text:
How can I use outliner dots(?? I don't know it's name)?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z11Sv_kkoUs
In this video, I saw dots which can make me switch object to other not in object mode.
But I don't know how can I activate the dots.
Please let me know that.
I use 2.90.1 ver.

Mode toggling is a 2.91 feature. You need to update your Blender version.

Move mode toggling to the left column. When in non-object modes, icon buttons are shown in the left column for toggling modes. Clicking a dot icon will switch that object to become the new active object, Ctrl+click adds the object into the current mode. (2110af20f5)

thank you very much


text:
How can I draw a parallel line to other edge in a face?

I wanted to divide a face with line b parallel to a. At first I tried 'loop cut and slide' but it did not work for unknown reason. Next time I tried 'edge slide' line c to the position b but failed again because edge sliding moved other edges(d, e) connected to c. And then I tried extrude edge c toward b but failed again because it made a additional face and edges. Finally I decided to use knife tool because I thought that knife tool might activate like 'pencil' tool in Sketchup(It's very easy to draw a parallel line with pencil tool in Sketchup due to it's auto-snapping). But I realized that drawing a parallel line with knife tool is impossible at that viewpoint because there's no option like parallel to other edge in knife tool. Knife tool has only 'angle constraint' option  and in orthographic front view(in which I can draw parallel line with angle constraint) I can't work because other structures are covered. How can I draw a parallel line to other edge easily?

I think @hekete's answer is really good, and covers all the bases.. just wanted to add that the 'unknown reason' is that loop cut and slide has to know where to cut. The only way it can do this generally is to follow successive opposite edges of quad faces. If it encounters a non-quad face on its journey,it has to stop.

@RobinBetts thank you. your answer is helpful too.

There are a few methods, but usually the most intuitive is the knife tool. Put your view in orthographic and snap it so that the line you want to cut is either flat horizontal or vertical and use the angle constraint mode (c).
If there are things blocking your view of the cut just hide them (h). If the cut isn't aligned to one of the global axes then you can select a face with a parallel edge and snap you view to it with shift+numpad7/1/3.
In the case you have drawn though, I would just use the knife tool and cut the edge without worrying about getting it parallel. After the edge is cut grab the vertex at 'g', enable vertex snapping and constrain movement to z axis. Then snap it to the vertex at 'f'.

Your solution is excellent, but it still looks complicated  to me, who is used to Sketchup pencil tool. I hope someday Blender'll add auto snapping option(or add on?) for knife tool like pencil tool of Sketchup for easy editing. Thank you for answer and have a good day!

@나미손 There are a bunch of other ways you could do it, but if you need to line things up have a good look at the various snapping options to start with. The included addon TinyCad can be useful for more tricky situations. Remember it's more for art, so while you can make very precise models it's often not as simple as you might be used to in a more CAD oriented program.

ok thank you. I'll study TinyCad. ^^

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
How can I use 'create new collection' command?

I create a collection with 'create new collection' command but the new collection did not appear in scene collection. And I found it in 'orphan data'. I tried to move the new collection(test) to scene collection but failed. I don't understand the way it works like that. How can I use the new 'test' collection?

Good question. No idea how that is supposed to be useful. Adding it in the outliner makes sense, but that shortcut in object mode doesn't.

This is more or less a remnant of old functionality from 2.79 and before that doesn't make sense in Blender 2.8. The developers are aware of the issue, multiple bug reports have been filed regarding the odd behavior.
If you want to create a new collection in the current scene use the M shortcut and select New collection. This will also move all selected objects to that new collection. If you just want to create an empty new collection with the shortcut, make sure that no object is selected.

ok. that is a bug!

Hover over the outliner and press C to make a new collection without moving any objects into it. (in blender 2.835 anyway) Just pressing M gives an error 'no objects selected' as in the answer stated above.

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


text:
what do these options affect?

Because I wanted to know effect of options of world tab in properties editor, I set each color option as green, red, blue. Rendering image showed me only 'surface' option being meaningful. I want to know where I can see red(volume) and blue(viewport display) color.

The viewport display only displays in the 3D viewport. The surface and volume panels actually provide shortcuts to edit the world nodes, which you can also examine in the shader editor, when you set it to World.
Surface
The surface color of the world when rendering. This color will be visible in the background when rendering and will indirectly light objects. You can see the indirect lighting on the left face of the cube. To enter rendered mode, press Z in the 3D Viewport and choose Rendered.

Viewport Display
The surface color of the world when using the workbench renderer. This color will be visible in the background when not in rendered mode and will not indirectly light objects. You will only see this color in the background in solid or wireframe mode.
You will also have to enable its display in the Viewport Shading settings.
To enter solid mode, press Z in the 3D Viewport and choose Solid.

Volume
You have select a Background BSDF in the Surface Panel which gets connected to the world output Surface. You will have to select a fitting Volumetric BSDF in the volume panel, since it will get connected to the volume output. A volume scatter BSDF scatters light volumetrically.

thank you for good answer. have a nice weekend.


text:
I want to make inset face planar

I make left geometry using inset faces(using 'depth' option) and after many tasks I want make inset face planar like right geometry(removing only 'depth' effect and moving only inner face).
Is there any tool for me?

Keyboard Period . > Set pivot to 'Active Element'
Select center face, (the one to be moved,) Header 'Transform Orientations' dropdown > '+' create a new transform orientation from it
Ctrl Numpad + expand the selection to include the rim.
Keyboard 1 go to Vertex mode
Shift LMB twice, Deselect and select one of the rim vertices to make it active
S Z 0

thank you for answer


text:
How can I replace image texture, save a render then repeat for all images in a folder from Python?
I have a 3D product and need to render it out a couple of times, each time with a different label. I was hoping there was a way to automate this.
I found a script to load an image texture but need some help making it load all images in a folder and saving a render for each one.
The code so far for 1 image:
import bpy
from bpy import context, data, ops

mat = bpy.data.materials.new(name="labels")
mat.use_nodes = True
bsdf = mat.node_tree.nodes["Principled BSDF"]
texImage = mat.node_tree.nodes.new('ShaderNodeTexImage')
texImage.image = bpy.data.images.load("/Volumes/EXTERNAL/Lab/blenderScripting/kingfisher/psdtest/Label2.jpg")
mat.node_tree.links.new(bsdf.inputs['Base Color'], texImage.outputs['Color'])

ob = context.view_layer.objects.active

# Assign it to object
if ob.data.materials:
    ob.data.materials[0] = mat
else:
    ob.data.materials.append(mat)

A simple solution is to rename all your textures to something like "tex0001.png", "tex0002.png", etc. And then select "Image Sequence" in the ImageTexture node.

@Secrop that’s genius.

Ah yes, I sometimes forget about the simple solutions. Will give it a try. Thanks @Secrop


text:
Pose mode lags with a specific armature
I have a lot of lags, and I almost crash when I move or select bones in pose mode only with a specific armature. I search on google similar issues during 3 hours but I didnt find anything. I install 4 different versions of blender (2.8, 2.83, 2.83.3 and 2.90), the lags appear in 2.83.3 version. I dont have subsurf modifier activated or solidify

If you go to the Viewport Overlays dropdown and enable "Show Statistics", then select the related character mesh controlled by the armature, put into EDIT mode and 'a' to select all vertices: does that mesh have an unusually higher vertex count than your other meshes controlled by armatures that are well behaved?  You may be overwhelming your machine that contains a very high mesh could, and may need to simplify the mesh.

Hi ! Its not about the mesh, if I hide the mesh I still have lags

Hiding the mesh will not stop all the calculations of the influence of armature on the mesh that may be slowing this down.   In a copy of the file, try DELETING the mesh and see if that restores your performance. If no difference then it’s not the mesh.

Your rig may have extra objects parented to it, which causes the problem.
Make sure your rig doesn't have any unnecessary mesh, curves, etc parented to it.


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How to make a head model of any person?
I need a way that will quickly create a mesh based on a face photo (and possibly a profile portrait)
There are a lot of videos on the Internet about a paid addon. It works well, but it's still paid. I also know that you can use scanning, but I don't think that it is possible to create a mesh from one photo using scanning, this is too little.

you can use free softwares like Meshroom but it needs a lot of pictures to build a 3D mesh

It depends on the quality you're after. What will you use it for ?

@Gorgious , i want to use them for printing. if the quality is rough, then I can improve them in sculpting anyway


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I fail to bake color using "window" option in Texture coordinate node
Please look at this example. I made a simple node tree and i want to bake what i see in viewport. I want to use "window" option in Texture Coordinates node specifically.
But when i try to Bake it into image, texture goes wrong from i see in viewport.
I didn't find any info about this issue, mb it isn't possible idk....

Try with a camera. It makes sense, that window is not a very well defined thing in context of baking, because there can be many 3d Viewport windows open. There can only be one active camera at a time in a scene, so I think camera has a way greater chance of working.

@MartynasŽiemys's comment is correct ... To bake texture coordinates type Window you need a Camera object in your scene. Even you can see texture coordinates are used for 3D viewport, Bake operator uses only what Camera object see.
Default camera view ...

Bake without Camera object in a Scene ...

Bake with Camera object in a Scene ...

its all good but "Camera" and "Window" options in Texture coordinates are nor the same at all.

Sorry for confusion ... I mean Camera object (not Camera Texture Coordinates) ... I edited description to make it clear :)


text:
Archipack walls only selectable on one face
I'm trying to select the faces of my Archipack walls, but I can only select one side of the walls. I wanted to apply a texture to all the other sides of the walls, but can only select one face to UV unwrap.
I can't seem to find anything about this in the documentation so I'm not sure if it's part of normal operation.
If I use the reverse, flip buttons in the Archipack menu I can make the selectable face go to the opposite side, but it still only lets me select the one face. Same thing if I try to flip normals.

Looking at the vertices, it seems to only create vertices along one edge? I don't know how I would fix that though.

I would guess that archipack is using a solidify modifier so the way to add textures to the 'inside' walls would be to find the modifier in the wall's modifier stack and set the material property.

This is because a Solidify modifier is in effect. Modifiers operate “at the last minute“ on top of the geometry. That’s why they are useful over operators. A modifier can be adjusted at ANY time. An operator permanently changes the mesh, and ends up somewhere back in the undo history.
To be able to UV unwrap the rest of the wall, you can apply the solidify modifier, but be warned the wall will be permanently set in its thickness.


text:
Random line apperar in object modee
a line appear in object mode, but it doen´t appear in edit mode. how can i delete it??

Are you using any modifiers?

the only modifier i use is  brevel and then shade smooth

Bevel modifier is the cause, is the clamp option on? Did you try to merge by distance?

finally solve the problem, thanks you a lot


text:
Problen with Object not appearing in render
i don´t know what`s happenig why isn´t rendering but in the last proyect everything was fine. Hope someone can help.

The grey Background with the grid means, there is no Image to preview. You did not actually start a Render. You can start a Render in the Header via Render > Render Image or by hitting F12.
You probably used View Render or F11, wich displays the last Render (in this Case None).


text:
How are HDRIs used for the foreground?
I was looking at HDRI Haven and some of the example renders appear to use the HDRI as part of the foreground.
For example this hdri:
https://hdrihaven.com/hdri/?h=old_bus_depot
In the example render below they used the part of the hdri in the blue square.  How is this achieved?

Use the HDR as environment texture.
Just line up the camera so that it sees that part of the environment.

Or rotate the environment image until you see the section you are looking for.
How do I rotate an environment texture?
To have shadows of the object create a plane and use it as shadow catcher.

Thanks!  If I want it to be as hi-res as in the example render, do I need to download the 16k version?

3D os all about optimization. Download the one that works for your needs, and that doesn't exceed the capabilities of your computer.


text:
Nothing there in the Active Tool drop down
I’m really new to blender and whenever I click the Active Tool drop down in the tab Tool of Texture Paint, nothing happens. In the tutorial I’m following, there is supposed to be a bunch of options that show up. I’ve tried reopening blender and I’ve opened a new project where these options do show up. Does anyone know why this is happening or how to fix it? Thanks!

Welcome to the Blender SE! Including screenshots makes it easier for others to help you, as is including the original video and timestamp of the tutorial you are referencing!

Did you click a tool in the tool bar that is in the 3d view? Once you click a tool, that tab fills with the corresponding information about the selected tool.


text:
Viewport render gives the desired result but the actual render shows a black screen
The blender file
The viewport render is correct but the actual rendered image is a black screen.
This happened to me before and i even posted a question regarding that and the problem was a hidden object. But this time I made sure there was no hidden object in my project but it still doesn't work.
I tried the to unhide all the objects and nothing came out which could disrupt the camera view.
Your help is much appreciated. Thank you

Number 9 at this link ...

The answer given below by @Chaudhry yousuf answers my question.

The problem is really simple. Actually you have gone to the compositor and deleted the render output which will stop anything from being rendered. Either add these two nodes back in the compositor:
Or either just uncheck the compositing and sequencer boxes so they don't affect your render:
After doing this the render works at my end.

ok Thanks. But i deleted those nodes because it had an output node and the renderfarm i use wasn't accepting the file due to that, I tried muting it too but it still wasn't accepting the .blend file so i deleted those nodes and those 2 got deleted as well


text:
Animated oil spill on ocean surface
I'm about to help a client do an animation explaining an invention cleaning oil spill or other floating debris from the surface of the ocean.
Any ideas would much appreciated as to how this could be approached. My thoughts so far is to maybe use dynamic paint to somehow make the oil spill. Maybe use a fluid sim as the brush. Since I've not been able to use the ocean modifier as a canvas maybe I should shrink wrap a subdivided plane onto the ocean and use that as the canvas and bake out an image sequence. Maybe this can be reversed and used as a factor between my ocean shader and oil shader.
What I'm aiming for is the oil spill to be removed almost like it had been sucked away by a vacuum cleaner.
Am I missing something obvious?
An added bonus would be if the solution could be used with Eevee.

Final

Maybe something like this will be enough for you. It is fairly simple and made only with nodes. Rendered in EEVEE.
Overview
Ocean
It's a simple Plane with Ocean modifier and animated Time value. From 1 to 5 trough 150 frames.

Material
I've used "two parts" material. First one is shrinking circle (distorted) and second is main distortion. At the end of the node setup I've used Color Ramp to select ocean and oil colors.
Shrinking is made by animating Mapping Scale.

Brilliant! With a little tweaking that will probably do just fine. Quite a bit simpler than the route I was about to embark on. I really need to up my procedural game! Thanks a lot!

@BjörnWallén I'm glad you like it! You can accept and upvote my answer if it is sufficient for you.


text:
Force particles outwards and upward
I'm looking for a way to let particles enter into a tube from the top and when they reach the bottom they should slow down, be pushed radially outwards and then upwards. See a very crude cross section below.
With a regular force I can get them pushed outwards but is there a way to have sort of a tube shaped force that is stronger the farther you get from the center radially?

Turn off gravity  for both methods.
Using a curve force
Use multiple emitters on multiple layers. Add a curve force to each layer shaping the path of the particles as desired.
Using physical forces
Force this setup I used Wind forces (for the up and down movement), a point force (to disperse the particles at the bottom and a vortex force on the bottom to stop them from drifting away on the horizontal plane.

The wind forces
Use a smaller wind force to push the particles downward (strength -20) with a narrow falloff (0.8, 1.2).
Use a larger wind force to push the particles upward (strength 10). It will also act in the center (where the particles are supposed to go down), which is why the smaller down force has a larger strength to counteract the upward force.
Outward movement at the bottom
A simple point force at the bottom with a radius of 1 - 2 can push the particles away from the center. Since the continue to drift away from the center, a vortex force can pull them back towards it. Here you need to fine tune the value to stop the particles from not following the desired path.
You can use drag forces to remove the XZ velocities. A drag force in combination with a strong wind force will give you good control and can remove some problematic velocity which has built up.

Brilliant! That helps a lot! I need to play around more with fall of setting to get the hang of it.

Brilliant! That helps a lot! I need to play around more with fall of setting to get the hang of it. To further complicate things, what if the particles were to enter radially from the top?

I'm not sure if I understand your concern. You can edit your answer to include new content (maybe another illustration). You can then mark another answer as accepted. It sounds like it is a different aspect of your problem though and would be well suited for another question. (you should limit yourself to one question per post, however you can open as many threads as necessary.)


text:
Organize long animation
I sense there is an obvious way to do this that I have somehow missed.
I´m helping a client doing an instructional animation showing how to assemble a swimming pool, showing all the steps from digging the pit to a final beauty shot of the finished thing.
The way I have done it so far is appending all the models and organizing them in collections. Then I've just key framed everything in the time line. This works but as soon as the client ask for something to be changed it's a tedious nightmare. For instance there is literally thousands of screws that need to go inte right order.
How should I have done this to make it ass efficient as possible and to make it as easy as possible to change the order in wich things are happening?
If there are a tutorial, article or subject I should look into, the please direct me to it.
Many thanks in advance!
/Björn

Try looking at tutorials about Blender's NLA (Nonlinear Animation) editor. That's what it's for! This is the Blender manual introduction to the NLA but there are many detailed YT videos showing how to use it online.

@JohnEason Thank you. That’s another blender topic I never learned but I need to. I hope I can be ass efficient at it soon (yes, Bjorn, I’m ribbing you).

Blender is full of surprises, but the NLA has been there for years! :^)


text:
Eevee transparency and transmission
I have this kind of weird scene I'm working on where I have a cube of water (principled shader with transmission set to one and IOR of 1.333). Inside of that cube is a plane where I'm using a gradient mask make the plane either fully transparent or just slightly.
With cycles this works like a charm

but in Eevee it doesn't. The plane dissappears.

Any sugestions how to accomplish this? I'm guession screen space reflections/refractions and alpha settings on the materials matters but I can't figure out how to set them
Blend file is attached but missing hdri.
download file
Regards,
Björn

At least try playing with the different transparency types (setting them to hashed)

The solution in my case was so simple I somehow missed it. I changed my mask from black/white to grey/white and accomplished what I was after.


text:
Arrange order of items in collection / outliner?
I’d like to manually rearrange my items within a collection but dragging doesn’t do anything ? I’ve turned off Sort Alphabetically but still no joy. Maybe this isn’t possible yet in Blender 2.9 ? I like to keep things organised like in C4D. Any help would be much appreciated.

Hello :). I'm afraid items can't be sorted manually as of this moment. It's a requested feature hopefully coming soon :).

Even though you can't manually rearrange objects like in C4D, you can use an "Empty" which is the equivalent to a "Null Object" to separate objects inside a collection.

Nice. I'll use the Empty method for now. Fingers crossed for a drag and drop update at some point.


text:
BlenderGIS get SRTM Error
I am using blender 2.90. I installed the BlenderGIS add-on and tried using it. The Basemap function works fine bht when i try to use Get_STRM, i get the following:
RuntimeError: Error, Unable to open raster.
Please help me ASAP.

See https://github.com/domlysz/BlenderGIS/issues/305

Also please copy the output from the console and paste here as a text block. Mobile phone  images of screens can be difficult to read on some monitors.


text:
Blender AttributeError: 'PreferenceView' object has no attribute 'use_international_fonts'
I am at intermediate level in Blender and i recently came across Groove 3D. So, I downloaded and installed it. But when I enable the add-on it displays " Error(see console) " under Preferences option.
When i open the console, I see the following message:
AttributeError: 'PreferenceView' object has no attribute 'use_international_fonts'
Please help me solve this immediately.
P.S: I am not very familiar with python or coding in general.

It seems that the version of Groove3D that you're using hasn't been updated for Blender 2.83. This Blender version introduced a change to the Python API. The handling of languages and translation were adjusted by:

https://developer.blender.org/D7210
https://developer.blender.org/rB968619d03626c7e4d92d4cb383ac304b72595af3

As a consequence the use_international_fonts mentioned in the error message no longer exists.
Therefore, I would suggest you contact the developer, in case they aren't aware of this change. In the meantime you could use the add-on in Blender 2.82.

Thanks @Robert_Gützkow


text:
Blender random packing animation (reactor cylinder type catalyst random packing)
I'd like to make an animation like bellow (reproduced from: DOI: 10.1016/j.cesx.2019.100006):

and I have tried to do referring the following sources:
How to create randomly packed bed?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pexD2XhncNY
The following image is the results I have got, however, the pellets penetrate the corn and just free fall on the bottom.
even some pellets hang on the air.
How can I solve this?

The size of the main cylinder(actually reactor) is 1 in ID and 0.7 m length.
and the size of the pellet is 3mm diameter and 6 mm length.

Possibly inverted normals.

Make your Steps Per Second high enough. This is in Scene tab under Rigid Body World and Settings. Default is 60 and seems to be too low in some cases. High value will slow down calculations but will be more accurate.

Next make sure your collision Shape is Mesh for you funnel. This is important for complex objects. For your pellets I think Capsule should be fine. Also make Sensitivity Margin small enough. Accurate shape will slow down calculations but will be more realistic.

Last make sure your walls are thick enough. If your wall are too thin then your particles can make through before next step happens.

Thank you for your kind help! I will try it!


text:
Sculpting does not give a visible change in my model
So im new to blender and im following this tutorial from youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OTX3ZdYvEA
When i try to use the sculpture mode to dent in the side, it just doesnt do anything. Ive been shoving my mouse all over the  model and sometimes i get a random dent but nothing that gives me the impression that it is reacting to what i'm doing. What am i missing? Did i forget some layer or something?

by default sculpting will use the topology of your mesh, if it's a low-poly mesh you won't see anything, unless you activate the Dyntopo option in the N panel, in that case make also sure that the Detail Size is low enough

is this mesh another layer like "Subdivision" (the wrench icon) or is just the model itself?
Edit: It's my Taurus ring. Ill try the Dyntopo option to see wether i get a different reaction

Dyntopo will affect the mesh itself, it will add vertices on the part you are sculpting, and the size of the tris that are create will depend on the Detail Size value. If you don't want to affect the mesh itself, you can use the Multiresolution modifier instead. But you can also save your low-poly version, sculpt with Dyntopo, then bake the normals of this second version and use it on the low-poly version.


text:
Workflow: render an animation with a soundtrack in one go, or render the animation then import it as a strip in the VSE?
I am creating an animation with a soundtrack. I have a 3D window open with a timeline, and a VSE window open with the audio synced so I can time the animation with the sound. Can I render the finished product, a video file (sound and animation) from this setup? I have not found a way to do this.
Rather, it seems like I have to break the process up into two parts:
First: create the 3D animation and render it to either images or a video file format.
Second: import the rendered animation into a strip in the VSE, import the audio, then render the final product.
Is this correct, or am I missing something?

you can do it in one go, you have to select an audio codec under Output Properties > Output > Encoding > Audio

Thanks, that was perfect. Just the info I needed.


text:
Is there any way to change the font of multiple VSE text strips?
Like the question says. I have a video with a few dozen text strips. If I want to change the font, it appears that I have to do it one at a time. "Copy to Selected" is greyed out when I try it.

I would try to write a python script for this

It is not possible to do this in Blender as it is, but this subtitle import add-on has the copy to selected function for fonts: https://github.com/tin2tin/import_subtitles


text:
Can anyone give me a detailed description on all the maps in blender?
Can anyone give me a detailed description on how to use different types of maps(eg: albedo,opacity, normal, displacement,et cetera et cetera ); which all maps are to be set to non-color data or sRGB; if I should use a certain shader node to connect some maps(like how we use a normal map node to connect a normal map to the principled BSDF; and yes, I do know we have to use a normal map node for that). If you guys know a video or a website which explains it all(emphasis on all), then I'm all ears. Thank you UwU

Hello :). You're in luck, here's an answer covering many of them: https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/174461/78972

If you find some that are missing from the list, I'll be happy to edit them in :).

ayyy thank you! btw can you explain what is an opacity map? i did not find it on the list .btw thanks a lot!

Hello :). Opacity map controls transparency. Plug it into the Alpha input. More here: https://www.katsbits.com/codex/opacity/

thank you again! you have been a great help.^^

No problem, good luck on your Blender journey :).


text:
Is there a way to change min value for Remesh modifier > Voxel > Voxel size property?
I have to remesh with a voxel size less than 0.1 mm, but there is a hard limit set to 0.1 mm (0.0001 m).
bpy.context.object.modifiers["Remesh"].bl_rna.properties["voxel_size"].hard_min
I know one possible workaround is to use object scale, but that is quite cumbersome since I would have to change property values of all other (existing) modifiers as well.

can you apply the modifier, or does it need to be dynamic?

The limit is there for a reason. At lower values you're likely to encounter an arithmetic error in OpenVDB (see T77878). You can change the limit if you compile Blender yourself, but that is arguably more cumbersome than working with the object scale.

Frederik: Yes, it should be dynamic.

Robert: OK, that explains it. I thought this limit was there only to avoid potential crashes when changing the scale. Compiling the Blender also crossed my mind - but really only for the moment :) It would definitely be more cumbersome than using mentioned workaround. Thanks.


text:
Blender Renderer only utilizing 1 core in Ryzen 3900x (24-core) CPU
I've been working on a project for work on my local machine that eventually made it to our server (specs listed below). On my local machine and, since troubleshooting the issue, many other coworkers' local machines, Blender Renderer seems to be utilizing all CPU cores to render (as expected). However, when it's on the server, it only seems to be rendering with a single core - dinging the CPU in task manager for ~3-5%.
My coworkers and I are at a bit of a loss for what might be happening and don't really know where to go from here on troubleshooting. =\
Here are the specs for the server:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 3900x
Memory: 64GB
GPU: NVidia 1070
OS: Windows Server 2016
Blender: 2.79b
Script: Called via cmd line arg
We're rendering via a python script wrapped inside a Renderer obj/class I made to keep settings consistent across all our scripts. I'm not sure if all of the code below applies to the renderer we're using?
for scene in self.bpy.data.scenes:
    scene.render.threads_mode = 'FIXED'
    scene.render.threads = 24
    scene.render.engine = 'BLENDER_RENDER'
    scene.cycles.device = self.device  # defaults to 'CPU'
    scene.render.resolution_x = 1280
    scene.render.resolution_y = 720
    scene.render.resolution_percentage = quality  # defaults to 100
    scene.render.use_raytrace = False
    scene.render.antialiasing_samples = '5'
    tile_size = 32 if self.device == 'CPU' else 512 # for 'GPU'
    scene.render.tile_x = tile_size
    scene.render.tile_y = tile_size
    scene.render.preview_start_resolution = tile_size
    scene.world.light_settings.samples = 3
    scene.render.filepath = join(output_folder, output_file)
    scene.render.image_settings.file_format = 'FFMPEG'
    scene.render.ffmpeg.format = "MPEG4"
    scene.render.ffmpeg.codec = "H264"
    scene.render.ffmpeg.constant_rate_factor = 'LOW'

I have an intuition there might either be a hardware problem or Windows Server 2016 is somehow bottlenecking the application. Are there any known issues with Ryzen CPU's not utilizing all of their cores?

Just a hunch, could it be that self.device (unclear how this is set) is not "CPU"? In that case the tile size is so large that you would have few threads operating concurrently at the current render resolution.

Aye! Good intuition there! When we were first troubleshooting this, we realized I actually had it defaulted to 'GPU' since I use GPU locally and forgot to set it to 'CPU'. Derp. Well,  we set it back to 'CPU' but it doesn't seem to affect the performance/utilization. =\


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How can I display the currently selected settings in a panel?
In my panel I have 3 buttons you can press. Each one will change the File format type to a different setting. I would like to add text above the buttons that displays "Current Selection:" and then what ever setting that is currently selected (for the File Format).

By looking at the template I know this is possible, because you can add the name of the currently selected object.
row.label(text="Current Selection: " + obj.name)
I know the obj is related to the object in the scene but I need to know how to change it so I can display the File format type instead.
I just don't know the proper context to make it work for me.

After playing around with it, I think it would be easier just to add this:
scene = context.scene
view = scene.view_settings
row.prop(view, "view_transform")

Not only do we get the options we want but we can see which is active.

Alternatively, as brockmann has said, you can use:
layout.prop(view, "view_transform", expand=True)

which would give you this -

You can pass expand=True to get all options at once: row.prop(view, "view_transform", expand=True).

@brockman, that's helpful thanks! I will add it to the answer.. Thanks for the info.. I am not sure which I like better.. Both are good options..


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First Complete Lockup Hard Reset of New PC
When I subdivided the pants mesh a few times to 160,000 or so faces and then attempted to return to object mode, my new computer became totally unresponsive, and I was forced to carry out my first ever hard reset of this computer.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3iO3keGWrXMMjM2VW5ENjRDWUk

I think the only remedy for this is not sub-divide your mesh that many times, or use a subsurf modifier, but it on simple and change the render to what you want, but keep the viewport low

Thank you very much for your response! Does it not seem odd that a 16GB new PC with a graphics card (albeit not the most powerful) would just freeze completely under those circumstances?

It does seem odd, perhaps there is something more to this, you could try downloading the installer or the zip, but if the problem persist then you can do what I said above. And, with it being a new computer, putting it under that stress can be difficult. I know with my laptop, when i first got it, it would freeze up under large tasks but it soon got over it.

Really? I had no idea that there were any such issues with new computers specifically. Thanks very much again!!

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


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When I select and attempt to move every other face in a row, all faces are moved instead
This is very odd, as I was able to do what I am attempting to do on the opposite side of the indentation as shown in the screen captures, though when I first attempted it on that side, it was doing what it's doing now, moving the entire row of faces as opposed to the ones that are selected exclusively. a

is proportional editing on? (look in the 3D view header.)

Thanks for your response! I've never used proportional editing.

How do you expect to move those faces without moving the adjacent ones without detaching them, if they are contiguous? Only if you created new faces, or somehow extruded them. Only way you could have successfully moved the ones on the opposite side was if you had previously extruded them by accident and left them in place overlapping. Anyway, what you want is to extrude not move them. Press the E key

Apparently that had something to do with it, but extruding them wasn't working before either, because it was leaving the face on the top in place while sinking the vertical face into it. like a four-sided hollow box.

Nevermind. I am just pushing the row back and then extruding outward instead.

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


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How do I recover an image file Blender replaced?
Hello and thanks in advance for any assistance anyone might be able to provide, and for your time and effort in any case.
Earlier I was in the process of creating a sequence of renders to combine into an animation, and I realized that, though I am sure I did in fact save each one, there were some missing. I was in the process of rendering a frame at the time, so I allowed it to finish and saved it as (Project name)?, given that I didn't want to risk mislabeling as belonging in a certain position in the sequence. Blender apparently responded to this by renaming the file (Project name)a which was the name of the first render in my sequence, and given that the sequence is one in which the mesh is deformed more and more over the course of the sequence and I cannot just undo all the way back to the original undeformed mesh, I need some way to either retrieve that original state of the mesh, or at least my original render.

It looks like you saved new render atop of the old render with the same name and probably with Overwrite option enabled. If this is the case then I think there's no way to recover the file of the rewritten image in sequence.


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Why isn't "Save" working correctly all of a sudden?
I want to thank anyone in advance who responds.
I don't know if this is specific to the particular file, which I have never had any such problem with until the past day or so, but all of a sudden, when I open the file after saving and closing it, what is loaded differs from what I actually saved in that objects are missing and others are rotated and placed differently than I had them.
For example, I had full hinges and all the door knob and bolt pieces on the door off to the scene left side of the building, and the three door pieces were upright and were not overlapping my new front door when I saved the file, and even after I fixed it and saved, even exporting as an .obj file, it still comes up this way whenever I open the file.
File in question

does it solve if you enter the firstframe with shift + left arrow?

Quite a few objects in that file have keyframes on them. If you move those objects and forget to key, they will for sure pop back to their old position. Most of the animated objects also don't change over time. Maybe you set keyframes on them by accident?

"does it solve if you enter the firstframe with shift + left arrow?" I'm sorry, I don't know exactly what you mean, but thank you very much for responding!

"Quite a few objects in that file have keyframes on them. If you move those objects and forget to key, they will for sure pop back to their old position. Most of the animated objects also don't change over time. Maybe you set keyframes on them by accident?" The duplicated hardware did have keyframes, and I didn't check whether or not the keyframes carried over to the duplicates, but I don't believe I played the animation. It seems likely that has something to do with it, and my mental clarity is currently not the best, so it is very much possible. Thank you very much for looking into this!!

The keyframes turned out to be the problem, and it is unbelievable to me that I didn't check that, as it seems to me the most obvious thing to look for. I have been experiencing such bizarre disruptions for years now in which I am unable to recognize the readily apparent and obvious in specific instances until I have made a fool of myself by making that absence of recognition known to someone. Then the thing ceases to be obscured and I am able to recognize it as usual. I am sorry that it caused anyone's time and effort to be wasted, and aliasguru and Faceb Faceb, thank you again very much!!


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problem with painting weights
I was recently practicing bone animation with the IK and FK systems, the problem is that when I perform the union by automatic weights there is a blind union spot that I cannot find and that deforms my character's legs, I tried deactivating the deform box of my controllers, bones and mechanisms but there is still the same error, even when I enter the weight painting and look for the origin, I can't find it anywhere.

Occurs with any movement of the leg regardless of which bone is selected.
I already have this problem for several months and I redid my skeleton several times, even then I can't solve it.
many thanks.

When Rigging Characters make sure to name the weight map the same name as the bone this is how blender recognizes and link weight maps to the bones.
Draw weight maps manually sometimes automatic is not accurate.


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I have an object selection problem
recently I have this problem, I was modeling a character and out of nowhere I no longer had the possibility to select it, the strange thing is that when I go to the layer of the object and enter to edit mode it works, but if I select it in object mode it stops working again.
when I create any other object it also selects it normally, it is as if something had been blocked in the collection.
maybe I have blocked something by accident?

maybe you have disabled its selectability in the Outliner? please share your file: https://pasteall.org/blend/

https://pasteall.org/blend/f23001291c1d404682f154d8e545766a

clever! thank you very much for your help and sorry for the delay

Display the selectability option of the objects in the Outliner:

You'll see that it is disabled for the tail object:

thank you so much! it works good now


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is it possible to make object just transparent without reflection reflation
as you can see when it reflects it looks so weird, is it possible to make these glasses just transparent without so much reflection.

you can mix your Principled BSDF with a Transprent node?

Thank you so much :)

Create a Shader > Mix Shader and mix your current node with a Transparent node, play with the Mix Shader factor to give your material more or less transparency.
That said I'm not sure about your Principled BSDF settings, you need to put the Transmission at 1 if you want a glass effect, and also don't forget to choose Blend Mode > Alpha Blend in the Material Settings if you are in Eevee.


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Is it possible to kill hair particles
I am trying to make shaving animation where object interacts with hair and at the same time kills it but I cant really find a way to kill hair particles. I tried using kill particles in collision menu but it doesn't seem to work for hair, anyone knows how to do it? Any kind of help is appreciated

Well you can use textures and weight paint maps for the density of the hair. So if you have a map with an overall weight of 1, there will be particles. If you take a brush and paint some areas with 0, I guess this might work... but I'm not sure if the remaining particles will be affected by this, too. Like, when you say it should be 1.000 particles and reduce the area, then the particles will be distributed differently. So this is just an idea, not a real answer. Maybe someone else can give better advice.

Hair particles are always dead. They cannot be killed like the Emitter particles on hit. But it works with textures to control the density. You can use Dynamic Paint and bake it to an Image Sequence. You need to tick Auto Refresh in the settings. Dynamic weight paint maps I couldn't get to work with the particle system :(


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Compositing did not apply to my Animation
I'm new to blender and I was trying to animate a satisfying pendulum animation by CG Geek. I did all the steps, the problem I have is in the result of the animation. I did all the compositions like the denoise and the blue background he suggested but when I rendered my animation the compositing I did was not applied to the video.
I use blender 2.93. I really need help thank uu
Below is the compositing section of the blender.

The result of my animation when I rendered it is below.

Hello and welcome. From your image, looks like you are not applying anything to your final render because the only thing connected to the composite node is the original image and not the other nodes. You are only connecting the nodes to a Viewer Node and you also need to do that to the Composite node

(same as the comment but with an image) Hello and welcome. From your image, looks like you are not applying anything to your final render because the only thing connected to the composite node is the original image and not the other nodes. You are only connecting the nodes to a Viewer Node and you also need to do that to the Composite node.

that fixed my issue thanks @emir


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What's the shortcut for return to previous 3d viewport scene?
When I edit a mesh at a user perspective viewpoint if I press a viewpoint hotkey by mistake how can I return to the previous viewpoint? Is there a hotkey for that?

I don't think you can save user perspective locations unless you have a Camera in your scene, in which case you could position the camera to your desired perspective and press "Num 0" to return to that position.
It might also help to enable "Lock Camera to View", as you could easily adjust the perspective like you would normally in the 3D view. If you switched to any other perspective hotkey, you could just hit Num-0 and go back to your previous view.
Hope that helps, feel free to ask any questions.

thank you for your kind answer!

also, if you want to make sure that your camera stay still, give it a keyframe or lock its location


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What do this color difference stand for?

I think that there must be reason for dividing tools by colors. What do each colors(green?, violet?) stand for?

Green Tools are tools that add new geometry to your model, like poly build, spin, extrude, ...
Violet tools modify existing geometry, so most of the time they change vertex locations. Smooth is a good example of that category.

you are genius!


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What's the difference between 'unlink' and 'remove' from collection?

I did 'unlink' and 'remove' respectively, but really don't know how the two are different. What's the difference between them?

edit: yes my bad, it looks like it works like an unlink, I guess some things need to be harmonized between 3D view commands and Outliner commands

If your object is linked to more than one collection Object > Collection > Remove From Collection will give you the option to remove it from all collections or from one specific collection. Unlink in the outliner on the other hand only removes the selected object link from the collection it is in. If the object is linked to other collections, these will remain.

So you re saying that the two are the same except 'remove' give me more options ?

@나미손 Yes, if your selection in the outliner is also an object, they both result in a call to BKE_collection_object_remove in Blender's code.

thank you for nice answer.


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What's the 'disable in viewports'?

I don't know difference between 'hide in viewport' and 'disable in viewports' in Blender 2.8 outliner.
What's the precise function of 'disable in viewports'?
And if possible, please explain the precise function of 'Holdout' to me too.

The short description is provided by the documentation, but a proper answer should show the effects of these options and use cases, hence this is only a comment  https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/editors/outliner.html#restriction-columns

The Hide in Viewport option is just applied for the current view layer, whereas Disable in Viewports is global and applies to all view layers and viewports.
The change for Hide in Viewport is limited to the view layer as seen below

Activating Disable in Viewports in View Layer also affect View Layer.001 and all other view layers.

See https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/141145/15543 for latest version.

I found nice illustration of answer to this question

While this link may answer the question, it is better to include the essential parts of the answer here and provide the link for reference.  Link-only answers can become invalid if the linked page changes. - From Review


text:
How can I use vector displacement like this streamer?

When I see Youtube video, the streamer's displacement material rises highly enough.
But when I try same thing, my displacement material do not rise like his.
Below my work

How can I raise brick material from surface like that guy?

Have you enabled Properties > Material > Settings > Surface > Displacement and choose Displacement Only or Displacement and Bump?

I see that 'bump only' is chosen as default. After subdividing object, displacement raised surface material enough. Thank you for your comment.

you have to enable the displacement in the material setting

thank you my good friend


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what do selected vertex colors mean?

When I selected a vertex by clicking left mouse button on it,and selected vertex looked white.
And then for some reason I selected the vertex by dragging left mouse button around it, then selected vertex looked orange.
I wonder why vertex colors are different in each case and  what each color means.

The white vertex is the active selection, and the orange vertex is not active.

thank you for answer

Sure! It's actually a feature, because you can use the active selection as your pivot point, your center for snapping, lots of stuff. For example, when you rig a model, select a bone, then another bone, and press shift-ctrl-C. Blender will create a constraint on the active bone targeted to the selected bone. You can also use this feature to parent selected object to active. Something I often do is copy/link data from active to selected.


text:
what do you call this round button?

and how can I summon that button?(hot key and other way that could summon it with mouse.)

Try the tab key.

That´s the official PIE menu addon. Go to user preferences >> Addons >> Type in the seachbox: pie. Select all 3. Now you have special shortcut keys that will display what you see on the screencap. Specifically invoke it with tab.

thank you berry mouch!

Please mark my answer using the check icon on the left side of my answer. Thanks! Glad to help.


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How can i view white wire in sculpt mode?
I'm beginner in English and blender3d.
When i study sculpting of blender in youtube, there are white wires only in front-face of object in streamer's viewport like below picture.

But when i select wireframe of viewport shading in sculpt mode, there are orange wires besides back- face wires shown annoyed me like below picture.

How can I let view port shading be seen like youtube streamer?

you have to seek the theme he is using dude

Two things to do.

For the wireframe color, go to User Preferences > Themes > 3D View > Active Object colour.
In the "N" (shortcut) panel turn on Backface Culling under Shading tab to hide back part of your mesh.


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what's the precise name of command, 'shift + r'?
Today, when I study blender with You tube video, I saw the hotkey 'shift+r', which seems to redo last action.
I want to know precise command name of it in case of forgetting that hot key.
If I know the precise name of it, i would find it with 'space bar'(what's the command name of this?).

The option is 'Repeat Last'. You can view and edit the shortcuts in the 'Input' section of the Blender Preferences.


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What's the meaning of color of rhombus in keyframe?

After I make frames as keyframe I found yellow colored rhombuses at keyframes in timeline editor. I clicked one of them out of curiosity and then the others turn to white. What's the meaning of the color ('yellow' and 'white')of rhombuses respectively in timeline editor?

Yellow means active (selected). White is inactive.
While a keyframe is selected, you can move, scale and do whatever to the keyframe. You can also select multiple keyframes by holding shift.


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I want to change default settings of '2d animation'

I made a new '2d animation' file with ctrl+n and default setting looks like above picture.
I want to change color and size of white panel and color of background.
How can I do it?

Color 2 is the world color.

You can set the size of the camera canvas in the render resolution panel (and then use scroll wheel or Ctrl + Middle Mouse Button to scale the view in the 3d window).

Color 1 is a viewport matte with transparency, it can be set going in object mode, selecting the camera, and varying its "passepartout" value.

Then you can go to the file menu, defaults, save startup file, to mantain your settings in any new project.

your answer is perfect. thank you.


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How can I change colors of grease pencil strokes drawn in 'vertex color' paint mode?

If I have drawn grease pencil line strokes in 'material' paint mode, I can easily change colors of them by using base color button(marked with a white arrow in above picture).
But after I had drawn some line strokes in 'vertex color' paint mode by a way of trial, I realized that I don't know how to change colors of them.
Help me.

Change from Draw mode to Vertex Paint mode (top-left of the screen) and you'll be able to change the strokes colour.
But you won't be able to just change the colour of all strokes at once, like when using a material then editing it. You'll have to manually re-paint over each stroke with the new colour.


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How can I add a vertex in empty space?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tZ4nSTm7Tc
At 0:24 the youtuber said "then create a single vertex..." but I can't find such a command like 'add a vertex' in edit mode.
How can I create a single vertex in empty space?

You can create a plane in object mode, go to edit mode and delete 3 vertices

The shipped add-on Add Mesh: Extra Objects gives you a single vert option. Ctrl-right-click to extrude.

in Preferences, check "add mesh: extra objects"

then you can tap shift-a in 3d view and choose add single vert

thank you for good answer

You are welcome

In edit mode, select a vertex and press shift D to duplicate, then move, or press E to extrude.

thank you for good answer

Shift A to create a default cube.
Tab into edit mode.
Select one of it's vertices.
Press ctr + i to invert your selection.
Delete these vertices so you are left with just one.

You are actually done, but if you want to have the origin centered:

Tab out of edit mode.
Press Shift + S
Select move Origin to mesh.
Press Alt + G to move the object back to the center.

thank you for good answer


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I don't know when I should use texture properties tab

All of a sudden, I wondered when I should use texture properties tab.
If I want wrap a object with a texture, I can achieve purpose in shade editor or material properties tab.

In other words, the texture properties tab is unnecessary when texturing  a object.
So I wondered why it is there.
I search in blender manual about 'texture properties' and found nothing.
I looked it up on YouTube, but the results were the same.
I just want to know the example it's actually used.
I need your help.

The textures tab is almost a holdover from before 2.8, when it was used for Blender Render textures.  In modern versions, it's still used for creating textures for use with some modifiers (like a displace) and for defining brushes for use with texture painting or sculpting.  It's not used for any materials.

thank you for good answer


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Is there no way to remove grease pencil outline problem?

I converted a cube to a grease pencil.

But if I zoom in the grease pencil, it's outline is damaged by the 'white' face.

I want it to look like a neat outline.
Is there a good way?


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Backface culling with semi-transparent material (Cycles)
I'm trying to replicate the material I had in EEVEE.

In cycles I get this.

Any backface culling option I use doesn't change anything. I have tried to add into the shader by using the backfacing/geometry node data to make backfaces fully transparent but it doesn't work.

The only way I can get what I want is to manually delete the backface.

I have tried volume but it is much too soft.
How can I get that EEVEE look? I'm confident I've tried all ways of deleting the backface but its something to do with the semitransparency.


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How to orient an emission based on the emitter
I am trying to render a house, with bricks as the walls, and tiles as the roof. im using an emitter with a face hexagonal grid. the problem im having is that the brick object keeps its orientation, and i would like it to rotate depending on the object its emitting from.
Note: i placed the bricks in this example to demonstrate what i want, the house currently looks like the first example.
This is what it currently looks like:

what i would like it to look like:


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Interactive 3D House Interior in Blender
I would like to ask if is it possible to make an interactive 3d house interior in blender or will I need another program to pair with blender? Thank you.

If you're using Blender < 2.7x you could do it with Game Engine.

Its genuine to ask such type of question, because every one has the doubt on any free thing/software that if it has a capability to do complex work or not.

I would like to ask if is it possible to make an interactive 3d house
  interior in blender or will I need another program to pair with
  blender?

No, you don't need any other software to make an Interactive 3D House. Blender has the capability to do it alone. It has some awesome add-ons made by some expert programmers which will help you in making it.
You will be inspired if you watch this small clip made by Blender Studios in Blender itself. The perfection is outstanding, you will be thankful to have Blender.


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Problem selecting in edit mode
Is it normal to have to select in object mode before moving into edit mode. At the moment if i have not selected something in object mode and i go to edit mode i can not select it. I have tried to save it to help but this makes no difference,

How can you even enter Edit Mode if nothing is selected?

yes it's normal, you have to choose what object you want to edit

as they said above, try posting some images so we can understand it better

Yes it is normal. If you don't select an object you won't be able to enter its edit mode. You'll enter the edit mode of the object you've selected. In the 2.80 you'll be able to be in multiple edit modes at once, which is amazing. Try it out! NB: You still need to select objects you want to enter the edit mode.

It is possible. Check Enter Edit Mode under New Objects in the Editing tab of the User Prefs. It moves the object added to the edit mode and selects it. And when you go back to the object mode it's selected too. NB: For its effective use you add and model your next object after you finished previous one.

This was similar to mine..
I noticed that if you Delete the Object in Edit Mode Like Select all faces and delete them and if you switch to Object mode and re-switch it to Edit mode without selecting any other object, you will enter into Edit mode.
It may be possible that it have an existence as it was not deleted from Object Mode as a combined Object.
Solution is may be you select the object you mentioned and now you can't select that invisible type object so you will not enter edit mode without selecting an Object.


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Select keyframes at current frame with Python
I'm starting a script to nudge the frames values of keyframes from selected objects. However, I've fallen at the first hurdle:
bpy.ops.action.select_column(mode="CFRA")

On it's own just returns the error:
RuntimeError: Operator bpy.ops.action.select_column.poll() failed, context is in
correct
Similarly with
bpy.ops.action.select_column(mode="KEYS")

So I'm not sure what context is wrong here. I've looked at this question, but it doesn't help me as it's just an explanation of the parameters without any further code or explanation.
Any ideas?

Using ops functions is not a great idea. Look at my answer here: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/268513/context-is-incorrect-while-using-handler/268516#268516 That are you trying to achieve in general?

if you can't avoid using ops function then take a look at my answers here on how to override context https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/269806/142292 and https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/269893/142292 then i think you need to change code to context area get_areas('DOPESHEET_EDITOR') and make sure the dopesheet is open.


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How to show all edges
This is Blender 101, but I can I just confirm that (Edit mode with faces, Faces > Triangulate faces) is the equivalent of Undissolve Edges - if such a menu item existed. And such a thing as un-dissolve.

How to show the edges that exist, but have been dissolved into quads on the default cube.
(Avoiding key words like hidden and visible/invisible) for obvious reasons.

The faces of the default cube are quads, until render-time (whichever renderer, including viewport). They can be non-planar. They are not triangles until made so... ( I was just about to post @Leander's answer :)  )

Add a Wireframe node in the shader and go into shaded mode.


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Drivers and Framerate Drops: Why?
Let's say I have 24 objects, each with their own material. The objects and materials are all the same, but there are an equal number of copies of the material because I need drivers that target different things attached to them so they operate independently. I now have two bones for each material/object. One that I can scale, and another that scales even more based off the first one using a transform constraint. The driver for each material, and this is attached to emission by the way, gets its variable from the scale of the second bone with the transform constraint.
Now when I so much as try to move or scale the first bone (which is a target that each object is damped tracked to), Blender lags like I'm trying to do this all on a 2004 Dell desktop. But only in material preview. Which makes no sense, because location has nothing to do with the drivers and as for scale, why would it be lagging if it's only one very simple driver calculation? With all 24 objects using only one material and by extension one driver, it still works just fine. I get no framerate drops. Add more drivers though, and no luck.
One important thing to note is that I was troubleshooting this on Discord and cut out the middleman by deleting the bones that control the emission and using custom properties instead. Exact same problem, no performance improvements whenever I would try to change the value of any one of the emissions. This leads me to believe that the target, regardless of what the driver is trying to read or should be reading, such as scale, whether that be a custom property or a container such as an object or a bone, if altered in any way, will be recalculated as the driver looks for updates, and Blender is doing this for every single driver as well even though they're wholly unrelated/not in the pipeline for the driver's calculation.
That was a bit of a word salad, but I think it made sense. Blender is looking for any change in the properties of any of its drivers' targets and if there is one, it runs through the entire host of the .blend file's drivers before landing on the one that's actually relevant and changing its value(s). Can anyone confirm that this is an issue with the way Blender treats drivers backend? And is there any good reason as to why it does this? Is there a potential workaround that sacrifices minimal practicality?

It was a bit of a word salad, I'm not sure I understood everything correctly. But cutting it down to a few words I read here: this only happens in Material Preview, you have 24 objects each with his own material - and it doesn't happen if all object use the same material. So maybe it's not the drivers at all but Blender calculating all the different material previews? I sometimes feel switching to Material Preview takes even longer than Rendered View, so why don't you just run your animation on other view modes? Materials can be previewed in still frames, no need for animation.

I don't think Blender interprets materials very differently whether their data is shared or not except in terms of file size. I can run and alter a scene with many materials just fine, but because I have drivers added to each of them, Blender's performance maxes out and eats 10% of my CPU each time I make changes to the driver's target, and only because there's so many of them. Sure, I can work in a different view, I just really like using material preview. Regardless, this seems to highlight a pretty big underlying issue with drivers and how they're optimized to be used.


text:
Blender crashes from replacing mesh data via script
I'm working on a script that will generate a mesh based on handles (empties) in the 3D interface. So when the user drags a handle it replaces the mesh data, but leaves the object intact. Here's part of the script:
try:
    obj = bpy.data.objects[name]
    old_mesh = obj.data

    # add  new mesh
    mesh = bpy.data.meshes.new(name)
    obj.data = mesh

    # remove old mesh
    removeMeshFromMemory(old_mesh)

except KeyError:
    # Create Object and link to scene
    mesh = bpy.data.meshes.new(name)
    obj = bpy.data.objects.new(name, mesh)
    scene = bpy.context.scene
    scene.collection.objects.link(obj)

mesh.from_pydata(verts, [], faces)

And the contents of the remove mesh function is here:
def removeMeshFromMemory(mesh):
    passedName = mesh.name
    print("removeMeshFromMemory:[%s]." % passedName)
    # Extra test because this can crash Blender if not done correctly.
    result = False
    #mesh = bpy.data.meshes.get(passedName)
    if mesh != None:
        if mesh.users == 0:
            try:
                mesh.user_clear()
                can_continue = True
            except:
                can_continue = False

            if can_continue == True:
                try:
                    bpy.data.meshes.remove(mesh)
                    result = True
                    print("removeMeshFromMemory: MESH [" + passedName + "] removed from memory.")
                except:
                    result = False
                    print("removeMeshFromMemory: FAILED to remove [" + passedName + "] from memory.")
            else:
                # Unable to clear users, something is holding a reference to it.
                # Can't risk removing. Favor leaving it in memory instead of risking a crash.
                print("removeMeshFromMemory: Unable to clear users for MESH, something is holding a reference to it.")
                result = False
        else:
            print ("removeMeshFromMemory: Unable to remove MESH because it still has [" + str(mesh.users) + "] users.")
    else:
        # We could not fetch it, it does not exist in memory, essentially removed.
        print("We could not fetch MESH [%s], it does not exist in memory, essentially removed." % passedName)
        result = True
    return result

When dragging the handle slowly for several seconds (replacing mesh 50+ times), Blender eventually crashes. It gives the following error:
Blender(61663,0x11de3cdc0) malloc: Incorrect checksum for freed object 0x7fc42fd82600: probably modified after being freed.
Corrupt value: 0xa80000026e
Blender(61663,0x11de3cdc0) malloc: *** set a breakpoint in malloc_error_break to debug

Is there a better way to replace the mesh data that's more efficient and won't cause crashes like this?

You can just use the operator orphans_purge to make sure orphan meshes get freed. I don't think the impact on performance would be noticeable unless you have a huge scene.
obj = bpy.data.objects.get(name)
mesh = bpy.data.meshes.new(name)
if obj:
    obj.data = mesh
    bpy.ops.outliner.orphans_purge()
else:
    obj = bpy.data.objects.new(name, mesh)
    bpy.context.scene.collection.objects.link(obj)

mesh.from_pydata(verts, [], faces)

Also, a few tips :

Avoid Try/Except when using dictionaries, prefer using get(key, default)
Prefer foo is not None to foo != None
Prefer if bar: to if bar == True:

In simple blender scripts you shouldn't have to use Try/Except unless you specifically know which kind of exception your code is going to throw, and even then you should be able to not use it in most cases.

Very helpful tips! But now I'm running into the old context problem with the orphans_purge call. The error was "Operator bpy.ops.outliner.orphans_purge.poll() failed, context is incorrect". Is there a way to override the context on that function?

Ok, I believe it's working now without crashes. The orphans_purge call needed the OUTLINER context, so I passed that into it, and then it errored because that function can't be called inside a driver because it updates the dependency graph in the middle of a depsgraph update. So to fix that I called it inside a depsgraph_update_post callback instead.


text:
Driver script not updating mesh
I have a driver script being called on an empty's position properties. When the user moves the empty, I'm regenerating a mesh based on the position of the empty. The driver script runs, but the mesh doesn't visibly change (until I go into edit mode afterward). Here's basically what the script is doing:
obj = bpy.data.objects.get(name)
mesh = obj.data
mesh.clear_geometry()
mesh.from_pydata(verts, [], faces)

I tried calling obj.update_tag() but that did nothing (perhaps it's too late in dependency graph update?).
I also tried calling context.view_layer.update() but that gave the error "Dependency graph update requested during evaluation".
I'm using a driver script because it makes it easy to bind to specific property changes of the empty (position, scale, etc.).
Is there a better way to be doing this or a way to force the mesh to update?

Seems like driver related dependency graph issues are common and often go unanswered on StackExchange.
I figured out a workaround:

Modified the driver script to only set a boolean variable to note that a change happened. The driver script also saves what data was changed by the driver.
Added a depsgraph_update_post handler script that does the actual mesh changes (see sample code above).

This approach fixed the problem as it appears that mesh changes made in the update_post of the dependency graph gets updated properly in the 3D view.
Takeaway: Don't modify meshes directly in a driver script because the dependency graph doesn't update it properly until after edit mode.


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Rotation issue. 2.83
I used to be able to rotate upon the origin of any given item that I was working on, but now blender just wants to rotate around the cursor, which i usual have at the world origin. This is a little annoying!! Any ideas or am i missing something? I have searched the web and not had any joy. Tried the full stop, still the rotation is of.

10/10, it is as often the case. Just so simple, thanks so much, my life will be a little easier now..

In 2.8 and beyond, you have a drop-down in middle (top or bottom) of the 3d-viewport where you can select the Pivot Point.   You probably have it set (defaulted?) to "3d-cursor".  Change it to "Individual origins".

Pivot point was implemented in Blender long before 2.8+. Not only 2.7x, 2.4x had it.


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placing origin at end of Bezier Curve
i have created a bezier curve, to make a corrugated sheet, and i am then trying to slide a thin cube mesh. i have placed the origin at one end of the the cube mesh and am trying to do the same with the bezier curve, but it will not move to the cursor which i have placed at the end point of the curve! how can i trick it into doing what i want, or any other method. Running OSX 10.15.6 and 2.83.3

Here are a few ways to do it:

Go to Preferences > Add-ons and search for "Curve Tools" and activate the Add Curve: Curve Tools add-on by checking the box next to it. In the 3D Viewport press N to extent the Tool Shelf and click the Edit tab. Then go to Curve Tools > One Curve and click the "Set origin to spline start"-button.

Select the curve, go into Edit Mode. Select the starting vertex. press Shift + S, and choose Cursor to Selected. Go into Object Mode. Press F3 (default search key) and type "Set Origin" and choose Origin to 3D Cursor.

In the 3D Viewport Header click the Snapping-button. (It is the icon next to the little magnet icon.) Choose Snap to Vertex. Then in the same header click Options and check the box next to Origins (uncheck it when you're done). Now hold Ctrl (or click the magnet icon) while moving the origin to snap it to the starting vertex.

thanks for your help, i have now got where i need to go.


text:
How can I rotate vectors to align with a sphere surface?
TLDR: How can I align voronoi scattered textures to the surface of a sphere without using UVs?
I am trying to scatter textures on the surface of a sphere using a voronoi texture, and I can't use UV coordinates because it would introduce seams or stretching artifacts.
I can easily generate the vectors using a voronoi "position" output with the "generated" vector subtracted (as is standard I think), but in order to use textures I also need to have them align to the surface of the sphere that they're on, and I can't figure out how to do that.
It feels like it should be simple to use the "Normal" texture coordinate output to rotate & align the individual voronoi vectors, but I can't figure out how and always end up with stretched textures.
Image of node setup used to make voronoi vectors:

Image of results with stretched textures on the sides of the sphere:

According to your Image Texture Node, You are using Flat Projection (made for Planes) on a 3D Sphere  using Generated coordinates - try changing the projection method to Sphere. Also, try using the Normal Texture Coordinate (Instead of generated), or (even better) go as far as to add a Geometry (Shader) node and use True Normal as your texture coordinate.

Thanks for the reply!
Using Normal texture coordinates instead of Generated doesn't really make a difference, only seems to change the scale of the textures, and Sphere instead of Flat makes them even more warped - as far as I know sphere is meant for use with equirectangular textures, and the textures I'm trying to scatter are not equirectangular.

I found a solution - it's not perfect and does result in a small amount of warping, but it works for what I need at the moment.


text:
How do i get two editing windows?
I am new to blender and I've seen people have two windows open at a time so they edge model depth and width at the same time. I'd like the same results as what's in the picture.

You can divide any window by right-clicking along its borders. Your cursor will change to the resize symbol so you know it's in the right place.
Then, you can choose to create a vertical or horizontal split in that panel. You can actually split any of the available windows by dragging the dotted split line, and clicking when satisfied.

Joining panels back together is also done by right-clicking, but it should be noted that you can only join two windows which share sides. For example, you could join the 3D view window above with the new 3D view just created, but you couldn't join the 3D view window with the Outliner and Properties Shelf windows on the right. Those two windows would first need to be joined themselves.
Alternatively, you can also hit CTRL+ALT+Q to toggle quad view, which will automatically split your 3D view into four panels - one for each of the three orthogonal cardinal directions, plus the view you already had open.


text:
Is there any way to erase very thin lines in blender 2d?
I note that when I make very thin lines in blender 2d they become almost unerasable by the eraser tool. I have tried point and stroke erase they dont erase it immediately.

could you do that in Edit Mode? or just zoom in?

Select an erase brush of type Soft/Hard.
Adjust brush settings.
Click and hold LMB or use the Pen tip to delete strokes on the viewport.

Didn't work >:/


text:
Why is my bisect tool not working?
It says Report: "Error Selected edges/faces required". It might be because i am working on a metaball that has "Object> Apply> Visual Geometry to Mesh"

You can restart blender and then maybe it'll work fine.
If it still not working go and try this...
menu>mesh>bisect I know only these two methods.
Hope it'll help you.


text:
Issue with installing an addon
i tried installing lip sync importer following the normal step of installing addons in blender but i keep getting this message [Modules Installed() from 'C:\users\tstick\Download\Compressed\io_import_lipSync-Blender2.8-master.zip'into 'C:\users\tstick\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.90\scripts\addons'] please what does this mean... What i'm I not getting right?

what's wrong? this message looks like it installed normaly

Same as https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/129606/i-cant-install-an-add-on-plugin   rename the zip file to io_import_lipSync.zip If the installer tries to use the zip file name stem as the module name it will not import as a module because it has a period in it.  See also https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/39745/addons-only-some-zips-will-install

I have tried it, still having the same problem


text:
Blender transparent bsdf not fully transparent
I was trying to add a fire effect to the side of this car. I wanted just the fire to be showing and everything else transparent. I made the node setup. But for some reason, the transparent areas were not 100% transparent. The transparent areas looked a little brighter than the actual area. I thought it was my node setup that was the problem and lost my mind over this. Then I said frick it and plugged in just a transparent shader. To my surprise, with no other node setup connected, just the transparent shader was not in fact fully transparent. So it's definitely nothing to do with my setup.

I opened up another blender file and made a cube and a plane in front of the cube to test my theory. I was right!

This time, the transparent shader made the area a little darker. I tried some things people recommended online but nothing worked.

Is the white really white?

yes, it is. I can confirm it's not about the node itself cause even if I messed up the original file, in the second image it's a brand new transparent BSDF node.

Can you include the file?

I can't confirm your issue with default Scene on my side ... so file with your Cube would be needed to check.

Just checking the colors in your second screenshot, the color of the Transparent BSDF is R/G/B = 231 instead of 255, so it's not pure white e.g. not fully transparent. So the RGB values are 0.8 instead of 1. It's not a problem of the screenshot, the object color in the display properties is R/G/B = 255.


text:
Rope Simulation Using Rigid Bodies
I'm trying to model a rope used for a guillotine - after a bit of research I've attempted to model it using a series of rigid bodies connected together by empties acting as POINT rigin body constraints.
It has generally works when in motion - but when I attempted to 'grip' the rope to stop the 'blade' falling - the point constraints seem to 'stretch' and it allows the blade to fall due to the now lengthened rope.

Is there a way of preventing the rope/constraints from stretching?
Is there a way to 'flesh out' the rope tomake it solid rather than a line of spheres?
Is there a better way to have achieved this?

Thanks in anticipation!
SF

Related for creating the hose: https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/109453/30849

I'd consider using a long string of verts with a Skin modifier and a fabric simulation. The fabric can be configured in terms of stretchiness, and then you can construct a rope mesh that surrounds it using the Skin mod. Happy to write up an answer if you'd prefer.

Thanks for the tips - I obviously need to do some study on fabric simulation - as I can create a rope between two fixed points but when I try to make one of the connected objects 'dynamic' the fabric seems to remember the initial points and then stretch wierdly as the object drops. Thanks again

That's perfect - do you have the blend file so I can see how its done?

Using a curve/path to animate solid mesh rope - (Blend file below)

The blade doesn't use physics to fall.  It is instead animated.  That only involves two keyframes so it comes to a sudden stop at the end. (see the blade's curve shape in the graph editor)
A tiny bounce can be added if desired. (see that also in the Graph editor)
The rope is a hard mesh cylinder scaled to become long and thin.  This is generously subdivided along it's length so when it's bent it's not going to appear blocky. (Typically x 128 to 200)
It is also deformed to bend over the pulleys using a Curve->Path and curve modifier.
The easiest way to shape the path is to lay the curve over the top of the two pulleys and bend it down so it hangs down to the blade, the other end to dangle over the frame's side.
Subdivide between it's control points as often as necessary to get it flexible enough.

As for the rope's length, it isn't necessary to get that right initially.  Extra path can be added or removed later.
To drag these control points about so the rope can bend, hooks are placed at several (or all) of these control points. (CTL-H then "Hook to new object")
It's the hooks that are animated when bending is required.  Shapekeys could be used but arguably, hooks are a lot easier to work with in these circumstances despite the extra work setting them up.
With the hooks installed, at this point you could simply use the curve as it is and beveled to suit, but if requiring meshed rope, read on...    If not, skip down to "POINT A" .
-================-
Using meshed cylinder for the rope -
Once the path has been set up, it's used along with a curve modifier to shape the rope.
IMPORTANT -  Be sure that both the curve and rope share precisely the same origin point.   Press SH-S to achieve this.  The modifier is added to the rope.  Name the path as the curve object.
By default the X axis is used in the modifier, but when sliding the rope up along the curve, drag it up with the blue Z axis gismo. (Global orientation)
The rope will be forced to follow the curve's shape much like a plastic tube being pushed over one end of a shaped rod.

With the rope's curvature now following the path we need to animate the former individually so it stays in synch with the blade.  (Parenting it to the blade sends it all over the place)
You can either copy the Blade's keyframes into the Rope's Z axis and once done, adjust them all as one in the graph editor,  (raise/lower it's end inside the blade where you want it) or -
At the same frames as each step in the Blade's ascent, insert a frame for the rope also and take it's lower end back to the anchor location in the blade.  What little variation (if any) will exist between the blade and rope's ascent, can easily be realigned between keyframes with the Graph editor's handles.
When done the rope will rise with the blade,  it's loose end descending down the side the same distance.
Because it's mesh it won't stretch or shrink.
Sufficient path length will be needed at the side to accommodate the descent. If there isn't, the rope's end will extend beyond the path's end eventually and that section of rope would be no longer controlled by the path.  Simply append extra control points to the path as needed and add hooks.
-=======================-
POINT A -
Thanks to the path, the rope's shaping has so far been automatic.  When it's to appear loose and swinging about however, those mechanations are brought about by manually animating the path's control points. (keyframes)
See immediately below for a painless way to emulate physics.

To emulate rope physics, simply place a strip of 'cloth' (a plane) along the top of the guillotine frame and give it PLENTY of  "Structure"  in it's properties.  (150 to 200)
Pin and parent the cloth if it wants to fall off.
Play the animation through at least once and watch it wrap down over the corner pulley to flop around and do it's thing.
Once settled, step it through again frame by frame and simply trace it's movements with the path's hooks so the rope more or less stays with the cloth and keyframe those changes.  Indulge yourself and add a little bounce or swing at the end!

The circular empty - "Nav handle" is used to hold it all together.  Move the guillotine about by this only.

Thank you so much - I was trying to use physics on the blade - which was obviously what was causing most of my difficuties... animating it obviously makes it much more straighforward!! Thanks again for all your work and explaination!

Thanks for your note @Siriusfire .  You're most welcome


text:
How do you guys (network) render animation locally?
This question may sound odd, but after after two days of research I´m not really more enlightened on this issue:
How do you guys render your animation frames using different machines locally? The rendermanager in 2.79 seems to be very basic to me (manually starting each scene on every client etc.). This wont help me if I render a bunch of scenes and sub-scenes over night/weekend (which I often do).
Flamenco.io seemed a possible solution but is not very communicative about how to run a farm locally. Checked some other addons but they were either discontinued or did not have the features as described above.
So my question is: how do you render your animations in your local renderfarm?
What´s your pipeline?
Thanx!
Sigmund

Well, I don't render animations locally, but I do is SheepIt Render Farm for most of my heavy-scale rendering.

Thank you, Samino. I also stumbled upon SheepIt, but sadly a cloud renderer is not what I am looking for. A: I want to use my local PCs B: my customers would not be amused when parts of our projects appear somewhere else (which I guess could happen when I sendi my data to other peoples PC for rendering).


text:
extruding 3 faces to get a wall
i´m totally new to blender, so i want to learn the basics as good as possible.
My problem: I want to make just a simple Studio background with 1 floor and 2 walls by extruding 3 faces of a cube. (cube, delete 1 vertex, select 3 faces and extrude).
When i do so, the new walls are slanted or their origin is just 45° below the old origin.
I found a workaround: setting the 3d cursor to the first deleted vertex and then extruding the walls by 0, then scaling the new walls with my 3d cursor as center. But i want to do it just by extruding.
what am i doing/thinking wrong?

If you look in the upper left corner when you are doing the Extrude Along Normals you will see that you can change the behaviour. In this case you can press S or Alt to get Even Thickness.

Even Thickness is also an option in the Solidify Modifier.

thanks a lot. that worked very well!
It also works with the solidifier - i just did something wrong there (wrong pivot...idk)

Extrude doesn't work properly in such cases and you need to use Snap to vertices as well. Instead, you can use solidify (a modifier or CTRL+F) to make the walls and floor thick.

thanks a lot. wanted to solve the issue without solidifier


text:
Rendering light bloom with transparency
I'm using Eevee (on a Mac). I'm (fairly?) well-versed in the theory behind my question, but less so with Blender itself.
Basically: I'm trying to render out a scene in separate elements for compositing elsewhere. I have a light source with bloom on one element, and when I render it with (Film) transparency on, I get this:

(comped onto a black background) when what I really want is this:

(rendered onto a black background). Obviously in the former it's clipping to the non-transparent image edge.
Is there a way to control premultiplication options of alpha for light bloom (if indeed I'm correctly interpreting what's happening)?

Answer: make sure you're rendering to OpenEXR, like I wasn't.

Hi, thanks for the post. This site is not a regular forum, answers should be substantial and thoroughly explain the solution and required workflow. One liners and short tips rarely make for a good answer. If you can [edit] your post and provide some more details about the procedure and why it works feel free to restore it, otherwise it may be deleted or converted into a comment. Perhaps add a few images illustrating the workflow and final results. See How do I write a good answer?


text:
Anchoring first bone in an armature
I am getting close to understanding how bones work. Subsequent bones that I add to an armature (and to which I parent objects) will rotate, etc. around where the base of that bone is stuck to the head of the previous bone. But the first bone will pivot around the 3D cursor, wherever that is. So if I (inadvertently) move the 3D cursor, suddenly the whole armature will transform around that new point instead.
How do I fix the pivot point of that first bone to a particular point on its parent?

The first bone is pivoting around it's Transform pivot point.  You get to set what that pivot point is by using a menu in the 3D Viewport's header:

How a bone pivots when it is selected depends on whether you are in Object, Edit, or Pose mode.  It also depends on the transform mode.
If you are in Pose mode, as it sounds like you are, you may currently have yours set to "3D Cursor".  If you change it to "Individual Origins" it will pivot around its own head, rather than around the 3D cursor.

Perfect, thanks.


text:
Seeing inside a collection
I have been given a .blend to work with to generate some renders. The large model is made up of a number of smaller/reused components. In the Outliner, (under another collection called Instances), there is:

The same component Collection (the white/nested one) gets reused in both. (I've renamed "Collection" from the original reusable component name.)
I am unable, though, to drill down further to get to what's inside the collection. (For instance, if I need to tweak some geometry.)
I've been away from Blender for a while and while I'm no expert I am fairly conversant. What obvious thing am I missing?

Sorry, I should mention that when I click either collection it selects the relevant component in the larger model — i.e., multiple objects together.

@moonboots An instanced collection doesn't have a white arrow icon to expand its hierarchy.

@moonboots In my Blender there's only an arrow to expand the orange colored collection instance, but the collection inside there shown in white has no arrow to expand the hierarchy, although the original collection has objects in it like camera, sun, cube etc.

@moonboots Really weird, your instance isn't shown in orange either. If I right-click on a collection and choose "Instance to Scene", I'll get an orange collection where there's only the collection in it, no objects. And if I select that and press G in the viewport (or R or S) I can only move the complete collection. To manipulate single objects in there I have to do that in the original collection.

oh ok I completely misunderstood the original question, yes the orange collection is an instance, I thought he was saying that the collection inside the collection was a linked collection. I confused linked collection with instanced collection

The doubled orange icon shows that these are instanced collections, i.e. you do not have direct access to the objects inside. The orange "Collection" and "Collection.001" are both instances of the same original white "Collection", that's why it's shown in both of them.
Since Blender doesn't accept name duplicates on same object types, e.g. you cannot name two objects "Cube", this already indicates that the orange "Collection" must be something different than the white "Collection", and it also indicates that the two white "Collection" refer to the same thing.

Ah, so I'd have to Make Instances Real in order to actually see the makeup of the collection?

If the base collection is not there in the outliner, change the type to "Blender File" (2nd icon in the top left of the outliner), expand the Collections and Right click on the base collection > Link to Scene to make it appear in the scene. Go back to "View Layer" mode to see the regular outliner. Making instances real will actually sever the link to the base collection

It may also be available in another scene. you can check that in the top right of the window next to where it says "View Layer"

Ah, very helpful. Thanks so much, both of you.


text:
Issue with faces after adding more geometry
Whenever I add a loopcut to a mesh and try to put another mesh through it, the face creates weird shapes like seen in the picture . I've never had this problem before.
It started when I imported a bunch of meshes from ZBrush. I began adding cubes around the meshes and when I got the base shape right I started adding more geometry by adding loopcuts. This is when I noticed that the faces of the mesh to which I added a loopcut created these shapes without geometry. After moving the vertices around I noticed that it almost looks like as if the face of the mesh with a loopcut was snapping to  the object it was going through .
I checked that the snapping was disabled and made sure that auto merge is off as well, but the issue persisted.
I opened a new blender file and all was working well. I assumed that It might have something to do with the meshes from Zbrush but once I imported them to the new file all was working fine.
Then I opened a new file and the issue came back again. Now it is still present every time I open blender.
The same happens when I try to add new geometry by using subdivision.
I tried restoring the preferences to factory setting, reinstalling blender, and applying all transformations in object mode before adding loppcuts but none of it worked.
Since these shapes contain no geometry, I assume that this is a rendering issue, but I have no idea how to fix it.
Any help would be appreciated. I'm still fairly new to blender.

So I tried to replicate your situation and I got this:

Similar right? Also your problem is not in all those things you mentioned but in basic of how polygons work...
If you need for your objects to keep that shape you showed than you should try to select those faces or whole object and in edit mode use CTRL+T to triangulate faces... It will remove those clippings

It is simply caused by wrongly used 4gons.
If you look at it from this view then it seems fine:

But if you look from another angle you will notice a non existing edge that is trying to keep your mesh logical:

Try to change the shape of those polygons that cause this and remember that all 4 vertices of 4gon must be flat... one of them out of place will cause these clippings

Wow, You actually took time to reply to some moron who mistook basic blender functionality for a bug. Mad respect.
Like I mentioned above, I just got paranoid as blender spawned an asymetrical cube and I started seeing problems where they were none.
Still, good to know that there are people like you, willing to explain everything to newcomers.

No worry my friend, we all started somewhere

Turns out I got blendered
The mesh I added somehow spawned asymetrical I kind of overreacted and started seeing things.
Everything is in order (with blender at least, I'm pretty sure I'm paranoid). I've seen blender do questionable things before but I didn't know it could troll this hard.


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Saving png images with semi-transparent objects over transparent background has issues
I've run into this problem on multiple different projects, and can't figure out what's causing it. Images below.
It seems to be the result of rendering a scene with semi-transparent (opacity at 0.5) objects with a transparent background, and is only apparent after saving the image as a PNG (EXR is fine).
The results in the transparent objects with transparency behind them having visually different brightness/visibility levels than objects with another object behind them.
The issue is especially visible when a semi-transparent object is in front of a black object.
Does anybody know of a solution for this?
Thanks!
This is an EXR composited over black with Alpha Over, working as expected:

This is the PNG, showing clear errors/artifacts with the alpha channel:

This may be another variation on this common problem with use of alpha in PNGs? : https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/46197/73773

Ah thanks - If you don't mind clarifying, do I understand correctly that this is basically just an inherent limitation of PNGs and the only way to avoid it is to use other formats?

I'm not an expert on the PNG standard, but that is my understanding from the BSE post I linked and a few other resources, yes. There's a bunch of jargon thrown around, but if I've understood correctly, PNG throws away some alpha information, and does this in a way that makes non-zero color behave strangely in low-alpha (especially in the exact alpha=0 case) pixels, and as a result some other image format needs to be used when this is important