text:
how do i create animation whit pose data and with python
I'm making animations based on smpl armature through several pose data. Divide people through person id and put pose data in the armature. However, person id 2 data is contained in all armatures and the rest of the pose data is ignored. Is there a way to solve it by looking at the code?
def setup_scene(model_path, fps_target, person_ids):
    scene = bpy.data.scenes['Scene']

    # Set up a dictionary to keep track of armature objects for each person_id
    armatures = {}

    ###########################
    # Engine independent setup
    ###########################

    scene.render.fps = fps_target

    # Remove default cube
    if 'Cube' in bpy.data.objects:
        bpy.data.objects['Cube'].select_set(True)
        bpy.ops.object.delete()

    # Import gender specific .fbx template file
    for person_id in range(person_ids):
        # Append a unique identifier to the armature name based on person_id
        armature_name = f'Armature_{person_id}'
        bpy.ops.import_scene.fbx(filepath=model_path)

        # Rename the imported armature object
        armature = bpy.data.objects['Armature']
        armature.name = armature_name
        armatures[person_id] = armature
        armature.location = Vector((0, 0, person_id * 2))
    # Now, armatures is a dictionary where keys are person_ids and values are corresponding armature objects
    return armatures

def process_pose(current_frame, pose, trans, person_id_, armature):

    mat_rots = [Rodrigues(rod_rot) for rod_rot in pose]

    print(f"Processing pose for person_id {person_id_} at frame {current_frame}")

    bones = armature.pose.bones
    bones[bone_name_from_index[0]].location = Vector((100 * trans[1], 100 * trans[2], 100 * trans[0])) #- pelvis_position

    bones['f_avg_root'].location = Vector(trans)
    bones[bone_name_from_index[0]].keyframe_insert('location', frame=current_frame)

    for index, mat_rot in enumerate(mat_rots, 0):
        if index >= 24:
            continue

        bone = bones[bone_name_from_index[index]]

        bone_rotation = Matrix(mat_rot).to_quaternion()
        quat_x_90_cw = Quaternion((1.0, 0.0, 0.0), radians(-90))
        quat_x_n135_cw = Quaternion((1.0, 0.0, 0.0), radians(-135))
        quat_x_p45_cw = Quaternion((1.0, 0.0, 0.0), radians(45))
        quat_y_90_cw = Quaternion((0.0, 1.0, 0.0), radians(-90))
        quat_z_90_cw = Quaternion((0.0, 0.0, 1.0), radians(-90))
        quat_z_180_cw = Quaternion((0.0, 0.0, 1.0), radians(-180))

        if index == 0:
            # Rotate pelvis so that avatar stands upright and looks along negative Y avis
            # bone.rotation_quaternion = bone_rotation
            bone.rotation_quaternion = (quat_x_90_cw @ quat_z_180_cw) @ bone_rotation
        else:
            bone.rotation_quaternion = bone_rotation

        bone.keyframe_insert('rotation_quaternion', frame=current_frame)

    return

def process_poses(
        input_path,
        gender,
        fps_source,
        fps_target,
        start_origin,
        person_id=1,
):

print('Processing: ' + input_path)

    file_data = np.load(input_path, allow_pickle=True)

    body_pose = file_data['smpl'][()]['body_pose']
    global_orient = file_data['smpl'][()]['global_orient'].reshape(-1, 1, 3)
    pred_cams = file_data['pred_cams'].reshape(-1, 3)
    person_ids = file_data['person_id']
    # keypoints_3d = file_data['keypoints_3d'][()]

    poses = []
    poses1 = []
    poses2 =[]
    trans = []
    # for i in range(body_pose.shape[0]):
    #     if person_ids[i] == 1:
    #         poses1.append(np.concatenate([global_orient[i], body_pose[i]], axis=0))
    #     elif person_ids[i] == 2:
    #         poses2.append(np.concatenate([global_orient[i], body_pose[i]], axis=0))
    #     else:
    #         poses.append(np.concatenate([global_orient[i], body_pose[i]], axis=0))
    for i in range(body_pose.shape[0]):
        poses.append(np.concatenate([global_orient[i], body_pose[i]], axis=0))
    #     #trans.append((keypoints_3d[i][8] + keypoints_3d[i][11])/2 * 5)
        trans.append(pred_cams[i])

    poses = np.array(poses)
    poses1 = np.array(poses1)
    poses2 = np.array(poses2)
    trans = np.array(trans)

    # trans = np.zeros((poses.shape[0], 3))

    if gender == 'female':
        model_path = female_model_path
        for k, v in bone_name_from_index.items():
            bone_name_from_index[k] = 'f_avg_' + v

    elif gender == 'male':
        model_path = male_model_path
        for k, v in bone_name_from_index.items():
            bone_name_from_index[k] = 'm_avg_' + v

    else:
        print('ERROR: Unsupported gender: ' + gender)
        sys.exit(1)

    # Limit target fps to source fps
    if fps_target > fps_source:
        fps_target = fps_source

    print(f'Gender: {gender}')
    print(f'Number of source poses: {str(poses.shape[0])}')
    print(f'Source frames-per-second: {str(fps_source)}')
    print(f'Target frames-per-second: {str(fps_target)}')
    print('--------------------------------------------------')

    armatures = setup_scene(model_path, fps_target, max(set(person_ids)) + 1)

    scene = bpy.data.scenes['Scene']
    sample_rate = int(fps_source / fps_target)
    scene.frame_end = (int)(poses.shape[0] / sample_rate)

    # Retrieve pelvis world position.
    # Unit is [cm] due to Armature scaling.
    # Need to make copy since reference will change when bone location is modified.
    bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='EDIT')
    #pelvis_position = Vector(bpy.data.armatures[0].edit_bones[bone_name_from_index[0]].head)
    bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='OBJECT')

    source_index = 0
    frame = 1

    offset = np.array([0.0, 0.0, 0.0])

    while source_index < poses.shape[0]:
        print('Adding pose: ' + str(source_index))

        if start_origin:
            if source_index == 0:
                offset = np.array([trans[source_index][0], trans[source_index][1], 0])

    # Go to new frame
        scene.frame_set(frame)
        if person_ids[source_index] == 6:
            source_index += sample_rate
            frame += 1
            continue

        armature = armatures[person_ids[source_index]]

        process_pose(frame, poses[source_index], (trans[source_index] - offset), person_ids[source_index],armature)
        source_index += sample_rate
        frame += 1

    return frame

def export_animated_mesh(output_path):
    # Create output directory if needed
    output_dir = os.path.dirname(output_path)
    if not os.path.isdir(output_dir):
        os.makedirs(output_dir, exist_ok=True)

    # Select only skinned mesh and rig
    bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='DESELECT')
    bpy.data.objects['Armature_0'].select_set(True)
    bpy.data.objects['Armature_0'].children[0].select_set(True)
    bpy.data.objects['Armature_1'].select_set(True)
    bpy.data.objects['Armature_1'].children[0].select_set(True)
    bpy.data.objects['Armature_2'].select_set(True)
    bpy.data.objects['Armature_2'].children[0].select_set(True)
    bpy.data.objects['Armature_4'].select_set(True)
    bpy.data.objects['Armature_4'].children[0].select_set(True)

    if output_path.endswith('.glb'):
        print('Exporting to glTF binary (.glb)')
        # Currently exporting without shape/pose shapes for smaller file sizes
        bpy.ops.export_scene.gltf(filepath=output_path, export_format='GLB', export_selected=True, export_morph=False)
    elif output_path.endswith('.fbx'):
        print('Exporting to FBX binary (.fbx)')
        bpy.ops.export_scene.fbx(filepath=output_path, use_selection=True, add_leaf_bones=False)
    else:
        print('ERROR: Unsupported export format: ' + output_path)
        sys.exit(1)

    return

if __name__ == '__main__':
    try:

        input_path = 'demo_result/inference_result_multi10.npz'
        output_path = 'test_trans6.fbx'
        fps_source = 30
        fps_target = 30
        gender = 'female'
        start_origin = 1
        person_id = 0

        startTime = time.perf_counter()

        cwd = os.getcwd()

        if not input_path.startswith(os.path.sep):
            input_path = os.path.join(cwd, input_path)

        if not output_path.startswith(os.path.sep):
            output_path = os.path.join(cwd, output_path)

        print('Input path: ' + input_path)
        print('Output path: ' + output_path)

        if not (output_path.endswith('.fbx') or output_path.endswith('.glb')):
            print('ERROR: Invalid output format (must be .fbx or .glb)')
            sys.exit(1)

        if input_path.endswith('.npz'):
            if not os.path.isfile(input_path):
                print('ERROR: Invalid input file')
                sys.exit(1)

            poses_processed = process_poses(
                input_path=input_path,
                gender=gender,
                fps_source=fps_source,
                fps_target=fps_target,
                start_origin=start_origin,
                person_id=person_id
            )
            export_animated_mesh(output_path)

        print('--------------------------------------------------')
        print('Animation export finished.')
        print(f'Poses processed: {str(poses_processed)}')
        print(f'Processing time : {time.perf_counter() - startTime:.2f} s')
        print('--------------------------------------------------')
        sys.exit(0)

    except SystemExit as ex:
        if ex.code is None:
            exit_status = 0
        else:
            exit_status = ex.code

        print('Exiting. Exit status: ' + str(exit_status))

        if bpy.app.background:
            sys.exit(exit_status)

Hello and welcome. Your question is vague and it's not really clear that the problem is. What do you mean by "However, person id 2 data is contained in all armatures and the rest of the pose data is ignored."? I don't understand the sentence (could be me). What is "person id 2 data"? And should the rest of the pose data be ignored or not?


text:
Viewport is always off center (possible bug?)
Ever since I installed 4.0 I've noticed this very weird (I'm assuming) bug in the viewport.
It seems like the center view is latched onto something invisible and the viewpoint is being orbited/centered around it, I'm not sure how to describe it.
Whenever I press Numpad 1 and Numpad 3 to snap shift the view it's never properly aligned and ends up in weird angles. I've also noticed when rotating the camera around in general as well.
How it's supposed to be:
 https://imgur.com/0Yhh1UX.mp4
What is happening:
 https://i.imgur.com/bZD2VW4.mp4
 https://i.imgur.com/VQkq6LW.mp4
 https://i.imgur.com/50oJn1z.mp4
This has only happened to me with Blender 4.0, even reverting back to 3.5 I don't encounter this issue. I've found that if I reset the preferences/defaults back to factory settings, it fixes the issue but only until I close blender, when I start it up again issue/bug immediately comes back. I've tried editing my preferences with everything in the navigation tab (currently everything is off except for depth) , I've tried a clean reinstall, turned off various add-ons; nothing seems to work and I'm at a complete loss with why it's doing this and how to fix it.

Hello and welcome. Instead of having users go through links and external sites please use the builtin tools to embed images in your post. See How to upload an image to a post? or GIF

It's something to do with your orbit.  Restore to factory settings, save startup file, save preferences.  There's some particular thing you did somewhere, but that's the easy solution that doesn't require anyone (me) to research things.

The view is only centered on the world's origin as long as the world origin is in the center of the view. That is the case in the latest version and it was like that in older versions.
What you experience here are two things I guess: one seems to be that in the Preferences you have disabled Navigation > Auto > Perspective, so it does not automatically switch from Perspective to Orthographic when you go into front/right/top view by pressing Numpad 1/Numpad 3/Numpad 7 or vice versa, you have to do it manually by pressing Numpad 5.

The other is - as I said before - Blender does not center on the world origin automatically when you have moved the view off-center. And probably you have saved an off-centered view as default startup file, so it comes back to this when you start up Blender.
What you can do in this case: open up Blender to make sure you have a fresh startup scene (not being in a current project with other objects etc. in the scene), make sure your 3D Cursor is in the world center by pressing Shift+S > 1 (Cursor to World Origin).
Then from the viewport menu choose View > Align View > Center View on Cursor. Now you can maybe adjust the view by zooming in or out and rotating it to your liking (but not moving around since this will move the view off-center again).

After that is done and the view is still centered on the cursor / world origin, go to File > Defaults > Save Startup File. Now every time you start Blender, the new scene will be the one you currently have with the view centered on the world origin.

That seems to have fixed it for now after running a few start up tests to see if it was consistent. I'm not sure why it was like that before since I didn't touch anything with navigation before hand.Thank you very much!

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Need help with Cloth simulation plus attached object
I have the same issue as in the question
Cloth simulation plus attached object but the solution video mentioned is no longer available.
Can anyone please help me with how can I get the same result?
This artwork is not done by me :)

really thank you please tell me how can i attach those zippers with the cloth element, i just want to attach them like i want to bind a metal object with cloth, dont want to animate zipper. assume there are metal boxes which are binded with cloth instead of this ziiper. please help me if possible thank you.

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/106137/cloth-simulation-plus-attached-object

You could create the envelop with this kind of cylinder, rip the middle edge with V, select all its vertices and assign to a group that will be its cloth pin group:

Give it the following modifiers: Vertex Weight Proximity, Cloth, Weld, Solidify, Subdivision. Create a cylinder that will be your tire, give it a Collision physic, create an object (cube) that will be it Vertex Weight Proximity object and will allow you to move the evenlop pin group, create a Force Field that will push apart the 2 sides of the envelop:

Result when you move the Vertex Weight Proximity object:

Other solution: Create 2 plane objects, subdivide a bit, give them cloth simulations with a pin group that goes from bottom to top, create the tyre envelop, rip the center edge, assign a vertex group to the left half, another vertex group to the right hand half, give it 2 Surface Deform modifiers with the 2 planes as Target, each time choose the correct vertex group, click on the Bind buttons:

Create a Force Field between the 2 planes, result:

File with the 2 solutions here:

looks great! +1

thank you  ;) .........

Great wheel model ;-) (I would have done it the same way) and great animation. But the main reason for this question was the zipper, wasn't it? My understanding of the problem is that the Cloth simulation does not work with two objects, the zipper and the case. The solution in the linked question therefore refers to the mesh deform modifier.

@Blunder OK I've edited, maybe this is the way he did it?

Awesome! (I just miss the tire ;-))

Thank you very much for your help.

please if possible tell me ho can i attach those zippers with the cloth simulation

it should be part of the object but the problem is that it is supposed to be a bit rigid, it can't fold like the cloth, so maybe you need to tweak the cloth parameters in order to make it a bit more rigid, or use the second solution which is probably the one that has been used in your image (we can see that the folds are not real, they are just normal map), as for the little slide object you could animate it manually so that it follows the correct position

For a similar image, it would probably be faster and easier to use the Cloth Brush in sculpting mode.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UskiTAah1-w
Alternatively, you could manually "paint" the wrinkles with a regular sculpt brush, add a winkle texture (like something from here), and set it to "anchor" mode

i would assume he wants the animation, not an image....

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


text:
How to add a driver to body text
I would like to have an empty with custom string property that drive a Body Text. But Body Text datablock is not accessible from the GUI. How can i do that ?

After adding a text object, finding out the name of the associated property ("body") and selecting it...
>>> C.scene.objects.active.data.driver_add("body")
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<blender_console>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: bpy_struct.driver_add(): property "body" not animatable

That is, I tried to add a driver to it from the python console. It doesn't seem to be possible, sorry. Depending on what exactly you want to put in the text object, using multiple objects might be an option?

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


text:
OBJ import coordinates
Importing OBJ files in blender gives positions that don't (textually) match the .obj file.
That is to say, a vertex that has position (1,2,3) is imported with coordinates (1,-3,2) (I think, this is what I want to check).
As far as I can tell, this transform the importer applies is
(x,y,z) -> (x,-z, y). Is this correct?

When you import an obj there are some transform setting on the right side of the file picker:

As you can see, the default are '-Z forward' and 'Y up'.  Any of these can be changed, but the default does amount to (x,y,z) -> (x,-z, y), yes.

I didn't notice that. Thanks


text:
Export Blender Particle System Hair To Three.Js
After several months of casual research on three.js as I worked on a model in Blender 2.7 I have yet to locate a method for exporting the blender particle system hair? By chance would anyone have any ideas how would I go about achieving this feat, would I need to perhaps export to OBJ or some other format? I have yet to see any three.js imported particle systems from any 3d system?..Any ideas would greatly appreciated !!

You could convert the hair particles to a mesh in the modifier tab in the properties panel.

This would only create and object with only edges and vertices:

If you need meshes with faces you could emit low poly cylinders from the hair particles before converting them to a mesh.

Actually that hasn't yet worked? I created a cube and applied a hair particle, applied material color and then selected the modifier "Convert" and then exported to three.js and only the cube appeared?

I did try several combinations exampled by applying hair only to a vertex group and then exporting and that resulted in the same, just the cube, however, the cubes do look altered? and didn't retain the material color

I simply utilized a three.js JSON Loader and the simplistic geometry, material callback functions..any ideas?

It is recommended to use the .obj format, you find an example in three.js examples/webgl_loader_obj Could you add screenshots of what you're actually trying to do? the converted particles are an object(s) itself and need also be loaded in three.js loading only the cube wouldn't have any effect. In case you used the dupli object you would also need to join the instances because for 1000 hair particles you would get 1000 objects.

The process that you have described has now worked with tweaking! While it worked magnificently when it is imported into three.js it really lacks a realistic appearance! Above you mention utilizing, emitting "low Poly Cylinders" I'll give that a try...any pointers, good ideas?

@user2544743 Just create another object and select it as DupliObject in the particle settings (render), see the last image of my post. Not that you need to scale it appropiately. After conversion to mesh you have a mesh with faces that should display fine.

Okay! That looks a little more impressive great work! Curiously, are you then simply creating vertex groups and grouping the particles, cylinders for manipulation, shaping?

I will add an answer here that I have mentioned in a previous issue that I can no longer find.
What you do is convert your hair system, under the modifier panel. This will convert your hair to a mesh of only edges.
Next you apply the "screw" modifier. Set the axis to Z Axis, angle to 2 degrees. Set the steps to 2 and render steps to 2 by typing it in.
You can mess with the axis options, and even AxisOb (axis object) to tweat the way everything is extruded.
Than you just export the mesh hair to THREE.js like any other mesh.
Good luck!

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


text:
OSL: Giving the texture method a color instead of string
Is there a way to give the OSL method
texture(string, float, float, ...)

a color input instead of the string which reads an image file?
Or is there any type of workaround?

The whole point of the texture() call is to read a color from an image texture, so the filename of that image texture needs to be specified. What are you trying to achieve, what would the color input be used for?

@brecht I am trying to get an Image Texture input into the script node(similar to sampler2D from GLSL). But I also need access to specific pixels of the texture, not just the one where the shader currently is.

That's not supported, the output of the Image Texture node is only a single color, not anything like a sampler2D.

@brecht Could you please copy you comments as an answer, then this one wouldn't appear no longer as unanswered. Thanks.


text:
Material is not displayed correctly on one face
I have made a small eclipse type object with black material. One of the face is not displayed correctly in edit mode. It is displayed correctly in object mode and in final render. I have attached a screenshot with the culprit face highlighted in red circle.

Perhaps the faces normals are flipped? What happens if you select everything in edit mode (A) and then press Ctrl+N?

Thanks @cegaton. Please post this in answer section, I will mark it as answer.


text:
Boolean modifier in game engine
How can I use the boolean modifier in GE?  When I hit play, both meshes are shown.
There is any way to do that? Or can I automatically apply the modifier before start GE?

Most modifiers don't work in the engine unless you apply them. I don't think there's a workaround for booleans, other than applying them.

In 2.71 the boolean modifier works in the game engine.
The limitations are that the modifier is static, the way the booleaned object looks at the start of the game is how it is going to stay. You can for example rotate the base object (the object with the boolean modifer) and it will rotate properly, with all booleaned intersection moving properly. However if one of the target objects (objects used as the object to target in the modifier) is moved, it will not change the mesh at all.
If both objects are showing, it may be that both objects are in the game. Move the target objects to a different layer that is not in the game.


text:
How to create undo savepoint and rollback to it later in python scripting?
I'm trying to create a script for my scene that splits pre-defined objects into separate parts and exports to STL. It would be easiest to implement by first creating an undo savepoint (the current state of the file), apply all modifiers for pre-defined objects, separate into individual smaller objects after the modifiers have created disjoint parts and export each object into a separate STL file. After all this I would like to restore the scene back to the savepoint meaning I could easily undo everything that the script did to accomplish the final export files.
How to create undo savepoint and later undo all changes done after that in scripting? I already know how to do everything else but I currently have to manually undo or revert after running my script because I don't know how to cleanup after modifying the scene for temporary purposes.

Undo is quite limited and there is no reliable mechanism so the easiest way to do this is just saving a temp file using bpy.ops.wm.save_as_mainfile(your_filepath, copy=True) (IMHO) Also I'd suggest run your python commands using the command line (headless).

I'm trying to create open source lock design where I can distribute .blend file and the end user can simply dial keycut into custom properties of object called KEYCUTS and then run script to export all parts as STL files ready to print. As such, it would be nicer to run script from the UI because the user already has Blender open and active.

Makes no difference, just save a copy and open/close the temp file @MikkoRantalainen


text:
VSE: Can you make a script to code in more filters? (add/multiply/subtract)
So specifically in blender you have 3 settings really: add/subtract/multiply. Image editors such as gimp give you these and a total of 21 setting.
Are these settings in blender just a mashup of modifier settings applied across 2 strips? Or is there some kind of generic coding that all programs share for these settings? Add/subtract/multiply are found across all programs really for example.
I was just curious if the other filters from gimp could be put into blender via a script.
Kinda open ended given I don't know how to script for blender, but just curious if any insights. If each filter has a generically shared code then I'm guessing you could just make a new filter name for blender and plop in these codes for each?

VSE is not very FX complete as the compositor is designed for these workflows. Although you can use the math functions available in conjunction with the effect strip modifiers, like color and blur.

Also you can make things like a chromakeyed in the VSE by playing with these functions: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/78947/how-can-i-do-color-keying-using-the-vse

I'm aware of that stuff, it's not enough.

Well because all the functions you are suggesting are already in he compositor they probably won't ever be coded in the VSE. You can round trip media through a compositor scene and use that scene strip.

That too much hassle and bulk to 'roundtrip' video strips into the compositor and back into my vse for the sake of getting a few filter effects. Also if they took the time to include 3 of them into the vse already, I don't see the logic in not including the others into the vse in the future. But I do see the logic in never expecting that to happen via official versions due to nobody is developing the vse anymore.

I just looked again and found this commit https://developer.blender.org/D2872 then checked my version of Blender and.... drum roll... they're all there! Maybe just grab a latest build?

Turns out your build of Blender may be old.
They were updated as of this commit https://developer.blender.org/D2872
In fact there are a bunch of new blend types available.

I don't understand. I updated to 2.79b and my blend settings are the same as the old one. What am I missing?

I was using 2.79, the one back in october 2017. I specifcally asked them over at blender support chat what would happen if I updated to 2.79b a while back. They were unable to answer, and in the end stated it would just create another version of blender I could choose to load rather than update the 2.79 version. Well they were wrong, go figure...it simply updated my 2.79 to 2.79b. i still don't have those blend setting though, nothing has changed really other than the splash screen saying 2.79b now instead of 2.79

The wiki doesn't show or even tell the different blend settings. The link you provided seems to have the rawr update scripts but I don't want to go that method.....why is mine different than yours this is confusing me. I can't find any addons or settings under preferences to explain.

urs says 2.79.4 though...and mine only says 2.79 still though (pic above). i restarted computer, still no change.

okay in my add remove programs bar it says the blender installed was 2.79.2. Is 2.79.4 because you run on a different OS then? I'm using windows 8.1 64 bit. I just downloaded via the official site using the sole download option it provides. I had 2.79 which it says cameout in september last year.....makes sense. then 2.79b which it says i have was out in march this year. so....?!!?!!?https://download.blender.org/release/Blender2.79/

Oh sorry, I don't bother with official build, rather I use the development builds. They have all the bug fixes.

Could you walk me through how to get this? Like is there a page with the development builds...? I get stupidly lost looking through blender's logs and trying to find basic information much less download link. Is there a page with 2.79.4 I can download...? To be honest I don't really get this stuff and I'd rather just have the stable version, and just these blender settings here. Cause I'm guessing there would be a reason they were development builds (incomplete/unstable/etc). Can you walk me through how to get these blends specifically? I know how to install addons as .py, but that's it.

Is this the one you are using? blender-2.79-bb98e83b99e-win64.zip 119.72MB Jul 24 2018 02:40:39 https://builder.blender.org/download/? Are you able to revert back to the stabler versions if you run into problems? Do you have to uninstall first or can you just reinstall overtop of the unstable newer version? If you uninstalll and reinstall the older version does it affect your exisitng .blend project files? im in the middle of project is all...using unstable build not a good idea probably, but having just those blends in conjunction with the stable release would be worth it.

I just download the zip, unpack it into a folder I can keep track of and hit run on the Blender.exe. No install required, it should remember your previous settings as well. If it doesn't work well, just go back to the previous version. Bear in mind that some stuff in the .blend file might break going back a version.

As I stated, I don't know how to go back to a previous version the 'intended' way. And the fact some stuff might break even if I do go back or even go forward with the next release or even in the current version.....is making this a no until I know more. If it functioned more like an addon and the features uninstalled and installed independently....then sure i'd try them, since that kinda process is readily understood. I won't hold my breath waiting, as I can easily see this functionality being delayed or scrapped for countless reasons. We need more independently-regulated addons for the vse.


text:
How to set chroma subsampling options?
I'm asking in relation to the vse as a standalone, as well as the 3d viewport.
Where can I specify what chroma subsampling I want for my output? i.e. 4:4:4 vs 4:2:2 vs 4:2:0?
Are presets applied to each of the render options that aren't otherwise visible? What are these options?
I feel like I'm missing something. Is chroma subsampling a "physical" film only thing? I know you can select the sampling for your 3d renders, but I mean that's variable whereas chroma subsampling is like 3 main options. I'm guessing those are different things.
Do 3d renders not follow the convention of chroma subsampling. And when just using the video sequence editor then, do I not get the option of specifying a chroma subsampling? Is the chroma subsampling of the input video respected when output from the the vse?

can you elaborate on what each codec provides then. As I stated in the OP I don't have this information nor do I know where I'd find it.


text:
Settings to improve video editor performance
I've assigned more RAM via 'memory cache limit' and use 25% 'proxies' with timecodes, are there any other settings that can be tinkered with to improve playback in the VSE? My CPU is always very idle while using the VSE and I'm dropping frames from 30fps down to 5fps depending on the number of items in the sequencer. Anything else to be tinkered with? I'm not looking for other video editors, so no suggestions on that front please.
I'm also kinda confused what is happening here in blender. Is it only using a single CPU core for all the operations? Is that why the cpu is never going full-on? Like using ffmpeg.exe it'll grab literally all my cpu and ram when it does its operations, blender is only using my ram up when enough is assigned in memory cache limit. Is it a case of getting a faster singular cpu core and having more ram = better performance? Can I do anything with my GPU outside of render operations?
Using windows I don't see any performance change recorded in the taskbar when I do or don't use the proxy...but playback is always showing extreme performance changes between the two. Why is that? If blender is getting jittery and freezing for seconds at a time pushing framing by frame going to no proxy, but stable at 25% proxy....but the taskbar shows no difference between the two...what's that mean?

Blenders VSE is an area that has not seen many improvements over the years. As you see one of its drawbacks is the inability to use all available cpus.
Someone recently agreed to work on improvements to the VSE, so this should start to improve over the next releases, but the improvements done in time to be included with 2.80 are limited.


text:
Modeling stitching - issues
Trying to model stitches around some car seats and can't seem to make sense of what's happening. After trying to find the solution here and on Youtube, I'm defeated!  I'm using an array and curve modifier
It seems to go in some random place and doesn't follow the curve at all, also it gets distorted like crazy.  I've attached some references while trying both on the actual seat, and just a curve I drew in case the one I had was the issue.
On the first image, the stitching is really distorted and should be facing up and not to the side.  The second is the modeled stitch.  The third is showing the seat I'd like it to follow and where it actually ends up.
Edit: After a while of trying I managed to get close, but it's still not in the right place, I attached a screenshot at the bottom.

After a lot of trial and error, I found out my problem was the stitch wasn't modeled in the world origin. Moving it there and then playing around with the orientation got it to work pretty well.
I'm not sure if there's a way to select multiple curves (or have multiple curves in the same object). That didn't work for me and I had to copy each stitch and assign it to an individual curve as it's own object.


text:
UV edit: Planet texture repeats through all rectangles instead of covering all UV Sphere
I'm a complete newbie following this tutorial. I have a UV Sphere and a texture image 2000x1000px. I have the add-on UV Squares (I read somewhere in Blender 2.8 I could avoid this add-on with some command, I think it was Follow Active Quads but not sure).
I apply the texture image with nodes, but when I apply it, at first in doesn't appear over the object, and after "unwrap" it does appear, but it repeats like a pattern through all sphere surface.
What do I need to do to stretch it all over the surface?
If I use different unwrap options (cube, sphere or cylinder projection) the closest one is the sphere projection, but it still leaves some area uncovered and the poles are displaced (see second capture).
Here is a capture of my layout:

UV wrapping with sphere projection:

Maybe there's a response to my problem in this Texture/UV edit complex shapes and tile/repeat post, but I'm too newbie to get it.

I found a solution here: Why does the texture appear like this after adding a planet map texture to a UV Sphere?
I don't know if I should delete this question or leave it for easier search & find in future responses.


text:
ValueError: math domain error when length is 4 and height is 2
Breaking my head over this.
I am getting the ValueError: math domain error when running this script.
But only when lenght1=4 and height1=2
change 1 of the numbers and the script runs just fine.
When the value of lenght is 3.99 and lower or 4.01 and higher // height is 1.99 and lower or 2.01 and higher the error does not show.
When running the script the sliders in the operator menu can be used to adjust the values.
import bpy
import bmesh
from mathutils import Matrix
import math
from math import asin, degrees
from bpy_extras.object_utils import AddObjectHelper

from bpy.props import (
    IntProperty,
    BoolProperty,
    FloatProperty,
)

class MESH_OT_primitive_arc(AddObjectHelper, bpy.types.Operator):
    """Add a simple arc mesh"""
    bl_idname = "mesh.primitive_arc"
    bl_label = "Add Circular Arc"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER', 'UNDO'}

    length1: FloatProperty(
        name="length",
        description="Chord Length",
        min=0.01,
        max=100.0,
        default=4,
        unit='LENGTH',
    )
    height1: FloatProperty(
        name="Height",
        description="Arc Height",
        min=0.01,
        max=100.0,
        unit='LENGTH',
        default=2,
    )
    segments: IntProperty(
        name="Arc Segments",
        description="Number of Segments",
        min=1,
        default=8,
    )
    wallt: FloatProperty(
        name="Height",
        description="Arc Height",
        min=0.01,
        max=100.0,
        unit='LENGTH',
        default=0.2,
    )

    def draw(self, context):
        '''Generic Draw'''
        layout = self.layout
        # annnotated on this class
        for prop in self.__class__.__annotations__.keys():
            layout.prop(self, prop)
        # annotated on AddObjectHelper
        for prop in AddObjectHelper.__annotations__.keys():
            layout.prop(self, prop)

    def execute(self, context):

        bm = bmesh.new()

        h1 = (self.height1 - self.wallt)
        print(h1)
        if h1 <= 0 :
           h1 = 0.001
        a1 = ((self.length1 / 2) - self.wallt)
        r1 = (a1 * a1 + h1 * h1) / (2 * h1)
        print(r1)
#        if abs(a1 / r1) > 1:
            # math domain error on arcsin
#            return {'CANCELLED'}
        angle1 = 2 * asin(a1 / r1)
        #print(math.degrees(angle1))

        mesh = bpy.data.meshes.new("Arc1")

        v1 = bm.verts.new((0, r1, 0))
        bmesh.ops.rotate(
            bm, verts=[v1], matrix=Matrix.Rotation(angle1 / 2, 3, 'Z'))

        bmesh.ops.spin(
            bm,
            geom=[v1],
            axis=(0, 0, 1),
            steps=self.segments,
            angle=-angle1,
        )

        for v1 in bm.verts[:]:
            v1.co.y -= r1 - h1
            #print(v1.co.y)
            v1.select = True

        bm.to_mesh(mesh)
        #mesh.update()

        # add the mesh as an object into the scene with this utility module
        from bpy_extras import object_utils
        object_utils.object_data_add(context, mesh, operator=self)

        return {'FINISHED'}

def menu_func(self, context):
    self.layout.operator(MESH_OT_primitive_arc.bl_idname, icon='MESH_CUBE')

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(MESH_OT_primitive_arc)
    bpy.types.VIEW3D_MT_mesh_add.append(menu_func)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(MESH_OT_primitive_arc)
    bpy.types.VIEW3D_MT_mesh_add.remove(menu_func)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

    # Auto-run script comment out to disable auto run
    bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_arc()

$arcsin(x)$ is only valid for $-1 \le x \le 1$. Any value outside of this range will generate a domain error, as you've indicated in the commented out test in your script
#        if abs(a1 / r1) > 1:
#            math domain error on arcsin
#            return {'CANCELLED'}

The values you have specified for length1 and height1 should produce a value of exactly 1 for a1 / r1 but because of the way the equations are calculated, they produce the value 1.0000000000000002, causing the domain error.
h1 and r1 should both have the exact value 1.8, but the rounding error gives h1 = 1.7999999970197678 and r1 = 1.7999999970197675 leading to the domain error.
A workaround would be to replace your if statement with something like your test for h1:
x = a1 / r1
if x > 1.0:
    x = 1.0
elif x < -1.0
    x = -1.0


text:
Walls on cross section of a solidified object look hollow
When I cut a solidified object (with Alt-b) to see how it looks inside - its walls look hollow (see picture) on the cut plane (but remain solid were they were not cut). How can I make the walls look solid/full also on the cut? (Blender version 2.82.7)

you could use a boolean object (that you make transparent), but why are you using alt B?

Because it's easy, fast and reversable. And you don't have to introduce unnecessary objects (just to create an inner view, not really to modify your main object).

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/50252/can-i-fill-an-empty-object

yes but why do you want to create an inner view? It might help to find a solution. Alt B can only work in Solid mode. I don't think there's any other way than boolean

Alt B is only for looking inside and see how things are. And effectively, this is hollow. If was rendered solid that shouild be misleading as the geometry is not solid.

@moonboots: I want to create an inner view just to know how things look inside. Sometimes I would make such cuts, take screenshots and send them to others so they can follow. It's not that I want to cut the object permanently. This cut is not a part of design (only for looking inside, like lemon wrote it). Looks like it is impossible just to look inside and have walls cuts solid...

It is possible but you have to use another object's geometry (with the boolean modifier for instance). As stated before in the comments the workflow you are using is not supposed to introduce new geometry

The only way to do this is by using a boolean modifier (which is non-destructive and reversible, until you apply the modifier, so just don't ever apply the modifier).  The object that you use to drive the boolean can be hidden the whole time, and you can quickly toggle the visibility of the effects of the boolean modifier by clicking the buttons at the top of the modifier; camera button disables visibility in the render, and desktop button disables visibility in viewport.  So you can just always keep the render visibility off, and keep the viewport visibility usually off but quickly toggle it on for those screenshots by just clicking the button and then toggle it back off.  It's not as quick as Alt-B, but it effectively does exactly what you're explaining you want in the question and in your comments.


text:
Is there any possible way to prevent the mirror to reflect some custom objects?
So, I had a little problem here; I made the cube invisible but still glowing around the environment. And the problem is I want to prevent the cube to reflect on the mirror. Is there any possible way to prevent the mirror to reflect some custom objects? Or is there any better solution? Thanks!

related https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/192907/rendering-a-fake-mirror/192911#192911

Nevermind, I've figured it out. Just turn of "camera" and "glossy" at the ray view options

Can use this setting (Cycles only):

We want to keep what is diffuse and not singular (or glossy).


text:
Noob question on scale
I'm very new to Blender and am specifically focused on 3D printing. I've made several objects and checked all the geometry to make sure everything is Kosher. No flipped normals, no intersecting faces, yadda, yadda. I run the 3D Print checks and everything checks out.
The problem is that when I try to scale an object to size for printing, all hell breaks loose and 3D print check starts showing the entire object as zero faces, intersect faces everywhere, etc.
Here is the work flow.

I check 3D print to confirm everything is good.
In Object mode I scale the object down and apply scale.
Check 3d print again. Intersecting faces everywhere and zero faces.
I undo everything and go back to the start.
I try scaling in Edit mode and check 3D print.
Same damn thing.

This happens with every object, but I made a very simple hammer model as a test bed. This way I know there won't be any hidden geometry or errors that I'm missing. But even with this very simple and rudimentary model the same thing keeps happening.
I have scanned every tutorial and discussion I can find and there is nothing out there that addresses this. Can someone please explain this.
I've been trying to solve this for days and am at a dead end. Can anyone explain this, please?

Is your object made of multiple parts? It could be that when you 'scale' them it's resulting in intersecting geometry as the parts are scaling from their own origin points. You might need to 'join' them into one mesh or change the pivot point to all work from the same origin. Please update your question with more information and perhaps some screenshots of your current model.

Have you pressed CRTL A -> Scale before exporting?

Iam not really sure, I print and scale regularly but never came across this issue. Do you have any modificators applied?

It's a single object. No modifiers. Like I said, I broke this down into as simple an object as possible to see if it still happens and it does. If I can't make an object this simple work, then what chance do I have with anything that's actually complicated.

Added two pics showing before scale and after. And YES, I applied the scale by hitting Ctrl A.

I have no idea what this means. "Are you scaling below floating-point resolution? Like, 0.000000000003 Km, instead of 0.000003 mm? –"

Unit scale is set to 1.000 . Length is Milimeters.

This seems like a glitch.  You could try reporting it.  Ultimately, those results are just a guide.  If you know your geometry is solid, don't worry about it, go ahead and export it for printing.  I've only had things 3D printed through services; I don't have my own 3D printer, so my hands-on experience with slicing software is limited, but I'm pretty sure most of them have options to explicitly tell what scale to print the model at, so I wouldn't worry about scaling in Blender.  Its measurements never seemed to be consistent with what the slicing program read them as anyway.


text:
How to stack UV island using Python in Blender?
I'm looking for a help/solution to my question "How to stack UV island using Python in Blender.
I haven't got far from beginning but this is all I got this far:
import bpy

me = bpy.context.object.data
uv_layer = me.uv_layers.active.data

for poly in me.polygons:
    # Here I want to move the selected poly in the location of my 2D cursor
    # So eventually all my polygons are stacked into the same pile

This is a very beginner question and all the help and hints are much appreciated.
------------------EDIT---------------------
Here's illustration what I want to achieve with the script:

Select UV-island

Snap UV-island to the 2D cursor

Repeat phases 1 and 2 for every face in the mesh, so eventually all the faces are stacked on top of each other

Hi and welcome. So the question is about finding UVs? UVs islands? Selected UVs? And stack means here setting all islands in top of each other? If yes, have these islands the same shape?

Hi, @lemon so my problem more specifically is that first I want to separate every face of my mesh to separate UV island. Secondly I want to iterate through every UV island of my mesh and transform all the islands individually to the location of my 2D cursor.
So, yes stack means all UV islands of my mesh on top of each other. And islands doesn't need to share same shape, it's not important here. I just want them to one place so afterwards it's is easier to drag islands from one stack to on top of the image.

If I understand well, the UV layer is already created, yes? or should the script do it?

I'm not sure if the UV layer is created correctly in my script but that was my aim.

mmm... still not sure to understand (my bad)... so you want all UV to overlap being stretched to bounds? If that should reset the UVs. bpy.ops.uv.reset()... ? If not, could you illustrate with some images (editing your question)?

ok, thanks for the edit : all is very clear now I think (though hope someone will help you soon, but on my side, i need to go for today...)

Here we need three things:

Find the 2d cursor position
Check the mode we are in before processing the UV coordinates
Use the UV layer to find UV coordinates

For each face, once UV coordinates are found, calculate their center and offset the coordinates by the difference from the cursor.
Note that if no UV editor opened, won't find the cursor and does nothing.
Commented code:
import bpy
from mathutils import Vector

def find_cursor_location():
    # Look through area and find the first image editor
    for area in bpy.context.screen.areas:
        if area.type == 'IMAGE_EDITOR':
            return area.spaces.active.cursor_location
    return None

obj = bpy.context.object
cursor = find_cursor_location()

if cursor:
    #Check the mode as we cant do it in edit mode
    mode = obj.mode
    if mode != 'OBJECT':
        bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='OBJECT')

    me = obj.data #Need to get it here in case mode is changed
    uv_layer = me.uv_layers.active

    if uv_layer:
        for poly in me.polygons:
            # Get all Uv coordinates of the face
            uvs = [uv_layer.data[loop_index].uv for loop_index in poly.loop_indices]
            # Its center
            center = sum(uvs, Vector((0,0))) / len(uvs)
            # The needed offset
            delta = center - cursor
            # Shift UV coords
            for uv_data in [uv_layer.data[loop_index] for loop_index in poly.loop_indices]:
                uv_data.uv -= delta

    #Back to the mode we were in
    if mode != 'OBJECT':
        bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode=mode)

This is awesome! Thanks for really beginner friendly commented script. This taught me so much.


text:
Head bone not moving with parent hip bone
Not really sure how to word it, but I have an bone chain with a hip bone as the root and everything being a child of that.
When I move the hip it seems the tail of the head bone tries its best to stay in place, making it very difficult to translate the body as the head does some funky movements. Rotations work as expected, with the whole bone chain pivoting from the hip.
Very similar to this post, but it seems like it's not applicable to me.
The only thing I noticed is that the head bone goes orange when translating the hip and a constraint icon pops up in the hierarchy but disappears as soon as I release.
Deleting the head bone makes the same unwanted movement occur on the neck, so it seems like it's trying its best to keep the tail of the bone chain at its original position pre-translation.
I followed this video and playlist to model and rig the character, and it doesn't seem like he has the same problem.
How can I fix this so that the whole body follows the translation of the hip bone?
This image from left to right shows idle with hip bone selected, hip translated to the character's left, and hip translated to the character's right and up.

to share a file use this site (read the instructions): https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/

thanks @moonboots added it now

You have activated the Auto-IK option, it allows you to move a bone as if it had an IK constraint, so just deactivate it:

Thank you, that worked.


text:
simulated cloth doesnt show through glass in Evee
What I did
I made like this desk with mat by using cloth simulation

Problem
When I use cycles, looks like that through glass

And Evee looks like that. Desk mat doesnt show, and I realized under tap is not shown as well just now(it's image texture).

This is glass shader

Somebody knows how fix it??
*add 1
I changed material settings of desk mat like this pic ↓

and result is like that, as you can see desk mat appears!
(I still doubt its proper setting cuz according to your sources which pasted, alpha blend is proper setting)
so I changed material settings of place under tap as well, the same as desk mat.
but unfortunately it shows only frame.

Is there any transparency or transmission in the cloth materials? Transmission/glass doesn't layer in eevee, see https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/193443/texture-not-visible-behind-glass-in-eevee. If its not transmission but alpha transparency, you need to set the appropriate blend modes on both materials. Also useful is https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/189716/how-do-see-fluids-through-glass-eevee/189727#189727

thanks for answering :)  I added "*add1". tried to change material settings.  desk mat appears, but place under tap still hides(image texture)

check all the visibility settings on the bit under the tap? Opaque for blend mode is the correct setting for non-transparent objects, and either alpha blend or alpha hash are generally the way to go for transparent objects, more info: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/render/eevee/materials/settings.html

omg, I realized under tip place has two materials, and I forgot fixing one of them. Now I set "oppaque" and everything appears through glass in Evee.     thank you!!

change material settings
blend mode: opaque
shadow mode: opaque
screen space refraction: no


text:
optimal transcoding format (3d viewport and VSE)?
1080p workspace. Not sure if I use the correct words or not to describe things, bear with me.
Due to pc limitations I need to render out a project in the VSE premature so its easier to deal with. The original footage is 8 bit h.264. Additionally I need to render out a particle effect I made in the 3d Viewport before adding it to the VSE project
I need to be able to re-render the output a couple of times (1-3) and not get artifacts.
I had been using 16 bit PNG for both the vse and 3d viewport. And this fulfills the requirements I think.
I'm wondering if there is a higher format I should consider, or a lower format that fulfills the duty but is more savvy on space. Ultimately the project will be rendered out h.264 and get artifacts, just I need a format for the editing stage that won't increase these artifacts anymore than they have to be.

OpenEXR for a multitude of reasons. Half EXR is superior in every way compared to every other format if you are [intra | inter] pipeline at equivalent bit depth.

some words too big there. So I would choose OpenEXR; then RGB; Float (Half); wut codec should I use with it (I have to convert to h.264 at the end)? and Would I use RGBA just when rendering in the 3d viewport since I'd have alpha channel there? or should I always use RGBA if I have to render it to h.264 at the end? "if you are [intra | inter] pipeline at equivalent bit depth." doesn't make sense to me, explain? and does openexr multilayer differ in what way?

Simple rule of thumb: If you are doing work, always use OpenEXR. Once you are done, encode to the H264, or better, encode to still images (TIFF, JPEG, etc.) high quality, then use an external encoder to encode from the still images.

okay, i'll just use whatever codec with RGB Float (half) OpenEXR and see if that improves things enough


text:
How to add and play video in the 3d viewport?
Hi so I'm familiar with how to add images to the 3d viewport as planes. But can anyone explain how you would input a video into the 3d viewport such that you can play it in realtime?
My intent would be to create an image as a plane, add the video ontop of a section of this plane. And enable the movie to actually play (change frames and display them in the viewport) as I play from the timeline, and then use the camera to do like a 3d zooom in and down and across the plane that contains the video and back out kind of a thing. But I don't know how to make the video part work for this. I can only do it for static images atm.

cycles or internal?

Would like to know both, but cycles probably most important if I had to choose.

Cycles samples will be a problem so you'll have to reduce all bounces and use an emit material for the video texture.

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/91347/animated-textures-dont-work-in-blender-viewport-playback

Internal

Add the object.
Add a material.
Set the material to shadeless
Go to the texture tab and add a texture.
Load the movie as your texture.
Upon loading it enable Auto Refresh and press Match Movie Length once. The length should be updated.
In the 3D viewport, switch to textured or material shading mode.
In the shading options (Properties Panel N), select GLSL.

In the file you linked, the movie is playing, but you have set mapping to UV without specifying a UV Map (the object is not unwrapped). This part doesn't have anything to do with playing a movie, but with UV mapping.
Set the mapping to another type or create a UV map.

Hi I was applying this to the default 2x2x2 cube on default startup. This is only working if I use the original material already loaded with the cube. If I deleted that material and made a new one with what look to be the same settings....it won't display when I do all the steps. Any ideas wut is going on?

ya this is only working when I use the default cube. When I add in new cubes it doesn't work, because i have to make a new material other than the default material.

If I insert a new object and apply the default material it works on the new object, and since I set the texture to that material it loads up the video automatically on the second object. For some reason there's something about the default material that is making it work. So if I deleted all my materials and objects and started with a new material the steps would NOT work for a new material.

@kite I couldn't recreate your problem. I suggest you create a file from scratch where the textures don't playback and upload it to https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/, then post the link here in the comments and I will take a look.

Steps done: 1. start with default setting .blend file. Apply steps you stated above to the existing 2x2x2 cube. 2. Upon completion, achieved the desired result. 3. duplicated the cube, went into it's material. added a new material. 4. repeated steps as you stated for this new material, result is as seen in the image above....it shows colours that change but its like a super zoomed section of the video or something weird

@kite Check out the edit to the answer.

ahhhh u figured it out the same time i did....i JUST figured it out as well lol and was about to delete all this. Thanks for your help! :)

Sorry but how do you do that step in the gif: uv mapping -> unwrap? I'm googling like crazy here but can't find it.

Nvm i'm good...*Edit mode...'u'. got it. sry., thxs


text:
VSE: audio 'now' not rendering properly - clipping/missing/distorted (edited)
2018-03-25: As suggested in the comments inserting the project as a scene strip in a new scene tab allows you to adjust the mastervolume of the entire scene like in render options. You can then mixdown. Mixdown did not skip any keyframed audio clips or distort/clip using this method. seems to be the best workaround atm in the ui. I'm going to be capturing in audacity though instead I think, just cause it feels more like what I edited that way.
2018-03-24 edit: Sent bug report for the audio clipping problem, unable to produce .blend sample of the keyframed audio missing at this time.
2018-03-24 edit upload:

This is of the first problem where 1 strip is set to the default 1.0, the 2nd at 10.0. Then both are ontop of eachother. Point is: if you mixdown this and put it in audacity you'll see mixdown clips the higher volume one, how to not do that...
I couldn't reproduce and upload a copy of the keyframed audio skipping/notplaying. oR I could, but i couldn't upload it.
2018-03-022 re-edited:
What I hear on playback in the vse is now different from what I get after I render.
When I mixdown just audio, setting accuracy to 1 (normal setting creates 'more' distortions), the waveform output is clearly clipping when viewed in audacity compared to the waveform of the captured playback in the vse (aka mixdown is amplifying so much it distorts; See picture 1). There are also missing audio strips, potentially due to the clipping.
Having audio strips set to low values, in their individual n-tab, like making the 1.0 value the midrange of my audio (the default), makes it avoid clipping. For example I had a strip set to 10.0, doing mixdown it was distorted and horrible sounding like in picture1. Upon changing the value to 1.0 tho, it sounded the same way as it did when I captured it in the vse playback via audacity. I also couldn't find any missing strips so far via this method. The only difference was the waveform was amplified a bit differently (aka a bit quieter), but this can be fixed in audacity if necessary.
VSE playback is the first waveform (sounds great). Mixdown in .wav/.flac is the 2nd/third waveforms (loud/distorted)

Now the other route to getting audio rendered...
When I render audio alongside video (normally), the problems are similar to the mixdown, only I can set the master volume lower (the bar in audio options that is set to 1.0 by default; I set it to 0.1) and the waveform output doesn't clip but everything is really quiet and you have to turn ur volume up to hear normal levels (the output is NOT clipping tho, which is good). Okay...so far so good.
However:
1. I don't know what amplification/volume its rendering at in comparison to what I hear on playback in the vse. Trial and error required to get a grasp. So I don't know what value to set the mastervolume to perfectly avoid clipping while keeping the volume as high as possible.
2. Some audio strips do not render at all for some reason regardless of master volume settings. Those with keyframes specifically. Some with keyframes render fine though. Rendering "just" (or smaller sections, to the extent I don't know) the specific section with the keyframed audio pieces tho solves the problem for some reason.
So based on this the following workarounds can be done:
Workaround 1:
I can playback everything in the vse, and capture it using audacity and use that as my audio file. In the image below I deleted EVERYTHING except my audio strips so playback would be smooth (even if I set it to av-sync, audio can stutter with too much stuff in the vse). Infact this is a good summation of the problem and what I need to do:
I need to mix all this audio down so it isn't clipping/distorting/missing: problem is it sounds fine as is in the vse playback, but after rendered it is infact clipping/missing/distorting audio strips.

Workaround 2:
If I go in and lower the strip volume options individually so they are all lower values (I have to try to make the mid range around the 1.0 volume values). Then this enables me to mixdown, thus creating a version that doesn't have the clipping and doesn't have missing strips (as far as I can tell anyways). However this is a ton of work given the project is 25 mins of many many audio strips, to be individually reset/mastered (see picture above). Plus I still don't know what level of amplification mixdown is applying, so i can only make a copy of an amplification that doesn't clip that will need to be amplified in audacity afterwards (which isn't that hard to do).
Workaround 3:
Divide the 25 mins up into 60 second intervals, and render the video/audio together out bit by bit then reform and do a final render. Very lengthy process though and no guarantee it will work in 60 second intervals, might have to do less.
Closing thoughts:
If there was a method of changing the mixdown volume/amplification (to prevent it from going so loud its clipping)....that would create a solution and I could just mixdown audio and video separate and recombine later. I just want the thing that plays in my vse....to sound the same as the thing it renders out as. Audio mixdown seems to offer the only solution I can find in blender's immediate ui, since normal render is missing strips when I render more than small portions. But this will require, for future projects, making sure my volume is super high when working in the blender VSE, to ensure I avoid clipping. I would then use audacity to finetune the amplification/volume levels so the mid range is the same as other videos.
Regardless I need blender to do apply "What you see/hear is what you get" in order to continue using it as a video editor for anything involving more than singular audio strips. So is this a bug I won't have to deal with again or a limitation? I guess is the future question.

changing the accuracy seems to help. I set the accuracy to 1 and it was good for a small segment. Then I set it to just under 2000 and it clipped and went bad for alot of it like the problem originally. So I'll try mixing down the entire thing with 1 accuracy. I don't know what that means or does tho....can't find anything in the online manual of use. I heard you can mixdown audio and video in vlc so ill try that mbe, render with no audio....mixdown...then combine in vlc? Is there a better program to combine audio and video files?

Consider transcoding the media to a more blender friendly format?

i don't understand any of that. Can you elaborate? what would be a blender friendly format? most of the audio strips r .wav 16, some are mp3

Oh I thought that you were using audio from video files, like mp4. They can be troublesome as the frame rate is calculated differently for video than for audio (technically audio uses sample rate not frame rate) and they can get a bit muddled. I think your best bet is to try accuracy. It will spend more time converting off sample rate media to your project settings.

ya these are all separate audio files I subbed in, aka I had VA do them and I sub them as strips on the video frames and manually sync. Do you know what the difference between the other options are tho? for .wav it has signed and floating point...idk what the difference is. what is better quality? .flac only has up to S24. wav has up to F64. which would be better to try for the entire 30 mins of audio clips? Most of the audio strips in there are .wav alrdy. But I can render the video and audio as .flac and not .wav in render options....or i can just combine after with vlc or something else

Also check that your User Preferences are using SDL for Sequencer Audio Device.

it was set to Open AL, I'll try SDL then.

Generally .wav is the more stable format to use.

Hey if any of this was helpful I'll put it in an answer ;-)

Also you must understand that Blender is not a proper mixing tool. It has no reference levels or meters, so you cannot know what level you are mixing to. It may be to hot and distorted, but you can't know. Audacity is better for this stuff.

SDL didn't do anything after running my tests. I'm still unable to get it to sound like the way it is in the sequencer . But changing the accuracy to 1 helps alot of it sound better, not all of it tho.....so problem still outstanding. If I can't find another fix I'll have to do the audacity capture method.

It may be worth submitting a bug on the blender bug tracker if you can figure out the point which blender fails. You said that it worked with a smaller file is that right?

Meta tip: If you amend your question with an update, please add a date so return helpers can figure out what's new.

I had issues with an older version of blender in the past (sound mixing timing problem), and there was a bug fix for Blender 2.79. Perhaps you could download a newer version of Blender (eg. 2.79a or b). Alternatively try going back to an older version of Blender that may not have the bug.

Just wondering what OS you are running on and what audio drivers you may be using?

My problem seems to be blender is mixing audio at a volume different than what I hear in the VSE playback. So if I hit N on a strip and set the volume to 10, it may sound barely audible to me depending on my sound settings. But for blender the waveform is maxed and clipping at that point. Setting it back to 1 makes the waveform not clip though. So to use mixdown I have to figure out a way to hear it the same volume that it renders at. With basic rendering I can adjust the mastervolume scale from 1 or 0.01 or whatever, to decrease the amp. This method seems to have its own problems tho

Oh dear that really was a lot of work. I just exported a VSE edit yesterday with mixed audio sources and had no problem. I really think that you should try older builds of Blender and alternate projects. Just to isolate a possible bug. The other thing to try is making another VSE scene (Scene MIXDOWN), then import the main edited scene (Scene EDIT) as a scene strip. You can then modify the sequencer audio from that Mixdown scene as a single strip.

Hey I just read this other stackx query I wonder if its related? Have you tried an AAC export? https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/73017/how-do-i-export-audio-in-a-video-that-is-purposefully-loud-and-distorted-vse

Also just check that you don't have other sync scenes running?https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/75546/double-instance-of-sound-when-using-vse-scene-strip-in-another-scenes-vse

i've tried rendering it with AAC as the audio setting yes; - I went to the top where my current scene is (I only had one), and hit the plus to add a new scene. Then I ctrl+c'd the audio strips in picture 2 and ctrl+v'd them into the second scene. Then I deleted the first scene. Upon testing playback tho it played an audio strip that wasn't visible. I had appended a scene in I did in a separate .blend file from a 20 min video a while ago. For some reason its playing its audio in this new scene ijustmade. Keyframes are also missing when I ctrl+c into the new scene (idk how to fix). rly weird

Yeah I don't believe that you can copy keyframes between scenes, sorry. What operating system are you using? Did you try making just an empty scene and adding the main edit to it as a scene strip? You should be able to reduce the overall volume that way much easier (as a workaround)

windows8.1 ; that might work as a workaround. It just has the audio in the scene, no video output. But ur right its letting me change the overall volume, so I can mixdown at a lower volume now. ill try mixing that down.

Just a heads up, there was an old audio bug related to windows 8, https://developer.blender.org/T37432 and some reference to pops and crackles in audio when overlapped. Could give the appearance of excess volume?

Just a query but have you tried an Audio Mixdown instead of a movie render out?

When I say mixdown I mean hitting the Audio tab under property render options, and then selecting mixdown and creating just the audio track.  developer.blender.org/T37432 I don't think that applies in this case, or I don't understand it. I was able to mixdown afterall using ur scene method, setting the audio from 1 to 0.1, it prevented the clipping/distortion while preventing any audio strips with keyframes from missing (the problem with normal render). So this is a solution, then you just amplify in audacity or whatever after. I'll add urs as the answer if bug report yields nothing. thxs

This all sucks. Before lodging a bug report can you try to recreate the issue with another new project? It doesn't have to be elaborate just a bunch of overlapping media. As small as possible, so that you could upload the .blend and media as a test project. That way I can try it on a PC and a Mac.And you could try it on an older version of Blender. This would help narrow the issue down

There's a blend file up there already. You should be able to recreate the clipping issue urself with any audio strip. Use factory blender user settings in a new .blend. Open the VSE. Insert a medium->large waveform audio piece (draw waveform) (voiceovers work best). Duplicate it, raise the duplicate's volume to 10.0 or higher. Listen to it in vse playback (one should sound louder, otherwise they should both sound clear/fine). mixdown. You should get similar waveform as I have in figure1.  Amplifying the broken waveform down to the normal one, it should remain visibly damaged by the clipping.

Hmmm, I think that Blender is doing some sort of clamping of audio values on output. I can imagine that Blender can play a hotter signal than the exported codec can cope with.

Took me a while to get this to play, but have you tried changing the system>properties>Sound>Mixing Buffer>256  and change the sample rate to 48k

The volume= 10 strip is over modulating and I'm not surprised its burning out the encoding math. Also the sample media is very low level even on other media players on my mac. I would put a lot of this down to you not being able to balance your system audio. And thats an issue with Blender's lack of audio monitoring meters. you should be able to play a signal and determine the optimum loudness with overhead for hot signal. But you can't, as there are no audio meters in Blender.

system property sound options were tried a while ago, no difference in terms of the clipping. Ya it seems to come down to planning ahead and pre-editing all audio strips beforehand in audacity....so when they are finally put into blender I only have to change the volume levels between 0.0 - 2.0. Then tinkering with my own sound settings to make 1.0 sound like the middle of a waveform. I'm not overly fond of having to do extra steps like this though....not when the playback lying to me.

I must say I've never had this much trouble even when using very low recordings

I mean I've done Four projects in blender so far (AMV). So its literally music playing to scenes, and I've had some voice audio strips included on some of them. So maybe up to 8 audio strips per 6 mins of video. Yet I never noticed this problem during any of those 4 projects. Its just now on this very large project with many strip that I notice it.

Like you say, it could be related to Blender's handling of many strips, especially overlapping ones. I wonder what would happen if you break the big mix into smaller scenes. Making each one only a few minutes long? Then compile them into a master scene? Also it could be that your project is broken. Is there any way you could rebuild a basic (but still long) version without the trouble of doing the mixing?

As a workaround (to an apparent bug) you can send the "mixed" scene to another VSE timeline using a scene strip. In the new "master" Scene the old "mixed" scene's strip will allow you to make a global change to volume. But you will have to enable the button "Use Sequencer" in the scene strip properties.

Then you can bring the volume down to a value that won't distort or clip.
You will have to render from this new "master" scene.


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Need light from HDRI to shine inside of mesh (cycles)
So basically I have a bunch of text I made into a mesh with alt c. I gave the mesh some depth. When I made my scene and set my camera, the camera moves inside of the mesh in some areas. And the rendered output is a giant blackness that sorta ruins the flow (the black in the images below).
What can I do to get scene's lighting inside of the mesh-letters so I don't get this blackness? I want the inside of the mesh to not be pitch black. The only lighting I want to be using is from the HDRI...and its super bright so much that the background is pure white anyways.
And would appreciate complete directions as I have a hard time finding things in the 3d viewport.
The only thing I can think of off the top of my head is to poke holes in the back of the mesh of each letter...seems not ideal though. And I tried that actually and it really wasn't ideal.
If there are any sideeffects to any method suggested please note them. For example if the solution was to make light pass through an object, would the light shine through and change the rest of my scene? That's fine in this case, but I'd just want to know.

Select the Text Mesh and under Object properties scroll down to Cycles Settings and untick Shadows

This has the affect of allowing the light to pass through and into the object.


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VSE: how to zoom in on image without pixel blur?
edit: i think this might be a solution? But I don't understand how to do it can anyone help? i open a new scene and...then im stuck
"This really bugged me, but I got a solution:
Create a new scene, and in that - using the node compositor zoom in/out of the clip. Add that scene into the other scene's VSE as a 'strip'. You are then able to "use the resolution" of the original clip re-sized however you like. It's slower and more clunky, but works (and very powerful!). As others have said the "transform" simply takes the existing canvas output and makes it bigger or smaller. It has no access to any extra resolution in the original, and can't "see beyond the edges" either. Image offset / crop do not allow you to control the size, they simply set it at "the original's resolution". Which is good enough for what it is."

I have to render out a 1080p video. So I set the workspace to 1080p.
I wanted to zoom deep into an image and end up with a part of it that wasn't blurry looking. So if I did this with a normal 1080p image....it would be blurry no doubt...
But what If I made a HUGE image, lets say 3x the size @ 5760x3240 (or whatever) in an image editor. And set it up so that the end view I get is an actual 1920x1080 view with no forced zoom, then there wouldn't be any blur!
So I have this large image. The intent would be to place it in the timeline. zoom out of it so get it into the 1080p window. Then just zoom in straight down to that intended 1080p point (My king is on the throne text bit).

Tried:
1. changing workspace to the original image size and then changing it back to 1080p, made it blurrry as can be when changed to 1080p (basically scaled the original image to 1080p and zoomed in on it :/).
2. tried image offset then adding transform layer....but the transform layer cuts anything not displayed in the 1080p viewport....and u can't fit an image that large in a 1080p window obviously.
Soo what can I do? you can do this all with a record screencapture. Infact its what the monitor is doing if u got a 1080p monitor....its scaled it down, I just want to zooom in and not get blur at the text selection.

that only covers static images. I can't apply keyframes via that method cause they pretty much just snapshots of 1080p sections.

This question has been asked before. See option 2 of Rumen Belev's answer.
The solution is to use the 3D view, import your image as a plane and use a scene strip of that 3D view in the VSE.

Are there any generic lighting settings to get it to be just like the original image? 2. I can only get the orthographic camera to move manuallly via assigning the values in the camera tab, i can't zoom in and out with the mouse and do it in the 3d viewport like i would with perspective. is it supposed to be like that?

In the materials tab, check the box that says "Shadeless" to make the image appear the same independent of lighting. Yes that's how orthographic cameras work. You could use a perspective camera too if you want.


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Applying Logo to Sphere to move to Unity
Ok, so I'm really stuck here and need some help everybody. I'm trying to color an icosphere yellow, then apply a red target (transparent png) to 6 sides of the ball (left, right, front, back, top, bottom) in Blender 2.9.
Using an icosphere from Blender, it's already unwrapped, but holy crap I cannot figure this out for the life of me. I've tried importing the image as a plane, shrinkwrapping and baking that with the texture. I've tried unwrapping just a section of the ball and apply something to it. I tried using nodes in materials to connect the image texture, I tried opening an image in the UV editor and positioning it there.
I either get a) nothing at all or b) a very dark, muddy image of everything combined when baking the texture. Neither shows up in Unity at all.  I dont need to attach the Blend file because it was just a ball, but I have attached the image I'm trying to use. If anybody can get me a little closer I would be super appreciative.
Thanks.

P.S. - This is my best attempt using a MixRGB shader and then dropping the whole Blend file into my Unity project folder:

in Edit mode select all vertices and Unwrap as Cube Projection
go to UV Editor and Scale the UV a bit up
go to Shader Editor and for Image node - change Repeat to Clip

Note: in this case I didn't use Texture Coordinates node since UV is used by default and Mapping node since positioning is controlled by UV Map
Unity
Im not experienced with Unity, so there is probably better way, but looks like

in Blender - Bake material into textures (Color (Albedo), Metalic, Normal, Ambient,  ... etc for PBR material)
export as FBX
in Unity import asset and assign baked texture to Albedo channel

Check documentation https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/Materials.html
Also search Blender to Unity topic like here https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/132340/2214

Thanks so much! this worked perfectly! (Not sure how to put a screenshot in a comment but looks just like yours).
Dragging the Blend file into Unity just gives me the gray mesh still, so I'll have to figure out how to export this material/textures into something I can rebuild in Unity I think.

Well, for not being experienced with Unity you're doing better than me at the moment lol. I'm getting a lot closer though. Following exactly what you did I'm able to get both my model and it's baked textures into Unity, I set up a new material and slapped it on a FBX of the object. However, it seems extremely dark when I bake the diffuse channel for color (no albedo available). Can I ask how you baked a perfectly lit texture like that?

Under Bake Properties switch Bake Type to Diffuse and under Influence disable Direct and Indirect (keep only Color). Or if you need just a Color texture (like here) you can simply connect Mix node directly to Material output. I'm not sure if Color Management influents result, if so switch from Filmic to Standard. Tip for baking multiple passes on one click there if an addon Bake Tool ($) that can helps.

This did the trick! (in filmic). Finally pinpointing a better process for an upcoming project.  Many thanks again!


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2.83: Snapping to edge not working correctly

In the above image, these two planes are same mesh. I want to stick both with snap to edge at the red line in the below image.

However, when I tried to choose the vertical one in edit mode and put G key to do that, it failed like the below image.

So, will someone teach me how to snap correctly? Thanks.

Is the setting properlly?

It will snap to edge, all length of edge. It shouldn't align it for you since not all edge are in same length
So Snap it to the corner

And if you give additional axis constraints, (eg. lock to x-y plane), it might be more buggy to align on. Not sure it's intentionally designed or just a bug.

Thanks for your reply. My setting was wrong, solved the problem. Thank you!


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Object behind transparent wavy foil/glass has dark spots
This is a similar question to How to illuminate the darkness inside glass objects in Cycles? however, the answers there didn't solve my problem.
I have an object that is wrapped in an uneven thin foil (aka a sculptured cube with "Transmission 1.0"). I my shading viewport, it looks almost perfect, like it should be:

However, when I render it with Cycles, the result looks like this:

I turned Max Bounces Total, Transmission, Transparency, basically all the Light Path settings up and down but I don't get rid of those dark spots.
How can I get my render being closer to the output in the shading viewport?
This is the file. The image texture is missing but the dark spots caused by the foil are visible.

hello, maybe share your file (delete all the things that you don't want to share)? https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/

Good idea, added!

I think you've just forgotten to remove two object from rendering, thus the overlapping (I don't know why the render icon is not displayed by default though):

That was it! What a stupid mistake... thanks!


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Baking Artifacts - Lines dots or dashes
Just wondering if anyone knows how to solve these lines/dots that are appearing on my bakes. They also appear on other bakes such as diffuse bakes too.
If you want anymore details that you think are important, such as settings, then I can add those in.
The top image shows the lines I'm refering too when baking AO on a model. And the bottom image shows some of the dots when baking diffuse. I'm certain both are both have the same cause.

I also see that other people have had the same issue:
Baking emission in Cycles makes line artifacts

It seems the issue is having too long tris/quads (so shorten them using loops, the knife tool, etc.)
Apparently the blender/cycles engine does not like this according to a comment on a previous bug report - https://developer.blender.org/T81710


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I start blender from the command line with the -d option but didn't see any command output
I want to navigate the code, so I start blender from the command line with the -d option but didn't see any command output on console, how can I print command to console
I only got these output, and it didn't have new message after I add a cube

are u looking in blender console? if yes, just look at the window from which you started blender (where you typed in your command line)

there is no command output after operations


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How to cycle/repeat a baked animation?
I downloaded a short looped animation (15 frames) of a horse. It was an .abc-file.
Now i want to extend the anmiation (looping it for 300 frames) but i don´t know how.
The mesh has no animation data, no actions, no keyframes, nothing..
Is there a workaround for that?

Maybe copy the keyframes and paste them along the timeline?

there are no keyframes!

Hello, please share your file because it is hard to guess how it is animated

how to share a file here?

it´s this file: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/horse-run-cycle-on-place-8451f03cb1564436bfaa3964dd619a86

I haven't subscribed to this site, if it's copyright free you can share it


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Do weight paint and textures have no effect on manually added hair?
I want to create a beautiful parting of my hair.
So I tried to use Weight Paint and Textures to adjust the density of the hair I added manually, but it didn’t work.
Is it normal for this to not work?
Both weight paint and textures worked on the first hair that automatically grew evenly, not on the manually added hair.

I am not even sure but why do you expect it to even work? You either make hairs with weight paint or you add them manually... I don't see the reason to use both possibilities at once and I am not sure if it is even supposed to work... if you need to remove hair you can manually cut them

Does this mean that vertex group density will not work for manually added hair?

Probably not... If you want to make whole mesh have one type of hair and other part (in weight paint) another type of hair added manually, then you need to make 1 vertex group for weight and 2 particle systems, one will be manual and one will be using weight painting as density


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How do I create a hollow cylinder?
My original post has become too confusing.  I'll start over.

How do I create a hollow cylinder?  I am using Blender 3.0.

Response to Allen Simpson Answer:  It works, but ........
Initial sequence => Add > Mesh > Cylinder > F9 > Cap Fill Type menu appears > Cap Fill Type: Nothing => results in a hollow cylinder.
--- Case 1:
Wrench icon (right side) > Add Modified > Solidify > Thickness > Changes the cylinder wall thickness.
This works!
--- Case 2:
Scene Properties (triangle icon) > Units: Imperial - Length: Inches ... N > Dimensions: 0.5, 0.5, 1 ... Wrench icon (right side) > Add Modified > Solidify > Thickness: starts at 0.393701 in => cylinder wall is very thin
Changing thickness makes the wall thicker, but is inaccurate for a 0.5 in diameter cylinder.  Setting thickness to 20 inches fills about half of the (outside dimension 0.5 inch diameter) cylinder hole

Since your question is asking for clarifications on another Q&A, you can try and add a comment for further information on the answers instead of a new question. The users are both still active on this site so I'm sure you'll get your information rapidly. Cheers

To create a circle press Shift A > Mesh > Circle, then press Tab to go in Edit mode, select all and press E to extrude inwards. Note that the shortcuts have changed for the Knife tool, to activate it's now K, but A to cut orthogonally

If you're struggling on how to create a circle mesh then start by watching beginner introductory tutorials on Youtube, those are quite basic questions. This answers https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/150547/1245 outlines the procedure quite well. There isn't any "tag" for new user questions nor could it be added. Tags are for questions in general, not users asking them

You can use arithmetic operation (e.g. subtraction) with another cylinder of a smaller size.

The F9 menu is specifically to adjust the last operation.  If you just opened a file there is no previous operation to adjust.

Hello ttom.  You need to apply scale to the object with ctrl + a

Allen, not sure what happened.  When open today the thickness is 1" ... which is also incorrect.  In Object mode, ctrl+a displays the Apply menu.  Now what?

Start with your scenario b) and make a hollow cylinder.

Instead of a Solidify operation from Edit Mode, use a Solidify Modifier.
This will add a procedural effect that you can change on the fly.

See updated comments in initial post.

Begin with a cylinder primitive with no fill with ⇧
Shift + A >mesh>cylinder (change the cap fill
type to nothing with redo panel by pressing F9 and
choosing nothing instead of Ngon)

↹ Tab into edit mode , press A to select the
object if not already selected.

Use the edit mode> solidify operator with ⌃
Ctrl + F followed by S or
face>solidify faces and adjust thickness via F9

I don't know how to create a hollow cylinder.  I see the "Add cylinder" menu appear on your video clip, but do not know how to make that appear.n

@ttom see my edit, maybe that's a bit more clear.

I have clarified my original post.

Maybe not the right one for you, but..

Select top and bottom faces of a cylinder
I inset them
CtrlE Edge Menu > 'Bridge Edge Loops'

I'm starting over.   I have a cylinder.  I select Edit Mode.  How do select the top and bottom face?

@ttom I don't think it's the best tutorial out there but you should definitely follow the first few episodes of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPrnSACiTJ4 it would save you and us a lot of headaches since you're asking for really trivial things

Or... https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLa1F2ddGya_-UvuAqHAksYnB0qL9yWDO6 to get you started.

I've updated my original post.

Why don't you create a cilinder, remove the top and bottom, go to Modifiers, choose Solidify, adjust to your liking and be done?

Not sure how to do that?  See the comments I've added.


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Mirroring stopped working entirely after hours of using it without error. Blender 2.90
I have Googled the heck out of this and am still not finding my solution.
I'm several hours into modeling a character and suddenly mirroring doesn't work. For any vertex. For any axis. I have restarted Blender and reopened the project to no avail.
I am able to create new Mesh cubes in the same Collection and mirroring works on them.
I am new to Blender so I maybe I simply hit a hotkey by mistake? I have no idea what it could have been if that's the case.
I have found answers online saying to "apply rotation," but this does nothing for my model. I have "applied" everything, all transforms. I haven't added a rig to it.
[Edit]: I have tried "snap to symmetry" on both the entire mesh and only half the mesh and neither works. Also, Sculpting in the sculpting tab works as expected. Still not working for modeling. It's like the functionality broke entirely or something.
[Edit 2]: When I "Add" a mesh to the scene in Edit mode, rather than object mode (so I technically add it to the character object), I am NOT able to mirror any axes on the newly added mesh. Only when I add a whole new object in Object mode.
[Edit 3]: Here's the .blend. The butt is lovingly modeled:

My project consists of 1 Collection containing 3 lights and my object. That is it.
Thank you!
Please let me know if there's any other information I can provide.

A couple of ideas:

Make sure there are no hidden verts/edges/faces in the mesh.  In edit mode, show all with alt-H.
Make sure your object origin is where you want it for mirroring.  If the origin is set to the 'center of geometry', mirror may give weird results.
Simple one: make sure mirror modifier is active. If it was working properly before, you might've just clicked it to inactive.

Thanks for the response. I'll address each point.

It does not appear to be showing any hidden verts. I have afterward used Merge By Distance and it cleans up 0 verts.

I have tried putting the origin at Global 0 and at the center of the mass of my character.

It is active. I have gone into the Sculpt tab and am able to mirror sculpts just fine, although obv I don't want to do that haha.

To be clear: NOTHING happens when I mirror any (or all) axes. I can move/rotate/scale my mesh, but absolutely nothing is mirrored and the only thing affected are the verts I select.

It sounds to me like the problem has to do with your origin. Mirroring happens along an object's local origin, so make sure the origin is at the edge of the "half" you want to mirror (not center of mass).

But if this was the case, wouldn't something happen? No matter where I put the origin or what axis I mirror, literally zero mirrored transformations happen to anything, in any direction. I had the origin at the center of the object the entire time up until recently when it just abruptly stopped working, and it worked as intended the entire time. I'm talking about an entire humanoid character, almost complete, mirrored the entire time. And then, poof, mirroring broke. Like a cord was cut. To be clear I have tried moving the origin all over since it broke and not a single mirrored vert budged

It's hard to tell without seeing your setup. Any chance you could post a minimal example of your .blend? You can do it here  - https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/

Oh, great! Didn't know I could do that. I updated the OP with the link.

It seems to mirror fine for me, All I did was add a mirror modifier on the Y axis, and move the whole thing a bit in edit mode to show the mirror effect. - https://ibb.co/YfvQzcc

Hmm. This seems to create a clone, though, which I'm having trouble separating into a new object. I normally use the global mirroring tools in the upper right of the main viewport.
Here you can see I have 'Y' selected yet the axis is not mirrored. https://ibb.co/Yb6KzrS .
I guess if I can separate that clone into a new object i can test to see if the verts on it can be mirrored after the fact. Or just, how can I use that modifier without cloning the mesh?

I only "cloned" it as an example. If you select the whole thing in edit mode and move it around, you can see how the mirroring is happening. Usually you cut your model in "half" (or only make half a model) and mirror it so the second half "copies" what you do to the first. What on your model are you trying to mirror? Or is it just that the global mirroring tools seem broken?

Yeah the global mirroring tools seem broken. I'm trying to mirror basically any vert along the y axis so I can continue editing. I guess my option is to just cut half the verts off and then mirror it after I'm done? I would prefer to just use the global mirroring tools, though.

Nevermind. I see what you mean. You know in all my years using blender, I've never mirrored that way before.  What are you trying to mirror? The whole model, half the model? If I can't find a way to get the global mirrors working for you, there is likely another way of doing the same thing.

Half the model. I started using the top right global mirror buttons from watching the official 2.8 blender tutorials. I just coincidentally watched a video of a guy doing it the way you do, though, so I guess I'll learn that way and just keep both in my belt for whenever the global buttons decide to work (I'm really beginning to think it's an actual hard glitch, maybe exclusive to 2.9(?)). Either way thanks for the help!

I know this post is dead, but I had the same issue and I was able to fix it using Snap to Symmetry. One thing I did that hasn't been mentioned is adjusting the threshold in the bottom left for the Snap to Symmetry action, after which the message at the bottom told me around 11 pairs of vertices were successfully mirrored (initially all failed).

In edit mode (TAB), select all vertices (A). In mesh menu, click "Symmetrize" to fix the symmetry (use -X to +X or +X to -X). It should be fixed if you use X as mirroring axis.
While all vertices are selected, you should also fix your normals with Shift + N.
You should also try mirror modifier (but you have to delete 1 side).

Maybe too late for you, @Bithur , but can help many others with the same problem.
Please check where the Object origin is. If the origin is on the centre of the object, the mirror modifier will land within the same object and the feeling is it doesn't work properly.
To check if it's not really working, apply the Mirror modifier in object mode and then enter edit mode, select all the vertices and move the object G. As soon as the mesh is moved from its object origin in edit mode, you will see the mirror applied.


text:
My HDRIs + Shader Previews are dim/desaturated and it's affecting my material output
Why does it look like this? This appears to be affecting both Eevee and Cycles in similar ways, although I understand the shader view is Eevee only. My Cycles previews are also very "bright" or desaturated. It is very hard to get any darkness into them. The HDRIs themselves look desaturated in the background.

If you set up this same shader it'll appear darker for you.
When I open a new project it goes back to the fully opaque look and my HDRIs are also fixed. I can obviously give up trying to fix this and just start a new project and import the assets but I prefer to know why this happened so I can fix it.

It looks like your View Transform has been set to Filmic Log. Setting it back to either Filmic or Standard should fix your problem.

This is it. Thank you!

@Chris Want to upvote, but that would destroy your perfect 6,666 rep :).

Yeah, thanks. I already screenshotted it, for what it's worth.

@Christopher Glad I'm not the only one who does that :)