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Scaling a Soft Body object (Inflated balloons in a box)
I've seen abstract animations around the internet, in which bubbles grow in size within a closed area and get squished against each other and the walls in a realistic way.
At 11 and 15 seconds there are similar examples of what I'm trying to achieve.
Trying to get familiar with Soft Bodies, I decided to try to reproduce this as a little exercise, however, I cannot seem to keyframe the Scale on a soft body: when I try to keyframe a scale on the objects it doesn't do anything.
It doesn't matter whether they fall or not during the animation (as long as they stay within the box), I was trying to get them to inflate and get squished with the other objects in the scene.
Here's the file:

Unless you're using the soft body 'goal', changes to the original mesh will not affect the soft body simulation. Many of the other potentially useful parameters (such as Edge Length) are 'locked in' at the start of the simulation and changes similarly do not affect the simulation.
However, one way of achieving the desired effect is to use the Self Collision settings to exert a force within each 'bubble' to push it outwards, causing it to expand.
To achieve this, enable Self Collision and set the Ball Size to a suitably high value. This will simulate a collision ball around each vertex of the specified size, pushing each other vertex away. Set the Stiffness to a low value - this is the 'force' that each vertex is pushed away from its close neighbors. Reduce the Edge Pull to remove any force opposing the Self Collision 'push' and increase the Bending spring if necessary to prevent the bubble from collapsing. You should now find that each bubble expands to fit the available space.
Don't forget to add Collision to each bubble to prevent it from intersecting with the other bubbles and also set the Error Limit to a small value to improve the simulation.

This can produce the following result :

Great description, thank you! Although, managing 10+ balls at once can be a pain. Is there way to manage the soft body settings for a bunch of selected balls all at once? I have the to all plugin installed, but it does not include Physics settings.

@wout You're welcome. If you have them all selected then you should be able to adjust the setting on one of them and right-click the setting and select 'Copy to Selected' to automatically copy that setting to the other selected objects. This doesn't need any add-ons and is standard functionality. I've tested this on the Length setting (in SB Edges) and this does seem to work fine for SB settings.

it seems softbody is super slowww in blender, cloth is much faster
I'm finding a way to di it with cloth instead, is there a way ?

@fernaldywiranata I would good if you could ask this as a new question, linked to here (you can use the ‘Share’ option under the answer to get the link and paste it into your question). This way people can provide full answers to you instead of it being lost in the comments.


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Shortcuts for Start and End values in the Timeline
In 2.79, it was easy to set the start and end values of the timeline with the S and E shortcuts:
If I put my green cursor at frame 42 and press S it sets the Start value at 42:

It would be great to have them re-implemented in 2.9, but before asking in the Right Click Select website I wanted to make sure that I wasn't missing something, for example, is it shortcutable in the Preferences?
(By the way, it would also be great if Dope Sheet and Timeline were merged into one unique window but it's another topic...)

The shortcuts are now:

Ctrl+Home to set start frame
Ctrl+End to set end frame.

Or in the Timeline > header menu > Playback > right click on the Set Sart Frame or Set End Frame buttons to create a shortcut
And you can remap it by going into Edit > Preferences > Keymap > Animation  and edit Set Start Frame and Set End Frame

great, thanks, or in the Preferences > Keymap > Animation > Set End Frame, and Set Start Frame

cool, edited that into my answer

It's now Shift+Left Arrow and Shift+Right Arrow.
You can change the shortcut by right clicking the corresponding buttons (in the Timeline editor) then select "Change shortcut".

thanks for your answer but I'm talking about changing the Start and End values, not moving the blue head to start or end of the timeline

Sorry, I guess I should take more time to actually read the questions ^^

no problem  ;)  maybe it was not clear enough

source: Stack Exchange

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sort: votes


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Pivot Point wont change
I have a scene with some objects.
Lamps, modelled stuff and imported 3ds objects.
When i try to rotate the 3d View via middlemouse, the pivotpoint is never inside the selected object.
It always sits at the middle of the screen.
Is there a way to force blender to pivot around the selected object ?
Pivot Point settings imply that you can easily tell blender where the pivotpoint should sit.
But if i use it nothing changes.

Things i already tried:
I reset the origin.
I tried all Pivot Point Settings.
I applied Rotation and Scale.
I looked for already asked questions and answers but none of them helped.
What is it im doing wrong ?
Is there a simple solution and im just stupid ?

"What is it im doing wrong ?" We have absolutely no clue what you are doing at all, wright or wrong. Please edit your question and provide more details and screenshots of your scene.

edited it and hope its clearer

Going on new edit, I think OP wants to align view to object  Eg with balloon selected, shift numpad . (period).

Pivot point of the object controls how the object will be rotated / transformed around that point and isn't related to the center of the viewport camera rotation, see https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/696/how-to-reset-the-center-of-rotation-of-the-3d-view-when-it-is-not-the-center-of on how to reset it.

Assuming that it is the rotation of the 3D view that always pivots around the center of the screen and you would like it to pivot around the selected objects origin instead, you need to activate the "Rotate Around Selection" setting.
File menu > User Preferences > Interface

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My Viewport looks like im having a graphics bug
My viewport is looking weird..
Problem:

See below for Solution

Please put solutions into an answer .

oh i  thought the 2 day wait time also is for answering your own question. Not only for accepting it.

Just because both deals with clipping doesnt mean it's a duplicate.. The reason for asking is completely different.

@cegaton https://blender.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/549/duplicate-answer-vs-duplicate-question

Solution:
Select your camera and go into the properties. The near-clipping of the camera is to small.

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Soft Body Object gets sucked towards collision object
My goal:
Having the animation of a dog character affect a pillow it is laying on.
I enabled soft body for the pillow.
Disabled gravity and Soft Body goal
I enabled collison with default settings for the dog.
And when i press play the Pillow gets sucked towards the dog.
Scale and Position for everything is applied and i checked the normals.

I can't replicate that behaviour - do you have any forcefields applied to your mesh or anything else that might cause strange effects? Could you upload your Blend file to https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ and edit your question to include a link to it?

Thanks for the answer:) Isolated it and copied it into it's own .blend. Still happening. Updated the Question.

The problem is with the collision bounds - where the soft-body collision 'Inner' setting was too high. This can result in the 'inner collision bound' being outside the mesh, resulting it it effectively 'dragging' soft body vertices into the mesh, from the opposite side. Generally, you should ensure that 'Inner' is set to no more than half the minimum thickness of the mesh.
To explain this a little, the Collision settings include an 'Inner' and 'Outer' setting. For any soft body vertex in the vicinity of that surface, Blender considers whether it is close enough to the 'outside' of that face (ie, within the 'Outer' distance to the surface) and, if so, it will repel that vertex. The same is true with the 'Inner' surface, where if a vertex is close to the inner side of the surface within the 'Inner' distance then it is considered 'within' that surface and repelled 'out'. It is generally beneficial to have these Inner and Outer bands as large as is practical so as to ensure fast moving soft body vertices are 'caught' and bounce off that surface.
When the 'Inner' is set close to the overall thickness of the mesh you can get a situation where if a vertex passes slightly below the surface, instead of being gently repelled (due to being slightly below the surface) it is actually pulled into the mesh as it is also within the opposite side of the mesh's inner collision bounds. As it is effectively further below the opposite side than it is below the 'nearer' side of the mesh, the opposite face has more of an effect and overcomes the 'solidity' of the mesh and pulls that vertex through. By keeping the 'Inner' bound below half the width of any section of the mesh you can ensure those 'inner' regions never overlap and avoid that problem.
In your case, however, the Inner is far greater than the thickness of your mesh - it is set to 0.2 (20cm) which means for the thin sections (eg, legs) the collision bounds extend from the opposite faces far outside the mesh - it is this which is 'grabbing' your soft body blanket and drawing it towards the dog.
The solution is to simply reduce the Inner collision setting - in this case I reduced it to 0.002 (2mm) and produced the following result :

Note, to achieve this I needed to make a small number of changes to your Blend file - mostly due to the very high number of vertices of your meshes (for soft body simulations, the number of vertices significantly affects the simultion complexity). However, some simple changes drastically reduced the vertex count, vastly speeding up to simulation - I'll share those changes here.
Firstly, for simulations you should Apply Scale to your simulated meshes - select the blanket, press Ctrl+A and select 'Scale'.
Secondly, the geometry of the blanket includes a great many unnecessary faces around the seams. You could re-model the blanket with less faces around the edges, but I got reasonable results by selecting all vertices in Edit mode and running Remove Doubles with a setting of 0.01 (must have Applied Scale for this first - otherwise you need a much smaller value as your existing scale is quite small). This removed the unnecessary goemetry without affecting the overall shape of the mesh. Note that the soft body simulation works best with evenly spaced vertices anyway - so this step won't hurt the simulation.
Finally, for each 'collision' between the soft body and your mesh, Blender needs to consider each face and how it affects that vertex. The more faces you have in your mesh, the slower the simulation will run. If your example file, this was particularly bad due to each point close to the mesh being within the 'inner' collision zone of a great many faces - which is why your simulation took a very long time to simulate only 4 frames. To address this I repeated the Remove Doubles step on your dog mesh - with a threshold of 0.02. Note that this will lose some of your modelling - but for my simulation to produce the above animation that wasn't a concern. You could create a duplicate of your mesh and reduce the vertex count on the copy and use that copy for collision purposes only, using the 'full' mesh for the final render - if you don't want to lose detail from your model (so the soft body simulation collides with the simplified mesh - much more efficient).
I increased the Soft body Friction to damp down any motion (since there’s no gravity - could ‘pin’ the soft body in place instead), 'freed' the bake, moved the dog closer to the mat, and re-ran the simulation.

Solution for me:
This advice here is very good but did not stop my spheres sucking into the cubes.
I had simple set of cubes to make a staircase.

What I had done is placed a cube then scaled it, but it was scaled negatively so was inside out with normals pointing inwards. Easy to miss when dropping and scaling a cube or sphere.
Applying the transform does not correct the normals
The solution was to select the cube then go to edit mode,
then Mesh -> Normals -> Recalculate outside or Shift-N
Now it works along with the other tips above

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How to shorten render times for Smoke?
Thanks to everyone who helped me figure out how to make the smoke effect in my last question. I animated it pretty much flawlessly but I've encountered a problem, after letting it render for 7 hours, It got through 10 frames. I don't have the time to let it render forever. That was at 480p 30fps with no motion blur. I even turned the quality of the smoke down and it takes forever! Any ideas on how to shorten render times? P.S. I've already tried rendering as a series of images.
Smoke simulation. I have a domain object and 5 objects on flow to create smoke. I also have 4 objects that collide with smoke.

I am creating a domain and assigning 5 objects as flow. I also have 4 objects as collision.

I'm also using cycles if that matters.

I used the edit button now.


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Weird spike by subsurf modifier

I don't understand the reason for this strange spike. I tried to delete faces and edges and reconnect again several times and it's appear no matter what. What is the reason and how to get rid of it?
Here is a link to .blender file

Can you post your .blend to Blend Exchange so we can examine in detail? Most likely there is a stray vertex somewhere causing this. Sometimes modifiers can reveal problems with a mesh that we didn't know existed.

Added link to the file

Eventually i find wrong edge that caused it! problem solved

The problem is these two vertices/edges that are connected to the faces that you're trying to smooth.  I can only assume they were part of the carryover from your screw modifier.

Delete them and this is what you get:


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Normal map causes flat shading
Does anybody know why i get this flat-shading when i add a normal map even though i enabled smooth-shading? the moment i remove the normal map it goes back to smooth.

Thanks for the help! :)

That's curious. Try to set your "image texture" node to "non color data". hope it helps. cheers :)

Try selecting your Normal Map in the UV Editor to see how things are arranged. Your Normal Map has a lot of straight lines in it that may be causing the "Lines" on your barrel (Not the shading). Also the Image Texture Node for you Normal Map should be set to Non Color Data.

It might help if you upload you .blend file by using http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ Be sure to "Pack" the Normal Map into the file.

for sure, check if all faces are set too smooth shading. If you using pie menu, is very easy randomly set selected faces to flat pressing TAB and move mouse to right-down direction.

Thanks for your efforts so far. i added the blend-file and hope it helps.

The problem was, as many people suggested, the Image node for the normal map was not set to non-color data:

Great, many thanks to you and the other users!

If you stumble upon this in Blender 2.8 then you may also touch the "Strenght:" Parameter in the Nodes.... Drove me crazy that the "Non Color" Option did nothing but then I touched Strenght and woooosh... Also made the rendering much better (no banding in Normal mapped faces)


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Blender reshaped mesh to voxel - want to keep weight paint and optimize triangles
I have used the reshape to blocks modifier to turn a lowpoly model into a voxel model. The result it perfect.
But my initial lowpoly model was rigged and animated. The vertex groups and the rig look also good on the reshaped voxel model, but all weight painting has been lost.
Is there a way to keep the weight painting or do I have to weight paint on my own?
I tryed to "Transfer Mesh Data" and played with the options, but here the results of the transfered weight look bad.
I also tryed to assign the weight paint automaticaly (In pose mode assign automatic from bones), but this option is not available for some reason. I cant click on the button, its grey.
One last thing, Eventhough the reshaped result looks great, its not effcient. There could be a lot less triangles. Is there a way to optimize the mesh? Or is it just the way the reshaper works? I have to optimize it myself then?
EDIT:
On the right the lowpoly model rigged and animated, everything works, weight are also there.
On the left the reshaped voxel model. It is also rigged (its the same armature) Vertex Groups exist and are named the same, but the weight paint is lost.

that optimizing could be done with the decimate modifier but I wouldn't do it if you want to deform it afterwards with an armature.

Why would I want to deform something? Sorry I am learning right now

I thought you wanted to use an armature. Probably you should clarify what you want to make with a Picture in your Question

I updated the question

do you want the voxels to deform like your normal mesh would do or do you want them to generate and be aligned all the time

Tbh. I dont know. I looked up what deform means. If the voxel mesh animates then the voxels should deform, yes. I cant imagine how it could be possible without deform.

put the remesh modifier after your armature, dont apply it and play the animation.


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Freestyle outline has gaps
When I render with the freestyle feature in cycles, some edges are not outlined. This image was rendered with the default freestyle settings other than the line style, which was changed from stroke to color. How do I fix this?

You have to elaborate on what you're trying to achieve and what you're getting so far. Illustrate it with some print screens of your settings and renders and/or upload your .blend file. In current form, your question is too broad. Your problem can stem from multiple different things.

Okay, I´ve updated the post

You have to construct a Line Set by including/excluding characteristics of the object in the view.. the default is not serving your purpose, here. If necessary, you can explicitly select edges to be stroked by CtrlE : Edge Menu > Edge Data > Mark Freestyle Edge.
Here, I've just increased the Crease Angle ( a threshold value ) in the Freestyle settings....

but there are no end of options. I'd recommend playing with them using the Blender Internal renderer, so you get immediate feedback in the viewport. The settings will still be available when you switch back to Cycles.


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Origin point spits clumps of particles
I was following this tutorial (https://youtu.be/SzbuZTlMGPE) and when I play the animation, clumps of particles in a line come out from the origin point, even though the boolean object isn't touching the origin point and the modifier stack option is enabled.

Sam, you need to help the readers by clarifying your problem and question. Adding screenshots or illustration would also greatly increase your chance of getting an answer. thx!

Here is a video. Look closely at the center of the grid. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1m65mBmWf8IbYkvQF-XQSaACGf-Dx9RBN/view?usp=sharing

Please add the screenshots to your original question using the Edit button and again, please add details to your explanations as sometimes, people don't have time to watch lengthy videos.

Alright, I've added a screenshot.

can you show the particle settings used?

Here's the project file. https://drive.google.com/file/d/14rRrg-nwUwO-ZWXedcUOVZm4ze26ZWYB/view?usp=sharing

please use https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ to attach a blend file to your question. This way the link won't expire. Otherwise, I think this has to do with the progressive boolean operation  that may be sometimes creates weird geometry as the boolean intersection cube progresses right. I would try to keep the boolean but only do difference and use the generated faces as emitter. You may have to use Dynamic Paint modifier to select those faces.

Please add this link to your question. It is better than in the comment.

It looks like the particles from the origin point are getting emitted when the boolean cube is exactly between letters (ex: between SAM and THE or between THE and MAN). It is like the particle system has no more faces to emit from do it defaults to the origin. May be try to separate all letters and use a particle system on each instead of on the full sentence.

... or bake the particles and simply delete the unwanted ones...

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

The particle system is based on faces of the boolean intersection between a very narrow cube and the mesh text. The problem occurs when that boolean operation is between letters, creating an empty mesh. The particle system still needs to produce particles at the rate declared (10000 over a few dozen frames) and thus default to producing those particles somewhere at the Origin. May that's a bug... may be not.
Anyway, one workaround is to make the boolean cube (silver) wide enough to never create an empty mesh, i.e. as wide as the widest gap between your letters. This way the particle system will always some geometry to emit particles from instead of emitting from some random location.
Here you can see that with the narrow boolean, particles are emitted at the origin at frame 46 and later when it is in the gap:

And here the particles stopped being emitted at the origin when the boolean cube is wide enough to always intersect with the text object:


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Little shadowed squares at render with cycles
I haven't got a clue as how to define my problem in the title so let me explain better here:
I have got an object, that I have smoothed in object mode as well as in edit mode, I have put two lights on either side, but when I try and render it with cycles, I get something that looks like aliasing, that is to say that some faces which are in transition between shadow and light remain in shadow and there's a sharp cut between shadow and light at the top.

I have tried increasing the samples, and yet nothing changes, and that squarred shadow appears when I try to make a combined baking :(
Can someone help me?
Thank you very much

Adding a SubSurf modifier should fix this.

Hey! thank you for your answers, indeed I have seen the terminator problem meanwhile. I'll try the shade smooth solution! I was rather trying to avoid subsurfacing again because that's supposed to be a real time asset so I wanted to keep it as low poly as possible

Ok I've tried Mr Zak solution and it doesn't change anything. However I have noticed that it seems to be coming from the type of light: a sun light works much better than a hemi light, and it looks much better with hdri lighting. I'll keep investigating, thank you both anyway :)


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Why does my exported file have transparent faces and jumbled texture?
I completed a project and exported it as an fbx. I open the file in a new blender project to test it and the faces are transparent. I have searched all over the internet to figure out why this is happening. Here's what I've done so far:

I have checked that my normals are facing correctly. I have went into the original file and I have exported with normals being flipped both ways and the issue persists.
I have tried exporting with backface culling on AND off and the issues persist.
I have redone my textures and UV mapping to make sure that each step is done properly and the issue persists.

Here are some gifs of my issue:
So this link shows what my project looks in the original file BEFORE export: https://i.sstatic.net/5JrFm.jpg
This link shows what the project looks like EXPORTED (as fbx) AND OPENED in a new blender project: https://i.sstatic.net/sxbkz.jpg
(REMOVED BLEND FILE LINK BECAUSE THE ISSUE IS SOLVED)
So that you understand what this project is, this is supposed to be an avatar asset for VRchat. So I want to be able to share this file to others and have it look the same way as before I exported it.

Can you provide the blend file or the fbx file?

I can yes. How do I do so on this site? This is my first time asking a question here.

If it's the blend file, you can use https://www.pasteall.org/blend/ and add the link to your question.

ok i tried pasteall and it kept saying that my file isnt a blend file..which it is so idk. i just did it on google drive. hopefully that works. i have edited it to the post.

At first I deleted this since I was receiving any help. But after playing around with some settings, I figured it out:
I had to change the blend mode to "Opaque" for each material AND turn on backface culling for EACH material within the NEW project.
For some reason, when I opened the exported file into a new project, Blender would automatically make the blend mode "Alpha Hashed". I don't know if there's a way to keep settings during export so that when I share this file, people do not have to fix these settings themselves, but for now, it is solved.
Hope this helps! Happy Blending! :)


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How do I remove dark spots on object AFTER baking?
So I baked my object/mesh. but I have these weird polygon shaped dark spots on the edges/borders of my mesh that show even in the rendered preview. Im not sure if it has something to do with the lighting or the object itself. I've tried redoing the bake, I have removed other mesh objects from the scene when im baking so they dont interfere, and I also have no lighting objects within my scene when im baking.
Just fyi: this project is meant to be used as an avatar clothing asset for the game VRChat, if that helps you at all.
[
Blend file link: removed because question was answered.
Also to any future readers, here’s a video to help explain what poles are and why they may cause issues in projects: https://youtu.be/RR989N_rcA4

pls upload your file

i have added the link

If you don't need to look too close to the model,just add Edge Split works,you can adjust the angle as you wish.

But if we look in detail,we can see some sharp lines on the edge.It's hard to remove in this case.

Because your mesh don't have a loop along the edge,and there are some poles on the edge,so we can't add loop cut or good subdivision there.If you really want a perfect,you should remodel the edge manually.

A good topology will looks like this

You can see that there is a loop faces surround the model and no poles,it's a protection for edge rendering.Poles will not cause trouble on the plane,but where there is some bend,poles will look bad.

I’m sorry, I don’t quite understand. So are you saying I have to remodel the mesh so that each of the faces are in a single line? Like perfectly side by side?

I should also mention that I made the mesh in Marvelous Designer then I imported it into Blender and I didn’t realize it poled a lot of the edges. I’m still trying to learn what and how with good Topology.

Good topology has some basic principles.I recommend a tutorial,you will know why there are dark pots.The tutorial is for C4D and old,but the rules are the same.I think your topology is good escept the edge loop,maybe you can adjust in your MD. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQmNXCOh4MM&t=593s  BTW,it's not all free,you can try to find some similar tutorial.

Ok thank you so much! You’ve helped me understand the issue a bit better and I will do what you suggested!


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How do I create multiple copies of an object around a point? (9 sided symmetry)
So I'm trying to create multiple copies of an object spaced equally around a ring. The goal is for it to look something like this, but I'm drawing a blank on how to accomplish it (I'm fairly new to blender).
The closest I've gotten is by using an array modifier with object offest and then rotating the object, they're actually in a circle, but as you can see they're not overlayed on the ring and individually they're all in the wrong orientations as they should be pointing in towards the centre.

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/80298/how-to-add-numbers-to-a-dial/80300#80300

Thanks for the replies - This did what I was looking for https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/162489/139899


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Select every other face loop
How can I select every other edge loop. In this example its not too bad to do it manually but it other cases it might be. How can I easily select alternating face loops?

Related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/11038/599

Select Loops > Edge Rings.
Checker deselect

Every nth face loop:

Switch to edge select mode (CtrlTab> Edge)

Select an edge loop (AltRMB) going in the direction you want the edge ring selection to go.

Checker deselect (3D view > Header > checker deselect) the edge ring (you can use the F6 menu to set the number of edges to skip before deselecting one)

Select another edge loop (AltShiftRMB) in the direction you want the edge loops the go.

Press Edge ring in 3D view > Header > Edge Ring.

Note that when using checker deselect numbers > 2, you might get extra edge loops. Switch to face select mode afterwards to get rid of them.

Every nth edge loop:
The original text of the question asked about edge loops, yet the image was of face loops. Here's a technique to select every other edge loop.
Note if you are using a version of blender newer than this commit (2.71), then you can skip to step 4.

In vertex select mode (CtrlTab), select two edge loops one edge loop apart (AltShiftRMB), that are perpendicular to the direction you want. Then select a single vertex in between them (ShiftRMB). (This is required because Checker deselect only affects selected geometry connected to the active element. i.e you need one connected selection).

Use checker deselect (3D view > Header > checker deselect), then press F6 to edit the N in nth if you want. If you see that the wrong set of edges (the ones you want to remain deselected) are being kept by the selection, change the Offset value.

Still in Vertex Mode, select the edge loop (AltShiftRMB) in between the original two edge loops.

Switch to edge select mode (CtrlTab). You should see parts of the loops you want selected, plus one crossing loop you don't want.  If the wrong parts are selected, back up to step 2.

(Versions prior to 2.71: skip this step.)
(2.71+): Select an edge ring with CtrlAltRMB, then run checker deselect. (Thanks to ideasman42 for making checker deselect work with edges).
(2.79): Select the edge ring (perpendicular to the loops you want), but leave it selected.

Press Edge Loop in 3D view > Header > Select.
(2.79): Also deselect the unwanted perpendicular edge ring.

I was trying to do a similar thing but with flat surface (removing every second face to make a fence). This answer was difficult to understand because it was long and Ctrl+Tab did not show Edge in Blender 2.81a. But using this as a hint, I could achieve it. I just selected all faces, then "Select -> Checker Deselect" on the menu in the toolbar.

There is an option for this nowadays built-in: select all faces, then do from menu Select -> Checker Deselect . from there you can enter an amount too

This is not working in 2.93.8, but I found a video with an even easier answer.  (Did not test on 2.79b.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCAWAOfFqDg
1: In Edge Select Mode: Select one Edge only (not an Edge Loop) that is parallel to the loops you want to select, then select the next edge (the other side of the quad).
2: Select: Edge Ring to select all the edges parallel to the ones you want, in one segment of the crossing loops.  (Note: depending on your geometry, you could just Box or Circle select all the edges in one ring in Wireframe mode.)
3: Select: Checker Deselect.  Set it to how many you want to select/deselect, and set the offset until the segments of the loops you want are selected.  You will have one segment of each edge loop.
4: Select: Edge Loops.  Boom, done.  Your single segments will be extended into their entire loops.
Thank to Sneaky Kitty Game Dev!

I don't think there's a direct tool to do this.I've been playing with all sorts of methods to try and get the effect you want and only one thing has worked, and it doesn't seem like it should.
If you can end up selecting all the vertical edge loops, with all the horizontal edge loops deselected (I used edge ring select for this (ctrl+alt+r-click), but it does mean you're making as many selections as you have horizontal divisions, so a quicker way to do that would help), then you perform a "Select Loop Inner-Region", it should, if it behaves the same as my 2.68 install, actually leave you with alternate face loops selected as in your screenshot.
Bit of a hack perhaps, but there it is.

If you first select an edge loop with Alt+RMB, then press edge Ring in Header > Select, then you get every edge going in one direction selected in just two steps. Unfortunately, select loop inner-region doesn't seem very reliable for me.. Using the torus example, along the major radius it does fine, but along the minor radius it select occasional double loops.

In 2.70a:
Change to polygon mode
Press Alt + Right mouse button to select loop (or left if you have changed defaults). Where you click on the polygon determines which loop is selected. You want to click in the upper half of a polygon near the top edge in the middle
For subsequent loops also hold down the Sift key while you Alt + click to add to the current selection

I think the OP wants an automated way of doing this.

authors: Влад Подерячев


text:
Strange colors show up on my objects
I made a circle and extruded it to make a wheel but then strange colors (orange,green,blue) show up on my object...I tried to reset ewerything to standard but the colors still show up.

Adding a screenshot can help

Do you have some kind of material on it? After all your viewport shading is set to Material Preview, so without more information I can only guess this is a preview of the material...?

It does not matter if i switch , it's still there...i know its a setting but not were...

could you please pack your images and share your file? https://pasteall.org/blend/

ok...packed it and uploaded it as T-72-8.blend...Hope it works

That's the Mesh Analysis enabled in the Overhang mode.
You can disable it by unticking Mesh Analysis in Viewport Overlays (in Edit Mode).

More info: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/modeling/meshes/mesh_analysis.html

Ahhh....thanks...so simple...there one have for clicking without knowing...Great now i can continue...that was a bit enoying to see all the time.:)


text:
bad deformations
I am currently having a problem with deformations. I am relatively new to Blender and this work is my first one so I do have a lot of knowlege issues here.
In the scrrenshot I am trying to rotate the arm on the local y axis that leads to terrible bad deformations.

I used this tutorial as a startup point to get the arm rotation working: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P81DGubVILA
In the tutorial there are 3 bones used to rotate the arm. This led to an even worse result so I tried it with 4 bones which is slightly better but still horrible. Is there any specific trick to this that I do not know? Does this result from bad weight-painting? I simply do not know where to search to solve the issue.
I also have a similiar issue with the face when I try to open the mouth. Some edges of the cheeks are getting distorted in this case on higher resolutions: Unfortunately I deleted the bones and forgot to make a screenshot but the following screenshot will show the edges that are pushed in. Its only by a little but it ruins the face completely.

what can I do to avoid such things?
May it be that this problem is a result to bad retopology?
EDIT:
Blend-file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/v687nqa4b0mgquy/rhin13.blend?dl=0

i can only recommend watching beginner tutorials about rigging in which the guy who made the tutorial explains what he does and why that works. Don't watch tutorials without explanation. That's a waste of time. Especially for beginners. And there are tons of good tutorials out there. For free. But please edit your question and show us your bad deformation - because i don't see it. And pls provide blend file.

the bad deformation is in the red circle. I get fragments in the mesh based on the rotation that look really weird.
I would provide the .blend file if I knew how. There is no file upload functionality here...

Open https://blend-exchange.com/ and follow instructions

was not able to upload to blend-exchange.com. The xhr-request to the server hang itself for some reason. Therefore I provided a dropbox link where I uploaded the file.


text:
Running rendering script on remote computer: Exception_Access_Violation (Win32 Error 127)
for each request getting, I am calling blender with a blend-script by the python call subprocess.run, in order to render an image of a stl-file. This works normally very well.
Unfortunately, I am sporadically hanging in a deathlock. Then, I see on the console the following error message, after the blender render function for eevee
bpy.ops.render.render(use_viewport=True, animation=False,write_still=True)
was called.
Warning! Using result of ChoosePixelFormat.
Win32 Error# (127): The specified procedure could not be found.
Error : EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION
Address : 0x0000000000000000
Thanks to scurest post below, I think the issue is cause by closing the remote session. It seems that blender loses the right to access some dll's or so, as mentioned in the post of the link.
Does anyone has an idea how to get a blender rendering script running on a remote computer without having a remote session allways active? This must be possible, or?

https://developer.blender.org/T84675 https://developer.blender.org/T92506

Hi scurest, thank you for your reply. With your link I was able to reproduce the issue. As long the remote connection is on, it works fine. Clossing the remote connection causes the issue. As mentioned in a sublink: "On Windows only system processes and services run in Session 0.  The user logs on to Session 1." So, for my understanding, when I am closing the connection, blender is loosing the permission to access some dll? And running the script as a service will not help, because of Session 0 and no Displaymanager, or? If I am correct, a user must always logged in.

How I can run my blender script with a closed remote connection? There must be a way, or I am wrong?

It must connected to some user in order to have the graphic interface avaiable. It is possible configure a service or a scheduled task started under a user account. There also exist something like autologon (not nice).


text:
How to use a subset of BMVert, BMEdges or BMFAces to construct a new "submesh" of an existing mesh?
Hi everybody,
thank you for reading the question.
For example, I have a complicated mesh. For some further analysis I like to create a submesh (i.e. a specific tangential plane) by a sublist of BMVert, BMEdges or BMFaces data structure elements.
How can I create a mesh by elements of BMVert, BMEdges or BMFaces?
There exists the function from_pydata, where you have to explicit specify the vertice coordinates and i.e the face references, but I did not find a similar function for BMVert, BMEdges or BMFaces lists.
I also found a function called bmesh.ops.dublicate, which gives me the error message: NotImplementedError: duplicate: keyword "dest" type 4 not working yet!
Another way I can think of would be to copy the mesh and delete all coplimentary BMFaces.
But I think there should exists a better way of creating a mesh by a sublist of BMVert, BMEdges or BMFaces data structure elements!!!
Do you have a hint?


text:
What is edge extrude technique for modeling
I recently read a word call edge extrude method of modeling but content I can't find on internet please help me to get there and which aspects of areas are we can use this method of modeling.

can you please tell a little bit more on what it is and what is the purpose?

You simply select an edge, press E to start extrusion. Extrusion adds a surface between starting edge and extruded edge. I'd suggest looking for sources on 'blender 3d extrusion' to give you a better understanding.

In which area we can use this technique read we can use this for face modeling and for achieve specific pattern but want to More areas of use

Have you tried Blenders built in Extrude Edges?(see @internetofmine comment above) Does it work for you in the manor you require? I have seen many examples of using Extrude from Edges to create specific geometry in Blender.

..often used in combination with Shrinkwrap for retopology  ..  you could look up tutorials on that.. like this one

Oh thanks I also was looking for this this technique is related to sculpting


text:
What rendering framework does blender use?
Does it use OpenGL?  Crystalspace?  Ogre?  I want to change the rendering system but I don't know what framework blender uses.  Also, what physics engine does blender use?

OpenGL - https://www.blender.org/bf/codelayout.jpg

Blender, by default, uses its own rendering systems, depending on selection.

The offline renderer is a path tracing engine called Cycles.
The online renderer is a rasterization based engine called Eevee.
Both rendering engines harness CPU and GPU to different degrees, including the OpenGL, OpenCL, and CUDA based GPU libraries.

Blender used portions of Bullet for some physics calculations, with other approaches for its particle system interactions.

According to their website, blender 2.76 and older is using OpenGL 1.4, and starting from 2.77 is using OpenGL 2.1


text:
How to create a rounded cone
I'm really new to Blender and for my next project I need to create a cone with curved edges. I've searched online and messed around with Blender but I can't find a way. What could I try?
EDIT
Sorry I wasn't clear, what I mean is something like this :

Could you provide some reference image of what you want to achieve?

What is a "cone with curved edges"?

One way to do that is to create profile of the end result and use Screw modifier (or tool in Edit mode), related https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/47044/create-threaded-drill-bit-from-cone

Two simple ways to achieve this:

Either Create a regular mesh cone, subdivide lateral edges with W+ > Subdivide, then and scale them horizontally using Proportional Edit with S, Shift+Z, or
Draw a bezier curve object outlining your cone silhouette, then add a Screw modifier to it. This method can also wor if you draw said silhouette with a string of mesh edges.

Add a cone and enter edit mode  tab .
Use loop select to select the bottom edge.
Now hit  ctrl  +  b  and move the cursor up, this will create a bevel.
Use the mouse scroll buttom to increase the lines.

See the image below:


text:
How to set my widget to bottom face my object or any face that ı wanted?

İn edit mode: shift + S
in object mode: Ctrl + alt + shift + C not helping...
In 3dsmax for example there is a button which allows you can play with your widget without interferes with your object. so in short ı wanna do the thing same in the picture
Thanks people. ı appreciated. Its solved.

in edit mode, if you select the face, the transform widget should go there...

İf ı do that in edit mode and lets say ı go back to object mode my widget will back to middle place of the object so..

related: https://blender.stackexchange.com/q/1291/19287

@Anesu ok, now I got it. in object mode, the transform manipulator is where the object "origin" is (usually in the object center). So, in edit mode, select the face then press SHIFT-S and select "cursor to selected". Then in object mode, in the toolbar "tools" tab choose "set origin" (or press "SHIFT-ALT_CTRL-C") option > "origin to 3d cursor". Done.


text:
Blender 2.8 status bar
I am writing with the help of Google translator.
 In the blender 2.8, the status bar went down (there is information about layers and vertices). How to raise the whole thing up? Is there any addon or customization?

select its top border and left click drag it down

Append to the top bar.
The top bar in blender 2.8x is on the top, and the status bar is on the bottom.  The status bar can be toggled on and off with python.
bpy.context.screen.show_statusbar = False # off

AFAIK there is no way to move statusbar to top using python.  Would need to alter blender's source code.

As a workaround, the statistics previously in 2.79 displayed on info header (often at top of screen) are now in the status bar at bottom of screen.
Run the script below to append scene statistics to the top bar.
import bpy

def draw(self, context):
    scene = context.scene
    vl = context.view_layer
    self.layout.label(text=scene.statistics(vl))

def register():
    bpy.types.TOPBAR_HT_upper_bar.append(draw)

def unregister():
    bpy.types.TOPBAR_HT_upper_bar.remove(draw)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

Alternatively could prepend the whole statusbar to the top bar, but this doesn't work as expected.
import bpy

bpy.types.TOPBAR_HT_upper_bar.prepend(bpy.types.STATUSBAR_HT_header.draw)

Change the theme colors of the topbar header text
To run automatically for all blend files, save the script, with a .py extension, eg topbar_stats.py in your 2.80/scripts/startup folder, or for on a blend by blend basis: save in blend file, making sure once again the name has a .py extension,  and check the register checkbox.

( I answer with the help of Google translator. )
Wow This is really very cool!
 But this is a little wrong. How to move up the entire lower status bar (including information on keystrokes) above the tabs: location, simulation.

Edited to make it clearer that AFAIK the statusbar is hard-coded to the bottom of screen.  Would need to alter blender source to change.

(I use Google translator.) Thank you so much for the answer and for taking the time to go :)
@batFINGER

Cheers. (A good test of any translator is translating the result back to original.)


text:
Easiest Way to Join Meshes
Here is a common situation I run in to:

I have two meshes in the same object that end up near each other and I would like to join them so that the two disparate geometries are linked and manifold. I don't have a common set of vertices between the two objects that I can use remove doubles on. I think I would usually try to extrude the cube into the larger shape and then use intersect (knife) with self intersection to get a common set of vertices that I can try to join. However, this is inexact and can yield messy results after the knife, along with leaving extraneous pieces that need to be removed.
So my question is: is there an EASY way to join these together? In the exact situation above, the face of the larger object that faces the cube would be split into 3 faces - one on each side of the cube and the one face shared between the two geometries.
EDIT:
I made the mistake of not showing an example that is similar enough to what I actually run into. Consider the following:

There are two answers concerning loop cutting (and extruding) but that doesn't work in the above situation because the work eventually joins back to itself and it's not always a nice square situation when it does.

The easy and fast way would be to add 2 loopcuts on the long piece, position them for the right size of the second piece, and then extrude a face to make the cube part.

One easy way can be Boolean modifier set to Union (if objects are really intersecting). It might not generate good geometry, but it will be manifold

There are two main ways to achieve your desired result, you can either use a boolean modifier with the union option, or use loop cuts. For the first method you simply place a boolean modifier on the larger cube, select the union object and then in the object menu select the smaller cube, this will join the meshes together and create a union into one shape. There is a FAR simpler and easier way with the loopcut method. Simply insert two loopcuts on the larger cube (Ctrl+R+2) then move them to line up with the sides of the smaller cube, then simply extrude out the new face on the larger cube until you reach the desired shape. After that is all done you can delete the smaller cube, no need for multiple meshes. Hope that helps! :)

This is okay, but doesn't work in more complex situations. When I wrote the question I messed up and said I end up with two meshes next to each other. But in reality they are part of the same mesh, and even connected to one another indirectly. So, the loop just method isn't going to work because then I would end up in the same situation again. Also, the boolean won't work because they're connected.

I have another way, not really very simple, although could work also with more complex shapes, but you have to work before joining the two objects.
so, if this is your setup

from the joining mesh select the face that should stick to the bigger one

then duplicate and separate it to a new object

and the make this new "face" object a bit separate, here moving it over Y

now go to side view (here in Y direction) and select first the new "face" object, then the also bigger one in the background, enter edit mode (press TAB) and use "knife project"

as you see, after this, your bigger mesh has a "perfect" cut, with a new face exactly matching your other object's merging face...

now you can join them

and remove doubles

edit:
thinking to more complex cases, you could quite easily get this:

I like this but I might have a qualm. I will test this and get back to you. Edit: I tested it and I indeed ran into problems. In my initial problem I state that both meshes are part of the same object. Knife Project therefore cuts both meshes and not just the bigger one. I'm going to elaborate a bit more in my question.

Yes, I said that having them separated was a condition... anyway, thinking better now, what I did is more a sort of manual union... nothing special...


text:
Blender viewport 1 to 1 in real world
This might be a silly question but how do I get 1 to 1 scale in blender 4.1 viewport with real life ruler on the monitor?
I made a cylinder 10 cm long, but when I meassure it it's 10.4 or something. I try zooming in and out but the viewport grid snapped to the side is never 1cm to 1cm
There is some option named "Zoom Camera 1:1" but it's not selectable
Basically what I mean that this grin ON SCREEN

NEVER measures 1cm when I measure it with a real life RULER pressed against the MONITOR. It's always a measure off

Not really sure what you mean by "real life ruler on the monitor". Can you add an image of what you're looking to measure? You'll see different results depending on whether you're in Orthographic or Perspective view (5 key on the numpad).

To quote some old movie "I mean it"
I pushed a ruler against the screen of a monitor to measure 10 cm, and the cylinder that I've set to be 10 cm long is 10.5 cm long while using orthographic view

Simple answer is that you can't! It will depend on your monitor dimensions, resolution and screen size and the size of Blender's own window among other things.

Just as @JohnEason said, you cannot get it matched, it depends on many different factors. Or, of course it might  happen that you accidentally manage to get it matched with real life measurements, but that will be coincidental. You cannot deliberately set it to be like that. And should this be saved in a file? Let's say you create it on a 32" 4k screen, someone else opens it with a 32" 2k screen... and another one with a 27". Even with two monitors of the same nominal size, the pixels can have different sizes between manufacturers and product lines.

I might even be tempted to believe that there exist standardized calibrated monitors that are designed to show matching real measurements and some kind of CAD software etc. that can make use of it, but Blender is not CAD software and if you do not have a specialized monitor I do not see how this should work.

Well that's unfortunate. I thought it could've been as easy as putting the dimensions of the monitor somewhere, even if it's temporary settings. I don't know a lot of people that use multiple monitors to work 3d stuff and often change between them. Don't monitors interface with the computer and provide info like physical dimensions? Anyways I suppose it can't be helped. Thank you all for the replies.

To be honest I can't think of any reason why I would want to see an exact sized model on screen in Blender which as @GordonBrinkmann says might possibly be used occasionally with CAD software, but Blender isn't designed that way and hopefully never will be.

"I don't know a lot of people that use multiple monitors to work 3d stuff" - seriously? Lots and lots of people use multiple monitors especially to work with 3d. Maybe less so when 4K(and higher) resolution monitors became a thing, but it's actually very common. 3d is one area that benefits from it, because you might need to work with a lot of stuff at the same time - multiple views, various reference, multiple editors, multiple programs... I used to always have 2 monitors before 4K became popular, now it's enough for me personally, but lot's of professionals do still use multiple monitors...

@GlennCarver The monitor provides information like the (nominal) diagonal width in the same way it provides the model name - it is completely irrelevant for displaying an image on it. The operation system, graphics card need to know things like resolution, frequency etc., but if the monitor display shows 1920 × 1080 on a 24", 27" or 32" screen and how large actual pixels are is neither communicated nor in any way relevant to the system.

This is obviously too arbitrary and practically never needed in normal circumstances to have dedicated features, but you could change your view or camera focal length(or orthographic scale in case of orthographic camera), or move the camera until whatever you have matches the ruler:

Since you can enter values manually, you can make the adjustments as small as you want.
Like Gordon Brinkmann indicates in the comments, it's really easy to mess things up once you have this, so it might be a good idea to tear a separate window with only a viewport and keep it constant size on screen(maybe maximized). It would of course be difficult to work in it while keeping it the same size, but a separate window can be minimized while working in the main Blender window.

Well yes, but as we told him in the comments, you might get something that mostly matches reality... but an accidental slight scrolling the wheel in the viewport or a minimal adjustment of the window size and all these adjustments were in vain. So there is no way to keep it or switch between "normal" work mode where you can zoom in and out as you might need for editing and then back to "real size". Sure you can press Numpad 0 to go in and out of camera view, but you can easily change the size of the camera window intentionally or accidentally. There is no "zoom lock" or something like that.

I assume, they are aware of this. But yes, mentioning that is probably a good idea even if it should be obvious that if you zoom in or out, it's not going to work. One can have a separate viewport(and even window) from the ones they work in. If we are talking about the obvious, then it's probably also worth mentioning that 3d viewports and cameras(other than orthographic) display stuff with perspective and parts of the scene are smaller or bigger depending on it. It's one weird question.... But it's possible to match the sizes in a limited way.

As for accidents...  :D  I will assume, the OP doesn't accidentally fall out of the window and die making this all effort useless... We usually ignore stuff like accidentally spilling coffee on one's keyboard, lightning strikes and shark attacks while answering questions, so this should be the same, the way I see it. :D

I don't know how you came to people falling out of windows and dying :D I mean accidents like moving into the 3D Viewport window accidentally scrolling the mouse wheel and oops, size has changed. Or thinking, I don't need that Timeline window so large, make it a little bit smaller - and so the 3D Viewport gets a little larger, the size changes as well... things like that which happen all the time intentionally or unintentionally while editing when you don't have to care about size. I also think it limits modeling cars, characters, landscapes a lot when they have to fit your monitor :D

I imagine in some specific design process, people may want to see things real scale on the monitor. In that scenario one might have a separate dedicated always maximized window with a viewport that they have measured  and zoomed to match real scale on the monitor. It would obviously need to be left untouched while working in the main Blender window, but it can be minimized when working and opened only when one needs to see things real scale. In that scenario, one shuold be careful not to zoom or orbit in it... Why? I have no idea. A bit more context would definitely benefit the question.


text:
Volumetric shows in render results but not after I save the image
I have a scene where a volumetric cube shows up in the viewport and rendered view, but if I try to save it to a png, the volumetric disappears. I've tried exporting to every type of image file. I've also tried disabling compositing and the results remain the same. Saving the image to png affects the object only if it's a volumetric. If the object is a diffused material, it works just fine.
The project was made and most recently saved in 3.0.1, but this problem is common across all versions to include pre 2.79.
Rendered result AFTER saving it to PNG

Render result before saving it to PNG

Here's a link to the .blend file: https://pasteall.org/blend/80f28cd208bb40dba6f71a6b6c98da0d

Hi, in the future, please use the built in tools that are provided for you to include images inside of your posts rather than using external links. This helps keeps the site more organized, and all information in one place.

could you plesae share the volumetric object? https://pasteall.org/blend/

@Timaroberts is the "image" button on the bar not a built in tool?

@moonboots Here's the full blend file: https://pasteall.org/blend/80f28cd208bb40dba6f71a6b6c98da0d

@Acaicia the built-in upload tool here is what I am referring to. Please read How to upload an image to a post? if you are unsure how to use it.

Hello, I couldn't find where the problem comes from, I hope somenone will


text:
blender knife tool artifacts
so im working on a scroll and wanted to a add paper cut to the scroll, i did it by using the knife however when i turn back the subdiviosn modifier (i also have the solidify modifier) back the cut looks weird. is there any way to fix that?
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PbXFAukCquUTm6ZZpc9mBqxkkKYH3X30/view?usp=sharing

Your topology is probably bad, maybe show your wireframe or even share this part of your object? https://pasteall.org/blend/

thanks! i posted the wireframe picture of the object and a google drive link to the object

please authorize access  ;)

Example of a mesh before Catmull-Clark subdivision:

Subdivision rounds the mesh:

Removing parts of the geometry interferes with the way it is rounded by the subdivision algorithm:

And so you could remove that part with a boolean (easier) or a mask modifier (harder since you need to predict how the modifier will move the vertices) after subdivision modifier...
If you don't like the way some paths get wibbly-wobbly like on the 3rd image, you can retopo your mesh to better represent the flow of the object, and add holding loops to limit the range of the modifier:

You can also do a lot with creases (ShiftE):


text:
Why this yellow geometrical shapes appears when I add bones? I

I'm new in this field. Everything gose well but suddenly I stucked because some yellow geometrical shapes appears when I add bones.It's so frustrating. I tried some ways to fix this, changing the material size, rotate it etc. But nothing happened, I need help so badly.

I have never seen anything like this before, are you using the default scene with blender set to default settings? Does this happen when you make new file and add bone? Is there anything that is connected to the bone? Can you share your file? ... This looks like glitch done by your system, what is your GPU?

Hello and welcome. Rather than take photos of your monitor post actual screenshots instead, see How to take a screenshot. Photos are harder to read, because we have to guess if we are looking at a external interference like reflections or smudges or Moiré patterns, hardware issues such as a malfunctioning display or connection, a software level bug or driver malfunction, or an or actual artifact or issue with the model itself.

Please clarify your specific problem or provide additional details to highlight exactly what you need. As it's currently written, it's hard to tell exactly what you're asking.

Also facing same type of issue.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1biwhZUMnMUgmvtl3HUTgDUIPZghG9TJS/view?usp=sharing

@muhammadfarooq might be a bug. When I open your file the bone looks normal. It has the orange outline as it should be (tested with Blender 3.6.2).


text:
How to use a pivot point to mirror mesh with script
I have pivot point and cursor set as in this answer. Now I want to use it to mirror mesh of an object by running script from the text editor. Mirror works fine, but it does not use the pivot point. Does it mean I have to run the code from the 3D View, or there is a way to switch to the context, and still run it in Text Editor?
import bpy

def areas_tuple():
    res = {}
    count = 0
    for area in bpy.context.screen.areas:
        res[area.type] = count
        count += 1
    return res

areas = areas_tuple()
view3d = bpy.context.screen.areas[areas['VIEW_3D']].spaces[0]
view3d.pivot_point='CURSOR'
view3d.cursor_location = (0.0, 0.0, 0.0)

bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode = 'EDIT')
bpy.ops.mesh.select_all(action='SELECT')
bpy.ops.transform.mirror(
    constraint_axis=(True, False, False),
    constraint_orientation='GLOBAL',
    proportional='DISABLED')
bpy.ops.mesh.flip_normals()

You can try overriding the context, see this question

After reading gandalf3 comment all works!
import bpy

def areas_tuple():
    res = {}
    count = 0
    for area in bpy.context.screen.areas:
        res[area.type] = count
        count += 1
    return res

def get_region(area):
    res = None
    for region in area.regions:
        if region.type == 'VIEW_3D':
            res = region
            break
    return region

areas = areas_tuple()
view3d = bpy.context.screen.areas[areas['VIEW_3D']].spaces[0]
view3d.pivot_point='CURSOR'
view3d.cursor_location = (0.0, 0.0, 0.0)

bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode = 'EDIT')
bpy.ops.mesh.select_all(action='SELECT')
override = {
    'window': bpy.context.window,
    'screen': bpy.context.screen,
    'area': area,
    'region': get_region(area)
    }

bpy.ops.transform.mirror(
    override,
    constraint_axis=(True, False, False),
    constraint_orientation='GLOBAL',
    proportional='DISABLED')
bpy.ops.mesh.flip_normals()

you could construct a transformation matrix and use Mesh.transform() to mirror and avoid any operators and contexts.

@Dimus can you please provide the definition of your variable area? I get the same error as @ThePie which is NameError: name 'area' is not defined.

Bmesh Mirror operator

bmesh.ops.mirror(...)

Mirrors geometry along an axis. The resulting geometry is welded on
using merge_dist. Pairs of original/mirrored vertices are welded using
the merge_dist parameter (which defines the minimum distance for
welding to happen)

Test script run in edit mode. Will mirror the whole mesh on x to the scene cursor location's local x location.

import bpy
import bmesh
from mathutils import Vector, Matrix
from math import radians, degrees
context = bpy.context
scene = context.scene
ob = context.edit_object
me = ob.data

bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(me)

bmesh.ops.mirror(bm,
        geom=bm.faces[:] + bm.verts[:] + bm.edges[:],
        axis='X',
        matrix=Matrix.Translation(-scene.cursor_location).to_4x4() @ ob.matrix_world,
        merge_dist=-1 # disable so center verts dont merge.
        )
bmesh.update_edit_mesh(me)

This mirrors on the GLOBAL x axis by using the world matrix translated such that the cursor is the origin to mirror over.
Note: Similar answer for How to mirror a mesh on x-axis on pivot point with python? which has  an example of mirroring on the LOCAL axis about cursor.

JFYI, the axis parameter seems to now require a string - 'X, Y, Z' rather than ints.

Cheers. No issues if you wish to make edit to update.

Looking for exactly the same problem, I found another solution (the dimus's answer is not working : NameError: name 'area' is not defined ) :
Rotate object around cursor with Python
So, with transform:
import bpy

def get_override(area_type, region_type):
    for area in bpy.context.screen.areas:
        if area.type == area_type:
            for region in area.regions:
                if region.type == region_type:
                    override = {'area': area, 'region': region}
                    return override
    #error message if the area or region wasn't found
    raise RuntimeError("Wasn't able to find", region_type," in area ", area_type,
                        "\n Make sure it's open while executing script.")

#we need to override the context of our operator
override = get_override( 'VIEW_3D', 'WINDOW' )

bpy.ops.transform.mirror(
    override,
    constraint_axis=(False, True, False),
    constraint_orientation='GLOBAL',
    proportional='DISABLED')


text:
How to automatically join stripped pieces of video?
I'm using Blender for non linear video editor, I'm simply removing dead times (times in which nothing happen) in my video using hard cut (Shift + k) after this process I've got something like this:
At the moment I'm using  g for moving the pieces of video one by one next to each other for removing the black scene interruption is there an automatic way to do the same thing?

Keep the cursor (the green vertical line) on the left hand side, then ShiftBackspace to remove all gaps. (If pressing Backspace once, it will only remove the first gap to the right of the current frame, which can be operate continously. This operation can be found at Strip > Remove Gaps)

P.S.:
Here, Gap means frame durations that don't hold any strips. So, in case of multiple channels, you may want to first select strips on particular channel, then CtrlG to make them as a temporary meta strip, then Tab into that Meta strip, do what you want to do. Then Tab again to exit meta group, AltG to ungroup it.

This information is missing in the documentation: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/editors/vse/sequencer/editing.html?highlight=gap#tools


text:
Stitching Meshes Together
For a game project I'm working on, I want to "stitch" together several grid-like meshes:

Each mesh is sculpted starting from a regular grid to give more depth and detail to its texture. But the individual meshes have to seamlessly connect to their neighboring mesh.
Currently I'm achieving this by selecting each vertex pair and merging the vertices. Which is a lot of dull work. "Remove Doubles" with a big tolerance setting won't work because sometimes the vertices are closer to another vertex than they are to the one they should be joined with.
Can anyone think of an efficient way to join such meshes at their borders?
I'd write a python script that just sorts all selected vertices along an axis and then merges each odd+even pair, but I'm not fluent with Python or the Blender API yet :)

In the time since I asked my question, another question + answer pair has appeared that does what I originally intended to do (merge the edge loop instead of bridging it):
How to Merge Two Edge Loops

Newer Blender releases have Bridge Edge Loops tool for exactly that purpose. Select two edge loops with exactly the same vertex count, then execute the operator. The tool is accessible through the Space menu, or Specials W menu.
There is also an addon included with Blender named LoopTools, containing Bridge tool with the same usage as Blender's built-in tool I described above.

Fantastic, thank you! That's half an hour of work done with just three clicks and it comes up with sensible texture coordinates, too.


text:
Execute operators from Python at start up
I want to add a lamp the current scene using python on startup. I do not want to change the default scene.
Here is the code that I am using:
import bpy

bpy.ops.object.lamp_add(type='POINT', view_align=False, location=(0.0, 0.0, 0.0), rotation=(0.0, 0.0, 0.0), layers=(True, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False))

It adds a point lamp at origin. Like this answer suggests: I have saved this file in scripts/startup as a add_lamp.py
How ever when I start blender nothing has changed. I see no lamps added.

To call an operator from an addon, this solution worked for me: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/8702/attributeerror-restrictdata-object-has-no-attribute-filepath

Background Info...
Blender intentionally prevents you from manipulating the scene at startup, this is because it is rarely useful and you end up running into issues - like loading a blend file immediately overwrite any changes you have made.
Other data such as the user preferences can be manipulated since this persists across different blend files.
1. Explicit Execution
So, if you want to do this, you can use a command line argument to run a text block in your startup.blend:
blender --python-text lamp.py

Or you can reference a path directly:
blender --python /path/to/lamp.py

This way you can control if the script runs before or after loading a blend file.
# add the lamp to any blend you open
blender example.blend --python-text lamp.py

# add the lamp, then overwrite it (not useful in this case)
blender --python-text lamp.py example.blend

The main drawback for this is it needs to be added to some startup script or launcher, or manually entered into the commandline each time you start blender.

2. Using Callbacks
Heres an example of a script you can place in startup/ which adds a handler that can manipulate the scene how you like.
import bpy

def load_handler(dummy):
    bpy.ops.object.lamp_add(type='POINT', view_align=False, location=(0.0, 0.0, 0.0), rotation=(0.0, 0.0, 0.0), layers=(True, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False))

bpy.app.handlers.load_post.append(load_handler)

This is another example which keeps the handler active but only executes on new files.
import bpy
from bpy.app.handlers import persistent

@persistent
def load_handler(dummy):

    # only apply to startup
    if not bpy.data.filepath:
        return

    bpy.ops.object.lamp_add(type='POINT', view_align=False, location=(0.0, 0.0, 0.0), rotation=(0.0, 0.0, 0.0), layers=(True, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False))

bpy.app.handlers.load_post.append(load_handler)

This may seem overkill for such a simple task, but when you consider it gives you the ability to execute code on any newly loaded file, its quite flexible.

I want to achieve this with both pieces of code in method 2. I also tried using blender --python-text lamp.py. But it did not work.

--python-text relies on the textblock being available in bpy.data.texts, it should work as long as the text's available.

Why did neither method for the callacks work?

You ask why something failed without providing any info, Im not even sure what neither method for the callacks means. If something fails you need to provide a way to redo the failure, it could even be a bug, though in this case I doubt it since the features have been used/tested fairly well.

You're probably using 2.7, the console now prints:
Warning! 'C:\Users\user\blender-2.70-testbuild1-win64\2.69\scripts\startup\lamps.py'
has no register function, this is now a requirement for registerable scripts

You would need to add a register function to you script.
I tried this:
import bpy

def register():
    print("add")

this works, but your operator invocation leads to:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Users\user\blender-2.70-testbuild1-win64\2.69\scripts\modules\bpy\utils.py", line 160, in register_module_call
    register()
  File "C:\Users\user\blender-2.70-testbuild1-win64\2.69\scripts\startup\lamps.py", line 5, in register
    bpy.ops.objects.lamp_add(type='POINT', view_align=False, location=(0.0, 0.0, 0.0), rotation=(0.0, 0.0, 0.0),layers=(True, False,
 False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False, False))
  File "C:\Users\user\blender-2.70-testbuild1-win64\2.69\scripts\modules\bpy\ops.py", line 182, in __call__
    BPyOpsSubModOp._scene_update(context)
  File "C:\Users\user\blender-2.70-testbuild1-win64\2.69\scripts\modules\bpy\ops.py", line 148, in _scene_update
    scene = context.scene
AttributeError: '_RestrictContext' object has no attribute 'scene'

I opened the python file in the text editor and checked the register box. And still nothing

this script works when I run it from the text editor, why does it not work as a start up script?

@Vader I'm sorry this doesn't answer your question. Should I delete it or keep it for further reference?

keep it. We can always fix this. Maybe some devs will be able to explain this

Perhaps the operators are not available in this state of initialization.

maybe, I don't know

The other answer on the post you linked suggested to create an addon this should work, a bit more boilerplate but just copy'n paste.

I will try that now


text:
Using Particle systems on an Array Modifier's Cap
I'm new to Stack Exchange, but I've been using blender casually for the past year, or so
I'm currently working on a city, for the purpose of learning and fun.
To save myself from building a lot of buildings to fill it with, and to give it some nice variety, I've built an organic Building, in a way, using the Array modifier, I have 5 floor types, capped with  roof and first floor.
This has worked very well for my city purposes, so far, but I've run into a problem and I'm stumped.

I've been using a particle system emitting a lot of hair, which renders as a random building from a group of buildings, on vertex groups to create the city, and I thought I'd transfer that system to the roof cap, so to make each building have a semi-random roof. It works!

Except, it doesn't. Since I've been using an Array modifier to make the buildings, it would appear as though no particle systems are transferred to the cap, similarly to how Materials are not stored, only Material indices.
I've been playing around with it, but to no avail, my roof caps have no Maintenance Entries.
Is there a way around this? Preferably one that won't eat my already low-spec PC into the ground.
Am I doing something wrong, maybe?
Any help would be appreciated.
Update:
I've since discovered that adding a particle system to the array object allows the maintenance shaft to exist on it, however, it's placement is completely unpredictable and uncontrollable.
Adding children to it seems to grant a small amount of control, however it's placement is still largely mysterious.
I'm including a test file with 3 basic buildings on a block using the same system as my city. There is extra info about the systems within it.
Update #2:
I've since managed to get the maintenance entries to appear on the roofs of the buildings. I've done this by adding the particle system to each building, as well as changing the original vertices to faces. I then assigned the vertex group with index 2 to the particle system.

For some reason, the lone vertices and single edges behave strangely, but faces are predictable.
However, the city generation system still does not show them.

Attempting to apply the same system used on the building group, to the city, results in this:

A lone Maintenance entry on the same location as a building.
This is a new file with my progress added:

Can you provide a test file?  Even a 3 cube setup for ground floor, storey, roof with particle systems would do the trick.

I have done so, a basic building with roof and ground floor, generating across the same system is included.


text:
Grease Pencil primitive/shape tools do not function
First and foremost, I am on 64bit Windows 10, V1909, Build 18363.1440
My current blender installation is 64bit 2.92.0, fresh from blender.org
When I click on the primitives while in Grease Pencil's Draw view, they do not activate. When hovered over, it says they're throwing an Internal Error,
In the Info view, that error appears to be:
Python: get_rna_type("gpencil.primitive") not found
location: <unkown location>:-1

In the system console, it appears to be:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
  File "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender 2.92\2.92\scripts\startup\bl_ui\space_toolsystem_common.py", line 1090, in description_from_id
    return tip_(_bpy.ops.get_rna_type(operator).description)
KeyError: 'get_rna_type("gpencil.primitive") not found'
Python: get_rna_type("gpencil.primitive") not found
location: <unknown location>:-1

Each of the 6 primitives (line, polyline, arc, curve, box, circle) throw this error when hovered over.
No error is thrown when selecting or using the tools.
All errors are from a new file in 2.92.0
This has been happening since I installed 2.80, so I imagine this is a problem with my PC or installation, but I don't know what could be causing it. It did not occur prior to installing 2.80 - but that was very long ago at this point.
I've tried:

using a clean installation of 2.78, 2.79, 2.80, 2.82, 2.83, 2.90, 2.91, 2.92
repairing existing installations of 2.82, 2.90 and 2.92 via the installer
manually replacing ops.gpencil.primitive files with the files available on github

It hasn't bothered me before, so I've never looked into it, but now that I am doing my own concept sketches, I sorely miss the circle tool.
If anyone has an idea on what I could do to repair this issue, I would greatly appreciate the help.

After some messing about, I deleted my user preferences to find that it solved the issue.
Unsatisfied with this catch-all fix, I endeavored to find out why, and went through each setting, enabling and disabling it to see its effect.
It turns out that my keymap, being the same keymap I've been using for, perhaps years, still being retained through to 2.92, somewhat customized, caused the issue.
I do not know why, or how, but not using it seems to fix the issue entirely.
Perhaps there are some formatting issues, as clearly my old keymap file does not load the same Preferences menu that the new default ones do.
It also seems that it doesn't know what about itself has been changed, as it marks parts of the keymap as being able to be restored, when I did not change those parts. Perhaps the keymap is corrupted.
I have no idea how the keymap having problems would affect the ability of the tools to function, but apparently it does.


text:
How to go about baking fine details into normals
I'm trying to sculpt pretty fine details into my model's normal map. The model is about 350 vertices, but for the detail I want I need to subdivide it a ton of times to not get ugly edges around the stuff I'm sculpting (I'm using the multiresolution modifier, but I've also tried with subdivision surface - 8x times seems to do it, 7x still has some roughness).
This gets me something like 20 million vertices in my high detail mesh, which seems to always crash Blender (EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION) when I try to bake normals. My specs are:

Intel i7-9750H CPU @ 2.60GHz
16,0 Gt RAM
GeForce RTX 2060

I've tried Blender 3.0 and 2.93, both keep crashing - with 7x subdivision the bake seems to work. Crash log is here: https://pastebin.com/75tRTLXy
I've tried:

Baking with only CPU
Baking with & without a cage
Changing Windows' virtual memory settings
Someone recommended setting tile size to the bake's target resolution & render samples to 16 for baking, tried that
Tried different target resolutions
Launched blender as admin

No dice so far.
These plant figures for instance get blurry with 7x (pic is with 8x):

How should I go about this; am I trying to brute force this with subdivisions, is there a better way? I know about dyntopo and would -love- to use it, but the layer brush doesn't seem to support it. Without the layer brush, continuing from one stroke to another leaves a dip where the two accumulate together, regardless of any settings I've found.
I figure ZBrush for instance could work better but I'd like to do as much as I can within one program.
Tried banging my head into this for a while now, getting the feeling I'm doing something wrong / in a really backwards way. Thanks in advance!

Do you have any addons enabled that might interfere with the bake? (GoB addon, for example causes bakes to crash).

I tried disabling all addons except Cycles & Node Wrangler, still crashes. Since it works with 7x subdivisions, it might just be too much detail for my rig (is baking a 20mil vert mesh too much? I have little frame of reference here), but I have no idea how to approach this differently, besides just settling for jagged edges in my normals.

Have you tried applying the subdivision modifier before baking?  Easier on Blender to not have to compute subdivs on the fly.

Tried applying the subdivs before baking - still crashed. Cheers for the suggestion though!

Voxel remesh with the correct size (around 0.004 in my model's case) can reduce the vertex count low enough that the bake succeeds without lowering details too much. I'll still leave this open, since I'm sure I'll need to run higher vertex bakes later on one way or the other, and the crash issue persists. Unless that's just a flat hardware limitation that can't be circumvented, not sure!


text:
How to continue smoothly from a previous sculpt stroke with dyntopo
I often find myself trying to sculpt reliefs or other dips / increments to a model with a set depth or height. Like this, with the plant figures all being the same height:

The layer brush-tool with the "set persistent base" setting is great for this, but it doesn't support dyntopo. Without dyntopo, I need to add a ton of subdivisions to the entire model I'm sculpting to get enough detail & avoid ugly artefacts in the sculpt, which always crashes blender when I'm trying to bake the high detail model into normals (asked about this here as well: How to go about baking fine details into normals). I can kind-of sort-of get around this by voxel remeshing the high detail model, but that gives me awful glitchy normals when baked to the low poly model.
Without the layer brush, two strokes accumulate on top of each other when I'm continuing the sculpt, which causes ugly dips and spikes, like so:

It's really easy to see where one stroke ends and another begins in the overlapping parts. I've tried smoothing & flattening, different brushes that work with dyntopo etc. to no avail.
This has to be a fairly common usecase, right? How do people usually do things like this?

Well, I did figure out a way to make that. The workflow is all over the place and it required (with my limited Blender knowledge) external programs, but it works.
First, I made a black image texture & added that as the model's base color. I also added the same texture to a bump node and connected that as the model's normal map.
Now, I could paint height differences in texture paint; black does nothing, pure white adds the maximum amount of height. After that's done, I saved the resulting height map and generated a normal map from it with another program (XNormal in my case, I've heard Crazybump too but got pretty bad results with it. Knald is probably the best but I don't have that).
Next, I replaced the bump node with a normal map-node and connected the generated map to it. Now I have a nice relief as a normal map with consistent height, and it's easy to modify when needed.
I wondered if I should mark this as an answer since the workflow is, well, just look at it - there has to be an easier way. It does work, but if someone knows a better way, let me know!


text:
Blender 2.8 viewport problems (because of AMD Radeon R9 M295X 4096 MB?)
Ive been using blender 2.79 without problems for some time. I've recently downloaded blender 2.8 in which a very basic problem appears.
In cycles, when in rendered mode, the viewport behaves very strange. It will not update any shaders. It will not update the position of a light source until I go out of rendered mode and back in again. When using nodes for a light source, after changing any parameters the light will just behave as an infinitely strong source.
These problems seems to only be present in the viewport, it renders fine.
If the project is saved, it will display the correct shaders in the viewport in rendered mode. But again, will not update if I make any changes.
Is this because of my GPU? Seems like it should be supported with 3d gen GCN.
Under Blender Preferences > Cycles Render Devices it says "no compatible GPUs found" for Open CL.
Im running on
MacOS Mojave Version 10.14.3
iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2014)
4 GHz Intel Core i7
32 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
AMD Radeon R9 M295X 4096 MB
What do?

I see. Sorry for my technical non-knowhow, but does that mean the rendering in the viewport has to be driven by gpu, and the reason it works when actually rendering for real is that it uses the cpu then?


text:
How to animate a camera to follow an object
I am creating an animation that is mainly focused on an moving and rotating object, the objects animation speeds up and slows down based on the music I plan on adding. I have the object animated the way I like but I need the camera to follow the object. I tried parenting them together and setting a track to but the problem then is that camera also follows the rotation of that object.
Is there anyway to like set just the camera's x location to be the same as the object's x location animation so that the camera follows the rotating object without actually rotating it's self?

Create an Empty and parent the camera to that instead of the actual object. Then add a Copy Location constraint to the Empty to copy the location of the object, ignoring the rotation. To get a delay between the object and the camera (so the camera lags behind the motion) you can use the Slow Parent option when parenting the camera to the Empty.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_9tSMBNop4&feature=youtu.be.

Here is the animation I made. If you have any feedback for how to better animate or any tips I would love to hear them. This was my first time actually using the graph editor so I am trying to get better in using it and making better animations so I can better understand animating in blender before moving to animating and rigging charachters.


text:
Trouble dissolving edges
I made a weapon model in blender, I can't remember exactly when or how I ended up with these edges because I made the model a few days ago, however I came back to the model to use it as something to learn how to UV map with. That's when I noticed these edges on this face, the face is not meant to be separated like this, on the other side it appears normal but on the side with the bolt two edges appear, when I try to dissolve them nothing happens, if I completely delete them the whole face disappears.

In wire frame view in case it helps:

If I fully delete one edge it makes the faces invisible but the other edge stays, as shown here:

Alright so, started messing around with the model trying to figure out what went wrong, it appears that the un-dissolvable lines appear after putting a hole in the model using the Boolean difference modifier, no idea why or how to avoid this but thought this might help in finding a way to get rid of the edges.
SOLUTION: Othoap Proto suggested that while in edit mode I select the faces that are separated by the two edges and then press "P/Seperate", by selection. The edges that where an issue then disappeared, all I had to do then was rejoin the two objects (Select the objects and press CTRl+J.) This worked for me and hopefully will for anyone else with the same issue.

There maybe extra vertex. In edit mode select all vertex and run "Remove Doubles" Or you will need to go corner by corner of the face and see it you need to merge any vertex.

I thought it might be something like that, but I just checked that and that does not appear to be the case, when I try removing doubles 0 verts are removed. However I noticed something I didn't mention earlier that might help come to a conclusion to why this is happening. When I delete one of the problematic edges the faces disappear but the other edge stays, added a image to the original post as an example.

On a test copy of this model. In Edit/Face mode select the face/faces in question and select "P/separate" then select this new model and hit "/" on the number pad to isolate just this. The go back in to Edit/Vertex mode and see is you can find a vert/ face folded back on it's self.

I'm not sure what you mean by the vert/face folded back on itself. But when I separated the faces from the main part, the problematic edges vanished in object mode, I can still see them in edit mode but in object mode the face is now one, I don't know why I can still see them in edit mode but this solved the issue, thanks! :D


text:
Mapping normals from -1..1 to 0..1
I am trying to bake a map that shows calculated normals in 0..1 range using cycles.  (As opposed to -1..1 range)
When I use Separate XYZ -> Map Range -> Combine XYZ, normal components that should be 0.5 (originally 0) end up being 0.7373.
I can confirm these values are 0.5 using test nodes. (Please see the blend file)

Changing color management from filmic to standard didn't help.  It seems color management is not taken into account at all during bake.
Appreciate any help in fixing this.  But more importantly I would like to understand where 0.7373 value comes from.

Perhaps this answer could help you.

@RobertGützkow thanks for the link.  It didn't occur to me to convert normals to camera space.  Honestly I think it's not the right thing to do.  But I'll give it a try nevertheless.

Whether it's the right thing to do depends on the goal you're trying to achieve. The problem you're seeing is most likely caused by color management. Either save the file as OpenEXR or use Raw as view transform for non-color data.

Using Raw as view transform doesn't change the resulting values.

Then I'll have to take a closer look at your node setup.

I looked at your answer linked, and our setups are not too different other than world->camera space transform and transparency.  Also your setup seems to be done in 2.8x.  Strange.

Oh, I just noticed something, Z is multipled by -0.5 (instead of 0.5) in your setup.  Making these changes (-0.5 & camera coords transform) makes the shader look right in the viewport.  Sadly baked result is the same.

The -0.5 is because in camera coordinates the Z-axis is flipped (see explanation here).

Note: This is only a partial answer, since more information were provided in the comments after it was written. Color management is nonetheless relevant for a correct output.

The reason your correct value of $0.5$ is saved as $0.735357$ is because you're using the Standard view transform and your Display Device is set to sRGB.
The scene linear values are transformed into the sRGB color space (IEC 61966-2-1:1999). During this process gamma correction is applied.
$$\gamma_{sRGB}(x) = \begin{cases} 12.92x,& x \le 0.0031308\\
    1.055 x^{\left(\frac{1}{2.4}\right)} -0.055 ,              & \text{otherwise} \end{cases}$$
For an input of $x=0.5$ this results in $1.055 \times 0.5^{\left(\frac{1}{2.4}\right)}-0.055=0.735357$
In order to save the scene linear values use the OpenEXR (.exr) format. Blender will not apply any view transforms or display transforms when using this format. Alternatively, if you're certain that your output is in the $[0.0, 1.0]$ range, you can also set the view transform to Raw and use any other image format to save an approximation of the values. Blender will map the values to the $[0,255]$ range automatically.

I'm always confused about where to get the knife in: what mappings are used at what points in the pipeline... Could you briefly go over the correct settings to save linear values in this answer?

I can change the Display Device to None, then the only option is Standard view transform.  When I bake under these settings I still get the same result though.

@RobinBetts as longs as you're working with values within Blender it should all be in scene linear. The transforms are only applied once you save the image as file or when displaying it on your monitor.

@muhuk What exactly do you mean by baking in this context? What steps do you perform that give you the output image? If you want to bake a normal map, then you can simply set the Bake Type to Normal.

Thanks to @robert-gützkow I managed to debug the issue.
It turns out the solution is to:

Use an emission shader in the material to be baked.
Use Combined bake mode instead of Emit. (see image below)


text:
Blender 3.0 VSE - audio and video out of sync - Bug?
I'm having an audio and video out of sync issue that I don't have with version 2.79.
I have created a new video project with Blender 3.0 VSE, in the composer I bring as input a video of 1920 * 1080 and 29.97 fps. This is a Sony camera file in MXF format (422 10-bit). I use the compositor to crop my subject from the green screen and I export the text to the MOV QT Animation format with the Alpha channel (19201080 29,97fps)*.
In a new project, I import my MOV file that I got with Blender.
On a second track, I import the original video (MXF) to use the audio track.
These two videos are with the same number of frames per second and are perfectly aligned.
However, when one of the two video strips is turned on or off with the H key we notice on the monitor that the frames of the two videos are not synchronized and when I export the rendering, the sound is completely out of sync.
I don't understand what's going on. With version 2.79 I don't have this problem.

Please clarify your specific problem or provide additional details to highlight exactly what you need. As it's currently written, it's hard to tell exactly what you're asking.

Try re-building the proxy and timecode indices in the strip properties Proxy Settings tab. This should force Blender to accurately call the frames. Otherwise you should convert the media into a frame sequence as that is the only format that blender can guarantee to play correctly.

Same problem here. Video and audio, when added, becomes out of sync. What I did to fix it (if you are adding more than one video to Blender, you'll need to do this for each video): I used handbrake (it is a free download) After opening Handbrake do the following: Open Source Choose your video and Drop your file Under Video, make your framerate 29.97 and (important) make sure you check the box below to make it Constant Framerate. Go down and "save as" to the folder you wish to place your video. This will save your audio and video at a constant framerate.Now, Add it to your Blender video as usual.


text:
Rendering Result varies vastly from what I see in the viewport when using Texture coordinate's "Generated"
I'm trying to get more into procedural texturing, and I found myself facing a problem where the texture I'm seeing in my viewport is diffrent from what is rendered. While trying to fix the problem, I narrowed the "root of evil" down and I'm now actually pretty certain that the "Generated" output of the Texture coordinate is causing me problems.
I am unable to think of what could cause this or how to fix it.
Maybe this is normal when using this output and I never noticed, wouldn't make any sense to me tho?! Is it some Camera settings I'm too dumb to spot?
I'm rendering in Cycles btw and attaching some photos of my viewport and the rendered result, as well as one of the node tree.

Hope someone could provide any help to solve the problem :)
 Here's the blendfile

just a wild guess: are there any modifiers on the object that have different settings for the viewport and rendering?

Hi Niklas, as you can see with Blunder's comment -> we can only guess because you didn't provide us all necessary informations to help you. So pls provide your blend file so we can check it out. And no - i am pretty sure it is not the generated coordinate, else everybody would complain about it.

@RobinBetts I uploaded the blend file now. Hope it helps

@Blunder no not as far as I'm concerned. I do use subd, but the levels for viewport and render are the same.

@Chris I see. just thought it had something to do with the generated one, since it was the only input coordinate that changed it. MAy my blendfile helps now :)

I found the Problem. I'm using a surface deform modifier on this object, and every node connected to a generated coordinate is rendered with a different result.
In the Shader preview the nodes/ the whole texture is applied after all the modifiers, but when rendered the surface deforme is taken into accountance after the texture is applied. I did not now that, and that caused me the trouble.
Thanks to everyone trying to help.


text:
How to get rid of deformations of poles caused by sub division?
How can I get rid of the weird poles artifacts seen at the nose?

In short, don't use n-gons or tris.

always end your cap's like this: http://blender.stackexchange.com/a/29086/7777 and you will be fine

This method greatly reduces the impact the poles.

Add a knife cut close to the front of the nose.
(enable cut through z and angle constraint c)

Final Result

For your instance here is the workflow, Ill circle back later and give the text step-by-step run down. By the way this does not eliminate, but practically It does visually. You can, but you need to get rid of that Apex, and figure out how to re-topo at this location. However, this is a good first start.

To cut on both sides at a time with Knife tool while cutting enable Cut through option.