text:
How do you achieve volumetric fall-off, inside a cylinder?

It is a cyl with volume inside it.
I want to have this fog fade away from bottom to top.
I have tried using separate XYZ as previously suggested - this is what happened and it is not what im wanting:

To be even clearer - i wish to have this noise pattern gradually fade

Like a gradient, white being visible, black being invisible.

Mix your nodes with a MixRGB (Multiply mode) like in this setup:

Thank you so much this worked perfectly!
No idea how people just seem to know these things - one day i'll be the same


text:
Referencing files to shrink file size
Okay- DAZ user here, but this question should be accessible to people who don't use it as well.
DAZ files are MUCH smaller than blender files and I realized that's because all the meshes and materials aren't actually IN the files themselves, only referenced. Is there a way to do that in Blender and is there any value in doing so?
For instance, would using said referenced models and materials effect render times in any way?

Actually, did more research and- yes there is a way to do exactly what I said and probably a decent reason for doing so as it allows you to reuse models without making large files. It's called linking in Blender: youtube.com/watch?v=qLW27XcH6lY

The main goal of referencing thought the files is not in memory saving, but in saving your time in production. Let me explain.
For example, you make a movie with a character, which acts in 10 scenes. You've made 9 scenes, and in scene number 10 you've realized that something should be changed. If you just copy character from scene to scene - it would be a painful task, because you have to make this change in 10 separate files. But if your character is located in a separate file and linked into 10 scenes, it would not be a huge problem. You can just change character, and it will be updated in all 10 scenes.
To make this reference - simply pack your objects into collection, save file, and in the other file use File ⇾ Link to make a reference to the collection. Then collection is loaded, you may also click Object ⇾ Relations  ⇾ Make library override to get the ability to move armature bones.
Referencing may be memory-efficient, if you use the same object in the scene. Take a look at this example: The grass on the right uses a bunch of objects that's duplicated across the field, while grass on the left is simpler, but every strand is individual:

This allows to save a lot of memory and decrease the render time.

I would thank you but apparently that's not allowed for lowly newbies like me- go figure.
Thanks.
Also- I would say there would be quite an implied benefit to file size there as well if you think about it.

I do wonder and will get back on this- does this reduced file size make moving around in the end files faster or slower?

I've updated the answer

Thankyou again- that is SUPER useful to know. More good stuff to know- if you're NOT using this for intancing the same model over and over, "is navigation in blender faster when using linking?"- Yes and no: Yes, if you're asking about modeling, material and object modes, no if you're asking about render mode, it's actually a good deal slower. So in the end, it's not all positives as there is a small sacrifice in speed when using render mode and it's a little bit- buggy- as it shoots me out of blender for a few seconds when using render mode.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
How can I save Rendered display render preview image from shading viewport?
I want to save a rendered preview image with all the materials, lighting, etc. that is being continuosly rendered in the Rendered display render preview in shading viewport. Is this even possible? If I press Viewport render image I get a black image.
In other render engines this is very simple, just save whatever is being rendered in the virtual frame buffer as is.
Do I really have to re-render the image out every time I want to save it?

"If I press Viewport render image I get a black image", it should not be the case, maybe a bug? Maybe share your file?

Viewport render image only renders Show overlays. If I disable them the image is black.  https://ibb.co/qC4C45z

could you please share your file? make it as simple as possible

@moonboots It is not a bug, Viewport Render Image has always only worked with Workbench and EEVEE render engines, so only with Wireframe, Solid and Material Preview. If you want a Rendered view, you have to either use EEVEE or do a normal render if you want Cycles. Of course this is unfortunate if someone wants a rendered Cycles image with overlays...

@Gordon Brinkmann oh ok I didn't know that, I guess you can answer then

The Viewport Render (no matter if Image or Animation) only works with the Workbench and EEVEE render engines. So if you want to get a rendered viewport image, you cannot use Cycles.
However, if you have no shortcut assigned to the Viewport Render Image option, I personally think simply pressing F12 to get a proper render is quicker for me than going into the menu for a Viewport Render.
And if your render settings have too high samples so that it takes longer to render normally and you want to make a Viewport Render more often - why don't you lower the samples to the same amount as the viewport samples? And you can disable the Compositor if you used it before for rendering, if that's what's bothering you.

Thanks. I'm disappointed. This is such a basic feature in other software. Having to re-render what is already rendered + denoised is really a waste of time.

@mts10 I don't know how long your renders take, but the viewport always renders new each time you change the viewing angle or do anything else, so I'm completely fine with waiting for another render after pressing F12 since I do not have to wait for the viewport to complete rendering if I want to start a proper render. If rendering in the viewport takes such a long time that it's unbearable to wait again for a real render, this would be definitely too long for my taste to work that way in the viewport. But anyway... I can only tell you how it is, I cannot do anything about it. Or use EEVEE

I'm not changing anything. It is already rendered and denoised. I should be able to save it as is and send it to a client, or save it for myself. Shouldn't have to render again. Very basic stuff in other renderers.

As I already tried to explain, "should" will not help you here. And complaining about it several times here will not change anything either, since we are only users, no developers or in any other way affiliated with the Blender Foundation. You can try to request this feature there, but I have never really encountered anybody asking for this.

Thanks for the help. I agree.

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


text:
I need help with making a katana base
I need help with making a katana base please.
I would like to sculpt the diamond shape into the katana base but I don't know how.

Is it possible?

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/21167/twist-rope-around-an-object https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/19086/how-to-create-a-tape-wrapped-around-an-handle https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/121968/small-detail-problem

thank you. However that is hard to follow.

Which part? If you are having difficulties following one of the answers, you can edit your post and rephrase it to show us what you have gotten so far, and where exactly you are stuck so we can help. Editing it will automatically queue it for review to get it reopened.


text:
How to add multiple selected assets to scene?
I'm wondering, is it possible to batch add selected assets into scene somehow? Currently only the active asset appears in scene during drag'n'drop.

It can't be done from the asset manager at the moment, for mass linking/appending, use File > Append or File > Link


text:
How can I extrude faces in a desired angle that I need?
I want to make a simple but exact model of my room. And it turned out to not have any 90° corners in it.
That's why I want to find out how can I make my "corners" in any degrees I need.
For example how to make two walls that have 93° angle between them?
As you can tell I am pretty new to blender, all I did so far was low-poly figures but they don't need any exact angles so it's different.

Edit: As suggested by Gordon, select your face, select a vertex at the corner in order to make it active, switch the Transform Pivot Point to Active Element, and rotate the face 3° on Z:

I usually use Active Element as Transform Pivot Point for things like that, this way I don't have to bother with changing the 3D cursor for each new corner I want to rotate.

Oh yes you're right, it's smarter

You can rotate any object (for example, a Cube or an Empty) to the desired orientation.

Then you save the orientation of the object:

You can now use saved orientation while transforming mesh or extruding(just hit X, Y or Z while transforming or use Gizmo). And don't forget to change it back to Global or Local after you finished.

However, I'd prefer to decompose these walls into separate objects (planes or scaled cubes) rotated at the desired angle. It’s better to keep mesh orientation aligned with object orientation, as this allows for the use of symmetry modifiers, movement along local axes, etc. Additionally, accessing local transformations is much faster than setting up custom ones.

Not sure the 3D cursor part is necessary? I did the steps without it.

Thanks! Correct! It turns out you don’t have to snap 3D Cursor to the object, so you can skip the step.


text:
Constrain Transform to Face
Is there a way to constrain transforms to faces?
I am trying to move the selected vert in the image to the right a little (I am aware this can be accomplished with the knife tool, but I'd prefer to simply be able to directly nudge the vert).

Select one of the faces that the vertex is on and click the + button on the TransformOrientation dropdown. That will add a new Face orientation as shown below.

You can then select your vertex and use G + Shift-Z to move the vertex around on the face.


text:
Scale UVs to have identical size in Y or X coordinate
How can I scale different UV islands so that they all have the same size in Y, for example, respecting the original proportions. Even if the texel density is different in all of the UV islands.

I don't believe there is a native way to do this without manually scaling them all to fit. I have 3 different UV manipulation addons and none of them have this exact feature built in, It could be possible to write a script for this but I'm pretty sure it would be fairly involved, not a quick twenty-liner or nothing.


text:
Blender Python Script: Geometry Nodes Modifier Parameters Not Applied in Exported GLTF Model
I want to modify the 3 input params of my GeometryNodes modifier of my blender object via a python cmd line script, but the exported model looks like the original one, so the input paramater changes dont get applied to the modifier and I dont know whats the issue in the code.
import bpy
import sys
import argparse

# Get the args after "--"
argv = sys.argv
argv = argv[argv.index("--") + 1:] if "--" in argv else []

def setup_geometry_nodes(params):
    # Access the Geometry Nodes modifier
    geo_modifier = bpy.data.objects["Plane"].modifiers["GeometryNodes"]

    # Update Height
    height_id = geo_modifier.node_group.interface.items_tree["Height"].identifier
    print(f"Setting height id={height_id} to {params['Height']}")
    geo_modifier[height_id] = params['Height']

    # Update Size X
    size_x_id = geo_modifier.node_group.interface.items_tree["Size X"].identifier
    print(f"Setting size_x id={size_x_id} to {params['Size X']}")
    geo_modifier[size_x_id] = params['Size X']

    # Update Size Y
    size_y_id = geo_modifier.node_group.interface.items_tree["Size Y"].identifier
    print(f"Setting size_y id={size_y_id} to {params['Size Y']}")
    geo_modifier[size_y_id] = params['Size Y']

    # Verify changes
    print(f'Height value now = {geo_modifier[height_id]}')
    print(f'Size X value now = {geo_modifier[size_x_id]}')
    print(f'Size Y value now = {geo_modifier[size_y_id]}')

    # Force update the scene and dependency graph
    bpy.context.view_layer.update()
    bpy.context.evaluated_depsgraph_get()

def apply_and_export_model(params):
    # Ensure object is in object mode
    bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='OBJECT')

    # Update Geometry Nodes parameters
    setup_geometry_nodes({
        'Size X': params['size_x'],
        'Size Y': params['size_y'],
        'Height': params['height'],
    })

    # Select the object and apply the modifier
    obj = bpy.data.objects["Plane"]
    bpy.context.view_layer.objects.active = obj
    obj.select_set(True)

    # Apply the Geometry Nodes modifier
    bpy.ops.object.modifier_apply(modifier="GeometryNodes")

    # Force update the scene and dependency graph after applying the modifier
    bpy.context.view_layer.update()
    bpy.context.evaluated_depsgraph_get()

    # Export as GLTF
    bpy.ops.export_scene.gltf(
        filepath=params['output_path'],
        export_format='GLB',
        use_selection=True,
        export_apply=True
    )

if __name__ == "__main__":
    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
    parser.add_argument('--size_x', type=float, default=1.0)
    parser.add_argument('--size_y', type=float, default=1.0)
    parser.add_argument('--height', type=float, default=1.0)
    parser.add_argument('--output_path', type=str, default="//output.glb")

    args = parser.parse_args(argv)  # Parse only the args after "--"

    export_params = {
        'size_x': args.size_x,
        'size_y': args.size_y,
        'height': args.height,
        'output_path': args.output_path
    }

    apply_and_export_model(export_params)

I execute the script like this:
blender -b "Diffuser Model V2.blend" --python render_model.py -- --size_x 1.5 --size_y 1.5 --height 0.7 --output_path output.glb

Output:
Blender 4.2.3 LTS (hash 0e22e4fcea03 built 2024-10-14 23:47:09)
Read blend: "Diffuser Model V2.blend"
Setting height id=Socket_7 to 0.7
Setting size_x id=Socket_4 to 1.5
Setting size_y id=Socket_5 to 1.5
Height value now = 0.699999988079071
Size X value now = 1.5
Size Y value now = 1.5
INFO Draco mesh compression is available, use library at /Applications/Blender.app/Contents/Resources/4.2/python/lib/python3.11/site-packages/libextern_draco.dylib
23:31:29 | INFO: Starting glTF 2.0 export
23:31:29 | INFO: Extracting primitive: Plane
23:31:29 | INFO: Primitives created: 1
23:31:29 | INFO: Finished glTF 2.0 export in 0.002081155776977539 s

Blender quit


text:
Texture nodes not being applied on stair
I'm trying to make a model of a village house but I'm stuck in wanting to put an PBR material into some stairs.
I get this weird orientation of the PBR on some faces of the stairs. Is their any way I can adjust the orientation and scale of a PBR only on the selected faces?

Try selecting your stair model, going to UV editing mode, hitting "u" to unwrap, and selecting "Project from view"

Yes as Bentley says you need to unwrap your stairs, not sure about the Project from View though, try Smart UV Project for example

Thank you for suggesting UV Map, it worked. It didn't occur to me to use UV Map, maybe I was thinking that with Nodes they will work the same way.


text:
How can I disable modifiers applyment when clicking on an object?
Thank you for trying to help :)
I don't know why but everytime I click on an object it applies "Cast" modifier to the object.
Actually, this might help solve the problem:
I'm a beginner,
I was following a tutorial for a soccer ball.
To make a shape of a ball, The tutor said to apply as many "Cast" modifiers us I can.
It actually worked, but now I'm kinda stuck.
Every click on an object in my project apply "Cast" modifier on it. It also does that in my other projects.
Thank you, I appreciate your help

Have you tried reverting back to Blender's default factory settings?

To make a shape of a ball, The tutor said to apply as many "Cast" modifiers us I can. that sounds like an uneducated advice, as one cast modifier with a factor of 1 does the job amd adding more of them will do absolutely nothing. Now have you used some sort of script/addon or changed your keymap when following this tutorial? Because applying a modifier when clicking an object is not a normal behavior.

@L0Lock My thoughts exactly. But Shahar, however bad advice this tutorial gives, I can't believe it told you to change the keymap... so it's not clearly traceable what you did there.

Thank you very much everyone!!! I reversed the blender settings to default  indeed. Something in this tutorial was not right THANK YOU VERY MUCH


text:
Blender scale settings issue
I am new to blender and have been trying to setup blender 3.2 to use mm instead of meters as it default scale for me to create some custom parts and stop motion puppet parts and heads . I have looked at several online tutorials and followed them but each time I reopen blender the default settings are returned to meters any help here would be greatly appreciated.

DId you try to save the blender preferences after you changfe it? Go to edit- preferences and in the botton you'll find save preferenes.

Open Blender with the default settings, then set up your Scene Properties (units, etc.) plus enabling addons, Render Engine, etc. Then go to File > Defaults > Save Startup File. The next time you start Blender all your settings should already be set.


text:
Why won't my animation render in mp4 format?
I'm new and need help. I'm trying to save a video as an mp4 file and understand that I need to render it to do so. However, when I try to render it as an mp4 file, I'm met with a black and gray checkerboard rather than my animation. I have tried rendering it as other file types and it works. But I need the file to be in mp4. Is there anything that can be done?

maybe share more specifics of your output settings or attach your blend file

The checkerboard represents completely transparent imagery. Why that is showing up here could be a dozen things, including normal functionality in some cases with compositing. Please include more detail.

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


text:
Camera still moving after locking
Good day
My camera is locked in Location/Rotation and Scale but I can still change Location/Rotation and Scale when I am scrolling on it. It seems it is not possible to lock its position.
The thing is, when I am out of camera view it is locked and it cant be moved. When I press "0" to go into camera view i can manipulate it. Was this always like this or is this a new thing?

it is locked for me, in or out of camera view, in the latest Blender version

Can you move, rotate or scale it in camera view with pressing G, R, S, or just by entering values or moving sliders in the Transformation fields? The latter is intentional, I guess and it was the same in  older versions as well.

https://youtu.be/an2j2mlZlls
I put the issue on youtube. I don't really thing it is a problem but still think of it as a weird behaviour. If something is locked, shouldn't it be locked?
As you can see, I am able to R,S,G in camera view. I am (a habit) sliding. Entering a number also moves it. It is also like this in 3.2.1
thank you anyway


text:
setting keyframs doesn't work
good day
(using v3.4.1)
When I try to set a key frame with "I" and choose "insert keyframes" - "only selected channels" or "all channels" it want set a keyframe....
Weird thing is, this only happens in between the frames. When I am at the end and wanna do this it works.
I made a YT video, I hope it makes sense.
https://youtu.be/mb5yscGgleI
Thank you very much
Martin

Check your animation preferences, probably you have activated "Only insert needed" function, so when you try to add a keyframe on an horizontal curve it detects that it isn't useful and rejects the input.
You can either disable this preference or (as I usually do) select a keyframe and use Shift D (duplicate) to create a new keframe, which it's possible to move and edit as needed.

thank you very much!!!!! This is it! I did as a workaround use shit + d as you said.
Now I know more.


text:
I have hidden vertices and I don't know what to do
I'm new to Blender. I followed some tutorials from YouTube and now I try to copy a random character from Artstation to test my newbie skills.
I've made a low poly head and now I try to smooth it with the smooth tool. When I do that, my head splits. I think there are some hidden vertices that wont show up in vertex select. I don't know what to do now, if I should delete them, connect them or make the head again.
Before using the smooth tool and after using it.

Select two vertices, that should be a single vertex, Press M (merge) and choose "at center" to merge the two vertices at the center of their positions. Repeat this for alle other disconnected vertices.

thank you so much!!!!!!1

or press Alt+H to unhide hidden vertices, then select all vertices and press M for Merge By Distance. This removes vertices that are very close, so-called duplicated vertices


text:
Quad Topology for Ribbed Sphere
How I can fix the topology of the ends of the ridges over the surface of the sphere so that no creases form when using Subdivision modifier?

Without subdivision

With subdivision

Hello and welcome. Please use a title that matches the content of the post. It should read like a question, be descriptive but succinct, unique and identifying, summarizing the problem so that anyone searching for similar issues is likely to find this. Remove anything superfluous, avoid using words like "this", "help with", "issue" or "question about", instead describe what "it" is. Remember, your title is the first thing visitors see, answers you get depend heavily on it. See What is the problem of asking “How do I do this?"

First thing bevel your edge:

Then add the edges with the Knife tool, extrude and so on:


text:
How can I rotate the face normals in this way in geometry nodes?

How can I rotate the face normals in this way in geometry nodes?

Hello and welcome. Please use a title that matches the content of the post. It should read like a question, be descriptive but succinct, unique and identifying, summarizing the problem so that anyone searching for similar issues is likely to find this. Remove anything superfluous, avoid using words like "this", "help with", "issue" or "question about", instead describe what "it" is. Remember, your title is the first thing visitors see, answers you get depend heavily on it. See What is the problem of asking “How do I do this?"


text:
How to create correct mesh for a part that should have round holes
I am making a 3D model of a Pagani Huayra and encountered a problem - I don’t know the method to create the correct mesh for a complex-shaped part that has holes.
In the future, I plan to use the Subdivision Surface and Shade Smooth techniques. Most of the car parts will have reflections, so I need a perfect mesh to ensure the reflections are accurate and realistic.
First, I filled the empty space of the future part using Grid Fill, and then I added three circles using Knife Project. I initially subdivided these circles heavily, as before applying the Subdivision Surface, I used the Edge Crease function (which maintains the sharpness and location of edges when using the Subdivision Surface modifier) to preserve the round shape of the headlights and marked all three circles as sharp around the perimeter to ensure proper Shade Smooth.
Then I applied Subdivision Surface, but due to the polygons created by these circles, the accuracy and smoothness of the reflections were completely ruined.
How would you create the mesh for such a part?
I need to maintain the round shape of the headlights and ensure the reflections remain correct.

It's pretty similar to what you have done but instead of using knife project use a shrinkwrap modifier set to 'project' on the curved surface. The circles need to have the same geometry density as the rest of the body. For something like this maybe 8  vertices would be fine. You want to extrude the circles and scale them down a bit so you are projecting the border as well.
You apply the shrinknwrap and then merge the circles into the body of the car. You then have to delete faces of the curved surface that overlap the cricles and remake the curved surface so the circles are connected with proper geometry (don't follow my pic for that tho)
This recration of the curved surface will be easier if you duplicate the original curved surface before deleting any edges and use it to snap vertices over it, as if you were retopologizing a model.


text:
Fountain grass blade interact with ground
I'm trying to create a procedural tall grass with blades that, when they reach the ground, they lie flat or bounce off it naturally as in real life.  Here's what I have so far. I'm looking for a way to make the transition to the ground more curved and gradual. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

This could be a solution:

Here I first create two different waveforms, which I mix based on the curve factor.
I then mix the resulting curve a second time with the positions of the original curve.
However, here I also apply the Map Range node so that I get a smoother transition between the mixed waveforms and the original curve. This node also controls the transition between the two curves.

Update: Method 2
Here is a second variant:

This uses only one waveform, but notes whether the position is below zero.

(I'll explain this in more detail in due time).

This is very helpful.  I have struggled for hours however to try and find a method to implement this on multiple realized curve instances, only some of which reach below 0 (ground) level as a fountain grass would do. I'm applying blade curl after curve lines are instanced with vector rotate/set position based on offset from center point.  Only the outer blades will reach the ground.  I'm wondering now if a geometry proximity node and a plane might be a better approach?  Something to try.

I don't know why your idea of a grass resembles a path of a bouncing ball:
Youtube: Modeling a Bounce by The Art of Code
But you can reproduce the formula from the video in nodes:

And now you can use it in your setup and further process it - in my case I was just lazy so I played with a color ramp to get something at least moderately looking like a grass (I still don't get it why the grass is supposed to bounce rather than lay flat):


text:
Opposite leaves/instances on spline
I am wondering if anybody has a better way to do this. My solution seems rather complex and convoluted for what I'm trying to accomplish.  The challenge was to generate a branch with double leaves on opposite sides of a curving stem with phyllo-taxis rotation. Much appreciated.

If you convert your curve to points before instancing on them, rather than using the curve's implicit points, then the Curve to Points  node gives you useful information. Including 'Rotation', which includes the tilt of the curve at the points.
So.. if you capture the curve's 0-1 Spline Parameter > Factor, and set the tilt of the curve to be a function of it:

.. the tilt will be picked up by Curve to Points, and can be passed on to set the rotation of instances on the points in an Instance on Points node:

In this tree, the spline parameter is used in other ways, too...

To set the density of distribution of points on the curve, making leaf-pairs closer together at the top
To set the scale of the leaf-pairs
To vary the thickness of the stem along its length

Like this:

This is a version with stricter rotation to tangent, in response to @LGood's commentary:

I like your nodes and the way you explain them!

@quellenform Thank you! It's a puzzle, isn't it? It's a real slog tidying up big node trees to make them BSE-useful. I like the way Kuboå does it..

I am honestly amazed.  Amazed that I got an answer and can learn form it. And less than 24hrs after I asked.  I only hope I could be so useful to others on here some day.

Since I have done very little trigonometry or math in general since college (30 years ago now) it will take me some time to truly understand the multiply-add nodes here.  Regardless strictly speaking about how plant growth works there is an issue with this as it is.  The leaves don't really follow the tangent of the curve equally and thus in some instances they occur on the side of the stem - I'd upload images to describe what I mean but apparently I can't do so in comments.  Curiously the leaf orientation works better if you instance a bezier created manually as the starting curve.

Yes on second thought - as part of the ultimate project I'm working on - the leaves would want to face the sun - or an object influence in Blender.  Basically what I'm trying to do is re-create what I've been doing in GrowFX/3DS to create realistic plant  models.  Your solution above is close to that in that the leaves generally face the same direction.

@LGood Okydoky.. see edit for what I hope is a fix to the problem you're talking about? If not.. call back. Late here, now, so if not a fix, will get to it tomorrow. :)  I think it looks less lively, but I shouldn't let my personal taste get in the way of the math!

Yes - great I see now.  You've got me stumped again however.  I can't seem to instance these leaves on multiple curve instances as I was able to do with my first attempt.  Ex - instance curves on a mesh -> instance leaves on curves. https://imgur.com/a/O2NuaCL

@LGood  Will cjheck it out today

@LGood It's got me stumped too.. the behaviour of Sample Curve is bizarre AFAICS, to the point of being a bug.  It's something I want to solve for myself, so will work on it.

Well - It seems the curve to points turns the entire lot into a single field of points and thus they are treated that way afterward. I've made it work by not using it in this context.  I learned a lot from the other components you created though

@LGood Bit busy atm to get buried in it... If I I can't get there, I'll try to frame a Q of my own ..


text:
Whorled leaf curling with phyllotaxis
I'm trying to curl leaves/branches along a stem in the same direction whilst also having phyllo-taxis rotation.  Rotating the instances or setting curve tilt messes up the curl rotation and I cannot figure out why.

Is that what you want? https://i.sstatic.net/bwR1i.jpg

Yes however with curving/noise in the main stem.  Last night I found your solution to curve tilting here https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/271761/how-to-correct-curve-tilt-tangents-and-normals-of-a-curve  and was able to utilize it in this case.  Though this feels like a hack since I only partially know why this is working.   I'll upload the new file and possibly mark this as my answer

Even if my node group you used in your own answer could help you: It's not a good idea to use it in this case, since this was actually developed for a completely different use case.
I took a closer look at the issue, and you can actually solve this much easier.

You'd just have to structure things a little differently:

The biggest differences are as follows:

Instead of instantiating individual arcs along the curve and using their points to instantiate the branches, I just duplicate the points and use those as the base.

I apply the rotations of the branches directly during instantiation.

The distance to the trunk is obtained by a local offset.
The curling of the branches I also create, very similar to the answer before, with the relative position of the individual points to the anchor point of the branches.

However, the result in this case is: fewer nodes, better performance, but still the same idea.
(Blender 3.4)

I knew you would have a much better way.  You are really filling in the gaps in everyone's knowledge.  Since there is no real consolidated source for geometry nodes training, and the nodes are evolving so rapidly  I'm finding it very hard to learn.  I find the Blender manual is not very helpful to us noobs. I think a comprehensive course on vector math and  vector nodes would be the most helpful.   The Vector Math->Subtract before the Cross Product is what I was missing in my trials.

@LGood I understand exactly what you mean. It's really not very clear in parts. But as motivation, I started learning Geometry Nodes in ~February 2022. My only source was the multitude of interesting questions here on BSE, which I just started answering. ...Since then I could not stop doing it. So there is a quite useful rule: Just keep going, it gets easier and easier!

I think this is the solution..
It seems the issue relates to curve tilting as addressed in this post by quellenform

OK, glad that worked out for you! I have never used this node group in such a use case. Still, it would work much easier in your case, and the answer has already been given once to one of your previous questions (just not quite applied correctly by you so far). But anyway, I'm happy for you that you were able to solve the problem.

Yes the previous question was very helpful but did not work when any amount of curve or noise was applied to the main stem - which is where your Align Curve to Vector node group saved the day.


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Connect animation to model
I have an FBX file with a model and multiple FBX files with only the animation (keyframed bones).
If I play the animation, I only see the bones move but not the bones on the actual model. I was wondering how to apply the keyframes to the model.

Left is the model, right are the moving bones.

See if this helps: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/315384/any-easy-way-to-retarget-an-animation-to-another-rig or search Google for animation retargeting in Blender.

Is retargeting still necessary if the animation is specifically made for this model? All the bone names match on both armatures. I assume there is a method to "apply" it?

I'm not sure since I've never had to do it myself but there should be YT videos showing you how to do it.

if the bones have the same names, it should work, could you please share your file?

If the name and orientation of the bones and the bone hierarchy match, the animations should work fine on both armatures. The animations just need to be linked/applied to the armature of the mesh object. To link an animation to an armature, select it then:

Open the Dope Sheet editor.

Switch to the Action Editor mode.

Use the action drop-down to link the action (animation).


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How to limit rotation with child's orientation?
Object A is facing a curtain direction.
Object C is A's child's child's... child.
So A is the root parent of C.
When i rotate A, C follows A to rotate.
What i want is constrain C's orientation while rotating A.
For instance, keep the angle between C's local Z axis & world's Z axis less than 20 degrees, how can i achieve that?
I tried to limit C's Z location, but it doesn't constrain A's rotation, and their relative position doesn't keep constant any more.

I'm using bones, but with empties or objects it's the same.
In my example socket bone is child of B, which is child of A. C doesn't have any parent.
In rest pose, all bones are pointing up (Z axis).
C has a copy loc, copy rot, copy scale targeting Socket (World space).
Then it has a limit rotation +- 20 degrees on both X and Z axis (Local space).
If the animation has some jumps between certain values, change the order from Default to XZY or ZXY, making sure that the central axis (Z or X) never gets close to 90 degrees, to avoid Gimbal lock.

Your method works with C's rotation limited, but how can i limit A's rotation at the same time? I can't just set A's rotation limit, because A's rest pose is arbitrary(not point up).


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How do i fix this knee?
I wanted to pose this model but as you can see the knees don't work properly even with auto rig pro the knees do the same how can I fix that?

heres the model link : https://mega.nz/file/7DwlmCDS#mwhVEf1yR4nKKAlO9sgcxjvZ4wqLIqJfF7IX3-9l-_Y

Hi. Please don't post essential information like links, file downloads or additional details in the comments section where it can be easily missed. Instead edit them into your original post with the [Edit] button above. Comments are transitory by nature, are hard to index or search for, and may be erased at any moment.

You could redo the parentage With Automatic Weights. Also, unless you have a good reason not to, put Subdivision Surface at the bottom of the modifiers stack.
Put your armature in Rest Pose, only display Layer 30, move the leg bones a bit backwards:

Remove the legs vertices from all vertex groups:

Select the armature, shift select the mesh, swith to Weight Paint mode, select all the legs bones with ShiftAlt and Weights > Assign Automatic from Bones:

thank you ! that didnt completely fix it but its a big improvement


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3D round Sound Waves in Blender
How is it possible to model 3D sound waves in Blender and apply them to a object? Something like in the picture.

Do you mean that the waves are supposed to be synchronized with a sound signal?

I just want it to be static, simply a model without any synchronization


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Inconsistent results in rendering light tree motion blur
Currently I'm working on kinda heavy car animation project (2.2GB)
I'm using motion blur, cycles, light tree, 1024 samples, denoise. (Rest default).
On some frames (65/300, 21.(6)% ) there are issues with light. Some objects behave like they don't receive light from certain lights.
When I turn off light tree, there are no issues with that, but the lighting is little bit different. Same with motion blur.
I don't want to turn off motion blur.
Is there a way to render animation using light tree so I don't have bugs?
I can't render those frames without this bug.

Without light tree (slightly different lighting, couses blinking)

With light tree with bug

With light tree without bug next frame
Please help


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Remap a mess from a 2D Mesh to 3D mesh
I have 2D mesh (source) and 3D mesh (target), they both have same UV layout and topology. I have another mesh (called A) laid on the 2D Mesh. see the pic below
What I want to do is to transfer Mesh A from 2D mesh to 3D mesh. Anybody has ideas how to do it manually in blender? or any other ideas?

Thank you so much

hi @moonboots, what i mean by transfer is to create a copied Torus on the 3D mesh. Please advise if you have the ideas


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Object turns inside out when applying transform
for a school project i have to model from reference and eventually put in into unreal engine.
When i thought i was finally done i hit apply transform, and some of my objects turned inside out? i checked if i have any flipped normals, and that doesnt seem to be the case. i would like to know why this is happening and how to prevent it.
thank you for your time.

hello, maybe your objects have modifiers and apply rotation has unexpected results? In that case, apply the modifiers?

Is this really "inside out" or is it "mirrored"? I guess you have negative scale + modifiers

It's because your object had negative scale. An object can look fine with unapplied negative scale but when you tell Blender "Ok applying transforms, this is what I want the default to be" it has to apply that -1 value to the the entire mesh, which multiplies your normal vectors by -1, flipping them.

Just select all in edit mode and press Shift+N to recalc the normals. If you want to avoid it then try not to do too much mesh scaling in Object mode, either scale in Edit mode or use a mirror modifier which handles this math under the hood.


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how to perform an inplane (tilt) rotation of the camera?
Is (how) it possible to perform an inplane (tilt) rotation of the camera for rendering?
With the "Rotation" Tab in the Transform section, I wasn´t able to get it work correctly. Can somebody help?

Ok I figured it out :) If somebody has a similar problem: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/5210/pointing-the-camera-in-a-particular-direction-programmatically/5220


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Poliigon Question: What is the node setup required to overlay a Grunge Drips Overlay onto a Marble Material
The question is in the title, I'll link images of the materials in question. Let me know if I should link the marble materials default node tree.

-1 Questions should show some research or effort, please read [ask]

In my opinion the easiest way to do it is to give your dirt picture a transparent background (and save it as PNG) so that you'll be able to use the alpha channel in the factor socket of a Mix Shader.


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Is there a cloud rendering service for baking in Cycles?
Id like to cloud bake multiple 8K textures.
Is there an add on that allows me to do this on a render farm?

Maybe this might be something for you:
https://render.st/blender-render-farm/
There is also a plugin for Blender:
https://render.st/faq/
You can try it for (free) one day and 1$ and it supports baking of physics and bake caches.

It sems that's not what they offer:
"RenderStreet fully supports uploading your own bake caches to use for rendering your project."


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OBJ not showing up in blender
I have imported an OBJ file into Blender and it just won't display.
I can see the UV'sin UV editing
And I can see how many has faces, verts and edges it has in Modeling
I have tried moving it, scaling it, switching view ports..... Just can't see the model itself anywhere. Any ideas?

UPDATE: selected all mesh objects, pressed "." on my numpad and it zoomed onto it. However, the 3D cursor is not there and honestly I have no idea where the 3D model is locate on the grid. When I try to move or rotate using shortcuts it works (however scaling doesn't) and if I use the the move, scale, rotate options instead of using the shortcuts, It does not display the axis arrows to do so.

Also can't view in Sculpt mode or Texture paint mode even if I press "." on my numpad


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Nodes wont show up in 3D viewport
I am trying to toon shade my model however nothing is showing up in the 3D view port. I have done everything the videos have told me to do to start a material with shading, and it can be seen on the shading tab, however you should be able to see the shading in the 3D veiwport as well which i dont have. I also cant find the cycles option either.
How can i get the nodes to show up in the 3D viewport?

You're not actually in rendered mode; you're still in solid mode. Press Z and a pie menu will show up. Click on rendered to show all your materials.

Thanks so much! it worked!


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Same image sequence one offset but not the other

plane A assigned material A that has an image sequence.
plane B assigned material B with the same image sequence.

When i change the frames offset of the image sequence in material B both are changed
How to offset only one without effecting the other?

Make sure that materials is different. If it is not true, you will see a number near material name:

In this case press on digit to make independent copy
Next step - image node. Click on digit here:

Also mesh data can be linked:

So do you understand the rule? Remove all digits to make independent copy of material, image, mesh data.

Thanks that did work


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Cycle though multiple MixRGBs with one value
A group of multiple ColorRamps mixed as follow:

I want to achieve the following:

By change the value to 1 i switch to the second colorRamp
value of 2 switch to the third colorRamp
value of 0 is the first colorRamp

Note: i know that i could just link the first and second MixRGB to the input and control them individually, but i would like to control both of them with one controller if possible.

I answered your question but I realized that your color ramp don't do anything since their factor is alway 0.5. their output value will always be the color in the middle of the ramp

Right, i was only trying to demonstrate the problem, now i have it where i want to like so: https://drive.google.com/open?id=17DfM-dHE91f6NnDYmQWh6QE-ASShKAyH

Check 'Clamp' on the first one and add a 'Map Range' node between the value and the 'Fac' of the second one. Check clamp on it and set its parameters: 'From Min' to 1, 'From Max' to 2,  'To Min' to 0, 'To Max' to 1.

Worked great thanks!

Neat solution. Hope you don't mind the edits.. so many 'from's and 'to's flying around... reverse if you don't like them.


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Use Python to change timeline end to last keyframe
I am building a tool to convert FBX files into sequence OBJ files in batches. But I need to be able to change the end of the timeline to the last frame of the selected meshes animation. It's the last part I need to finish this script up. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Do you know about python API ?
Look for that and you'll find the code related to bpy.
I remember now that I couldn't find the docs, what you can do is play around with python console autocomplete to figure out where that is at, probably in bpy.ops., whire are operator, but also maybe in bpy.data.scene somewhere in the timeline's settings where a variable can be set.

This should be enough for simple use. If you use keyframes for example in materials, you will need to add more for loops. At bottom of this page is the list, where you can find animation_data property.
import bpy
import math

last = 1

def find_last_keyframe(what):
    last = 0
    if what.animation_data is not None and what.animation_data.action is not None:
    for fcurve in what.animation_data.action.fcurves:
        for keyframe in fcurve.keyframe_points:
            last = max(last, keyframe.co[0])
    return last

last = max(last, find_last_keyframe(bpy.context.scene))
# if you want to get all objects in scene, use
# for obj in bpy.context.scene.objects:
for obj in bpy.context.selected_objects:
    last = max(last, find_last_keyframe(obj))

# use math.ceil instead of math.floor if you want to round the number up
bpy.context.scene.frame_end = math.floor(last)

update: ok, here is much simpler and cleaner solution:
import bpy
scene = bpy.context.scene
old_current_frame = scene.frame_current

while bpy.ops.screen.keyframe_jump(next=True) != {'CANCELLED'}:
    pass

scene.frame_end = scene.frame_current
scene.frame_current = old_current_frame

Thanks for the help, I must be messing something up cus it just keeps moving the end of the timeline to whatever I have last = to.  IE frame 1 in the example above or whatever I change the number too.

edit that code works if the funky animation coming in from the fbx files

You don't need the innermost loop.  Keyframe_points is sorted on x, so last = max(last, keyframe_points[-1].co[0]) is sufficient.  Also, last should start at -1 in case the animation starts at 0.  (Well, a very large negative number.)

Also note that if FBX supports multiple actions on a mesh, then you're going to need to walk what.animation_data.nla_tracks to find the longest NLA strip.

Actually, keyframes are not always in order, that's why I used for cycle instead of [-1]. For example bpy.context.scene.animation_data.action.fcurves[0].keyframe_points.add(1). You can call fcurve.update() to make sure its keyframe_points are in correct order.


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Create a vertex between two other (selected) vertices - a set distance from either of the selected vertices
I cannot find the add-on for this feature. I cannot find an inbuilt function for this feature. Am I going to have to build this add-on myself?
There is an add-on which works on a percentage basis but I don't like this.

storme  ... No matter how misguided you might think they are, and no matter how justified your opinion, please don't be rude to folks who are trying to help you, for nothing. Please find a polite and kind way to correct them.

@storme You mention an add-on for percentage that you don't like, so I just informed you, for percentage you wouldn't need an add-on. And guess what, the vertex I moved in my example had to be created beforehand by subdividing an edge. But don't worry, I won't bother you anymore with any comment or answer in the future, no matter how helpful it might be.

Follow the link to download my add-on that does what I ask. https://github.com/Storme9/vertex_insert


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Automatic weights are not symmetrical when applied to my mesh
I've been trying to parent a rig I made to a mesh, and for whatever reason, the vertex groups are asymmetrical. Both the armature and the mesh are perfectly symmetrical, so I don't understand why the automatic weight painting isn't. The bone on one side conforms perfectly to the arm it's assigned to, while it's exact copy on the other isn't painted the same.

According to this post, the problem can be solved by enabling the X mirror in the "Make Parent" submenu. However, when I do this, it makes the weight painting on both sides of the model broken, instead of fixing it.

So, how do I solve this? Am I just going to have to manual fix the weight painting for each bone?

Okay, I know it's literally 10 minutes later, but I fixed my own problem. I tried to use the mirror modifier like in the post I mentioned, and it seemed like it didn't work. Turns out I screwed up the mirroring somehow. Using the mirror modifier totally works.


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Blender Geometry Nodes - How do I maintain Alpha from Instanced Mesh while Applying Source Material?
I'm currently trying to achieve an effect that's similar to paint strokes on a source mesh.  Basically I'd instance a basic plane across some geometry, and then have the plane (with an image of a brushstroke as an alpha) take on the color of the source object to appear like brushstrokes.  If I had to think of an example, this would probably be a good one.
https://twitter.com/lettier/status/1546182746615283713?s=20&t=H-_AVfgKcGVbiURObMRbNw
I've gotten to the point where my instances take on the material and UV's of the source sphere however this reveals them as basic rectangular planes, and because the UV's do not match the original instanced plane I cannot use that alpha anymore.  Is there a way for me to take the Instanced Plane's UV map before realizing this geoNode setup, and output it into the Source Sphere's Texture map as an Alpha?  I would like to try and preserve the Plane's brushy alpha map but the color of the Sphere is the question.
Below is the current result without an Alpha map, but with the sphere's texture applied.

And here is the result with the Instanced Plane's Material and Alpha Map

Here is my current Shader for the Sphere's Material for reference, and also the Geometry Node Setup for the Sphere.

I'll also attach the blender file that I'm using at the moment in case it's needed!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jcoZ4T6eYxq8NfuQ2Bp6-cDFrQWCMq5n/view?usp=sharing

As long as you use Blender 3.2, you would basically only need to explicitly use the existing UV map of the planes in the shader:

The UV map of the sphere is used here for the color of the individual plnaes, and the UV map of the planes is used for the transparency.
By the way, you already get the normals from the node Distribute Points on Faces, so you don't need to get them additionally via Transfer Attributes.
(Blender 3.2)


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When I open my grease pencil file the text has all moved to a single point
When I open my grease pencil file the text has all moved to a single point. I relocate the text, save, and reopen the file, the text is back to the single point. I am using v4.2. It does not do this on other files created with v4.2. Also, I often find that I am on a different frame on many objects (text, lines, ect). I do not know how this happens. It is not intentional.


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Installing file sizes, options concerning destination for components
I am planning to install Blender for the first time on a Windows 10 computer and was wondering if the main program can be installed on a SSD for access speed and other components installed on a HD?
In Custom Setup, if I click on the first "Blender" on the top right, the text says, "This feature requires 0K on your hard drive. It has 2 of 2 subfeatures selected. The subfeatures require 997MB on your hard drive." If I click on the second "Blender" the text says, "This feature requires 84MB on your hard drive." If I click on libraries, the text says, "This feature requires 3120KB on your hard drive." The required individual subfeataures do not add up to 997 MB.
So, my questions are 1. What is the total drive space required for Blender on a Windows computer? 2. Are the values mentioned above correct? Could you explain?
Thanks

I downloaded the portable version for Windows and unpacked it from the .zip file it comes in and current 4.3.0 version takes 992 MB (1,041,035,264 bytes) on my SSD with NTFS file system.
The same Windows version downloaded and installed to the same SSD drive with NTFS file system takes up 999 MB (1,047,879,680 bytes) in the Program Files folder and then additional 176 KB (180,224 bytes) in the %AppData%\Blender Foundation\Blender\4.3 folder where user preferences are stored. That is after fresh install.
My actual personal setup takes approximately 700MB more for add-ons and other user preferences. That will depend on what you install additionally.
If you are starting with Blender I would recommend installing everything to default locations. You could change the location of your temporary files to use a drive with more storage, because that's where autosaves will get stored:

As you can see paths for asset libraries are also configurable. It's also possible to configure Blender to use another folder for user preferences. See this answer for more details on that

So it appears that the drive space info is incorrect. Is that right?


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Boolean Modifier Not Working
I have this quite complex 3d model (I didn't make it: https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/art/dragon-jeje817) and I am trying to split it down the middle with the Boolean modifier and I have tried to bisect it but that makes it hollow and I can't have it be hollow. When I use the modifier and offset the cube to cut a third off it works fine but when I put it in the middle it doesn't work:
I was wondering if anyone knew how to make it work.

hello, if t is copyright free could you please share the object?

It isn't but you can click the link and download it.

Downloading the original model will not show us how you have set up your scene objects and the Boolean modifier to achieve your goal.

@MarkBlasi Note that your meshes have to be manifold for the boolean operations to work as expected. Without it, no guarantee it will work. https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/7910/what-is-non-manifold-geometry

As a general rule I agree with the comments that giving us your .blend is going to lead to better problem solving.
Still, I was able to replicate your error by downloading the .STL.  It would not boolean.
For whatever reason, applying CTRL + A 'all transforms' to the imported .STL model worked for me. Also Boolean 'fast' seemed to yield better results than 'exact'.
Still, even though a face was successfully created by the boolean it is not smooth.   It may require a little retopology as the comments suggest because there are interior faces.  You should probably ask another question about this if it is unclear.


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Wind force field not causing rigid body to rotate
I created a "Wind" force field, which I restricted with a tube-shaped falloff and set a maximum radius.
I'm making it blow on the side of a rigid body, expecting it to rotate.
But instead, it moves perfectly straight, even when I increase the ground friction.
Did I misconfigure something?
Thanks

I think you need to change the shape from plane to something else

I may be wrong but I don't think that it is possible, you need to cheat

I found this solution:
We can break the object into several parts and apply a 'Fixed' rigid body constraint.
This works well for simple objects, but I imagine it could quickly become cumbersome to apply constraints to all the parts of a more complex object.

nice trick!...................

I don't think that it's possible in Blender to push the side of an object with a force field, you neet to cheat, for example push the object with another rigid body or simply keyframe its movement.


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How to Properly Merge a Model Composed of Multiple Objects into a Single Object
I am new to blender. I downloaded a model from GitHub and want to rig a humanoid skeleton to use Mixamo animations.

To achieve this, I first need to combine the objects into a single piece. When I tried using Ctrl + J, I encountered the error: 'Bone Heat Weighting: failed to find a solution for one or more bones.' I searched online and attempted the 'merge by distance' method, which reduced over 20,000 vertices but ended up ruining the model.
My question is: how can I properly merge these objects into one while avoiding such issues, so I can successfully rig the bones?
Thanks!

I mean that after using Ctrl + J to merge the model and then parenting the rig to the merged model, I encounter the error: 'Bone Heat Weighting"

I don't know what error that is, but are you planning to move it like a robot? That is, no deformation of the solid parts? If so, then you want to parent the objects to the bone that is going to control them, not use automatic weights. Merging them all into 1 object is not necessary for this
Go into pose mode in the armature and select one of the objects in the hierarchy on the right, then select the bone that would control it and press ctrl+p -> Bone

@Demo There are many many entries here if you type "bone heat weighting" into the search. Have you at least tried to find out if there is something that helps? Like this question https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/15964/ or this one https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/326493/


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What 2.8 BETA version still had all the tool LABELS on screen, and where can I get it?
My 2.8 final release for Win7 64-bit ( with EEVEE compatible Quadro graphics )
only shows Tool labels when mouse-hovering over each tiny icon at a time.  I want to learn on a version that still has the WORD labels ( like all the previous versions ).  I still use 2.79 with a bunch of purchased addons.

Can you clarify what you mean by "word labels"? Do you mean the Python tooltips?

rjg asked >>>Can you clarify what you mean by "word labels"? Do you mean the Python tooltips? <<<    .  .  .  Preferences has the checkbox option to 'Show Tooltips'.  For every version in the past 5 years, AND several (at least) months of 2.8 beta releases, the word label of the Tool was on the screen.  My 2.8 ONLY shows teenie tiny cryptic ICONS until I mouse-hover and WAIT over each one ( and that is only because I checked 'Show Tooltips' in Preferences ).  I want WORD LABELS ( like ALL previous versions ).

You HAVE NOT answered my question.  For many years, the Blender site had a Directory with previous versions.  This is hidden now.  You can go through the past year of BlenderArtist and see MANY screenshots of pre-release 2.8 showing the labels.  I want the most recent Beta that STILL HAD them before they were REMOVED.

You can expand the toolbar, as mentioned in the manual: "Expand the Toolbar to show icons on two columns instead of one or even more to show icons with titles."

@Sanne you're right, my bad. I totally missed that. Can you add that as an answer?

The definition of the labels happens in the space_toolsystem_toolbar.py where the class _defs_view3d_generic contains the functions for each tool that return a dictionary with its properties, like for instance the label. The ToolSelectPanelHelper in space_toolsystem_common.py is responsible for the actual layout, including the single and multi-column layout and drawing the labels. The label is displayed if the width scale exceeds 120.0 and show_text is set to true. draw_cls will then display the label next to the icon.

BTW the older releases of Blender are still available just like before (it does not include alphas and betas though): https://download.blender.org/release/

Thanks much, Sanne and rjg.

You can expand the toolbar, as mentioned in the manual: "Expand the Toolbar to show icons on two columns instead of one or even more to show icons with titles."


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animating weapon along with armature from character
I am animating an attack animation. I have a character (mesh) and an armature for it. The weapon is in a different mesh with it's own bone.
I click on the armature and go into pose mode to make the animations in the dope sheet. However, I cannot animate the weapon so it follows my character's arms correctly.
The way I have it now is that the bone for the weapon is parented to the armature of the character. So if I move the hand it moves the weapon, which is fine. But when I want to move only the weapon for one frame, the weapon's position and rotation changes on every other animation and frame, ruining them.
I want to be able to swap which hand carries the weapon from time to time.
How can I do this?
Thanks in advance.

Insted of parenting the weapon to the hand armature I would use object constrains. You constrain the Weapon to the Armature, than Blender will let you select which bone to constrain to. The nice thing about constrains is that you can keyframe their influance, so you can have the wepon copy the rotation of the hand for 30 frames but the moment you want to give it a specific rotation you can just key frame the influance at 0 and rotate it as you wish, same goes for position.
In order to have the weapon passed from one arm to another you can have 2 sets of location&rotation constrains in it, one for each hand. Than as you pass it from one hand to another you keyframe the influance from one constrain to the other.
Here is a quick demo I made:https://youtu.be/Tncqr_CbkdA
Obviously you'd want to put more time into it to make the transition sooth etc.
Personally I'd not use the rotation constrains and just set the rotation of the wepon by hand but I've set it up his way since this is how it works with parenting.

To be more specific, you can use the child of constraint.  it copies rotation and location, and makes it easy. :)

That's a smart way of doing it, I'm still a noob my self so I missed that. Using child of you only have 2 constrains and keyframe the affected axis tickcboxes. I learned something new my self :D

That's one of the cool things of blender, i think.  There's always something new to learn! :)


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Orange texture in blender?
How can i recreate this orange procedural texture in blender?

This is a photo, it's not procedural, with procedural you can easily reproduce bumps of exterior, but this sliced fruit is a photo, you can also see its copyright watermark if you zoom in.

I don't think it's possible to make this texture in blender except through texture painting.

perhaps there's a way to do it but do you have a reason to prefer procedural rather than with an image texture?


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how to make straight edges smoother
Im creating low poly game assets, but i have a problem with my models. I want to make the edges of my object look smoother like the one in the photo below, before and after (this is not mine, its from a tutorial on art station)

anyway... if i want to make the edges smoother i have to add subdivide and then subdivision modifier etc, but that adds a lot of vertices, which is not really useful when working on low poly as you may know. the other way to smooth out the edges is to use the sculpting tools, but that also adds extra vertices to my mesh.
I want to achieve smooth edges without having to add anything extra, or at least minimum as possible.  any ideas??

Have you tried beveling the edges?

Good call, it might work. How can i do it?

Either by adding a bevel modifier or editing the mesh using the bevel tool.

thanks bro it reallyhelps

you can bevel, then create a normal map from the beveled version that you'll use on the low-poly, this way you have zero additional vertex

So I only make a normal map and it will be ok ?

yes, it needs a bit of explanation though, I'll try

please do, thankyou. i know some things about normal maps but only for texturing

I see at least 2 methods. The one you'll choose will depend on the amount of vertices you want and the time you want to spend on each object.
First method, bevels (faster but more vertices): You can select your object, go in Edit mode, select the angles you want, CtrlB to bevel, and set the bevel values in the operator panel. If the amount of Segments is low you can keep a rather low-poly version.
Second method, bevels + normal map (longer but no additional vertices): You can duplicate your object, bevel the copy, create a normal map from the beveled version, and use the normal map on the low-poly. This way you have zero additional vertex:

Create your low-poly version.

Duplicate it. Select the copy and in Edit mode, bevel the angles you want. Also, pump it up slightly with AltS (Shrink Fatten tool), keep pressing Shift if you want to be more precise. Give your object a Subdivision Surface modifier.

Bake the high-poly normals. To do so, first unwrap the low-poly (Smart UV Project mode), create a new black image in the UV Editor (32 Bit Float option activated I guess), give your low-poly a material with Image Texture > Normal Map > Diffuse > Output. Don't plug the Image Texture for the moment but switch it to Non-Color Data and load the image you've created before. Select the high poly object, then the low-poly, and in the Render > Bake panel, choose Bake Type > Normal, enable Selected to Active, click the Bake button. Set the Ray Distance at the right value, so that you have as less artefacts as possible. Anyway you'll necessary have some with this kind of geometry.

Export the normal map, import it in an image editor software, try to remove as many artefacts as possible, don't try it to make it perfect though, reimport the image, load it in the Image Texture node, plug the Image Texture node into the Normal socket of the Diffuse. You can also bring some corrections on your normal map directly in the 3D View / Texture Paint mode: Plug your Image Texture in the Color socket of the Diffuse to display it on the object, switch the 3D View to Texture shading, and use the Clone brush for example. When you're good, replug the Image Texture in the Normal Map node.

thanks so much bro


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Render looks darker than Look Dev mode
I have been texture painting in look dev mode. But when i try to render it, everything looks very dark. I have 3 sun lights in my scene, ambient turned on in Eevee settings. What am i missing? I really like the look of my scene in Look Dev mode, how can i achieve the same look when my scene is rendered too?

Thanks! i can now render the viewport of look dev which is ok. But  rendered mode is still the same. If i were to export my objects to a game engine, would they look the same in the game engine, as they would in look dev mode?

That depends on the lighting in the game engine.  In the render your lighting is determined by your world background settings and any additional lighting you have in your scene

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/123724/eevee-and-cycles-render-lighting-differences/123734#123734

this is happening because you have different lighting setup in rendered view to the lookdev mode in lookdev mode lighting is done through hdri

if you just download the same hdri or just go to the blender's directory for that hdri then you can have same look

So I just have to apply that hdri as the world material?


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Best way to join objects for texturing and game engines?
I’m modelling a game asset and I’m wondering what’s the best approach for joining a mesh which consists of many different parts. I don’t want to overlap my objects because they all have different vertex count and they are different shapes.
What I mean is if I have an object and it consists of many parts and I want to model and texture them separately, is it ok to join them later using a simple command such as ctrl+J. Or would that not be good when they are exported to a game engine in terms or re-applying textures and things like that.
Waiting for help!

In Blender 2.8 you don't have to merge seperate objects to one to make a mutual uv layout, because if you select all of them and then go to edit mode, you can edit all at the same time.

The correct workflow is to wait as long as you can before joining anything. Having separate objects is useful for UV mapping, baking normal, and texturing in general. For this reason you should aim at joining your object only when it's time to model a low poly version of it, and in the case where you don't have a low poly version you should only join them just before exporting your mesh to your game engine.

I kind of understand. My model is already low poly, I didn’t do a high poly version of it. My plan is to texture paint all objects separately, and once that’s done, join them together. But what would happen to their separate texture maps once it’s all joined? Will it become one big texture map/material? Because I’m concerned about how the game engine would define and find the texture map for different objects if it’s all joined into one big mesh?


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Where can i find different brush textures for texture painting?
The basic brushes in blender are cool and stuff but i sometimes want to add extra detail and if i could use different brush styles when texture painting game assets, it would come in really handy. any ideas on where i can find them and how i can install them?

Your question is about brushes, but what you need are brush textures, usually referred to as 'alphas'. You can create your own with Gimp or Blender or you can search online for them, depends on the type you want to use for your purpose. How to use them also depends on what you want to do, as there are several ways to use them in a single brush in Blender.

For texture painting

Yes, for texture painting - what do you have in mind in your question? Do you have an example of what you need to know?

For example, I want to add scratches or dents, marks, dirt etc on stylised objects. Not realistic ones though.


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Mirror modifier rotates object strangely?
Im trying to mirror my object to the X axis, as i marked with orange in the attached picture, but instead the mirror modifier is putting the mirrored object onto the top of the main one.  How can i change this?

Is othat origin point visible of the object to be mirrored next to 3D cursor? It looks like https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/353/how-can-i-make-the-mirror-modifier-work-right is related but if origin is already on the desired mirror plane try to apply transforms (Object mode > Ctrl+A)

i managed to do it by duplicating and reversing, thanks


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Glitch when I enter texture painting
When im in layout window, in Eevee, everything is fine but when I change to texture paint mode, i have a glitch on my object as you can see. Looks like a grey stain. I didnt paint over it , i didnt even add a material to it and it giving me this problem. I checked to see if faces were flipped but everything is ok in terms of geometry. What could be the problem? Other objects are ok its just this one.

Possibly a shadow? Do you have a lamp close to the object on both sides?

It was a shadow from sun light, fixed it


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How to randomize objects?
So i created a basic low poly grass model. How can i apply it onto another mesh, possibly a ground plane. Is there a technique to scatter it randomly on the plane?

Why not look up your question on Youtube? There are literally hundreds of tutorials on how to do this exact thing.

Yes it is possibIe, you should look up Particle systems. I feel this is a valid question. While it is easy to find answers when you know what you are looking for (particles and particle systems), there could be more in-depth already answered questions on BSE.


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How can I setup blender for texture painting?
I want to create hand painted textures for my game assets which I will then use in unity game engine. What render engine should I use and what setting do I need to turn on/off for the best result? I’m just worried about lighting mostly because i don’t want my textures to be influenced by extra lights in blender.

You could just paint your texture on the objects using Flat in the screen overlays instead of using the lights, turning off shadow and cavity is also an option.

Texture Painting
If you paint a diffuse map, lights don't really matter that much. You don't render anything, so nothing but the color of your choice influences the texture.
Any light setup might only influence, how you perceive the colors.
Lights (for baking):
Delete all lights, you won't need them. Go to the World Properties Tab and change the Background Color to white.

Material Setup (for painting):
Go to the Shader Editor, create a new material and delete the Principled BSDF. Create a new Image Texture and connect it to an Emission Node (with Node Wrangler installed, Ctrl+Shift+LMB) to the Material Output.

Render Engine:
If you only want to paint textures and you don't intend to bake additional maps (normal, AO, etc.) the Render Engine doesn't really matter. If you do want to bake additional maps, Cycles is the only option, since baking is not possible in Eevee (yet).
Since you paint in Material Preview, you might want to change the HDRi Image in the Studio Lights setup to a more neutral one* and set the Background Visibility to zero.

hdrihaven.com has some nice outdoor HDRis with overcast sky that deliver a nice flat shading. They still influence your color perception, though...

Thankyou ! How can I install the node wrangler ?

Is node wrangler necessary?

@ulus - no, it's not necessary, but it helps a lot, once you start using nodes regularly.


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How to texture paint on a different layer?
I want to know if its possible to have layers in blender when texture painting an object. Like in photoshop for example.

Not exactly like that, but you could combine different textures by using nodes, mix them all with the Mix RGB to have things like multiply, screen, add, color Burn and so on and you will see your textures over the "texture slot"

To add to Emir's answer, you can use images with transparent background and use the Alpha output as factor:


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UV checkerbox looks strange when object is unwrapped
Unrwapped and added basic seams, but when i apply the checkerboard texture it doesn't looks uniform. what am i doing wrong?

It is a shame you didnt screenshot the full screen so we can see whats plugged into that mapping node as it looks like its using "object" texture coordinates not "UV"


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Capture Images of Rotating Object Automation
I have a 3D object (ball) that I want to capture a data set from.

Ideally, I want to start with the ball at some orientation  (0,0), then rotate the ball by 5 degree icrements and capture a 2D (jpg) of the object and the rotation coordinates, creating a complete image set of every n degree angle viewpoint of the ball.
The end goal is to an image and rotation coordinate of the ball from every 5 deg angle possible.
Additionally, this would need to be automated, to avoid having to manually capture 20K images.
Any help would be appreciated.

did you ever watch some basic animation tutorials? there are tons of good and free animation tutorials on yt....

Yeah you would literally just set your scene frames to 72 frames (360/5) and then set a keyframe on frame 1 to zero degrees rotation and another on frame 72 to 360 degrees. Then render an image sequence and each frame should result in a image captured of the object rotated 5 degrees.

"The end goal is to an image and rotation coordinate of the ball from every 5 deg angle possible."  There are an infinite number of such rotations, because there are an infinite number of axes along which to rotate in 5 degree angles.  Are you looking for every 5 deg rotation in a single rotational axis?

@Nathan looking to do 0,0 -> 0,5 -> 0,10... 0,275. then 5,0 -> 5,5 -> 5,10...etc. Want the images to be a set of all 5 deg rotations on all 5 deg axis changes from 1 standing viewpoint

@Chris yeah I'll check out yt - heard it's good and free also thanks man

@Jakemoyo that was my plan - wasn't sure if I needed some python script to get my there. Trying to capture the coordinates for each image as well, but I'm sure I can get it from the anim. sequence. thanks for the help

So, capturing images of an object rotating is-- just a render.  The only trick is getting the rotation values we want, as easily as we can get them.  We can make this pretty easy by using fcurve modifiers.
With some simple arithmetic, we can find there are 72 groups of 5 degree divisions in 360 degrees, so we'll need 72*72 = 5184 frames of animation.
We'll need to work with the graph editor viewport.  We'll start with an object with an XYZ Euler transform, and, on frame 0 (not frame 1) we'll manually enter a rotation of -180 degrees in X and Z fields, and keyframe rotation.  We'll jump to frame 5184 and enter a rotation of 180 degrees of X rotation and keyframe rotation, then, delete the Z rotation keyframe for frame 5184.  We'll jump to frame 72 and give it a rotation of 180 degrees of Z rotation, then, delete the X rotation keyframe for frame 72.  Finally, we'll set the interpolation mode for all channels to linear.  Our graph editor should look something like this:

We only have Z rotation definitions from frames 0 to 72, and we want to repeat those, so we can give our Z rotation channel a cycles modifier, which will repeat the rotation:

Don't worry about the drawing of the graph.  You can see I set it to cycle 72 times, only after the existing keyframes, but that's not strictly necessary-- you can use defaults if you want, this is just a cleaner display of what we're doing.
Now let's hide the Z channel and look at our X channel.  Here, we want the x rotation clamped to intervals of 5 degrees, so let's give it a stepped interpolation modifier:

It takes 72 frames to rotate 5 degrees, so I set the step to 72 frames.
We could step our Z rotation, since we don't want to draw between values there either, but our step size would be 1 because of how we've set this up, so it's not necessary.  We're only ever going to render images with values that are even multiples of 5 degrees anyways.
Finally, we need to work on our label.  I made the label with a geometry nodes object:

I created my driver for my value node just by typing #frame into the value node; now I can use it for math to determine my values.  You can see that I'm essentially duplicating the math that I used to derive my rotation values (and indeed, another way to do this would have been to use this math for drivers for X and Z rotation channels, rather than keyframing.)  Why not just drive from the keyframed values?  Because the keyframed values don't include the f-curve modifiers.  Why not drive from transform channels?  Because there are multiple Euler representations of singular orientations (ie, Euler angles are aliased), and Blender won't necessarily give us the representation we were expecting.
(I should have put a "fill curve" node in there at the end to give the text faces.)
All that's left here is to render.  We've set things up such that our last frame is the same as our 0th frame, so we want to render starting from frame 1 to avoid duplication.  If we render to an image sequence, we'll have 5184 images, each representing a unique angle that you want, in total representing all the angles you want, and each labelled with that angle in the image.

thanks for the detailed answer much appreciated. I think this will do it for sure - I’ll play around on my side and hopefully get the results


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Sharp lines on texture paint?
Is there something special getting sharper strokes/lines on texture paint mode? I'm trying to get a texture that seems like it was drawn with a sharp pencil (like sketching) but I get very low resolution lines. I'm new with blender.

In the N panel > Tool > Brush Settings > Falloff, there are different brush shapes, you can also tweak the curve:

If I choose the square one here is what I get:

Also in the same panel, under Texture Mask, you can load a texture to have something that will look more accidental etc...

Thanks! I'll look into it :)

I'm not sure it answered as your question is a bit vague, maybe add zome details  ;)


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Is it possible to show the motion path of a keyframed camera?
I have a camera movement animation that I would like to be able to edit by adjusting bezier handles on the camera path in the viewport, but I don't see any camera path in the viewport.  Is there a way to show it?  Thank you!

If you select the camera and go to it's Object Properties, there expand the "Motion Paths" tab and click on the "Calculate" button.

Thank you, James!  That gives me a string of dots that is very useful, but is there also a way to get bezier handles at the keyframes that are interactive in the viewport?  If not I can use a combination of the graph and updating the path, but being used to AE, I thought I'd ask. Thanks!

Interesting approach that would be useful, but not in blender to my knowledge.

You should do it the other way around. Create a bezier curve, then add constraints to make the camera follow it.


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Can't find the marble node texture (Eevee or Cycles)?
Where can I find  the marble node texture in either Eevee or Cycles rendering ,because it's very hard for me to see it. And also can someone let me know if it has been removed or combined with another texture. Thank You

The Marble texture may have existed in the Shader Editor but it looks like it's not the case anymore, it's part of the other texture system of Blender though, the one that you'll find in the Texture panel, which is a completely different system (that you can use for modifiers for example)

Hi :). The marble node is a part of the old Texture Nodes. It has never been in the shader editor.

@Jachym Michal So where were they available? The image shows a node that looks like a Shader Editor node

@moonboots Blender manual says it's available in Texture Nodes, but i've never used those :)). They look similar to other node editors

Oh ok I've never paid attention to this editor and I'm not sure what exactly it is for


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Ctrl f11 "view animation" shows 2 separate animations from 2 separate projects
When I press ctrl f11 to view animation it shows an animation from a different project then once that animation is finished shows the second half of the animation from the current project I'm trying to view. Also both project's animations have low fps when viewing the rendered animation (ctrl f12).

What do your render settings look like? Is the animation rendered as separate images? Maybe you rendered it into the same folder? Without more information, it's hard to tell what the problem is.

How do you check the render settings?

It's in the Output Properties tab ("printer" icon): https://i.sstatic.net/dnAog.png Have you checked if the output folder is empty?

Mine shows the exact same thing as the picture you sent.


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How to make the cloth rope simulation attached at both points?
I'm creating a trebuchet simulation. All of the actual mechanics are handled by rigid bodies and rigid body constraints, but I wanted to add a rope between the "holder" and the arm. I followed this tutorial, where you basically create a plane, create hooks at both ends and parent those hooks to the rigid bodies. However when I tried doing so, the rope stayed connected to the arm side but didn't stay connected to the holder side, resulting in weird behavior which you can see in this gif:

I attempted to fix this a couple times before (with the same rigid body bake) and the first result was slightly different, but the rope still was connected to the arm but not to the holder. If anyone knows how to fix this, I'd be really grateful.
Here's the .blend file:

There were a couple mistakes that caused this:

I forgot to parent the holder side to the holder
I parented both ends to the arm end by mistake and
I forgot to move the arm end controller to the arm from the middle.

That is what my usual comment is on things not working like in a tutorial: check if you followed it closely and did everything like they did, maybe redo it completely (since a tutorial should teach you something) and make sure that the Blender version in the tutorial and yours are matching - not always necessary, but sometimes things can be very different between versions. Perhaps you want to try a more recent tutorial on a trebuchet, try this one by Blender Made Easy: Build a Working Trebuchet in Blender: Rigid Bodies Tutorial


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How to create a face via geometry nodes?
Let's say in my geometry that I have 3 vertices. Is there a way to combine those into a single face using geometry nodes? I was unable to find any node like "join vertices" or "create face".

You can join vertices in same(near) position by merge node

Triangles / other planar convex faces are fine ( Convex Hull ). But as soon as you want any concavities, you need to disambiguate the order of vertices, somehow. How would you want to do that?

If your use case is really only about exactly three vertices, then you can create the required face with Mesh Circle, and transfer the positions of the vertices with Transfer Attribute:

You can use convex hull, there is a small problem, it creates 2 faces. Separate them with a "split edges", remove one of the faces with "delete geometry" according to the index, then merge rest of the duplicated vertices with "merge by distance".


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Should I use stretch UV bounds in Smart UV?
So im trying to unwrap using smart unwrap. It looks very stretched when I turn on stretch UV bounds, but when i turn it off it looks ok, however its too small. Which one should i trust ? (im planning to export the model into substance to texture it, so im worried if stretched UVs or small UVs would be a problem? I tried to fix it by applying all transforms but it doesnt make a big difference. Any ideas?

I usually don't use it for the same reason - unwanted stretching/warping. That being said, for most unwraps, I only use smart-unwrap as a preliminary "first guide" and then adjust manually from there. Unselecting stretch-to-bounds will give the correct proportions.

@ChristopherBennett I see. But there’s a lot of free UV space left as you can see in the uv editor. Is that a bad thing ?

Now you get to play the mimi-game of fitting all the pieces together tightly like tetris, and then scaling them up all together to fill up the space. This is a common approach, especially for video game assets, because it makes use of as much texture space as possible.

You mean fitting the unwrapped UVs of all objects into one UV map?

Not necessarily. You can use as many UV maps as you need. What I mean to say is that scaling works fine as long as it's done uniformly. Sometimes leftover space is unavoidable, the goal is to pack stuff as close together as possible (with a reasonable margin) so you can scale it all up to fill the space in the most efficient way..

Understood. Thankyou :)

No problem. I stumbled upon this guide a while back, and I've found it extremely helpful. Check it out if you like - https://artisticrender.com/the-definitive-tutorial-to-uv-mapping-in-blender/


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High poly to low poly
What’s the best way to make a low poly version of this for exporting to substance painter ?

It’s 10k tris all together. I was wondering how I can make the buttons base lower poly..

will you use a Subdivision Surface modifier? Is it supposed to look low-poly? Because you could even delete some edge loops on the box and screen... For the button, you can select ring, checker deselect, select edge loops, then dissolve, as explained here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yptda_yKQIU

Or you can try new feature of Multires Modifier > Unsubdivide (in 2.9x)

Thanks guys il try both


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boolean gone wrong?
I tried to cut a hole in this mesh using boolean, as you can see it worked but the vertices around the edges of the hole are not connected to the main mesh. What can i do to fix this? as i think it might cause a problem when texturing.

you edit to edit the mesh manually or use the "loop tool" circle function to make the hole.

avoid booleans if you can. you will end up with terrible topology. But if you must use boolean make the shape so that is doesn't cross your object completel, but only the front part. For other alternatives read this link: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/28425/curved-mesh-topology

Avoiding booleans in such situations are the best idea . For now you can use the knife tool and connect the vertices to the rest of the mesh...I would recommend that you watch Josh Gambrell's video on boo and topology.You can also make selected vertecies to a circle by clicking alt+ shift + s

here is a video on how to make holes:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bc52fcrHvAA and in this page: https://topology-guides.tumblr.com/page/5


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How to fix Ngons?
my mesh has alot of Ngons, any tips on how to fix them? Making them quads would be great.

I'm not sure there's any magic trick, but you can make a Limited Dissolve to get rid of useless edges and use the knife tool to draw quads (K to activate, Z to cut through, C to cut orthogonally, E to keep on, Enter to confirm=

Fix what? Ngon? unless you have shading issue or want your model to deform, Ngon is good enough to go. Anyway, try triangulate all faces (Faces > Triangulate Faces or Ctrl+T) and then make all of them quads (Faces > Tris to Quads or Alt+J). Or just do it manually, dissolve some edges, using vertex or edge slide, etc..

Thanks guys, i managed to triangulate the faces


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Help me fix the seams on my mesh
I have unwrapped this model in blender but the seems are very visible in substance painter. How can i fix it? I want to achieve seamless texture.

is it your texture or is it your topology? If it's your texture you can try to give some corrections in the 3D view with the Clone brush?

I think it’s topology because I get the same problem with any texture I try to apply

in that case try to move the edge loop where it's happening (or delete and recreate it)

Check normals orientation, check if there are no internal faces there. Try removing doubles (select everything, M key).

Solution 1
You should try to add subdivisions to that specific edge.
To do so go into Edit Mode. Select the edge by clicking on it, if you want to select and edge loop press Alt +  Click, after you have selected the edges right click and the Edge context menu will appear, in the Edge context menu press Subdivide. You can also do this in the Edge menu at the top of the viewport or by pressing Ctrl +  E.
Solution 2:
You should try smooth shading.
To do so you should, in Object Mode, you should select your object and then right click it and select Shade Smooth. Another way to do this is to select the Object menu at the top of the viewport and select shad smooth. If the problem continues to persist go into (while your object is still smooth shaded) the object data properties and select Normals and adjust the smooth shading to your needs. Turning off Auto-Smooth may also work but you need auto-smooth on to adjust the value.


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How to join this face properly?
I have this face i want to connect but the sides have like over 10 verts, but i want to make it join smoothly with the curve. I dont know how to do it (red part)
The red part will follow and join the blue part in the end.
How can I join them witout altering the face of the mesh?

You should to add more edge loops in blue side , Equal with red side to join , then add one loop between red and blue side and Bevel to have a curvy conection .
Upload Blend file to show you how it's possible .

where can i upload the blender file?

Upload here :  https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/


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Erasing Alpha does not erase the Mesh in Texture Paint?
I started texture painting this object. I came across the brush tool "Erase Alpha". So i started removing some of the mesh (at least thats what i thought) in solid view.

But when i go into rendered mode, it doesn't actually erase any of the mesh, it just turns it black. I thought that if it really did erase the mesh, i could have got the "ripped" cloth look i was looking for without remodeling the mesh. I guess there is no way to actually erase the mesh as easy as that?
I know there are better ways to create cloth, but its a low poly mesh so yeh. Any ideas?

You have to build a material that shows transparency in thoose black spot areas.

In eevee you have to select the material and enable "Alpha something" as blend mode in the settings.

Is it ok to change it after applying texture paint already l? Or do I have to start over?

It's ok, it's just a material attribute, the alpha of your PNG has been already modified.


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EEVEE render settings for game assets
So I’m using Eevee and I finished creating a game asset. Now I would like to render the final look. However I would like to know what are some things I should change to make my object look decent (some decent lighting, gray background) and any thing else I should consider turning on/off or tuning.

Eevee is pretty straight  forward, add an HDRI and turn on Ambient Occlusion and Soft Shadows, this should give you a good result already. But this depends on your object, if it's very reflective you might want to calculate reflections.

Thanks man. I will try it out.


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What mode to work on when texture painting - Solid / Lookdev / Rendered mode in EEVEE?
Im creating a game asset, and i want to export it to Unity later on. So i have started texture painting this object, but as you can see it looks different when rendered compared to solid or look dev mode. I dont know which mode i should stick to when texture painting to get the most accurate colors. I guess rendered more is the best one because it will be the final render with all the lighting and etc but even though i have 3 sun lights it still looks dark compared to look dev mode (which  i prefer over rendered mode) but if its going to look really dark in a game engine as well then Im not sure which mode to stick to to see the real color/lights when texture painting. Please help!

You should paint in lookdev mode, making sure texture paint opacity is set to 0 to be able to see your full material when painting.

So i will continue to use lookdev mode then. Where can I access texture paint opacity? And Is it too late to change it at this stage, do i have to restart my texture paint?

In the overlay options. No you can switch modes freely.

thankyou so much!


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How should i approach game asset design as a beginner?
I have come back to blender after a long break, and now that 2.8 is here, I thought its a good time to get back into modelling. In the past i have worked on modelling simple objects and animation.
However i want to focus more on creating game assets. So... What is the best way to start? Im not sure if i should sculpt or model my assets, how many tris/vertices should i aim for. how can i optimize my object to be used in a game engine and what is the best way to texture my models? I was thinking of going for the texture painting approach. Do i need a third party software or is blender enough for everything?
Just need some ideas to get started. Any help would be appreciated.

Hello and welcome. The way this question is phrased is very subjective and will attract opinion based answers. If you can rephrase it with a specific use case or an objective question that can have right or wrong answers please edit it so we can reopen. This may help https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/100876/is-there-any-clear-definition-of-game-ready-models

i personally prefer sculpting, as it allows you to focus purely on shape and worry about topology later. also, it's normal to do at least some sculpting as it allows you to make bump maps for your model.  I prefer the multiresolution method to the dynamic topology.
I think that blender will be fine for texture painting, it has a lot of nice tools for it.  here's a tip for it that I didn't know until recently.  on your brush settings, there's two settings called spacing and jitter. spacing makes the brush add color in a dotted way(you'll understand what it does if you try it out) and jitter makes it more random.  this can be used to make your textures look a lot less uniform, and it looks great! this can also be used for sculpting.
you should aim for low poly, but don't get too low!  game engines can handle more than they could ten years ago, and having extreme low poly can lower the game graphics quality a ton.
If you're trying to make characters, a good front and side reference image is a must!
In order to optimize, just put the high level detail in a material versus the mesh.
one more useful tool if you want to sculpt.  the mask tool is pretty obvious, but the amount of uses for it is very high.  also, if you want to draw the mask quickly, draw out the area you don't want to be masked, and press ctrl+i to flip the mask.
I hope this is helpful, and please comment if you'd like more info.

thanks a lot, i have never used the mask tool. What does it actually do?

the mask tool lets you paint over the areas you don't want the brush to effect.  for instance, if you're trying to sculpt the side of your character, and don't want to effect the arms, you could paint over the side, and press ctrl+l to flip the mask, and then your brush would only effect the side.  This brush works in both sculpt mode and texture paint mode.

That's quite a few questions and a bit more general than SE is meant for; but I'll tell you what I can.
Sculpting vs. box or face modeling really depends on the asset and what you're comfortable with.
Try and keep your vertices to a minimum necessary for the model, as every one is a tick against available resources on the client machine. You might also consider learning LOD, as you may end up using several different models (of leveled vertex count) for the in-game object depending on how far away from the camera it is.
Where texturing and optimization goes, it really depends on your game engine and isn't something I would worry about until you've profiled your game. Most of them do their own materials management and whatever you do in Blender you'll likely have to re-do there. They also accept a variety of formats, the most common being Filmbox and Collada; these notoriously differ in what they're capable of and how they do it, so bear it in mind.
And yes, Blender 2.8 is easily enough on its own; but you might get some use out of additional software. It's a little too vague to properly answer here.
I hope that helps. I'm still going to suggest that this question be closed, as it's a bit broad and relatively opinion-based.