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Is there a way to Force 24 fps on Animation Playback?
I have some animations and baked simulations in my scene. When I view the playback, it plays at around 16 fps. Right now I can use my mouse to scrub through the timeline which works ok, but obviously I can't move at an exact speed. I know there are ways to improve the fps, but is there a way to simply force 24 fps? I don't care how bad it looks and I don't care if it skips every other frame. I just want to see how the animation looks in real time.

Unfortunately you don't describe your scene, so there is little to go by. The trick is in optimizing playback as much as possible, try solid shading or wireframe, disable subsurf temporarily (or set the number of subdivisions to a lesser number), set the display of particles to a lesser number and physics to a rough subdivision.

I randomly found an answer to this while looking for something else completely unrelated.
Settings to make viewport playback drop frames in order to keep up with actual animation speed?

I can see the problem here. It is probably because your hardware isn't able to handle it. I am sorry to say that. Maybe try restarting your computer, or try clearing any junk files, anything to increase the speed of your computer. If you could share your computer specs, it would be easier, or there is one more solution, try removing 1 simulation. This might boost your computer. It would be easier if you could share a video of the simulation in the viewport mode along with your hardware specs.
Cheers,
Aster17

I'm running on an intel core i7-8700 with a GeForce GTX 1070 and 16 GB of RAM. If I turn off everything except a simulation I can get 24 fps, but if I try to see the big picture it slows down

Well, then it only means that you have too many simulations, try lowering the number. Are you rendering in cycles or Eevee? If cycles, are you rendering in GPU or CPU?

Cycles, GPU, I know if I remove simulations it will speed up. I was just wondering if there was a way to brute force it like when you drag the cursor along the timeline

Ok, so is it slow while in the viewport mode, or while rendering, or is the rendered video slow ?

Look, if it is slow for some reason in the viewport, or if it is slow while rendering, it isn't a problem. But if the rendered video is 16 fps, then there's an issue. If it is either of the first 2, you shouldn't be worried. Simulations in cycles in the viewport are always slow. You could use Eevee to  view the sim in 24 fps. While rendering, the frames will be slow. If it is slow while rendering, then put it in the comments.

If you are only rendering a video, slow fps in viewport and slow fps while rendering shouldn't be an issue. But if you are creating a video tutorial, then it might be an issue while showing the scene in viewport, while it is being rendered, you could edit that part out while you have completed the tutorial.

The rendered video is perfectly fine. My questions was just if there was a way to force 24 fps in the viewport. I believe there should be some way to do it(maybe with python?) because dragging through the timeline manually provides an ok result

you should probably then add a few more frames to the simulation. like 40 more frames to all the simulations. Then you might get a good result. But, what kind of simulation are you doing? I would be able to help much better if you say which simulation you are doing.


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Do I need to re download Blender?
I currently have the Blender 2.80 release candidate, and now that the official 2.80 is out, I was wondering if I need to download it again to stay up to date or if the release candidate is the same as the current 2.80.

I've come across a couple of bugs in the candidate which have been ironed out in the release, myself.

Blender RC 3 and the official release of Blender 2.8 are not the same version. The last release candidate is a build based on commit 507ffee6e1f4 and the release version is based on commit f6cb5f54494e. That means there have been additional fixes between the release candidate and the final release.
In general it's best to update from official release to official release, unless you really need the cutting edge version. If you want to use experimental builds, be aware that bugs, compatibility issues and broken projects may happen.

One could say this is always the case for the overnight build. (Which currently is at 2.81) For most users I wouldn't necessarily  recommend downloading it every day.  Candidates are put forward for release. A release is a release. Suggest downloading an official release.

@batFINGER Yes I agree, the official release is what should be used. I just answered the question whether RC3 and the release where the same version which in theory they could have been. They even have the same version number (2.80.75), but they are not identical.

Sure if basing build vs build equality on commit #.. Hypothetically all commits between last RC and release could be "cosmetic" code cleanup and the like and in no way alter functionality.  Yes, Use the official release, is IMO the best  answer to question title,  For most users there is no need to stay "up to date", any further than the latest official release was the point of comment above.

... sorry re confusion, the comment is for here, in case someone apon finding the buildbot download page, wonders if they need to download "to stay up to date".  anyhoo latest edit got it.

@batFINGER sure a warning about using these builds is definitely warranted.

Yes, you need to download a new version every time as there's no update option built into Blender. Hence, it's best to download a zip version e.g. for testing or wait a while. As to me, I wait for 2.81.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Can I slow down my entire animation with particles?
My animation has particles and keyframe animations in it. I really like how it looks right now, but I want it to play out slower while retaining 24 fps. It seems that Time Remapping only affects keyframe animations. The only solution I could find to slowing down particles was lower velocity and increasing damping, but I would like to keep what I have now. Is there anything I can do?

If you have already baked jour particle systems, you should be able to simply slow down time by opening the "time remapping" option in the Scene tab and putting a bigger number into the slot labelt new, then in the slot labeled old (an example: the default value of "old" is 100 so if you put 200 into "new" that would slow down time to half the speed). I tried it with an keyframed animation and a particle system in my Szene and it worked just fine. Be careful to bake the particle system before you change the time remapping or it will not work correctly together with your other animations.

Turns out The particles were slowing down, but were lagging behind in the preview animation

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


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10 hours worth of work for my first project, only to have it disappear without an answer..yet
As the title says, 10 hours I spent today working on scene animation for Realistic Mountains, a tutorial I found on youtube. An hour of a video was 10 hours of work for me, since it was the first time I was really using the website. When it came to wanting to make it into video format, I looked up to do so and so then click animation. Once I did, an error popped up telling me something didn't fit, then everything went pink. I then looked up that it was missing textures, but when trying to find them it keeps saying it can't even though they're very much right there. I was extremely upset realizing I may not get something I was extremely proud of and ready to show people, it was fairly impressive for somebody's first time. Any help would be much appreciated..

Could you add a screenshot of your problem so that is easier for people to try and help?

Hi. It would be more productive to tell us about the actual problem in more detail then about your emotions. If you are only missing texture files, you can always go to File > External Data > Find Missing Files. I am hesitating to put this into an answer because I am not sure I understand the problem correctly from the description.

As said I've already tried that, if you were to have really read through it wasn't just about my emotions but I will sum it up much shorter if that helps: I have already tried doing that it was the first thing I tried. However it tells me it cannot find those files, even though they haven't been moved or anything like that. It appears that clicking Animation did nothing but glitch out my project for some reason, turning everything pink. Regardless of me trying to do as Martin Z Said, it still tells me it can't find it. It's extremely confusing to figure out why

So, does it only appear pink when you try to animate it? Or does the same effect appear when you do a preview render? (shift+z)

There isn't any information about the problem itself in the question generally. What does it mean you "cllicked animation"? Blender's UI is complex and has multiple contexts which makes this description vague. error popped up telling me something didn't fit What didn't fit? What error did tell you exactly? How did it look and where it was, could you show a screenshot please or at least more thorough description? Did you reload the project before error showed up? Did you save the project? If everything is pink Blender can't find textures, they aren't in the same location it searches them for

Enlightenment about saving your work now and then to MULTIPLE projects INCLUDING the textures (no matter it costs space)! That "find the missing files" option is folder-dependent so if You know FOR SURE that You did NOT delete any textures than try to run it on a whole drive...

There is actually another case where the famous "pink texture" appears. If you are using cycles with GPU rendering, then iirc there is a fairly low maximum number of textures and beyond that some textures will appear pink. Is it possible is what the error was saying? (I've never actually encountered this myself, so I'm not sure if there's a warning or not). Have you tried switching to CPU rendering?

If you didn't change anything for sure try to pack the file by using File->External Data->Pack All Into .blend
if this file runs on other computers and works perfectly, then the problem is local, try collecting all the texture on one folder and reallocate them manually.

@gandalf3: I believe "Cuda out of memory" will show-up in cause U described.


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How to change the camera color in viewport
default non selected camera color is black,
How do I change its color using the UI or script .
thank you

Go to Preferences -> Themes -> 3D Viewport -> Camera


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Use custom vertex attribute in Attribute node (shader network)
I was reading this post and this one :
Other than copy new data to specific "known" vertex attribute like "Color" for example.
There is way to read custom vertex attributes in the Attribute node \ shader network
shader script  ?

ATM, you can read any attribute defined / redefined within Geometry Nodes.. would that do?

@RobinBetts thank you for the reply,
I`m going to use same vertex weights for shape key and shader mix as part of automated process. can I incorporate and control the geometry nodes graph using python ?
It might help...
Wrote this question while ago:
https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/231304/access-and-using-geometry-nodes-as-functions-in-python

Well, the shader can read  vertex weights via GeoNodes, (that would be in the modifier/shader  combo, a fixed pipeline). If you need the plumbing to be automated via Python, I'm not sure whether the API reaches GeoNodes yet. Maybe hold out for a Pythonista.

This code example and related image demonstrate creation of new vertex
attributes and using them in the shader network.

I was not able to create string based attribute
Its important to use cycles to easily see the results
when using vertex attribute values higher than 1.0

import bpy
from bpy import data as data, context as context
from mathutils import Vector
import bmesh
import numpy as np

#clean objects in scene
for object in data.objects :
    if object.type == 'MESH':
        data.objects.remove(object, do_unlink=True)

bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add()
obj_a = data.objects["Cube"]
obj_a.name = "A"

bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add()
obj_b = data.objects["Cube"]
obj_b.name = "B"
obj_b.hide_viewport = True

a_mesh = obj_a.data
bm = bmesh.new()
bm.from_mesh(a_mesh)

# Create a new vertex attributes
# color: 0-1 value 4 element float (it will clamp if > 1)
# float_color: non normalzied 4 elemnet vector
# float: single float
# vector_float: non normalized 3 element vector
# string :was not able to create string vertex attribute

knafeh_color = bm.loops.layers.color.new("knafeh_color")
malabi_color_float = bm.loops.layers.float_color.new("malabi_color_float")
falafel_float = bm.loops.layers.float.new("falafel_float")
salad_vector_float = bm.loops.layers.float_vector.new("salad_vector_float")
baklava_str = bm.loops.layers.string.new("baklava_str")

bm_faces = bm.faces
for bm_face in bm_faces:
    face_loops = bm_face.loops
    for bm_loop in face_loops:

        # Assign color to vertex.
        bm_loop[knafeh_color] = [0.9,0.5,0,1]
        bm_loop[malabi_color_float] = [7,0.1,9999,1]
        bm_loop[salad_vector_float] = [1,1,0]
        bm_loop[falafel_float] = 0.1

bm.to_mesh(a_mesh)
bm.free()


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Low level alternative for bpy.ops.object.convert(target='MESH')
Since Blender 2.93 hair system not support curves anymore,
I have to convert them to meshes.
Trying to replace bpy.ops.object.convert(target='MESH')
with obj.to_mesh() function.
but,
It is not able to keep attributes like the ops option can.
any ideas?
thanks
import bpy

try :
    hair_colection = bpy.data.collections['Hairs']
    hairs_objects = hair_colection.all_objects

    for hair in hairs_objects:
        if hair.type == 'CURVE':
            hair.select_set(True)
            bpy.context.view_layer.objects.active = hair
            bpy.ops.object.convert(target='MESH')
            print (hair,hair.type)
except:
    print( "no hairs collection")

Hello, could you elaborate on which attributes are lost in the process ?

And why do you not want to use the operator ? Have you seen this q&a ? https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/146911/86891

Might also be that the context is not initialized yet. Use a timer to wait for a little bit before executing the logic eg https://blenderartists.org/t/run-text-data-block-from-command-line-post-context/1356926


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Firefles in Glass rendering
Every time I use glass material in Cycles render with diffuse or any other material with the help of mix shader, I always see 'fireflies' (small random illuminated pixels). I have already tried removing caustics after following BlenderGuru.

Have you tried enabling denoising? (found under the Render Layers panel)

What helped me most times is increasing the size of the light source. At default, e.g. point lamps have a size of 0.1 units, so when calculating caustics blender just has rounding errors, I guess.
Of course, raising the size of your light source higher and higher will produce softer and softer shadows, so you have to play with the values.
Another guess: Don't lighten your scene with objects with emission materials alone – they will not produce enough light. Add standard point or area lights where necessary.


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Wall angles - Is there a quicker way of achieving this result?
At the top of my walls, I want to angle them in and then sit a ceiling on top. To do this, I'm selecting each wall indvidually and extruding a portion upwards then dragging the top face into the room area a bit.
The end result is this:

I have quite a few individual wall sections to do...

I'm sure there must be a better and faster way of doing this. What's a better way to go about it instead of tackling each wall section indvidually?

There are a few ways to do this. My personal choice is to use a curve representing the wall shape as the bevel object for another curve representing the floor plan.

Create a mesh object with the outline of the wall shape you want to use, such as this
Convert it to a curve (ALT-C -> Curve from Mesh)
Create a floor plan and convert it to a curve, such as this
Use the wall shape as the bevel object for the floor plan

You can create the curves directly if you prefer and you can convert the beveled curve to a mesh (ALT-C -> curve to mesh) so that you can modify it.

Alternately you can extrude the wall shape to make the solid object, but I find the floor plan approach easier to control.

Normally, the whole was would be one mesh object, unless it was something that clearly stood out to be a seperate piece. What you can do is to join them all, and select the top face. Then, change the pivot point to individual origins, and change the transform orientation to Normal. Then, you can drag them all in.


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how bake three different materials belonging to an object into one single textured one
I have a texturing Question. I wish to make a textured bread sliced in 9 parts. I textured the whole bread with projection painting, and after that I sliced it in nine parts. In the holes created, I made a surface on every side of the slices which were textured creating a new UVMap and new material. Now I want to bake the three textures (the crust and the two sides) of every slice into one (the fourth), to export it to an external program, but every time, some parts remains white. However, the method works with the ends of the bread, where there is only a single section. I attach a blend file example with a slice and one end, sou you can see it. I use Blender 2.79, 64 bit in Windows, and I work with Blender Internal Renderer.  Thank you.

blend file

After some correction I got the baked image.

Second Figure is original .blend. There were some errors.
The Map name on the right is painted with a caution color. In addition to it, there are blank names in Map of other textures.
Blender is not specified what to use from multiple UV maps.
And perhaps the active material of object _2B.004 is UVMat.2A.

Thank you! 2B.004 with 2B.003 and 2B.005  are the three sides of the unjoined parts of the slice put on the layer below, to have in blender their UVMaps and materials, from where to can bake the new texture. The joined and final mesh is 2B.001. Sorry for the confusing names. But there is another problem with your baked texture. The crust is not baked here, in it`s surface there is a texture from the section side.

@anegroo. OK. Bake after creating new 01_S.jpg texture of the material UVmat.1.

I uploaded a new .blend file.

Yes! I see that now, the baked texture is OK. But exactly what was changed? I cant observ the difference... I tried to change everything in the original file, to match with your modified file, and I observed, that when I change the texture image of 2B.004 is also changing the 2B.005 texture, and vice versa. And when I try to bake again the final texture in your second file, again is wrong. I dont understand! Thanks!

Finally I did it. I deleted the materials and texture of the individual objects and recreated them again. After that, I selected both Layers (with the individual objects and with the joined one), and now the new texture can baked correctly. Thank you for your help!

@anegroo. In my file, Viewing Layer 11 is turned off. Could you set it visible for a training?

Yes, selecting both layers, the texture can baked correctly. Thank you for your help.

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


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How to set the physics property of imported mesh in Blender
everyone,
I am trying to add rigid body properties to a mesh model in Blender. There are a lot of tutorials available on how to set rigid body property of the Blender built-in mesh models such as cube. I followed this tutorial to do the same thing in a imported mesh model.
However the weird thing is that the built-in cube falls normally on the passive plane but the imported mesh model just falls through the passive plane. Is there anything special to be set in order to make the imported mesh also work normally?
Thanks very much. I put on blender file here and I use Blender 2.79 on windows 10. I am sorry that the file size is large since the imported mesh model is very large.

Try to add thickness to the plane

@Denis I tried to use extrude to add thickness to the plane, however the mesh model still falls through it.

Eventually I figured it out. It turns out that the mesh model is too complicated. I need to first use the Decimate Modifier to simplify it. Then it works normally, although with some vibrating effect.

If the model is too complex but you still want to use it for rendering the simulation, you could also simulate with an object with simple geometry and parent the complex model to it.

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


text:
The mirrored half can still be manipulated
When I mirror an object, the mirrored half still has vertices and doesn't move with the other half.

That's what it's supposed to be like, right?
Welp, this is what happens when I try it.

What should I do?
Seriously, this is actually really important to me.

looks like you applied the modifier. Now your mesh is one. Select all the verts on the left side, delete them, than add the mirror modifier again

It seems that you applied the mirror modifier. When not applied, it will always mirror the left part of your mesh, so leave it this way. Only when you need to change your mesh in a non-mirror way, apply the modifier.


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Edit filter options of a UIList
I would like to be able to set custom filter values for a UIList with code.
To do so, I would like to get a reference to an instance of a UIList such that I can set its properties (such as filter_name).
I use the UILayout method template_list (documentation). This is the only way of which I know to draw a UIList - but it has no return value, and I have no access to the UIList instance created somewhere in the background.
Is there any way to access UIList instances?

There is an advanced example for filtering using draw_filter(), filter_items() and bitwise operators in the docs in case you haven't seen that already.

I know the example. it only allows me to access the filter properties from inside of the UIList class - that doesn't work for me, as the filter I need to set depends on from which panel the list is drawn.


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Procedural gradient creates banding... Why?
This is beyond frustrating. I'm using a simple linear gradient on a cube (black to transparent), and I get this awful banding. How can I get rid of it?

How did you obtain this image ? Looks like a 8bit colors limitation but that shouldn't happen before saving the render into an image file.

it's a gradient. I took a screenshot of the viewport

you should render it and check it out there. Does the problem persist in render?

yes, unfortunately


text:
When rendering an animation, how can I output multiple images per frame with different view transforms?
What I basically need to do, is output the full color render (without alpha channel), and the alpha channel (black and white) of each frame of an animation I'm rendering. Only issue, is that I'm using Filmic view transform, but the alpha channel renders need to be in Standard view transform, so the values will be 0-1.
Is there any way these could be rendered in one go? Of course this could be done by rendering the sequence twice, but with each frame taking upwards of 30 minutes, it seems like a huge waste, when all I need is change the view transform.
While I'm at it, I also need to change the "Look" from high contrast to none respectively.

As I understand it, you are compositing your shot in another software (or in Blender in a second time). Then I would suggest treating your image in post, changing color space usually being quite simple to achieve. Otherwise, does the Color Space node achieve what you are looking for https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/compositing/types/converter/color_space.html ? Also, Filmic has been replaced by AgX which is of better quality.

Thanks for the reply, however this node isn't doing what I need unfortunately. It changes the color space, but I need to change the view transform. I'll see if I can apply these view transforms in post by rendering to EXR or something.

Isn't View Transform only the Blender name for color space ? Plus, you don't need to use EXR to change your color space, PNG with 16bits should work with no artifacts. I'm not totally sure though.

Not exactly. The naming of the menus is a bit weird, but under Color management, there are dropdowns called View transform and sequencer. If you open Sequencer, you'll see it says "color space", and it has the same options as the convert colorspace node, but there is no node to my knowledge that lets you change the view transform. I also have to render to EXR, because my ranges are way above 1, so a png would be just pure white.


text:
Cube projected image texture as HDRI?
I have a cube projected image that I'd like to use as an HDRI, but environment textures only have equirectangular and mirror ball projection types. Would it be possible to use an image laid out such as this as an HDRI?:

I don't think you can use an image like that as an HDRI, however, you can convert it into an equi-rectangular map that can be used.
Give a basic cube your Cube-map texture (it's default UV is already in the right shape), and align it properly in the UV editing tab. Make sure to connect the image through an emission shader (so it becomes it's own light).

Then, select your camera and place it in the center of the cube (since I didn't move the cube at all, it is still sitting at the origin, so Shift + S > Cursor to world origin, and then Shift + S > Selection to cursor (on camera)). I scaled the cube slightly (in edit mode) to make sure it is bigger than the camera. Press N to bring up the transform menu for the camera, and set it's rotation to 90 on the X axis, and 0 on the others. Make sure any lights are removed from the scene, or moved out of view.

Then, making sure you're in cycles, select the camera, and go to the camera properties panel. Change the lens type to Panorama, and the Panorama type to Equirectangular.

Under your render output settings, make sure that the width is double the height, whatever resolution you choose. I put 2048 X 1024, which I think is the very minimum you should use to avoid blurriness. As per convention, powers of 2 are always preferred.

Then, you can render the image - you can even turn the samples down because the camera is very close and is receiving light directly from the emission. After the render, save the image, and there you have it - an equi-rectangular version of your image. You can then load it as an environment texture and connect it as an HDRI as per usual.
Here it is connected as an HDRI. The image is blurry because for my base image I just used a cheap low-res image I took from a google search. This demonstrates, however, that the resolution of the base image matters to an extent.
In addition to the emission cube I started with, I added 2 additional objects to the scene - a rough cube and a shiny ball, just to demonstrate that it gives proper light and reflective contributions to the scene.

Thanks for the detailed answer, this is very helpful and it worked perfectly!


text:
Bone constraint to 2 other bones
I have 3 bones (in the same armature)
a sword, a sheath and a hand
So I put 2 constraint (childOf) to the bone of the sword. One, attached to the bone of the sheath and the other to the hand. Now, if I move the bone of the sword (in pose mode) to the hand and set the reverse, the influence of the 2nd constraint will also change the position in a maner that the sword can't come back in place in the Sheath.
That sounds really simple but I have no clue how am I suppose to do that :\

You can animate the influence of both constraints simultaneously. And don't move the sword if it has already set it's offset to parents. Just place your hand to the sword's handle, keyframe sword's 'hand' constraint influence at 0.0, and its 'sheath' constraint influence at 1.0, and then at the next frame, flip the influence, and keyframe them again ('hand' becomes 1.0, and 'sheath' becomes 0.0). You can use the gradual influence switch (not the next frame, but a few frames delay).
If you have to rotate the sword during the battle, all you need to return it to the sheath is to restore it's original rotation first (duplicating keyframe in the dopesheet or copypaste pose for that bone at different frames).
I don't know how does your sheath work, and as you say, the sword jumps into the hand. See attached blend, how I understood it.

But my character don't grab the sword, it comes to his hand :(

So I guess, in my situation, there's no other way than copy/paste the sword coordinate in the sheath when I want it to come back?

can you show the effect you're trying to achieve? like some pictures, or maybe animation, or some movie fragment?

That's what you show in you blend file, Thanks. Your sword is not attached to a bone, I guess it's the reason why it didn't work for me?

Wait no, I don't understand :( If (in your file) I put the hand back in T-pose (alt-r alt-g) set the constraint to sheath to 0 and the one of the hand to 1, the sword go mid course. But in your animation, the sword go to the hand.. How? :(
Edit : Ok, so it can only works during animation by moving the sword in addition to the constraints changes. That's good enough for my needs

I snapped the sword to the sheath bone, and keyed it's LocRot at frame 1. Then I added a 'sheath' constraint, set reverse. Then, where the hand meets the sword, I released the constraint (keyed 0 influence), and I move the sword to the hand, keyed its new location, and then created the 'hand' constraint. Of course, when I want to put it back to the 'sheath' constraint, I have to restore its position, where it was when I set reverse for the 'sheath' constraint. I just duplicated the LocRot key and move it in the dopesheet (for bones it's faster to copypaste a pose).

Ok, I got it. But I think it's terrible, the way it works should be 1 constraint = 1 location I think. I really like blender, but it feels like some basic stuff are missing sometimes

and it stores the offset exactly per constraint. (when you use e.g. 'Set inverse'). Maybe it will behave a little more predictable, if using a couple of constraints (copy location + copy rotation) instead of the 'child of'. Anyway, it worth a try. ;-)


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viewport and texture not the same tint
I'm trying to get a good preview of the props i'm making. I will not render it, it's for a game. I unwrap my model and setup an image texture, but the viewport colors are not as vivid as the image. Also, I didnt find where I can remove that shadow on the preview ball.

Hello, the Material preview won't give you a preview of your render, also maybe show the Shader Editor, you may need to lower down the Specular value for example. You could also share your file, make sure that you've packed the image and upload it here: https://blend-exchange.com/

Viewport Preview
Set the Viewport Shading to Flat and Texture.

Then select the texture, that you want to preview, in the shader editor.

Rendering
Choose the RAW view transform under Render Settings > Color Management > View Transform.

If I select viewport shading, the object is white

@Richard I omitted crucial information. Please review my edit.

thanks all good now :) (sorry late answer)


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How do I remove the 'mesh' in the starter blend file?
So in the starter blend file, there is a cube, and there is this mesh thing underneath it. I deleted the cube, and made my own creation, but I can't figure out how delete that mesh. I need to delete because I made a greenscreened plane, and the mesh is interfering. Thanks!

Do you mean the grid floor?

You can turn off all overlays at the top right-ish of the 3D view also

go to the tab on the right, scroll down to "display" and uncheck "grid floor", "y" , and "x", to remove the entire grid.


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Paste X-flipped Pose half working
I am working on a climbing cycle and i tried to Paste X-flipped pose and it seems that my lower body of the mesh worked not the top part? I done this before for my walk cycle and it has no problem. Is there an issue im not seeing?

The orientation of his right arm bones is bad:
In Edit mode select all these bones and ctrl R 180 to rotate 180° on their axis. Then, in Pose mode, go in the Properties panel > Bone Constraints > IK, you'll have to correct the IK Pole Angle -> 180°.
Or, simpler, in Edit mode, select all the left arm bones and go on the bottom menu bar > Armature > Symmetrize. Then, in Pose mode, go in the Properties panel > Bone Constraints > IK, you'll have to correct the IK Pole Angle -> 180°.
Now it works fine.

Thank You. How does that work though? do i constantly have to check that throughout my process? or was it suppose to be done earlier ?

if you simply Symmetrize it should not happen, if you have this kind of bug it generally comes from this kind of problem or bad suffix, but symmetrize precisely prevents that

So everything seems to be working but now the hands are inverted when i paste x-flipped mirrored.

what do you mean by "inverted"? keep in mind that maybe you need to rotate the IK (Pole Angle) in the Bone Constraints

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/132767/paste-x-flipped-pose-half-working/132768?noredirect=1#comment228186_132768

The animation looks fine but the arms invert inward when it shifts. I changed the pole angel but it change the other pose.

perhaps share your new file

Above the comment I made

no, you just linked this page  ;)

     My Apologies

so do exactly what I said: delete the right arm, symmetrize the left arm with the Symmetrize button, then select the IK bone which is in badly oriented (it looks like it's its left IK) and change the Pole Angle, and it works (at least on my computer)

What do you mean when IK Bone is badly orientated? DO i set my Pole angel to Zero?

in Edit mode, delete the left (or right) side of your armature, and use the Symmetrize button. Then, in Pose mode, if you see that the lower arm is twisted, you need to go in the Properties panel > Bone Constraints > IK > Pole Angle -> find the good bone angle so that it's correctly oriented

It seems to have fixed the issue. However a small problem that latched on is the right foot of the mesh is stuck on a point when i move it.

this is another problem, you need to correct this in Weight Paint mode

I have tried that and the bone doesnt seem to want to register with the weight paint but its parented with it. Should i open up another question as it is a seperate issue?

Yes open another question   ;)


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Bone Constraint/ Location rotation issue
Trying to get my model to clench his fist with the location rotation bone constraint however when applied the bone barely rotates at all. Is there something i left out?
Blend file

what location rotation bone constraint are you talking about? I don't see any for your fist. Note that your Pivot Point is in 3D Cursor mode, maybe your problem comes from there?

I may have added the previous blend file. But when i add the constraint and try to rotate it, it moves  very slowly and when i move the bone above the finger tip and warps the entire palm.

please link the file with the constraint so that we can see the problem

Sorry disregard you were right its the 3D cursor mode. I didnt know that changed to that nor do i understand how it changed to that because i never touched it. thank you!

so did it fix your problem?

Yup it did, the fingers are moving properly now

Switch your Pivot Point setting from 3D Cursor to Median Point.


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Paste x flipped pose does not change
I'm having issues where the pose I want to mirror does zero to bare minimal change, as in the arms may move slightly but nothing is mirrored it stays the same. My old pose was scrapped and remade simply because when I use the x paste pose mirror it deforms everything. I recreated a new armature with proper naming conventions (.L and .R) Everything seems to be in order however the pose does not mirror or move at all. Is this a roll problem? Or something else?

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

I think i uploaded the file. I think?

@moonboots is this correct? I'm pretty new

You have some name problems, like "Leg Control.R.", you must delete the final dot ("."), otherwise it won't copy paste "Leg Control.L". Same thing for "Lower Arm IK.R.", "Leg Pole Target.R.001" and maybe some other ones...

omg... i cant believe it was a naming issue.It works fine now. I was reading other forums and they said it could be roll problem. At what point would it be a roll problem?

maybe they are referring to the IK pole angle? I'm not sure what they mean...


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Texture Paint gives off a checkboard color
I am trying to paint my texture and when I try to paint it gives off a checkboard color no matter what color it is. Is there a button that needs to be toggled off that im not seeing ?
Blender File Below

You have an image texture set as your brush - remove that, and then you will be able to paint.

Thanks! I thought it would be something dumb like that hahaha

I knew what it was because I have done it before :D


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Exporting to Unity - Origin problems
I've noticed all my objects exported from Blender (FBX) have completely wrong origins when in Unity.
My Blender scene is made up of multiple objects which are spread out all over the place.
What's the best way to fix this? Is there a simple method / workflow to make sure an object & origin is at 0,0,0 when it's exported?

Thanks!

I had the exact same problem, but for me the origin in Unity was always the center of the part.
It turns out that there's a setting in Unity that determines how the axes are shown for the part. I spent probably three hours trying to troubleshoot what was wrong in the process.

There was no problem with how I had exported the part, just with how Unity was displaying the part handle. When I clicked "Center" it changed to "Pivot" and then the axes were shown from the same location as I had set the part origin in Blender.

Typical me; ask a question and sort-of find the answer straight after.
So the FBX exporter I'm using (FBX bundle) has a setting to export the 'pivot from' 0,0,0 or the object itself. Setting it to 'first name' has seemingly solved my problem. Originally it was set to 0,0,0


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How do I stop Blender from adding numbers to end of object names?
I'm not sure how this happened (as its been working fine up till now) but just tonight Blender has started adding numbers to the end of object names.

If I manually remove them, and then export FBX, Blender will throw them back on.
Any clues how I can disable this behaviour?

This is normal. Blender has been doing this for a very long time and this is what it should be doing. Every object name needs to be unique in Blender so when it encounters an object being named with something that already is a name of another object, it automatically fixes this by adding the numbers and this way making the names unique. If you do not wish to have the numbers there, you can give unique names to all of your objects in the first place.


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How would I create new edges around an opening
What method would you use to create new edges around this doorway maintaining it's shape? (desired outcome in red)

You can select the edges around the doorway, duplicate them, seperate the edges, increase the seperation's size, and Knife Project that separation onto the mesh in question.


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Is there a quick way to combine / merge these segments?
Is there an easy way of merging this entire selection so the faces on each side combine, or, would I have to select and merge each side individually?

select the central edge loop and dissolve it?

to expand.. first, Ctrl-V R remove doubles, if there are any, and then .. in edge mode, Alt-select the central loop, and X > Dissolve edges

Temmy, I would select all the center vertices in vertex select mode with ALT-Click so that only the middle vertices are selected.  Then I would use LIMITED DISSOLVE to remove these vertices and that will combine the top, bottom, front, and rear faces into one face each.
Limited Dissolve can be chosen in 2.79 from the Mesh menu/Clean up/Limited Dissolve.


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2.81 - Any way to have the grid show through objects?
Is there any way to set the grid to render over / through objects? I do a lot of work in quad view and large objects will easily obscure the grid. I'd like for it to always be visible.

There is no configuration option for this, but it's possible to patch the shader source code within the Blender binary, if you're brave enough.  The following works for 2.80, 2.81, and 2.82.  It doesn't work for 2.79, though.  Also I found that after applying this patch, there was a delay of several seconds the first time I ran the new binary, presumably as Blender recompiled all the shaders.  After that first delay, it should launch quickly again, but if you keep both binaries around and switch between them, there'll be a delay whenever you switch.
The shader source code lines you're looking for in the Blender binary are:
fade *= (scene_depth == 1.0) ? 1.0 : 0.0;

and:
fade *= 1.0 - clamp((grid_depth - scene_depth) * test_hardness, 0.0, 1.0);

The first makes the grid invisible behind objects in orthographic view.  The second does it in perspective view.  Both should be commented out.
If you have a hex/binary editor, you can do it manually.  The usual caveats for binary patching apply -- make a backup copy of your executable first, and change the lines to:
//de *= (scene_depth == 1.0) ? 1.0 : 0.0;
...
//de *= 1.0 - clamp((grid_depth - scene_depth) * test_hardness, 0.0, 1.0);

being exceedingly careful to keep the patch the same length as the original.
Alternatively, you can run the following Python script.  Note:  If you run this script from within Blender itself, it works fine, but it does nothing to the grid in the running copy of Blender.  It only patches and writes a new binary to implement the change.
Anyway, update the file paths to point to the input binary and an appropriate output file location.  If the patch is successful, you may be able to run the new binary directly, or you may find you need to move it into the same directory as the old binary (or even move the old binary out of the way and give the new binary exactly the same name as the old one), depending on how Blender is installed.
import os
import stat

# File names of input and output Blender executables
INFILE = "/scratch/buhr/blender/official_versions/blender-2.80-linux-glibc217-x86_64/blender"
OUTFILE = "/var/tmp/blender_gridinfront"

# Comment out these two shader lines
LINE1 = b"fade *= (scene_depth"
LINE2 = b"fade *= 1.0 - clamp((grid_depth"

def patch(data, line):
    i = data.index(line)
    data[i:(i+2)] = b"//"
    return data

with open(INFILE, "rb") as r, \
     open(OUTFILE, "wb") as w:
    data = bytearray(r.read())
    try:
        newdata = patch(data, LINE1)
        newdata = patch(newdata, LINE2)
        w.write(newdata)
        os.chmod(OUTFILE, stat.S_IREAD | stat.S_IWRITE | stat.S_IEXEC)
    except:
        print("Patch failed")
        raise


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Is it possible to snap to grid when doing an inset?
When insetting a new face is it possible to have it snap to grid?
I've got everything else (moving, rotation, scale) snapping to grid.
Thanks!

when you've inset the face go to vertex select in the top left of the viewport and select the vertices on the face you inset and right click and click snap selection to grid.


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Apply Rotation & Scale problem
When applying Rotation & Scale to an object the mesh seems to invert. What is happening here and how can I prevent / correct it?

Does the scale showing minus values before you apply the scale?

Seems that you have negative scale and Backface Culling turned on; thus when normals get inverted you see the inside of the object. Use Ctrl+N to fix them

@Denis You were absolutely correct, yes it is.

After applying the scale, try going into edit mode, selecting all faces and pressing Ctrl+N to recalculate the normals.
If that doesn't help, it would be nice if you could upload a .blend file.


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Scene with multiple objects - Is it possible to export everything as a single object, but maintain multiple objects in the outliner?
Ok, yeah, that might have been a bit confusing as a title...let's see if I can clear it up!
I'm working in Unity and building the geometry for scenes in Blender. This can involve quite a few objects.

Ideally, I want to join everything up to export it as a single FBX. I could do this by joining.
However, I also want to preserve in Blender everything as a seperate object which allows easier editing.
Does that make sense?
Are there any ways to temporarily join everything up just for export?

Just found out the exporter I'm using 'FBX Bundle' has a setting which solves this very problem:

This way I can keep my actual Blender scene of multiple objects unjoined, but just export one FBX in Unity :)

I think the easiest way to do this is join and export as you usually do. Later, press Ctrl + Alt + Z. This opens up all the undo steps (going back a few steps).Press the step just before the 'join' command and you are back to your original with multiple objects in outliner.

Historically, I like to make two files. A working file for editing and a flattened or joined file, saving over or making a new copy of the joined file each time I edit the working file. It stays quite organized with proper naming conventions. I am not aware of another way to accomplish what you are asking.


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How to add floating particles to a fluid simulation?
I am trying to make a simple fluid simulation in Blender with floating particles in the fluid. I was able to create the fluid simulation, with materials and shadings to works. But I am having problems on how to add floating particles that follow the path of fluid.

I have come across this question myself and have not found an easy way to do it. I'm sure my answer isn't the best, but I hope it helps :D
Here we go:

Bake your fluid simulation
Create a plane and subdivide it a few times.
Shrinkwrap the object to your fluid simulation using the 'project' option.

Then use object constraints to bind the 'floating' object to the plane you just created on the z-axis. Remember to create a vertex group on the plane and assign it to the constraint.
Constrain the plane to the floating object on the x-axis and y-axis
Tweak the offset to get the correct depth

Best of luck with your project and I hope I helped,
BFB

Oh, and you can hide the plane by disabling camera under cycles settings at the bottom in the object properties panel :D

In fact try to use this branch: https://graphicall.org/1240 ... its MantaFlow which computes particles as a part of fluid so You dont need to add anything, everything is "all inclusive" so to say ;). If some problems appear let me know here and I will write an Answer to follow.

Thanks for the suggestion. I will definitely try MantaFlow.

Tried a simple fluid example (a box as domain and a UV sphere as inflow) but MantaFlow did not work properly. I saw some comments on the website that you sent that had the same issue. Any thought on how to fix MantaFlow?


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Animation/position of vertices or faces controlled by another object's position relative to it
So I'm trying to artificially enhance a 3D objects look to look more 2D, by having certain parts of the geometry shift in specific positions when the camera is facing those faces/vertices from specific angles to it.
To explain in an easier to word and grasp way:
Think of a random character
When the camera is facing from the left, the characters eyes look up and smiles,
When camera is facing from the front character has closed eyes and frowns
Etc
However when the character is faced from the front, but the head is turned to the side so that the characters face is viewed from the left, the behavior for the face displays the animation/position displacement for "camera on the left" while the body (the parts faced from the front) would display the position displacement/animation behavior for "camera facing the front"
If this makes any sense?

Please include a Blender screen capture in this and all future questions to improve the clarity of the question.

Please place a clear question in the above text even if you think the question is implied. A question with a question mark.


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Weight paint against current pose?
I want to add some new mesh object to my posed avatar.
But by default weight paint is against rest pose. So when paint in current pose, the new mesh would "fly" away.
Is it possible to treat as if the current pose is the rest pose, without actually setting the pose as rest pose?

It's absolutely common and default to weight paint over a  posed character. If I understand your question, try using this buttons while editing the mesh, which enable the armature action during edit mode of the mesh.


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Which camera parameters are we changing with mouse scroll wheel?
In Blender, from the object data tab for the camera we can change:
focal length/fov & sensor width/height
but when we scroll the mouse wheel in the camera view, we zoom in/out on that camera view.  When we do this, I don't see the focal length/fov parameter get updated in the camera's object data tab.  So which camera parameter
are we updating when we scroll the middle mouse button in the camera view?  Thanks.

Those parameters are valid only for the rendered picture, and the mouse scroll's zoom doesn't affect it.


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How do I change camera views using python?
I want to change camera views using python.  I changed it using the gui, and then go to the "info" window log to see what
the python commands are for that.  But when I cut+paste that into the "Python Console", I get this error:
>>> bpy.context.space_data.camera = bpy.data.objects["Camera1"]
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<blender_console>", line 1, in <module>
AttributeError: 'SpaceConsole' object has no attribute 'camera'

Any hints on how to change camera views using python?
Thanks.

You can set the camera in the current scene by using bpy.context.scene.camera. So your script should be:
bpy.context.scene.camera = bpy.context.scene.objects["Camera1"]

or
bpy.context.scene.camera = bpy.data.objects["Camera1"]

Using Blender 2.80, I switch to "Scripting" workspace and type your commands in the python Console window but I didn't see anything change in the 3D viewport.

@L.Phan I may have misunderstood your question. Do you want to switch to the camera perspective in the viewport? I thought you wanted to switch to another camera for rendering (setting the object as current camera).

Yes, I want to switch the camera perspective in the viewport using python.  I am sending commands to Blender from an external program using sockets and one of the commands is to switch camera perspective.

@L.Phan I'm not sure how this would be useful for an external program, since it's only for visualization (it doesn't change anything for the rendering of the scene), but the following link should help you https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/30643/how-to-toggle-to-camera-view-via-python


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Exporting to Unity - How do you get a single FBX to support multiple materials?
I was looking at some FBX's in Unity and noticed they support multiple materials, like this:

When modeling in Blender (I'm using Blender Render), how would I go about setting up a model to have multiple materials like that? My workflow currently is:

Select all the faces of the object
UV Unwrap
Open up a PNG in the UV/Image Editor window
Position the UVs
Export

This produces a FBX in Unity which handles only 1 material. What do I need to do differently in Blender to have a model support and offer up multiple material slots?

Each material you assign in Blender, will be a material in Unity.
It looks you already have that, if Unity has generated all those material slots. You will just need to re-assign the colour in Unity, or attach the texture you've used if I read your question correctly.

Each face has a different material on it, 3 materials in Blender, Unity will read that and create three materials for those faces.

Thanks! I'd never really dabbled in the material panel.
For anyone else wondering how this done I also found this video which is a good step by step: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3r5VvN89O1Q


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Blender to Unity Workflow - Blender Render or Cycles
I'm trying to streamline my workflow for modeling inside Blender and then exporting for use inside Unity. I just wanted to check on something.
If set to Cycles, Blender won't show me texturing on models until an appropriate material with 'image texture' source is setup.
If set to Blender Render, I can enable Textured Solid in the properties pane and import a image into the UV editor and instantly see results without the need to touch material setup.
To me it seems like Blender Render is therefore the fastest way to go for simple texturing and exporting for Unity. Am I right? Are there any advantages over Cycles that I'm overlooking?
Thanks.

In a 3D game developing workflow you should not worry about the render engine since you won't use it. Render engine is only used if you want to produce final pictures in blender. Since you only want to produce 3D models (even with shader, texture etc...) you have no use of Cycle and you better stick with blender render.
You should understand that the render engine that matter for you is the one of Unity.

Thanks for the reply. I absolutely do understand that. It doesn't change the fact though that if Cycles is used, the workflow for textured asset creation is longer. So it does in fact matter which Blender render engine you use; and Blender Render is the best one.

That wasn't very clear but what I meant was that since you do not use the render engine for final result the better for you is indeed the most efficient in prototyping wich is Blender Render because it is one step shorter.

Yup. We're on the same page. Blender Render is the best thing to use for a shorter workflow. Ta!


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How would you create grooves in wood objects like this?
I'm modeling a lot of wooden things at the moment and want to try and achieve the effect below. What methods would you use to create small notches and long grooves like this?

don't you want to fake it with Bump or Normal maps?

@moonboots Not in this case no. It's use isn't just for within Blender.

what are the orange lines for? Have you tried to highlight some parts or are your talking about the classic grooves on the wood planks?

The orange is because those are selected objects.

@moonboots The orange is just selection inside Unity. You can ignore that. My question specifically is about the classic grooves as you describe which are part of the mesh of each plank.

Maybe try something as simple as that?

You're on to something there!


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How to move a whole mechanical rig without selecting all the individual parts?
Is there a way to move a mechanical rigid body made up of many parent child objects, constraints etc as a whole around the environment, without having to select all the individual parts?

Rigid Body objects are all automatically assigned to a specific Rigid Body group. To select them all simply select one and then use Shift+G to select group. See https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/editors/3dview/object/selecting/tools.html#bpy-ops-object-select-grouped
Once selected simply use the usual manipulation tools (eg grab, rotate) to move them.
You can also create your own groups to allow you to organise sub-sections of your objects and select them in the same way.


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UV space and stacking UV's on top of each other to share the same texture
Coming from MODO, I'm playing with Nodes and the UV editor. Strange thing I made a UV of a simple side of a cube (a square) but when I imported the image the UV stretched to fit the image. In MODO it was the image that scaled not the UV. So why did the UV stretch to fit the image and result in a distorted image? Yes I can scale the UV back but it's a bit of a guessing gain to remove distortion.
Also how can you stack UV islands so they are packed on top of each other as I want to same image to be tiled over 9 separate faces on this Rubik's Cube I'm playing with. In MODO you could stack them on top of each other. I managed to do this by accident when 'J' joining all the objects after making the UV but I was wondering if there's a Pack option for after-the-fact.
Hope this makes sense.

Related https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/66727/whats-the-meaning-of-0-to-1-space-in-uv

if, in the Node Editor, you create an Image Texture node, then load the picture in this node, and unwrap your object again, then the UV will keep its correct size

can I stack the UV's on top of each other with a Pack option (like in MODO) so the faces share the same Texture?

yes, if you do a simple Unwrap, by default the faces will overlay

OK thank you... it's just all a bit strange since MODO

What I said was not completely correct, it works for one face but not for the complete cube, if you a do simple unwrap of the whole cube it won't work, it will stretch, you have to use another unwrap method (Cube Projection, Smart UV Project) or Mark Seam and Unwrap, or upload a square picture. Sometimes I don't completely understand the logic of Blender, I would have expected that it works like you explained.


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Arm joint Mesh not moving with Chest mesh when animating
Im currently animating a run cycle for my mech and it seems that the arm joint mesh doesn't want to move with the Chest mesh. I had the mesh joined to the chest mesh. Is there something im missing?
blend file

If you switch your armature to Pose mode then your mesh to Weight Paint mode you'll see that the chest bone has zero influence on the arm joints. If you join a mesh to another one Blender can't guess what group the new mesh vertices are supposed to be part of. So use a weight paint brush or assign these vertices to the chest group.

So in order to fix this i have to scrap the animation and weight paint it correctly in order to have it working properly?

you don't have to scrap the animation, just paint the arms in Weight Paint mode


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Weight painting Issue
I am doing some animation on my mesh and notice that the foot is stuck to the ground when i try to move it. I tried to use weight painting on the selected bone but it would not work.

I have noticed that the toe bone is not exactly parented to the mesh how does that happen?

As his left foot is correctly rigged you can check how it works. Notice that there are actually 2 bones overlaying on each foot, they are called Toes Control (R and L) and Toes (R and L). So to make it simpler, switch to Pose mode, hide the bones called Toes Control (R and L), then switch your mesh to Weight Paint mode and check how Toes (R and L) influence your mesh. You can see that Toes.R, contrary to Toes.L, has no influence. So begin to paint the area that is supposed to be influenced by this bone, exactly like Toes.L influence the left foot. You're good.


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Trouble boolean joining objects. Blender export perceived as separate objects.
I'm working on a ring I am willing to print out. I've sent my stl export to the printing place, but they claim that mesh I've sent consists of 3 separate objects. But when I'm working on blender, everything appears to be one solid object.
The ring was created from 3 loops joined by boolean union modifier.

This is how other software sees my file

Does anyone know how else can I join it ?

Select it, go into edit mode, press P (Separate) and choose By Loose Parts. If the geometry isn't connected it will separate into different objects. You can try the boolean modifier again with the other alogrithm. Try offsetting the offsets by a tiny unnoticable value first..

They did separate. Did boolean with different solver (carve instead if Bmesh) and it worked ! Thank you very much :)

Writing up the solution as a proper answer would be helpful if anyone else has this problem.


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Material disappears while object is deselected
Basically when I have the object selected it looks perfect and the moment I select anything else it vanishes, this only happens in material view and rendered view, I have absolutely no clue what I could have done to cause this.

From the screenshots it appears you're seeing the OpenGL masking effect.
The pink container's outer walls are semmi transparent and masking the portion of gray plate that's behind it.
Parent the outer container to the gray plate then unparent it again.  (child = pink container)
If that doesn't fix it, try ticking/unticking both objects' "Transparency" box. That's in the properties (cube icon) at right, way down to the "Display" tab.


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Object doesn't follow path
Even if I set both origins to the same place, the object still doesn't follow the path but is miles away from it.

Back yourself up against unintended side-effects, and hit CtrlA > Clear Transform Menu > Clear Location. This will land your object's origin on the curve.


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Object seems split into two
my object is split into two. Last time I got rid of this problem by making normals consistent, but this time it doesnt work. I have a Mirror Modifier on the objecgt, but not applied yet.
Thanks for your help!

Maybe the body of your character has faces on the inside (along the mirror axis) : deactivate the mirror modifier and make sure to delete those faces if any. Or, maybe there is a small gap beetwen the vertices of each side (the vertices aren't perfectly along the axis) : try to increase the Merge Limit value.

thanks for your answer :) sadly i already applied subdivision surface, but nothing seemed to be wrong with the mesh. By incresing the merge Limit nothing happened :( will those different meshes be visible when applying a texture or is nothing going to change? bc then i would leave it like that

You should have specified that you used a Subdivision Surface. I Suspect that when you applied it, it was BEFORE the mirror in the modifier stack ; that's a common issue. Anyway, why did you applied it ? Feel free to post your .blend if you want me to check it.

oh yes, i remember that issue. yes i would love to! can I add it in here and do you think you can fix it?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wn3d5w63ub0oii6/robotercleanedauseinander.blend?dl=0 this should be the file

Your mesh is a nightmare to edit, because you applied the SubSurf modifier. You shouldn't do that unless you've got a good reason !
So first, we will Un-subdivide it. You can add a Decimate modifier, select the Un-Subdivide mode, and choose a Iteration of 10. Feel free to play with that value, 10 looks like a good compromise :

You can now Apply this modifier ; this way, you'll get a mesh that is largely easier to Edit.

The next step is to add a Subdivision modifier again, so the mesh will look smoother. A Level of 2 or 3 is more than enough.
For the mesh to look even smoother, but without adding more faces, you can go in the Object menu and select Shade Smooth.

There is still some pinches, but now you can move vertices in Edit Mode to mitigate them. Anyway due to the bad topology on the highlighted zone, you won't have a perfect result :

I would suggest to read this Topology Guide (the whole site is quite interesting) if you want to improve this useful skill.


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Creating realistic small flames artifacts
I would like to reproduce this kind of artifacts on a flame simulation (see picture)
I am able to come up with some nice flame simulations but I haven't found a way to reproduce the little waves of fire that propagate at the surface of the emitter.
Any idea where to start from ?


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Only hair rendering, why?
my model, which has texture painting and a skin colour is not showing up on render. Only the hair shows on render. I've tried clearing the restricted render, which I didn't set up anyway, all sorts, but only the hair shows. The hair is particles, I was following a tutorial to try this out and had the hair attached to a vertex group only. When it didn't render the body, I tried duplicating the scalp to another layer and having no particles on the main figure (though it still has wispy hair attached there, no idea why) Can anyone help? I am using cycles render and 2.79. Picture is a bit rubbish, but I'm only learning

Make sure Emitter is checked under Render at the Particles panel.

No problem, and welcome to Stack Exchange! Don't forget to mark the question as answered. :)


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How to set similiar lighting
I wanted to make this nice scene in Blender

And i achieved this

Present lighting is HDR, the first one is blured version, second and third are normal pictures
I also have 3 sun lamps, one is shining from windows at the front, second from window above the sink and third from behind, they are a bit yellow.
Postprocessing looks like this

I am not able to achieve so realistic look, but the biggest difference comes from lighting. How to get closer to it?

"I also have 3 sun lamps" Since our earth only has one sun this will hardly give you realistic results, if that is what you are looking for.

These pictures are also CGi, but you are right. I wanted to make softer shadows and highlights on the ceiling and didn't know where to place area lamps

The most glaring issue to begin with is that your exposure is well down. In the case of something illuminated by sky or sun, that means that the illuminating source won’t provide nearly enough indirect illumination. Second, the background outside the windows is pegged at an energy level that is vastly too low and as a result, there’s a cognitive dissonance. Start with a single HDRI and use it to illuminate, then work backwards. Don’t apply curves to HDRs, as you break the energy levels with ghastly results.

My advices:

Your scene and that scene has different type of hdris.
Install hdri addon like gaffer (it's free) and change/rotate different hdris until you find what looks most similar.
If you want the most similar look you wil have to use exact same hdri image, if it's possible but in most cases it isn't possible.
That scene has hdri of clear noon sky and you have hdri of evening or something like that.
So both images represent different time span of the day.
You image looks darker so after you change the hdri, you should increase the strength of hdri before tweaking the sun lamp
The image you are using is already post processed image

So you will have to concentrate on post processing as well as lighting of your scene

Blender has good composition system but i would recommend adobe lightroom for this. I use it's free android app to do the post processing.
He has used some soft area lamps

It looks like there are a couple of recessed lights in the ceiling of the original.
It also looks like there is a light panel just out of the camera view, aimed at the beam. It may be “flagged” off of the stools.
When I look at a scene like this, I can often pick up on the lighting by looking at the highlights in shiny surfaces. Also, check for the shadows. They can give it away too.


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Matching 2nd camera to a scene
I found nice looking house and wanted to recreate it, used fSpy instead of BLAM, but found it works well. I placed cubes instead of normal models. My problem is, that there is second and third photo of this room and i can't match perspective of the second camera to the ready scene. I tried fSpy, but it hasn't fitted it properly.
What should i do if i want to fit 2nd camera to both scene and reference by hand?

Ok but how can i do it with two still images?

I manually set these points, but the solve error is high (over 2). Generally, it correctly sets the camera to points, although the camera location has nothing to do with real models. Maybe it would be better to do these models completely from the beginning instead of rearranging the camera to fit the models?

I got it. The nunmer of solve errors was about 3.2, but now it fits perfectly. Firstly i used fSpy, copied focal lenght and pasted it into camera settings in mation tracking. After that i changed refine from none to focal lenght and optical center. The most important thing is that i made a perpective point on the table. It caused so high solve error, but it works. Unfortunately i must redo models, but now it perfectly matches.


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How to Render Rigid Body Physics
all,
Me again. I am trying to render an animation with rigid body physics. I have baked the animation to keyframe, and when I render individual images of particular frames the animation looks A-OK. However, when I try to render the animation as a video all of the images are the same. Any ideas how to fix this? You can see the Blender file here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1312U5OxQWMN1OYdCE2HPEHFYxstRbub1

I solved the problem. The problem stemmed from me having ticked the dynamic property in rigid body settings for each object. Unticking dynamic worked.


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Rigid Body Chain and Pendant Breaking
all,
I am trying to create a chain and drape it naturally over a mannequin rather than position each individual link. I have a pendant attached to the chain, and when I bake the scene the pendant breaks from the chain.
Both chain links and pendant are active rigid body types, and I have connected everything as points chained by distance. Everything weighs the same. The chain links stay together but the pendant falls off. Is it the shape of the pendant that's causing this to happen?
Any pointers would be appreciated. I have attached the blender file here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1zY8HsxUqkCWdc1UAhz5zpmV4YiJ4LTnM

I managed to solve this problem by joining the pendant and the two closest links then connecting that object with the adjacent links.


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Mirror Modifier Issues - Asymmetry
world,
I have been playing with Blender 2.8.1 for a couple of months and recently keep running into the same issue with a mirror modifier.
When I apply the modifier the mirrored object is way off-centre, like this:

I am able to solve the issue by simply joining the asset I want to mirror and another asset which already has a mirror modifier attached, however this adds the material from the latter object to the object I'm trying to mirror which is undesirable.
Any techniques to help me create a perfect mirror when I'm working with multiple assets will be much appreciated if provided.

in the mirror modifier -> with the eye dropper select the middle body part

By default the mirror modifier will choose its mirroring axes depending on the object's origin, not the world origin.
The origin of each object is marked by a yellow dot when it is selected. As you can see, your tooth's yellow dot is a little bit to the left of it, so logically the mirror modifier creates a copy with a symmetry relative to its that.
If you want to create a mirror with a symmetry to the world origin, you have to select in the "Mirror object" field of the mirror modifier either:

An object which you know has their origin in the world origin 0, 0, 0
Create a new empty object, and keep it at the origin point
Make sure your 3D cursor is at the origin with SHIFT + C and while your object is selected, right click > Set Origin > To 3D Cursor

I solved the problem by adding the middle body part as the mirror object parameter. Thanks.


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UV map in UV Editing does not match UV map seen in Edit mode

Help, I dunno how I messed this up. All I remember is switching UVs for the face and this happened...
The UV map on the left is NOT the UV for the body but the face.
Before, when I selected the body's mesh, it shows the body's UV and when I select the face mesh, it will switch to the Face's UV.
Now it's stuck on just one UV in UV editing
I'm new to Blender so I don't know what's going on...

If you switch from a mesh to another it won't switch from an image to another in the UV editor, at least not that I know even if it could seem logical, it will keep the selected image, and if you want to display the image linked to the selected mesh you need to find the image in the UV editor dropdown menu.

The UV editor won't automatically do that?

no, I was also surprised because that's what I would have expected

Unfortunate. Thanks for clearing that up. :)


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Mesh moves back in Edit Mode
I'm having an issue where, for some reason, the mesh moves back in Edit Mode then moves back again when I get off Edit Mode. The model was auto-rigged in Mixamo. Why is this happening? This doesn't happen in the model that wasn't rigged.
Image Refence - 1

Any poses etc. are moving and/or deforming the mesh are doing these operations on top the basic mesh. When you go to Edit Mode, the mesh shows its original basic appearance, to put it in simply words. It's the same with modifiers for example, if you take a cube and put a Subdivision Surface modifier on it, the cube becomes rounded. But going into Edit Mode shows the original basic cube (unless you have set the option to show the modifier effect in Edit Mode as well). This is usually useful if you want to tweak or change something general which is easier to do on the basic low-poly cube mesh than on a high-poly mesh.

In short, I can't make it stay put?
Coz, I was hoping I can tweak the mesh when I've already rigged it. :(

Well, you have to either tweak it in its basic shape and hope it turns out as you wish or you have to apply the pose so it stays like that, than this vecones the new badic mesh. I guess there is an option in the armature modifier to show the manipulated mesh in Edit Mode, but even if so, everything you change will stay for all poses.


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Changing .avi file in to .mp4 file
So I've already rendered an animation as an .avi file, is there some way to change the file to .mp4 without rendering the animation again?

This is off the Blender topic and rather belongs to https://video.stackexchange.com
How you want to use your video should drive what format and quality you need.
If you are comfortable with command line tools, I suggest ffmpeg  (https://www.ffmpeg.org). The dead simple answer is ffmpeg -i "input.avi" "output.mp4" though this will reencode it and you will loose some quality. If the video stream inside your AVI is h.264 or other MP4 compatible encoding, you can rewrap without quality loss using ffmpeg -i "input.avi" -c:v copy -c:a copy "output.mp4".

While video encoding tools like ffmpeg will be easier, you can add your movie to the VSE and render with new settings, this will be much quicker than the original rendering as it will only compress the video to the new settings.

@sambler, good idea to use Blender which actually includes ffmpeg as video encoding engine. Though not sure how much access to all ffmpeg settings are avail from Blender.


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Local User Preferences
I'm having a rough time getting blender (2.79) to play nice with user preferences.  Per the documentation @ https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/getting_started/installing/configuration/directories.html:

For locally extracted Blender distributions, the user configuration
  and runtime data are kept in the same sub-directory, allowing multiple
  Blender versions to run without conflict, ignoring the USER and SYSTEM
  files.

However, with a locally extracted version of blender (I have both an installed and an extracted version of blender, both 2.79), it refuses to use a local preferences file, rather it is using the "global" or system-based user preferences file.
This was a big hit to my DCC station's setup, as I wasn't expecting this behavior.  I made a TON of changes in the locally extracted version, not expecting those changes to affect the installed version.  Now we've lost a highly customized base user-preferences file.  My bad...
Alas, I need to figure out how to force blender to use a local preferences file, and not modify the system based preferences.  I don't feel like hitting my self in the face with a brick.
I'm not sure if I should submit a bug report about this, as well?  I assume I've made a mistake, yet the official documentation literally states the intended behavior is for locally extracted versions to use local configurations and runtime data, to AVOID conflicts like this.
Any guidance here would be greatly appreciated!

Wow.  Thanks for the fast reply, and I'm glad it was a simple thing.
This begs the question...  Why does official documentation say that locally extracted (portable) versions of blender have this behavior out-of-the-box, when in fact user action is required to force the behavior...
That documentation should be updated!
Anyhow, thanks for the help!

Probably the ever continuing plague of incomplete documentation. Good news is that being open source, you can suggest edits and improve it yourself.

I haven't looked properly, but if there is a difference between what the documentation tells you and what you have to do, you can report a bug here: https://developer.blender.org/


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Proportional Editing Sphere not showing up

I'm trying to use proportional editing on a square with loop cuts. It worked with a different square. Now, I'm left unable to use proportional editing on the new and previous squares. I clicked the loop i wanted to scale and then attempted to use the mouse scroll to set the proportion size, but scrolling doesn't change anything. Is there something i could have changed to cause this?

This is the previous square I was able to edit.

Scroll with mouse wheel to adjust proportional editing size, check the 3D view header for the current value

Related https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/7153/change-radius-for-proportional-editing and https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/35577/proportional-editing-on-mesh-doesnt-work. Proprtional editing size is set to 0 on your screenshot.

Yes. I've used the scroll, nothing happens now. It worked before. The value stays zero. that is my issue.

Try using PageUp instead of scrolling then. Value should change above 0 if changing it in the proper direction. If you confirm current operation options for the tool will appear in the Last Operator panel where you can try changing them too

That didn't work for me either, but i opened a new project and it started working again.

Now its not working in that project.

Proportional editing radius might be too far away, try zooming out your object and see if it appears

Probably the radius is way too big. You have to do some scrolling for it to come into view again. Also check if the Proportional Editing is turned on in Edit Mode, maybe you've activated it in Object Mode.


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How to make object hair particle a texture for low poly mesh
I'm modeling a bush for unreal engine.
I'm curious if there is a way to convert my particle system into a texture i can wrap around a 3d model. Or if there is a way to use planes to simulate a high poly model with the particle system.


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Eye white disappearing while looking up at an angle
Any Unity users here? I have this issue where the white part of the eye partially disappears while looking up at an angle while in the Unity Edit. This never happened on this model until recently. The whole head parts were joined together at the time. On this version, I decided to separate them.
When I imported it to Unity, suddenly this happens. I checked the model again in Blender but no such issue occurs in the blender file. How do I fix this?

This looks like a transparency sorting issue to me. Cannot say for sure without the files. The issue is that Unity has a hard time knowing which mesh is in front and which mesh is in the back. Unity looks at the pivots and tries to figure it out by comparing their positions in relation to the camera. Separarting the meshes did make it harder, because Unity now has to check which mesh is in front. You could try sort them manually using the Render Queue parameter on the default materials or adjust the mesh pivots for it to work better.

Sounds like I'll just revert back to the version with all of them grouped up.
Coz I dunno how to do those suggestions you just mentioned :(

the render queue you can only set within unity within the material settings of the respective mesh.

the mesh pivot can be adjusted using the Set Origin command. For further information check out the manual: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/scene_layout/object/origin.html

I'll try that out then thanks. If you happen to know an easier way than this. Let me know. Thanks again! :)


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Mirror to X not working (Weight Painting)
Hi Mirror to X isn't working. How do I fix this?
I'm using v2.83

You need to select the axis to mirror on. Press the X under the symmetry tab.

Thanks! That worked :)


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Should I append the armarture before binding it to the mesh?
Should I append the armarture before binding it to the mesh?
I know you should append the mesh before binding but does that apply to the rig as well?

if you want to join armatures, do it before binding meshes to them (because many problems occur after joining armatures)
but if you want to have a mesh to be affected by multiple armatures and you don't want to join them just :

take care of names of bones to be unique in either armature
set an armature modifier for each of your armatures


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What shader do I use to have a shadeless cartoony look on my model?
Can anyone recommend shaders / materials to use so my model looks something like this? I need it to look like this in Unity as well.

I want the game to look something cartoony and "shadeless". Here's another sample reference

Does a shader / material like this exists?
Thank you!

The typical setup for a toon shader is as follows:

Although, your image does seem to have SOME shading, so maybe something more like this?

As far as I'm told, the "shading" was airbrushed in the textures. Is Diffuse BSDF better than Emission if I want my model not to be affected by the scene's lighting?

Oh, then just plug your image texture directly into the Material output (no shader in between) if you want the material to be unaffected by scene lights

tried it. but why does the render in the viewport look paler than the original texture?

Make sure you have your MixRGB node set to "multiply" and not "mix".


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Can you paint over an existing image texture in Texture Paint?
I'm thinking of painting over my current image texture to fix a few errors instead of going back to my image editor and make a guess work on corrections. Is that possible?
And if I'm to duplicate an existing texture paint image, will the original be affected by the edits I'll make on the duplicate? If yes, how can I make a independent duplicate just so I can go back to the original if I didn't like the edit.

ok...yes is possible, but I don't know where to duplicate it in the texture painting panel, but in the shader...
first add your texture with image texture

second: duplicate image texture with shift + d ... and click in the number next to name

and ready select one and edit
or you can save copy,and open your original texture again.

Nice. Thank you, I'll try that :)


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UV Editor does not preview the corresponding image texture of selected object

I could've sworn that UV Editor automatically shows the corresponding texture of an object but now it's stops doing that. How do I fix this?

this pin can sync on/off the selection with the displayed image on UV unwarper
Can you only turn off this pin to enable sync selection with show image displayed.
Thank you

The problem is, there is no "the corresponding texture of an object".  A mesh object can contain faces assigned to many different materials, each of which can reference many different texture images.  However, if you've been working on simpler objects than you currently are, that would be easy to miss.
Within the UV editor, Blender generally displays image referenced by the most recently selected image texture node.  It tries to predict which image you want to see based on the selection state of shader nodes, materials, and objects.  (There may be corner cases, which might be considered bugs, but almost meaningless bugs.)
If Blender is not displaying the image you want to see in the UV editor, you can change the image being displayed by entering the name of a different image in the field in the top center of the UV editor-- in your image, the field that reads "Rikka_Face_V3.png".  If you'd like, you can see a list of images referenced by your .blend by clicking on the dropdown immediately to the left of that field, and select an image from that list.

First, make sure an image is not "Pinned" in the UV Editor (as the previous answer shows, and also make sure the Pin icon is NOT lit even when no image is showing (ie. pinning blank space). Now if nothing is pinned, and the UV Editor is still NOT updating the currently selected image, make sure to select all faces of the second object whose image is not updating. I think this is a bug though, so hopefully this behavior will eventually be fixed.

Try to exit the edit mode (in the right half of the screen) and switch to "rendered view" instead of "material preview" on the top right. In this way your rendering engine (usually Eevee or Cycles) is used to generate the preview instead of the Viewport engine. Depending on the options you've chosen, they might only be available with these rendering engines.

No no, I meant the UV Editor is not showing the corresponding Texture Image of the Object shown in the viewport.

Oh, I’m sorry. So you think there’s an issue with the unwrapping - i.e. the displayed structure in the UV editor? In this case unwrapping in a different manner might solve your problem. Have a look at this post „https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/7889/why-doesnt-my-unwrapped-model-appear-in-the-uv-editor“.


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For Anime Modellers: How to paint Anime hair with many hair objects

Hi, this is a hair model I've been given to try and paint in an "anime style".
Are there tips or tutorials you guys can give on how I can approach to painting this?

My aim is to make the hair look close to this -- or something simpler.

does this help? link

thanks, I'll test it out. Does this mean I don't have to hand paint the hair and use a shader instead?

yeah i think its possible just with shaders,there is a cool node shader to color . i think you can use that as well

can you tell me what shader node is that?

idk how add pictures to comment see if answer help

using reflection as color from glossy shader and maybe vertex coordinates to adjust that effect and also using diffuse and emission for anime style
try different types on math node that i set to square root maybe absolute , you will get different results
its just an idea maybe you can work with this to get what you want

Thanks, I'll try and copy this. Altough I can't seem to read what node is the one on the top most part. It's a bit pixelated.

its
Fresnel node

Thank you very much for the help! :)


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How to prevent render image overwriting
I just overwritten my rendered image because I wanted to have in landscape and in portrait mode so when second render was done I was going to save it and I didn't changed default name of file so first image was overwritten. How do I prevent this from happening again? Is there an option to prevent me from saving until I changed a name (I know there is red color as warning when name already exist but it seems like that isn't enough for me.

Uncheck 'Overwrite' in the Render >Output  panel?.. I may have missed your point, though ..

@RobinBetts Well that seems to doesn't effect images saves since you do that manually not via output settings. It still let me overwrite image just like before.

I just now written over my texture with a render of the object I was texturing. Now I have to start over.


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How to get rid of wrinkles
How can I get rid of this wrinkles? Any help would be appreciated.

.blend file : https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vFLS6B21GgeRlYZSQhvdItLg6IqvyVYz/view?usp=sharing

you have a lot of ngons, try first to make quads from your ngons

So ngons are responsible for this wrinkles? Is it always the case? I dissolved some egdes and it seems better now, but it created pinching on other places. Is there some guide for what to watch out when modeling this way so I don't get this issues?

you can also have problems with quads, but anyway, before everything else, don't keep any ngons

Ok, and what should I look for where there isn't ngons. Something like splitting quads or?

I think there are too many problem in your topology to be able to answer with few words, for example I see that there is a transversal edge, so I drag up a vertex that is supposed to correct the problem, now I see that you actually had several vertices overlaying, so you need to remove doubles, also you have many ngons, etc...

For example, if you use the knife tool you can create quads and correct the topology:


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Array object in straight line but rotate object on z axis
So how would I do that I have an object which I want to array in straight line or a slightly curved path (~10 iterations) but I also need that every iteration is rotated for lets say 30 degrees along z axis, what kind of black magic I need to perform to achieve this I tried using empty and rotate it on z but it makes array circular even when I use curve modifier as well. Thanks in advance!

Dupliframes Method:
The first step is to keyframe the location of desired object at the origin at the first frame (0 or 1). Then we will add a keyframe 10 frames from our first, since we want 10 iterations, at location (5,0,0) and key a rotation of 300 degrees since we would like each iteration to be rotated 30 degrees from the previous (300 = 30 degrees each iteration * 10 frames). In the curve editor we want to make sure that we're using linear interpolation (select keys and press 'T'). This makes sure that the iterations will be evenly spaced. In the Object propeties tab, find Duplication and select frames. Since we only want 10 iterations we will end at frame 10 (It may look correct if left to 100, you will have extra meshes in the same location as the last iteration. Finally when happy with the result we can convert the dulpliobjects to real objects with Ctrl-Shift-A, and Ctrl-J if desired.

Nice answer... but I guess the OP may want a rotation in an axis not coincident with the array offset?

Yeah, this doesn't actually work because I want them arrayed in straight line from let's say on x axis 0-5, this solution works if I want them to array vertically or vertically in spring shape. What I need is simple array with just rotation on Z in local coordinates and array would go straight in x axis, hope you can understand me.

Sorry for not understanding at first. I've edited my post with hopefully the correct answer to your question.

Here's also a good post explaining why the array modifier isn't an appropriate use for this case. https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/21619/69233


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How to model a fluid like object without particle system or fluid simulation
What I had in mind is something like this:

Now I know it probably can be done with particle system and metaballs (something like this ) or fluid simulation.
Thing is that in order to do it with metaballs you need a quite powerful PC to handle all the polygons and same thing with fluid simulation ( and I also have 0 experience when it comes to fluids sim). Is there a way to make object like in images with bend modifier or even maybe sculpting, any idea?

You could try using a displacement modifier with a texture.
I tried using a clouds texture and a stucci texture, which came up with a decent result. Didn't look to much like the image, but if you have a better base mesh, and just keep messing around with adding more textures, and adjusting size and strength, you should be able to come up with a good answer.
p.s. you need to add another displacement modifier for each new texture you add.

But what texture should I use?

well, I was coming up with a similar effect, but got my own problem.  I was trying to render with my GPU, and it crashes when I try to render.  Immediately.  Not just the render, but the whole program.  I have a geforce gtx 750, so this shouldn't be happening.

but I was using a clouds texture and a stucci texture.  Came up with a decent result.  Didn't look to much like the image, but if you have a better base mesh, and just keep messing around with adding more textures, and adjusting size and strength, you should be able to come up with a good answer.

p.s.  you need to add another displacement modifier for each new texture you add.


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SSS cause seams?
I've got a scene with a character's head and body is a different objects. Everything fit perfectly  BUT when I enable the SSS for the skin material I've got that seam between head and the body meshes. Please help me to get rid of it. I've searcher the whole web and found only 1 similar problem, but not the solution.
The Skin Shader is Generic Principled BSDF with SSS enabled. The subsurface is solid color


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The Properties Shelf is empty after scrolling over the area. How can I remedy that?
I'm using shelf transparency but I hope you can see the Shelf and that it is absent of anything. It happened when I was scrolling over the shelf unintentionally. I'm using the latest daily build of 2.79

You can scroll to top with Home, or scroll manually by middle click + dragging, but the absence of a scrollbar makes me suspect it really is empty. Is it consistently like this? If so, does it still happen with factory settings?

I did reset Blender to the factory defaults and nothing changed. What did work was copying and pasting the model into a new document

Solved. You mentioned the Home key and I have a Mac, so I started randomly playing with arrow keys while holding down the function key and... voila! the Shelf returned to normal. Thanks for taking the time to answer.


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Match Orthographic along normals?
If i were to rotate cube 23 degrees then go to orthographic view, it would be difficult to line up the viewfinder (in orthographic) to be flush with the object. Is there a function that makes this easier or does this for me?
Thanks

Ctrl+Shift+Numpad 7 will align your view to the normals of a selected face.

..actually it's Shift np7 for the front of the face, Ctrl-Shift-np7 for its back .. just a small tweak

Haha, didn't know that.


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I can't click on my object in any mode
can't click on any object in any mode
I have just started blender and I have not made anything. I have been trying to make some dice. My functions work, but I can't click on anything in my scene. This annoying target follows my mouse around.
I am using Blender on rollapp
version 2.79

"annoying target" I can guess that you click with Left mouse button. By default Blender uses Right mouse button for selection. That "annoying target" is quite useful 3D cursor which is positioned with left click.

I reckon you are clicking with the wrong button. Use the Right Mouse Button (often abbreviated as RMB).
The annoying target is called the 3D cursor if you are talking about this.

This fellow will act as a kind of landmark and can be moved by clicking Left Mouse Button (often abbreviated as LMB).
If this feels uncomfortable, you may remap it at the user preferences.
This may help.
Also, if you have an experience in other 3dcg softwares, such as MAYA, using remapping presets maybe useful. They are accessible at the Splash Screen.
However, I recommend you NOT to remap the mouse buttons. Blender has some wonderful mouse button shortcuts and if you innocently remap buttons, you will lose them. Besides, you will get use to them.
Finally, if you are intersting in why blender adopted this peculiar UI, I've heard that this system reduces stress on the index finger. Indeed, I find my index finger exhausted on some other 3DCG software.
Good Luck


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texture to scale on object
I modelled an object in Siemens NX with dimensions 150x150x60mm and I want to apply a tile-able texture to it with dimensions 10x10mm.
The size of the texture needs be the right scale, since I need to export the obj-file for my machine input.
I need a method that I can apply to shapes and textures with unknown scaling factors.

Well exporting textures is going to be an issue but I'll assume here you will only require exporting UV coordinates.
This would be trivial to accomplish using any type of automated texture coordinates like Generated or Object, however, to be able to export texture coordinates you will most likely be required to unwrap your mesh and create a UV map, unwrapping doesn't translate well into scene referred units, since unwrapping will more often than not introduce distortions.
The way I see it you have two options, both involving third party addons.
Either use World Scale UV or Magic UV addon.
What they both do is try to unwrap your mesh in such way that it approximates texture size to a defined scene dimention.


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animate rig with 3d coordinates
I have frame-by-frame x,y,z coordinates for each joint of a human skeleton. How can I use these to animate a rig? The coordinates aren't perfect so the length of the bones may vary slightly throughout the animation.
Do I have to calculate the angle and length of each bone in each frame to animate it? Or is there a way to do it directly from the coordinates?


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Hiding the Active Movie Clip in a camera track?
Does anyone know how to hide an active movie clip but still keep the motion of the clip for the camera? Or is there a way to copy and paster the cameras path? Or create key frames for the camera path?
I am trying to do a motion track and get the camera to follow a certain motion path along with the clip so when I drop in particles they react with the camera but i do not want to see the active movie clip. I'm trying to just render the particles. I do not have much not knowledge in motion tracking and so trying to get the two things separated is getting a little frustrating. I pretty much want just particles in alpha space but reacting in the same way as if the clip is still there.

You need to composite the clip or show it as a texture on a scene object to see it in the final render.