seems to be in place. im not sure how to get rid or smooth it out.

nevermind! just fixed it. apparently i created another vertices inside the mug that was making it spike out. just deleted it!


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Blender 2.8x do not work
I've searched for an answer to my problem and didn't find any. So, I'm gonna ask.
My hardware requirement configuration is at it's minimum; at some aspects, over. So why I can't make Blender 2.8x work?
Here are the config:
enter link description here
1
2
3
4
5
6

Hello :). I'm afraid the GPU is too old and not fully supported. You can try Blender 2.79 instead.

The minimum requirement for running Blender with an AMD GPU is GCN first generation or later.

Sad... Anyways, thank you, guys!


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Blender is automatically selecting multiple vertices while not holding down shift, help?
So I am just working on a chair in blender and opened it up and I immediately ran into this problem.
I would select a corner of a cube and move it into a position, done with it, and then go to select the next corner, which should automatically deselect the previous corner and only select the current corner, except Blender just isn't cooperating today and selecting both corners as if I was holding down shift to select them both. I have obviously pressed a button or something which makes it do this but I couldn't find anything when I searched it up so I need your guy's help. Thanks guys.
Images:

Nothing selected here

Box select first corner

Box select second corner, not holding down shift

At the top of the window you should see the select tool 'Mode' this indicates whether it should Replace, Extend, Subtract, Invert or Intersect the selection - presumably you have somehow changed the mode to Extend (add to the existing selection).

Note that as well as the selection tool in the tool shelf you can alternatively press B for a box select. This does not use the same selection mode and instead defaults to 'Extend' the selection - unless you hold Shift to indicate Subtract.

Thank you so much, my random key-pressing strikes once again.


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Objects don't appear in viewport but are not hidden in the outliner
Hello I'm not sure why this issue is happening but when I open the model in 3.0 all the objects show up but it has no textures, when i open it in 3.4.1 the textures show up but not all of the mesh appears. I'm not sure why this issue is happening. The first image was in 3.4.1 and the second is in 3.0. The last image of the outliner is to show that none of the meshes are hidden. I had two other friends test it out and it works perfectlly fine for them. I'm not sure if it's a setting I have or not. Here is the file for anyone to test. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LcYLkITcRQwJQDBJz_4bKlAlC0X8ta95/view?usp=share_link
This issue has happened with many other models I've used. I don't understand how to fix it. Any help would be appreciated

See if any of this helps you:  https://blender.stackexchange.com/q/51132/148948

The reason the textures are not working in the older version of Blender are those Mix nodes in the materials:

These are relatively new, they are not simple Mix RGB nodes like they were before, they are now more versatile and can be switched to either Float, Vector or Color, which the old Mix RGB nodes couldn't. Therefore they appear as "Undefined" when you look at them in the older Shader Editor:

So if you wanted to open it with the older version you had to replace those Mix nodes with the old Mix RGB nodes. You can do this in the older version of Blender, but there is also a trick to get the deprecated nodes in the new version: If you have the Node Wrangler addon enabled and use Shift+Ctrl+RMB and drag from one node with color output to another to mix them automatically, then Node Wrangler will bring up the old Mix RGB node which works in the new and old Blender version. (Although I think it's funny that Blender seems to know that the "Undefined" nodes should have color in/out and the color and mix factors are stored in there, but still it doesn't produce a result.)
That's for the material. Now to the other problem which seems to be unrelated and should rather be asked with another question thread - although I guess it's a bug in your Blender. Because when I open your file in my Blender 3.4.1, everything looks fine:


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Python - How to target the linked collection while having a library override on the scene which the collection name is identical?
The issue was happened when I try defining which collection is linked and which one is library override. When trying to target the linked collection, it is always pointing into the library override one, as you can see on the image below there are two collections named "chr_Small".
The problem is when I try to do
bpy.data.collections['chr_Small'].override_hierarchy_create(scene, view_layer, do_fully_editable=True)

I can not do it more than one, however if I do for loop to get the actual collection as below code, I can do another override_hierarchy_create()
bpy.data.collections[-1].override_hierarchy_create(scene, view_layer, do_fully_editable=True)

However I need to do for quite many times on the same collection within the same library file, and also adding another library file.
Is there any proper/easy way to target the actual linked collection instead of relying on the index number of collection list in the scene ?

I realize there is .name_full attribute that I found on Data API which can be used to filter the linked one, my code is having if statement for comparing the full name. I tried to check using .override_library and .original , but it doesn't help
for col in bpy.data.collections:

    blend_name = "file.blend"
    col_full_name = col.name + " " + blend_name

    if col.name_full == col_full_name:

        new_override_col = col.override_hierarchy_create(scene, view_layer, do_fully_editable=True)

For now I can use this as a solution, but feel free to post an anser if there is any better way. Thanks!

col.library should work


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Left MB Click is setting the origin of the object
I appear to have changed a setting and I can't figure out what the hell I have done...
On clicking LMB the cursor moves BUT it also sets the origin of the object...
Any ideas? I am half way through a project and I cannot seem to reset the behaviour.

Using latest version

Have you tried resetting the preferences?

Yes I have succeeded in resetting preferences but now as a result of not knowing I have to go through and rest ALL preferences - could do with knowing for the future.


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vertices stuck on axis
I made a model (of a fish) using x-axis mirroring. Some vertices sit on the x=0 plane. I extended a selection of vertices on the mirror plane to make the back fin of the fish (see image). Now I want to give the fin a little more thickness by pulling the fin vertices out of the mirror plane. However, Blender doesn't let me move these vertices (e.g. the one selected in the image) along the x-axis. I disables clipping in the mirror modifier, even deleted the mirror modifier alltogether but still, when I hit 'G' for translate, and then 'X' to limit translation to the x-axis, the vertex doesn't move. (movement along other axes works, and other vertices of the model that are not on the mirror plane move just fine).
What else besides deactivating the mirror modifier do I have to do to release the locked x-axis translation?

Maybe you have X-Mirror option checked. See http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/30356/excluding-part-of-the-mesh-from-mirror-modifier

thanks for the suggestion! I tried to un-check mirroring and even deleted the mirror modifier but I still cannot move the vertex in X

Interesting. Could you upload your blend and provide a link here ? You can delete all the mesh parts except for the one on the mirror plane and several other vertices if you aren't fine with sharing all of it.

or maybe there is still another mirror modifier active that I am not seeing maybe?

I'll upload the file in a couple of hours from now

I had this exactly problem. I solved it by applying the scale and rotation of the object

For anyone searching this question in the future:
If you have a mirror modifier on object that is stuck on 1 or 2 axes then uncheck clipping in mirror modifier, move it how you want to and check it back again. It sometimes wont let you move some parts of the model because they are merged with mirrored side. Hope this ever helps someone. As far as i know this applies to all blender versions including 2.8 because this is not a bug but just the nature of mirror modifier.

In Edit Mode. Press T to bring up Tools Menu on the left hand side. Click on 'Option' tab and see if X-Mirror is check. Simply uncheck it.

Just had this problem myself, with no mirroring playing a part. What I had was unapplied transformations. I just went to object mode, selected the object, hit Ctrl+A and selected "All transformations". After that I had no problems using G+X to move the object along the X-axis.


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I can't select faces with left mouse button
I tried following a tutorial to make something simple and ran in to a problem straight away.
From the default cube: I can select it in Object Mode (object turns orange). I switch to Edit Mode, I can only select a face with right click and not left. When I left click, no list of options appears as I expected there to be.
So I can't move on from there.
Can anyone help?
Thanks in advance.

Do you have sound enabled in the tutorial? Most if not all of the 3d view menus are usually accessed through keyboard shortcuts. If the tutorial doesn't mention any shortcut it uses it might be meant for more advanced users or be bad quality one.

The guy on the tutorial just said to switch from object mode to edit mode, click face select, then right click on the face that I'm supposed to delete and click delete. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6X9YjsR5wSA  between 30 and 45 seconds. Is what isn't working for me.

He says "click (=press) X to delete the face" and the video too shows "X" key icon in bottom left corner.

Oh.  How silly of me. I didn't hear him say x. I only heard right click > delete. Thanks for pointing that out. :) Much! appreciated.

This is characteristic to blender. With the left mouse button you change the position for the 3d cursor and with the right mouse button you can select objects.
In edit mode you can use the W shortcut, which give you a list of modelling actions. You can also use the left bar or the options in the menubar below.

Take a look at this tutorial about navigating in Blender:
http://www.katsbits.com/tutorials/blender/learning-keyboard-mouse-navigation.php


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Can you Animate like in Stop Motion Animation?
In Stop Motion Animation, the proccess is very simple, you have a piece of clay (or something else) and you tweak/remodel it after every frame.
Is there a workflow in blender, that lets you resculpt your model and move it, without rigging it, that is still practical?
For example like the transformation from bruce banner into hulk, while walking.

Only shape keys come to mind, it could work maybe, but you will need a shape key for every frame (!), it depends on what you mean by "practical"... for your target result, bones rigging + maybe some shape key ( to morph the walking body) is the right choice (even if you set a keyframe per frame...)

What you want to do can be done using shape keys. There are many tutorials on Youtube this is one of them Shape Keys Tutorial

There's an experimental feature still in development (when this answer was written) called Keymesh It seems to be way more flexible than shape keys, you can see the proof of concept in this video.


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Is there a dynamesh feature (to sculpt) avaivable like in zbrush?
In zbrush there is a feature called dynamesh, it recalculates the mesh based on your model. So that you can sculpt with it, just like clay.
Is there a similar tool/function in blender?

There is a different functionality (Dyntopo) but not quite like Dynamesh though.
Dynamesh will provide a nice quad topology, while Dyntopo will leave a nasty triangulated topology with many vertices having more than 4 edges - it will create triangle fans.
Triangle fans are big problem for Blender sculpting, because the smooth brush cannot smooth them perfectly (also in Zbrush there is an alternate smoothing method that can do that).
Dynamesh can also perform volumetric (and non-manifold) booleans on sculpted mesh. There isn't such functionality in Blender.

Yes there is similar function.
Go to sculptmode and enable Dyntopo: