text:
Make an object's visibility controlled by another object or an empty
I'd like to use a non-rendering object (say, a filled-in circle, empty, or a sphere) to control the visibility of another object (say, a grid floor). See image below made with Photoshop. The size of the "mask" object controls how big the visible area of the floor is when rendered. Yeah, I know I can do this in post quite easily, but I want to be able to do it within Blender using cycles nodes.

Yes, this could be done easily if the "mask shape" is circular. You can use a circular gradient texture as transparency mask on the floor object, then use any object as texture coordinate origin using the Texture Coordinate node to control its size.

I think I understand what you're saying, but my grid floor is made with a procedural shader and not a texture, so I'd like to avoid using texture masks. Nodes only if possible without additional textures.

Yes, this mask is also procedural, when I mention texture it is not necessarily an image based one, it can also mean a node based procedural texture. The only limitation I see is that said gradient can only be easily done procedurally for basic shapes, otherwise an image texture may be needed.

If you only plan to use a circular mask you can use the Object option of the Cycles Texture Coordinate node to use any independent object as mapping origin for any texture.
This will allow using that object's position and transforms to control other material or texture through its position relative to the objects said material is applied to.
To do so just create a circular mask (you can do this easily with a Gradient texture set to Circular) and use it as mask to mix between two shaders. In your case mix whatever shader you liek to floor to be with a Transparent one to make it invisible outside a certain radius.
Use a Texture Coordinate probably set to Object coordinates and use the Object box to pick the desired empty - or sphere - to drive its positioning or scale. You can adjust the radius of the opaque part by scaling the empty.

You can achieve other "mask shapes" easily as long as you can recreate them procedurally with the available nodes. Otherwise you will probably have to use an image based texture for that. You can also try Dynamic Paint if you need the mask shape to actually follow some random object shape intersecting with the ground plane.

This looks like what I was trying to achieve. Thanks Mr. Ramos.

Nice ! And how would you act on the "feather" of the gradient (material>trasparent) ? eg. If I want it "shorter" ?

Run the output of the gradient through a Color Ramp node

apply the Holdout shader to the object you want to use as a mask.
It will appear black, but if you want it transparent, activate the transparent option in the render settings under the film panel.
Note that the Holdout shader can only be applied to renderable objects, so empties are not options.

That kinda works, but the non-transparent area doesn't fade out. I was hoping to get some kind of falloff, imagine something similar to the light from a spotlight.

Use a node similar to the one i'm using, you can mix the holdout shader with other "fading" nodes.
Note that my transparent octagon isn't casting any shadows or reflections..
thats because I turned off all the ray visibility settings except for camera in the object tab.

With this setup, I can't seem to get completely transparent. If I turn off diffuse in cycles settings (object) it doesn't work. Turning on diffuse makes the masked areas black... not transparent at all. Not sure what is going on.


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Subdivision modifier cutting through corners on hard-corners
I've been trying to smooth out edges on my model for hours with no luck, using Auto-Smooth and Shade Smooth, and even adding the Subdivision modifier. What I didn't do before was add and EdgeSplit modifier before the Subdivision modifier. Finally, everything looks good except these top two sharp edges...
Before, with hard, rounded edges

After, with good rounded edges, except for those top two

Modifier settings

Can you please provide your blend file so we can help you?

Looks like your faces are not connected, you could try to select the vertices in edit mode and Merge by distance (M on the keyboard)

Please do not upload a blend file, the problem is the edge split. Use edge creases in edit mode instead (shortcut: Shift E).

@HISEROD: why don't you answer instead of answering in the comments?

It's one of those answers that is so niche and simple that it is hardly worth the effort of properly formatting and screenshotting etc. If you want to snag some rep, feel free to steal my answer

@HISEROD: thank you for this kind offer, but i only want to write an answer which i found out by myself or know now. ;) and my main goal here is not getting scores but helping people because i got lot's of help here too by great people with amazing knowledge. And i don't think an answer must be "perfect". If the OP understood - and he did - other people will do too - i think ;) so - just my opinion - i would have copied your 1,5 sentences to the answer ;)

Thank you all; that worked quite well :)

The problem is the Edge Split modifier. You can use Edge Crease in edit mode instead by pressing ⇧ ShiftE.

That fixed it; thank you so much!!

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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How do I Convert a Geometry Node input to Integer
I'm trying to add an input to my nodes, I need it to be an integer (Lime Green) I know it can be done because one of the download examples has them set up like that, but I can't find in the documentation or anywhere online how to change their type

You cannot set the type until now. But you can use the subdivide node and connect level (which is an integer) to the group input. Then delete the subdivide node and connect whatever you want to your new input integer socket.

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


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Curved interpolated transition between surface and upright circle
I'm trying to make an object consisting of a curved flat shape transitioning to an upright circle.
I already made some edges for the transition profile using curves.

If I convert those curves to a mesh, it kind of gives a feeling of how it should look, but the mesh is interpolated linear and not actually transitioning into the circle.

What can I do tho make it a smooth transition?
I had considered adding more curves and doing the transition by hand, but it kind of feels like I'm missing some tools that could make this a lot easier.
Any help is appreciated!
.blend file

I prepared a rectangle with evenly spaced vertices using the snap to vertex option, it resulted maden of 38 vertices, so i added a circle of 38 vertices in the appropriate location, and I used Bridge edge loops function to connect them.
Then I added a loopcut in the middle and adjusted scaling based on your curve, and added similarily other 2 edge loops.


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Scaling Object in blender to real life dimension, makes it look small in the Blender Default cam
I am making a vaguely accurate stadium. and the  boundaries of the ground are 0.200mtr in length per object of the array, is looking so small in the camera and perspective view. It wont even match the size of cricket 07 game -if that game was based on real life dimensions.
The boundaries from this angle of the camera dont often look so small in real life.
I think im having the ant man problem, where the object is small but the camera is not really built for the atomic scale perspective. I dont think this is a zoom in zoom out problem. Can anybody help?

I don't know where you got the dimensions from, of course 0.2 m = 20 cm is small compared to a stadium. And if I look at the reference image, if I suppose every repetition of text was a new object, then they are much longer than the player's foot on the ground. And I guess most player's have feet much longer than 20 cm. Also the noise on your grass texture makes it look as if you're much closer - you cannot see such noise detail on the reference. So if you were much closer to the grass, this also suggests the objects are smaller. But maybe you just need to add a player object to relate to.

I believe you are erroneously moving a decimal place. One meter is about how far you pace with each step. 0.2 meters, as a commenter said, is shorter than the average human foot: just under eight inches.
The boundaries are probably meant to be 2 meters long.


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Why can't I unlink the copies in Blender 2.9?
I duplicated linked object multiple times (Alt+D) And now I can not get rid of the link for some copies. I tried: Apply - Make instances real, Make local - All (I tried all the parameters in Make local =D). Still, when I go to edit mode and try to move any vertices they are all affected. How do I get rid of the instancing for some copies?

First way:
Press the button which indicates the number of users of a data block:

Second Way:
Object → Relations → Make Single User → Object & Data

The right thing to do is going into the header menu > Object > Relations > Make Single User > Object & Data, you can do it with several objects, or, for a single object, go into the Object Data panel and click on the make single user button to unlink the mesh:


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Select all children bones in Pose mode using Python
I needed a script that selects all children of multiple bones in pose mode. I must admit that my solution was very clumsy but helped in a particular situation =D
So now I wonder how to do it the right, more elegant way? (basically how would you select all children, of any amount of selected bones?)
I've put a loop with the number greater than the number of possible children. (I knew that the number of children will always be lower than 15, so my loop always selected all. But it feels very wrong =D )
import bpy
it = 15

while it > 0:
bpy.ops.pose.select_hierarchy(direction='CHILD', extend=True)
it -= 1

Do you want just the immediate children of the selected bones, or do you also want the children of the children and so on?

This script will select all child bones from parent bones that share the same name as the ones in the list variable PARENT_BONES, provided that the mode is POSE mode.
import bpy

ARMATURE = "metarig"
PARENT_BONES = ["upper_arm.L", "upper_arm.R"]

if bpy.context.mode == "POSE":
    for b in bpy.data.armatures[ARMATURE].bones:
        if b.name in PARENT_BONES:
            for c in b.children_recursive:
                c.select = True

If you'd like to automatically go into pose mode and get rid of the check mode line, replace the check mode line with bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode="POSE") to go into pose mode, regardless of which mode it is.

this script worked for me
import bpy

armature = bpy.context.active_object
bone = armature.data.bones[bpy.context.active_bone.name]

children = []
for child in bone.children_recursive:
    children.append(child.name)

for child in children:
    armature.data.bones[child].select = True


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Need to delete the last constraint with the direct target from all selected bones
I copied one Copy Transform constrain to all my bones accidentally and didn't notice it at the right time. So I need to get rid of it now and it seems I can not just click and delete it for all selected bones.
So it seems to me that the scripting should be involved? My constraints didn't have unique names. So on some bones, this one goes like the one and only, on others it is named with .001 or .002. It shares two features though: it goes last in the list and also it has the same Target. So the question is how can I delete this specific constraint without touching others, using scripting?

I think this can't be done without scripting. But the script to delete last constraint is easy:
import bpy

for pose_bone in bpy.context.selected_pose_bones:
    if len(pose_bone.constraints):
        pose_bone.constraints.remove(pose_bone.constraints[-1])

How to Apply the constraint? Not delete.


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Is there a way to switch UV checker on and off fast while working with UV editor?
So as it said in the title, is there any way to turn on and off the checker fast, without going to the material editor and replacing the texture each time I am fixing or simply checking the UVs of the objects?

You can use the Node Wrangler addon to preview the checker texture

Enable Node Wrangler addon in Preferences > Addons
Use Ctrl + Shift + Leftclick to quickly preview the checker texture in the Shader editor
You can change the texture type in the UV editor

Ah.. Thank you. But how can I make it visible on 3D model? I can see it only on UV itself, but I'd like to see how the 3D object looks with it.

Hey :). Using the Node Wrangler addon, you can simply Ctrl+Shift+Leftclick to preview the checker texture.

So there is no way to avoid adding a material editor on my small screen and creating an extra node in it?

Not that I know of :). Perhaps there's some addon exactly for this.

Not the worst problem, anyways. Maybe one day I'll write such an addon that shows checker on the model by clicking one button in UV editor, like in Maya. But need to learn programing first XD Thank you for your answer


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Select objects while using move, scale or rotate tool
I know it is possible to make this work. By default, when any of the transform tools is active you can not drag the cursor on an empty space of the scene to select the objects. But there is a way to fix it somewhere in preferences. I made this fix long time ago on my laptop, but now I can not find what exactly have I done to make it work Any suggestions?

If I have understood you correctly, in the top bar, chose the action "Tweak" on Drag:

yep. That's it. Thanks!=)

@3DBear mark it as correct then


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How to design the following sequence
How to design something similar to this ; Teaser Card, Ponniyin Selvan. Someone tell me where to begin with and the prerequisites ( Like the skills in blender that I must know to even begin such a thing).

Are you clear with your question?

Sorry? I just need to know what are the basic prerequisites for designing such a thing in blender.

you are asking about the way that text shows the name of the series and moving camera.etc?

Yeah... If I had to create a title sequence like this, where should I start

Rendering Engine:
First of all prefer Cycles Rendering Engine.
In Cycles Render you make realistic objects, text, characters, etc. And the workflow is quiet simple(according to me).
Modifiers:
Modifiers may help saving lots of your time making objects really quick.
Materials
Main part comes on materials, Materials can be anything that make your render look like real world that are colors, textures. Play with some of the material and you'll get an idea how they work.
Animations:
Learn some of the simple keyframe animations.It is simply moving objects here and there.
The Internet Thing:
There are thousands of tutorials who teach how animations work, adding materials, modeling. Internet is vast and you can learn almost everything. Thanks to Blender Stack Exchange that it has experts that if you don't understand some topics or you have some problem regarding your render, modelling,etc. you are free to ask.
I suggest you to go for tutorials by Blender Guru,  He is awesome.
Hope my answer was clear to you.
All the Best. Happy Learning.


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Want to shape this spiderman lens around the Faceshell so it fits perfectly against the shell
Was wondering if someone can help me. I want ti be able to bend this lens around the spiderman faceshell so that it sits flush with the shell. I have tried shrinkwrap and adding depth after but it looks horrible. Any ideas please?
Thanks

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/77277/how-to-fix-the-eyes-with-shrinkwrap and https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/89300/why-is-shape-with-shrinkwrap-modifier-flat and https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/95975/why-im-not-getting-thickness-with-shrinkwrap-modifier

You could scale the lens shape up on the y(?) axis to make it like a tube, move it so that it crosses the faceshell where you want it, then put a boolean modifier (subtract) on it so that it has one side flush fit. Next, delete all the other faces, then extrude what you have left to the desired thickness.

Thanks for all the great suggestions guys. I tried the lattice and shrink wrap method and i got it pretty close but its still not flat againt the faceshell and loses some of the frames depth too


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How to modify the woodplanks size ?
There is possible to modify the size of the woodplanks ? I created a 10x10 meter room and not realistic in this size. With mapping I got weak result. Make the full floor from smaller parts it is not so elegant.

(Sorry for silly question, I'm a ~6 hour blender user and yeah, I skipped the basics.)
Thank you for your help!
David

You could try by changing the scale

Good Luck


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Ball joint on robot
so i did this robot moddel in blender and i wanted to give it ball joints to move around, but ran into a problem when rigging. The mesh moves with the bone and makes it being out of place so i wonder if there is a way to make the ball rotate while being in the same place.

Just put the head of the bone (in edit mode) exactly in the center of the sphere.
Then unparent the mesh from the armature and reparent it using this procedure: select the mesh, shift select the armature, Ctrl P "with empty groups". Then select all vertices of the arm, select the relevant vertex group and click the assign button under the vertex group tab.
This procedure avoid the problem that occours with automatic weighting, where the arm vertices would be partially influenced also by the others bones, deforming your mesh in unwanted ways.


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Drivers / Constraints resourses usage
I'm trying to optimize the rig of a cartoon creature, and this rig has really large amount of bones (more than 400) to have all the abilities according to the plot. I have IK/FK chains, Stretch To chains and all of its combinations. Tons of constraints, and all this staff really freezes viewport and render. And I know that many constraints can be substituted for drivers. So, the question is what consumes more computing resources: drivers or constraints? Or may be this just doesn't matter?
I am really stuck with this, I cannot just delete sone bones, I need to make them work faster with any approach. Probably you can tell me what are the haviest things (constraints, drivers etc) in rig for CPU
Thanks!

Did you try to evaluate the performance of the rig just on its own? Without any mesh? I doubt the bottleneck is in drivers or constraints.

Hello, @Jaroslav. Yes, you are right, I also have meshes (totally 54k vertices in Subsurf level 2 view, I don't think that is too much) with many modifiers (especially Shrinkwrap), but as long as I cannot delete modifiers (there's no Shrinkwrap substitute, because Boolean consumes even more), I try to do something with my rig. Just to make it as much efficient as it can be. It has may Action constraints, so my fear that all these constraints are hard for PC to recalculate at each frame. But probably drivers are not less heard


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Pause in relationships and constraints
I want to talk about relationships between (for example) two bones. There are two bones (A and B), bone B has a Cconstraint, bone A is the target of that Constraint.
Let the Constraint be "Child Of". When we reduce the influence of the Constraint to 0, B folllows no more transforms of A (and that is what I want), BUT when we increase the influence back to 1 B "jumps" to A's transforms. So it collects all the information about A's transforms, and at zero point we just don't see it, but it exists and has no interrupts.
Is there any way to stop any inherriting of A's transforms for B, so that we move A, and B also moves (at 1), then B stops (at 0), and then B again moves (at 1), BUT from point where it has stopped last time? With no jumps to A's actual transforms.
It is about all the constraints, no matter is it Child Of, Copy Transforms etc.
Any solution (scripting, parenting, other consraints) would be great.
P.S. Drivers also have the same principle so I'm stuck at this point.

It doesn't collect all the transforms, it just uses the relative offset, that the target had have at the moment you created the constraint. For the Child of there are two buttons 'Set inverse', and 'Clear inverse'. They change that stored offset. So to get what you ask, you need to change the offset. I have no idea, where and how it is stored in the constraint data, but I'm sure it's accessible from the python API.


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Python render freezes the GUI
i'm new to python, trying to write a little compositing and rendering addon. One of its fonction is to add a button with rendering a still and writing the render and all the file outputs renders in the render path (the f12 button of the regular GUI doesn't do that). So here's the operator looks like
#####################################################

# Add render still operator
def renderstill (context):
    bpy.context.scene.render.display_mode = 'WINDOW'
    bpy.ops.render.render(write_still=True, use_viewport=True)

class RenderStill(bpy.types.Operator):
    """Render Current Frame Still and write all Outputs\nWarning : Blender is going to freeze during the render"""
    bl_idname = "render.still_files"
    bl_label = "Render Current Frame Still"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER', 'UNDO'}

    def execute(self, context):
        renderstill(context)
        return {'FINISHED'}

#####################################################

This works pretty good, but it freezes the gui. Is there a way to make this acts like a regular f12 render on the gui ? with tile viewing, progression bar... ?
Thanks in advance !

Sadly, no. Python script disable UI interactions untill completion.

thanks for the quick reply ! oh ok... and is there a way to see the render progression through console window ? like with a "print" instruction ?

I can't comment yet, but check this related question. I had this problem these days. Fortunately you can do this in the operator with some little adjustments. https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/71454

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


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Blender Python path directory for file output node
i'm trying to make a little script to change all file outputs node in my compositing scene, relatively to my file output render directory.
For example, if i render something in
/Render/Combined/Combined_####
i want the file outputs nodes to create some folders in
/Render/
So far, i've got this :
import bpy

import os

 # Get absolute path:
filepath = bpy.context.scene.render.filepath
absolutepath = bpy.path.abspath(filepath)

 # set the path for all file output nodes:
for scene in bpy.data.scenes:
    for node in scene.node_tree.nodes:
        if node.type == 'OUTPUT_FILE':
            node.base_path = absolutepath

And it works, but i can't find a way to get to the "superior" directory...
Is someone out here have some answers ? thank you very much !

What do you mean by "superior" directory?

I mean the parent directory, if my render output ils /render/combined my parent directory is /render

So, using your example, you want to get the parent directory of absolutepath?

yep exactly ! (sorry if i'm not clear, not really good in english)

You can just add ../.. at the end of your absolutepath, like this
node.base_path = absolutepath+'../..'

or if you insist on getting the actual path cleanly, you can use the python os module to split the path into parts and then join them again except the last two
import bpy
import os

 # Get absolute path:
filepath = bpy.context.scene.render.filepath
absolutepath = bpy.path.abspath(filepath)

path = os.path.normpath(absolutepath)
parts = path.split(os.sep)

absolutepath = os.sep.join(parts[:-2])

# set the path for all file output nodes:
for scene in bpy.data.scenes:
    for node in scene.node_tree.nodes:
        if node.type == 'OUTPUT_FILE':
            node.base_path = absolutepath

If you want this to work even if your original path has a filename in the end, add
absolutepath, file = os.path.split(absolutepath)

before path = os.path.normpath(absolutepath)

this one is perfect too ! and the [:-2] give me control on the number of directory to "climb up" really good to know ! thanks for the quick answer ! i have one more question, i tried to use that and replace the last line by           node.base_path = absolutepath + "\new directory"           to create a new directory, but it doesn't work, do you have an idea ?

I don't know if blender auto-creates directories. Use os.mkdir to create it first

i found a way (i think it's not the good one, but it works); when i create the name i add   "\_" followed by the right name, but i had to keep the underscore, i don't know why but doesn't work without... Example : node.base_path = absolutepath + "\_" + "name of the new directory"

That's weird... In my case it does not need the underscore, and when I put it there, I can see it in the created directory (mkdir not needed btw)

perhaps it's about being on windows ? anyway it allows the file output to be quickly recognizable so not a real problem ! thank you for your quick answers !

Like this:
parent_dir = os.path.dirname(*your_path*)

Might be useful for new Python coders to see the code in context with a bit of an explanation.

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


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Change sequencer image strip filename through python
i'm trying to access and change the filename of image strips in the sequencer for a little addon i'm developping, but i'm stuck with invalid syntax, i think, and i can't find the correct way to put that... Here's what i've got so far :
import bpy

for scene in bpy.data.scenes:

    if scene.sequence_editor is not None:

        strip = scene.sequence_editor.sequences_all

        if strip is not None:
            for obj in strip:
                if obj.type == 'IMAGE':

                    obj.elements.Sequence_Element.filename="ok"

But last line doesn't work... Does anyone have an idea about that ? Or know the correct way ? Thank you very much !

The Sequencer Strip has a name property, which is assigned by the user in Blender. It also has an SequenceElement list which contains all "file" elements of that strip. (Especially with image sequences you have multiple files.) We need to access the SequenceElements filename property. Image strips only have a single SequenceElement which will be indiced with 0.
The correct code is:
import bpy

for scene in bpy.data.scenes:
    if scene.sequence_editor is not None:
        strip = scene.sequence_editor.sequences_all
        if strip is not None:
            for obj in strip:
                if obj.type == 'IMAGE':
                    obj.name = "ok"
                    obj.elements[0].filename = "ok.png"

perfect thanks you @Leander !  works like a charm ! i was aware of the name attribute, but i want to let it unchanged (because it's up to user to rename its strips) but i didn't know the good way to get to the elements attribute ! perfect !


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Export as OBJ and create fitting image texture
I am very new to Blender and wanted to create a 3D chess board with figures for my render engine. I have designed the board and created a material and I can succesful export it as obj and load it up in my render engine. The problem I have is that when i want to bake the material as texture it looks distorted and has much empty space for a uv texture map. Also the uv coordinates in the obj file are no longer accurate and don't apply to the image.
This is what the image look like:
https://i.sstatic.net/m0fL6.jpg
Any help would be appreciated

This looks like your UV Map is stretching. Select the face you want to uv-unwrap, view it from that in orthographic mode and in uv context menu, select project from view.


text:
Small rectangle in bottom right of image editor
What does the small rectangle in the bottom right of image editor represent?

it may be a face of your UV

if you provide your blend file...we can tell you the reason exactly.... ;)

Thanks for those comments. It very likely was a UV. I've recreated the object and made sure it doesn't have any texture mappings applied. Now the little rectangle is gone!


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Weird Redering Image
I trying to rendering image with low focal length camera (CCTV like) and I getting weird result. Some materials are appearing ahead while they should appearing behind others. My engine is Eevee.
Here is my preview (solid):

And here is my result:

Any sugestions?

It's a downloaded model, I assume? Did you check for flipped normals?

@metaphor_set Yes, it doesn't work. It feels weird because I have no problem with Cycles engine.

Look at the modifiers on the objects, perhaps there are some that are disabled during rendering?

Are you using alpha blend with materials?

@ZargulTheWizard Yes! Thanks. Do you know why it doesn't impact on Cycles engine?

@lonz praise the Lord! :-) I posted it as an answer so this will no longer be in the unanswered section. One thing I didn’t mention...

Comment echo: This is because of alpha blend in EEVEE materials. Because EEVEE uses rasterizing (fakes physical effects like transparency using formulas), it can be suspect to flaw in odd situations. Alpha blend  tries to implement full transparency function, but mainly experiences problems where it is trying to sort faces within the same object. Which one is in front? Treating something as partially transparent when you’re faking is very tricky to do.
Cycles does not have this problem because it uses ray tracing. It simulates the behavior of real light, and traces out every single pixel in the image. This is why cycles takes more computing power, but produces more realistic results.
If you have to use EEVEE, one good halfway solution is alpha hashed. Alpha hast is basically alpha clip, but with random threshold for each pixel, each sample. Alpha clip means a pixel is either fully transparent or fully opaque, depending on the threshold level. What then happens in alpha hashed with partially transparent materials is kind of a fuzzy mixture that looks better with each successive EEVEE sample.


text:
Bad normal map baking
I'm trying to migrate from 3Ds Max to Blender and everything was good until the moment I started to learn baking process. I have a 6 faces cube as low poly and its subdivided copy as high poly. Using ray distance or cage gives no difference. What am I doing wrong?

Oh, well. If anyone else buried in this situation then be aware it's a Blender 2.8 Beta bug that is still not resolved (just googled). So the question may be closed.

Oh you were using 2.8 ! You should have stated that from the beginning! x)
It's an unfinished software, bugs are just everywhere at this stage, it's just normal to have issues all the time, don't bother with them.

Aaaaand it's fixed in the last Beta update! :)

It might not give you the solution to your issue, but I recommend you the TextTools addon. It simplifies the baking process a lot, on top of giving a simple and more intuitive an more appealing UI and workflow.
Maybe you already know that addon, as it was a 3DS Max addon first.
And, who knows, maybe the defaults settings of the addon will indirectly solve your issue...

If you have just started blender the struggle is real hahaha.
Jokes aside probably your ray distance is really big. Try from .010 too .100
See if it works.
Also remember that both high and lowpoly meshes need to be in the exact space.
And remember you need to check the selected active check box. and select first the highpoly, and then the lowpoly. then pressed bake, but i assume you already know that.
Goodluck.

Lowering ray distance number helped a bit (about 5% of artifacts gone) but didn't solve the problem. Thanks anyway. I feel like the problem comes from high poly shading or they way I made it.


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Python - How to get a list of background images used by a camera?
I am trying to use python to get a list of names of background images that are being used by a certain camera, I've tried to do it like this:
print(bpy.data.cameras['Camera'].background_images)

which gives me:
<bpy_collection[1], CameraBackgroundImages>

Then if use:
print(bpy.data.cameras['Camera'].background_images[0])

I get something very cryptic:
<bpy_struct, CameraBackgroundImage at 0x000001B59016BCA8>

Is there a more specific attribute that I need to search for?
Also, I am using Blender 2.8

You should be able to access the name of a background image with
for background_image in bpy.data.cameras['Camera'].background_images:
    print(background_image.image.name)

It worked perfectly, thanks! And after adding a few more images in my camera, I get a list of camera background image names.


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Python - Trouble when changing context (the first time)
In the following script I am trying to create a material on the active object, then change the context to the shader node editor and then delete the existing default node setup:
import bpy

mat = bpy.data.materials.get("Material")
geom = bpy.context.active_object

if mat is None:
    # create material
    mat = bpy.data.materials.new(name="Material")
# Assign it to object
if geom.data.materials:
    # assign to 1st material slot
    geom.data.materials[0] = mat
else:
    # no slots
    geom.data.materials.append(mat)

bpy.context.area.type = 'NODE_EDITOR'
bpy.ops.node.select_all(action='TOGGLE')
bpy.ops.node.delete()

When I first run this script (from the text editor) on my scene I get the following:
RuntimeError: Operator bpy.ops.node.select_all.poll() failed, context is incorrect

Although, curiously, when I run it a second time (again from the text editor), the context is successfully changed to the shader node editor but no nodes are deleted.
And finally, when I run it a third time, it successfully deletes the existing nodes in the shader node editor.
Why does this script apparently work better each time it is run?
(I am using Blender 2.8)

To delete the nodes you should override the context of operator bpy.ops.node.select_all.
And the reason of error you see is mentioned here.
Actually to delete the nodes, instead of using operator I would use next piece of code:
for node in mat.node_tree.nodes:
    mat.node_tree.nodes.remove(node)
updated with your part:
import bpy

mat = bpy.data.materials.get("Material")
geom = bpy.context.active_object

if mat is None:
    # create material
    mat = bpy.data.materials.new(name="Material")
# Assign it to object
if geom.data.materials:
    # assign to 1st material slot
    geom.data.materials[0] = mat
else:
    # no slots
    geom.data.materials.append(mat)

# delete nodes
for node in mat.node_tree.nodes:
    mat.node_tree.nodes.remove(node)

would have been cool if you also had shown how to do this for the bpy.ops as well so we can learn about how to override context. like for example bpy.ops.node.nw_add_textures_for_principled does not have another way to do it without bpy.ops.


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related to the camera which disorients itself when i try to follow it along the path in blender 2.8
ggddaaaaaaayyyy!!!!!!! hi  i am an intermediate in blender and i am encountering a slight problem in my 2.8 beta . i know the the build is not stable right now and is in development but i am facing an issue which i think most of them might not be facing and that is when i try to attach the camera with a path to follow along it ... it gets disoriented in a way that i am unable to change it.... it doesnt happens in 2.79......but when i try to repeat the same steps i get a very wierd rotation of my camera ... not only that the cam simply throws itself into the scene in a random location...which is strange becoz i never face any such prob in 2.79.... if anyone has resolved this issue then pls share it with me as i am in need of starting cam animations in blender 2.8.....

i wish i could upload an image to demonstrate of whats happening

Could you upload a file to blend-exchange?


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Selecting Z-Up only faces
Does anyone know how to select all Z-Up only faces in this monstrocity please? I've selected a few as an example:

I've tried:

Select Similar > Normal: that selects Z-Down as well. I've also tried calculating normals from faces and repeating the step with the same result.

Select Similar > Linked flat faces: that seemed to select pretty randomly (I'm not surprised - this is entirely made of Ngons.

Selecting all side faces with Select Similar, seperating them out and
then from a top down view box trying to select them, hoping they would obscure the selection of the bottom faces in ortho view and I could add them layer by layer to a selection group then hide them but for some reason this often
selects Z-Down too.

Splitting the model at the edges and trying the above steps.

I'm guessing this would be simple in code if anyone has a snippet.

If Select Similar > Normal doesn't work you might need to add your file here. As @RobinBetts answered and I commented there, if your geometry is correct without any issues, the Z down faces should not be selected.

After Alt N 'Recalculate Outside', maybe M merge by distance?  and checking for all-blue with Overlays > Face Orientation,  Shift G Select Similar > Normal should work fine.

I agree, if all faces are correctly oriented, none flipped, none maybe duplicated or anything, then Select Similar > Normal should not select faces that are Z down. Just tried it myself to be sure.

Hi @GordonBrinkmann! However simple a problem seems, I never post an answer without trying it myself, immediately before posting, I've been burned too often :D

Yeah, this was more directed to the OP ;)

@RobinBetts Yup, Overlays > Face Orientation identified the problem. Looks like I've got some manual normal flipping to do, but still quicker than manually selecting all those faces (there are 3 other similar models to go!). On that note, is there any way to select all non-correct normals? They still exist after a recalc. Thanks.

@Absinthe .. IMO, depends on the failure of recalc, and whether you want to keep the characteristics that make it fail. Maybe share a representative  file on https://blend-exchange.com/.


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Extrude and automatically remove overlapping faces
My question is identical to this one, which was asked almost 6 years ago. I'm wondering if there have been any feature changes since then that automate the process.
Consider this image:

On the right I've extruded the yellow section in the middle and manually tidied up by removing the overlap at the top of the extruded column and welding the verts. Is there a way these days to make the extrusion and get Blender to do the tidying up automatically? I'm using v3.6.2.

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/30874/push-faces-like-sketchup https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/162634/how-do-i-get-rid-of-the-extra-faces-created-when-extruding-inwards/ https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/228336/correct-way-to-extrude-inward-intrude/228340#228340

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos, I think he's looking for "dissolve orhogonal edges" option.

Extrude Manifold was the answer. https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/228336/correct-way-to-extrude-inward-intrude/228340#228340


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multiple objects scaling problem
I want to scale multiple things at once but the "center of Scaling" should not be in the middle of all obyects i selected but in the middle of each seperat/induvidual obyects center. do you know what the shourtcut to this is?

ctrl+., then scale as usual.
This is basically this option:


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Background image, blender 2.8
Apparently in blender 2.8 the background image feature has been removed, is there any way that I could replicate the effect?


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Selecting two meshes in Edit mode
why can't i select two objects in edit mode?     I am trying to make a face from two different meshes but can't perform the action

please delete this question as it is an exact duplicate of the one you asked just a few minutes prior to this

@NicolaSap Page will be down within a day, the moderators get points for cleanup.

Go to object mode, select both objects, Ctrl J to join them, then go to edit mode.


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What is making my file so heavy?
Even if I hide almost everything in the scene, my computer cannot begin to render. I left it to render over night and it was still stuck on 0% in the morning. If anyone could check out my file I would really appreciate it!
(I tried reducing the render passes to 32 and reducing light bounces to 4, no dice).
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pr1FdO461RaFQDsTo5klWofKiG31IbMe/view?usp=sharing

Things that are hidden in the scene still appear in the render. To truly remove them from the render process, move them all to a separate collection, then disable (not hide) the collection by unchecking the check box.

Usually when the rendering fails there is message in the top left of the render window. What is displayed there when you try to render ?

@Gorgious no error message!

@ChristopherBennett Thanks! But moved almost all to another collection and still having the same issue

I think it has to do with your procedural textures and the overall detail of your mesh - attempting to render it quickly ate up all 32gb of my ram, and tried to start paging. I stopped it there. Not sure what's going on in your node groups but that will definitely contribute.. Also, your meshes seem enormously complex and many could  undergo significant remeshing/poly-reduction without losing any visual fidelity - is there some reason they're that detailed?

Your file is 380 MB heavy.  One part is that you have high poly objects with 2 UV maps for each object. That's about 150 MB. You can delete the UV maps to save space. There are also Custom Split Normals Data, about 20 MB. Then, it's still 215 MB big, but I'm not sure why Blender still needs that many bytes...?
Why it doesn't render
As already mentioned you have a few high poly objects in your scene. Each of these objects has something like 257,000 vertices, 607,000 edges, 350,000 faces - and they have a Subdivision Surface modifier, Viewport level: 0, Render level: 1. That's the problem.
If you render this, the modifier kicks in and adds some geometry... 1.2 million vertices, 2.4 million edges, 1.2 million faces for one object. This is multiplied by the number of objects and ... good night ;-)
Solution: Remove the modifiers and it will render fine.
To decrease the render time you can use the default 128 samples, tick [X] Adaptive Sampling, and use the denoiser in the compositor.
Also, these objects in the background can be rather low-poly. 5k or 10k vertices with a bump/normal map should do the trick. No need for 257k vertices.

128 samples, AA, denoiser node, 20 minutes render time (CPU), 1.5GB mem peak


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problem with rig
Sorry if its a simple problem this is my first time trying to rig something. The problem is when ever I move the leg different parts dont move at the same time or are distanced from one another, look at the two images below for examples of what I mean.
This is it without moving anything

hello, how did you parent? maybe share your file: https://pasteall.org/blend/

Hi Please use a title that reflects the content of the question. It should be descriptive but succinct, unique and identifying, summarizing the issue so that users can at a glance understand what your post is about. Use the [edit] link below your post and avoid anything not strictly essential to the post. Remember, your title is the first thing potential visitors will see, and makes your question findable for future users. See "What is the problem with posting an image or link and asking “How do I do this?""

@moonboots just put it up and I parented it by - armature deform and empty groups https://pasteall.org/blend/4e3fc1d137d243d7910d34d85b9394f2

To add to Chris' answer, instead of parenting with vertex groups, as your robot is made of separate parts, you could have parented each part to each bone: Select an object, shift select the armature, switch it to Pose mode, select the bone to which it is supposed to be parented to, and press CtrlP > Bone:

you have to check your weight painting. Each part of your cute robot should only be parented to one bone, not to more.

as you can see in my gif, you parented that part to upperleg_l and lowerleg_l. But of course it should only be parented to lowerleg.
I just checked that one. You should also check your other parts and weight paintings.


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parts of my rigs neck fly away from the body when I move the upper section of the neck
It may be that I overlooked a small problem but when ever I move the upper neck bone on my rig the part that connects both the neck to the head fly out of the body weirdly. I've checked the weight groups and they are only connected to one bone which is the one it should be. Look at photos for a better example and also here is a YT video showing the problem --> https://youtu.be/JVN0XKCJ1xs

here is the blender exchange link --> https://blend-exchange.com/b/8opVoLlj

You have parented theses pieces twice, once with a parent to > Bone, and the second time with the empty groups, that makes these piece move twice the distance they should move. You need to either remove the modifier or deparent from the bone.


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How can you save node group data to be able to be seen within unity?
I don't know if you just cant do it or not but I am creating a stylized texture for low poly assets for a game within unity. I am unable to get the textures working as I have used both a noise node and I have texture painted on the corners.
This is what the texture looks like

This is the node group for it

Here is the UV maps

Thank you for reading

You have to bake the texture into a new image, that will be exported to Unity.

Blender and Unity use separate shader systems - Blender nodes will not work in Unity. However, given your material looks rather simple, it may just be easier to recreate it in Unity's shader graph


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2.93 cycles denoising viewport render problem with it just going black
I have updated to the new blender 2.93 and have started 3D modelling within it I am unable to do a have the viewport rendering while I work in cycles because of how pixelated it is and the denoiser just doesn't work and in turn just turns black look at photo below for example. I have also tested this on different computers and with the same problem on them.

Thx for reading


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How to change number of vertices for cylinder after created it?
I've created a cylinder object which is fine at first. But as modeling goes by I've decided to change some properties,like number of vertices, of the cylinder just to see it in real-time. But cannot find the solution.
Search the internet only come up as using "Adjust Last operation". I know I can just add new one. But for the sake of knowledge and future work flow.
Thanks in advance.

You'll have to do it more or less manually.
Two ways come to mind.
01) Screw Modifier - when your mesh has a uniform profile (Eg. greek columns, wheel rims)

02) To sphere function - when you run out of options :)

Add loopcuts and use Mesh > Transform > To Sphere to correct the the circles


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Blender is not rendering an HDRI properly
I recently upgraded from blender 2.81 to 2.82a, and I've immediately noticed a problem. Blender is not rendering HDRI images like it used to. You used to be able to plug an HDRI image into the background node, and into the world output. However when I do this now, in Eevee or Cycles, it renders what can be described as "as solid color" version of the HDRI instead of the actual HDRI image.
Here are some images to show as examples, each has a difernt HDRI, one is in Eevee, one is in Cycles. Is this a new "feature" of 2.82 or is this a bug? Thanks.

Hello :). I can't reproduce the issue. Did you check Scene World in Viewport Shading Overlay menu?

So, you must use perspective mode for the hrdi works normally.

Your node setup uses an Image Texture instead of an Environment Texture node.

The correct node setup is shown below. It includes the Mapping node for adjustments to the rotation.


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How do I hide an emitter plane while keeping it's emitted light visible in a cycles render?
This is how you used to be able to do it in blender 2.79
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lsRQQLFVEY
I can't find this option in 2.8

Does this help: How to make a cycles light emisson object invisible to the camera?

Hello :). Make sure to use Cycles render engine, Eevee doesn't have this option. Cool username by the way :).

In the object settings, uncheck "Camera" under "Ray Visibility";
This;

Becomes this;

This setting removes the emitting object from view (while leaving it's light) regardless of whether you are looking through a camera or the normal viewport.


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How can I make the viewport run faster?
I am working on a really complex mesh that I am using for product design, so I do not intend to render it. Due to its complexity, blender is running really slowly and it takes a few minutes to make any changes. Again I do not want to render this, I want to speed up blender in edit/object mode when I model the mesh.

Can you share some details? There are literally thousands of ways to optimize. Maybe some screenshots of thee modifiers and wireframes?
Right off the top of my head, reducing sub-divisioin modifiers and marking things as "smooth shading" can go a VERY long way on photo-realistic models with lots of polys

Scene > Simplify
(don't go in edit mode with a mesh with a lot of subdivision: for example don't go in edit mode on a mesh you sculped)

You can also reduce Light Bouncing to a low degree. (There is no difference in the render result,if you're using values above 4 in my opinion)


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Strange artifacts using Cycles
When I render in cycles i'm getting these weird artifacts. They look like surfaces that have been translated, scaled up, generally funked up.
This model is probably a mess under the surface. It looks like some of them correspond to cutters so I tried disabling cutters from view, but same effect.
It only shows up when rendering in cycles, nothing in ever. Any thought much appreciated. This is my second tutorial after The Donut so probably a lot of bad habits coming out.

Perhaps these are objects that have been hidden in the viewport (eye icon) but not in the render (camera icon)? There's also a silver object at the front intersecting one of the arms in the first render. This might be hard to answer without taking a look at the file (https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/). That being said, if this is the second model you've ever made, I'm thoroughly impressed.

That looks to me like a modifier with different settings for render than for preview.

Thank you for the replies. Yeah I've been looking for hidden objects, but no luck.
And I will look through the modifiers to see if there's any funny business going on there.
Any other thoughts much appreciated.


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I have a problem exporting a .obj file into Blender version 2.78
Hi so recently in the past 3 hours, I had decided to render some objects for a friend of mine. I was able able to use blender yesterday just fine. So today when I went to go export a .obj file, the title of the file became highlighted in red, when you would move your cursor over the text it would say, "Filename, overwrite existing" when you click export OBJ, nothing happens. I tried using a different file and the same thing occurred. I don't get any error messages on my screen. I've tried looking up my problem on the web, hoping to find someone with the same problem, unfortunately, I feel like this problem has only affected me. So I come here looking for any advice, tips, or even a full out solution to help me resolve my problem. Thank you.

If the filename is red, that generally means you're trying to save to a file that already exists.

All of this would make sense, but it's all of the files that are.obj which are given the red highlight. If this is the case then how exactly can I export these files into blender, since I'm not really trying to save, I'm just trying to export them onto the application so I can work on them.


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Array with more than one empty is it possible?
I want to scale an array in the middle and at each extremity and I was thinking about having 3 empty located along the array but the array don't seem to be able to have more than one empty to control the scale like I want.
I already tried using the curve radius but this distort my object.
The reason I want to use array is because the object doesn't get distorted and it is keeping the same distance between them.
Here an image to explain what I need to do :

Array + Curve Radius is the way; you just need to use duplifaces with the scale option instead of arraying the final object directly.
Setup a simple plane object and use the array as desired on it. This plane will only be used as "emitter" for the true geometry you wan to to array.
The array on its own will guarantee constant spacing. Then add a Curve Modifier and adjust the curve radius as you already described.
This will distort the plane, but not any duplis it may have, so now parent your true array geometry to said plane object with the array.
In the Properties Window > Object > Duplication turn on Faces, and tick the Scale option.

Thank a lot Duarte this is working perfectly, have a nice day!

Hi Duarte, after further testing the solution i cam accross spacing problem here a gif to show it : https://imgur.com/pgT1z3k


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Video Output transparency not working
I'm trying to animate something and I split it into separate .png image clips, set it to rgba, set alpha to 0, went to film and set it to transparent as well but when I rendered it as a .avi the background is black.

There is no transparent video. The more close you get is gif animations.

Adding to @LeoNas comment -  You can render out to a series of png files and later, import those files back into the Video editor (VSE) as a whole, mix that with whatever other videos or images you like.  The alpha layer will work that way.  Archive the series of png images in a zip file for later use.   When importing the image sequence into the VSE, select "image".  Blender will see that it's a sequence and treat it as an alpha layered video.

I don't think AVI supports alpha channel. Try accessing Quicktime Animation Codec if you really want an embedded alpha.

You can render every shot in a separate .png file, and then, you can upload them to after effects and combine them to an image sequence.


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How would I wrap text around an object with multiple curves?
I'd like to have this text lay on top of the hat as if it was made from felt, diagonal like it is currently, except actually fully placed on to the hat. My goal is to have part of the words on the cap and part of it on the hat.

Look into the "shrinkwrap" modifier. You need to convert your Text to a mesh first, subdivide it (simple, not smooth) and add the shrinkwrap with the cap as target. Project it from the Z axis (hight).


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Accidently grabbed a vertex from a uv sphere and now I cannot deselect it
I cannot deselect the vertex from this uv sphere, and I've done this before, why isn't it deselecting it now?
I'm building an egg and an egg lock from a comic book, but I selected the vertices on the egg to rip some out, and a single vertex from this sphere won't let me deselect it at all, I've done this before, why won't it allow me to deselect this single vertex?
I cannot undo this mistake when I've done it before, and it continues to do it, selecting each vertex individually would be a horror show, but doable, so what changed on me and how can I make sure it doesn't come back to haunt me.
Yes, I know I can take the sphere out of view, but that doesn't do me the solid of deselecting this vertex I need unselected, which is all I'm curious about.

Alt-A should deselect everything.

If you use "box select mode", drawing the box while holding Ctrl will deselect everything inside. Hope that helps

yeah, I managed, I was just wondering what made the vertex un-deselctable on it's own. I was trying to specifically Not select the orb, I just forgot to renove the sphere from view, but I was wondering about that one mechanic, maybe object activation order that locked it in, or accidently activating the second obj switched my 3d viewport mode. Just curious as to what stopped that single vertex from being unselectable. I tried box and circle deselect, it would deselect the vertices around it, just not that single bottom vertex, curious as to the interaction that stopped its deselection. Thanks


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Skeleton moved between Object Mode and Edit Mode
I have a problem to solve. I have a mesh of a character that I created for a game, using Blender 2.80.75. I then found a skeleton animation on cgspeed.com which is fine for my case. The problem I encountered is the position of the skeleton that changes when I am in Edit Mode compared to that in Object Mode. They are not the same. In particular in Object Mode the skeleton has its feet placed on the X-Y plane, while in Edit Mode it slides lower. It also changes the pose. How should I do it ?

In Edit Mode you always see the rest pose. If you apply this as the rest pose in Pose Mode (ctrl+A) it will ruin the animation. So the best what you can do is duplicating the skeleton, apply the T-pose as the rest pose on the new one, create the armature deform, recreate the base pose, apply the armature modifier, then assign the mesh to the original skeleton. But did you try mixamo.com? It rigs your mesh automatically and offers a lot of free animation.

Yes, I know Mixamo.com but it doesn't have the animation I need, that is, the character has to bend over his legs to pick up an object.


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bubbles on sphere
i try to implement the solution of Robin Betts "bubbles":
How I could replicate this bumpy texture?
but no "bubbles" appear....can anybody help me, what am i doing wrong?
here is my blend file:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/onp7jim8bvi3491/bubbles_on_surface_with_nodes.blend?dl=0

Hello :). Keep in mind you need to enable Displacement in material settings, and it only works in Cycles. Options > Displacement > Displacement.

thank you! works now

Thanks to @Jachym, answer now updated.. sorry it wasn't clearer in the original.

No problem - i am just a total beginner


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how to see the (always) updated render result in the image editor?
Is it possible to always see the rendered result after compositing in the image editor? I know it shows it if i hit F12, but i want to do it automatically.
"Update autmatically" is checked. I am rendering with Eevee.

Your problem is that you see the image before composition in the image editor ?

My problem is that it isn’t updated at all, only if I hit F12. But I would like to see it after compositor.


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why does age of particle info node not work for Metaballs?
I can colorize my particles by age with an icosphere as object render in particle system.

If i use the same material setup for a metaball as object render ...it won't work. Age seems to be always 0. Is this a known bug or am i missing something?

It's probably because metaballs are something special. They are not like individuals, but  rather like mother  - the first metaballs object added into a scene, and others as children or helpers. If you hide first one all are gone. So there is a chance it would not work.


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Animation nodes - error
I got this error in animation nodes, when i try to sort the ids.

my node tree:

What am i doing wrong?

Hello, try using the latest version from https://animation-nodes.com/ the error looks like it is using a script designed pre 2.80 when the matrix multiplication has been replaced by @ instead of *. see https://blender.stackexchange.com/q/129473/86891

looks like mine is the newest version :(

but...your link helped, i could change my .py file...and the error is gone. Unfortunately...the sorting function still does not work :(

got it, thank you Gorgious, now it is working fine! Your link helped me a lot! But i had to change it by hand mself in the .py file. The download still seems to have the error inside (mabe just in the mac-version)

Alright ! If you want the issue to be brought to the attention of the developper, you can open an issue on the official github : https://github.com/JacquesLucke/animation_nodes/issues share a link to this thread for explanation

thanks, i opened up an issue.


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How can i see my keyframes for attributes of animation nodes?
I cannot find my keyframes for my keyframed attribute of animation nodes. Frame selected did not work. Can anybody give me a hint?
I keyframed max value, as you can see. I would like to see it in timeline/dopesheet.


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Is there a way to add outline/highlight your model?
I have seen a few tutorials where you can add outline around your models, unfortunatley none of thoe tutroials gave me the results I was looking for! is there a way to do this?(#1) instead of ?(#2)
I would not like the lines to be visible inside the model( I am new to blender and to 3d art)

What exactly did you tried? Did you tried with freestyle?

https://blender.stackexchange.com/search?q=silhouette

Render Properties tab: Enable Freestyle.
View Layer Properties tab: Make sure External Contour is the only edge type checked.

This works, but doesn't show the results in the 3D View, not even with the Rendered Viewport Shading option set. Is there a way to get it to show the results prior to rendering?

As far as I know, Freestyle is strictly a post-processing effect. :/


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No valid selected objects when baking
I'm learning blender and trying the baking tool now. I'm using a very simple material with just a base color node to try out baking, but I'm getting a "No valid objects selected" error. I want to bake this base color to an image without shadows, so I'm using Diffuse Color baking type. I've tried everything I found to solve this, but nothing works. I have a mesh selected in edit mode. I have it unwrapped. I have all of it selected. I have created a blank image. I've created an Image Texture node and assigned this image to it. The Image Texture node is selected by clicking on it. The "Selected to Active" is unchecked. And I'm still getting this error. I don't know what I'm missing. Here is the screenshot:


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Renaming or reorder vertex groups of a mesh to match the names of a second mesh
I have two meshes which share similar vertex groups (positions), but they have different names and order. I want to reorder or rename the vertex groups from the first mesh to match the second one.
The only thing that came to my mind is to visually compare each vertex group in weight view to find its match in the second mesh and then rename it. Too tedious to do it for almost 200 vertex groups.
Is there any more efficient way to do this task?

scripting is always your friend for tedious work. There is a scripting for artists course on the Blender Foundation Youtube Channel if you are interrested.

Thanks for the replay. The problem is that this process requires a visual inspection of each vertex group. But I don't know if there is a tool in blender to automatic identify similar vertex groups and then rename according to the second mesh.

You can code an euclidian distance function (also called L2 Distance) to compare the vertex groups


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How to transfer only the vertex groups' names between two identical meshes?
I have to identical meshes. They have the same vertex groups; different names, same order and the weights from one mesh are a bit deformed. I need to only transfer the vertex groups' names. Is there a method to do it? Or there is another method to easily extract all the vertex groups' names from one mesh to a program like excel or notepad?

Something I don't understand: If you already have the same vertex groups, why tranfer the vertex groups names? If you want to remove the vertices from the groups you can select all the vertices and Remove From All Groups

Hi, the vertex groups are the same, but the weight painting, from the mesh that has the correct names, is a bit deform. I need to use the other mesh that has the cleaner weight painting but with the names from the first mesh. I can do it manually, but there is almost 200 vertex groups per mesh, and I need to do it in various meshes.


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Change origin point in edit mode without 3d cursor
Is there a way to change origin point in edit mode without moving 3d cursor? If I remember correctly, there was a short cut in edit mode to move around the origin point. Does anyone know?

maybe this video will anwser: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wbvsh4kXKTI

Does this answer your question? How can I position the object origin precisely on a specific axis?

I don't know the shortcut but I do know how to do it without one.
In the top right corner, check Origins and with the move tool you can freely move your origin. When you are done check the Origins button again and you can move stuff around normally again.

Thanks Manex! I guess I remembered wrong. I do it in object mode either by clicking origins check box as you mentioned or use short cut ctrl+.(period)


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Where is the command box in the bottom left of the 3D viewport?
noob question...I have seen the same question asked many times but not really answered. All tutorials I have seen for 2.8 feature a small black command box in the bottom left corner, it's full of options for each command you select. Basically, you can't do anything without it. However, I do not have this box, so I cannot modify any settings as I create a feature. How do you get this box to appear?
I have seen answers featuring 'its in the 3D viewport' and 'hit F9'...neither of these seem to be relevant, as I'm already in 3D viewport and F9 will only shows the command I'd previously selected, but with no options. What is the answer? Very frustrating, please help.

This box is called the Operator Panel. It only appears after you perform certain actions, and often "disappears" as soon as you click away from it or you use any kind of transformation (move, scale, rotate, or when you click on another object).
For example, if you add a cylinder (Shift+A > Mesh > Cylinder), before you do anything else, look in the bottom left corner - there will be a little text box that only says "Add Cylinder". Click this box and it will expand for more options. Once you've expanded it once, it should appear expanded for all actions until you shrink it again (eg: other things you do, like add a loop cut will cause this box to appear "fully opened"). But, it will still disappear when you click away.

Keep your eye out for this box as you perform different actions (both in object and edit mode) - you'll be surprised how much it appears. There are lots of options that you can make use of through this panel.
Alternatively, you can use a floating window with the same options by pressing F9

The box is called Adjust Last Operation. If you do anything in 3D viewport like add/remove/etc it should be shown by default on bottom-left corner in 3D Viewport. If not, just simply turn-on when you are on Object Mode, go to View > Adjust Last Operation.

When you select anything else your Adjust Last Operation will disappear.  If you want to get it back, go to Edit > Adjust Last Operation. Or simply press F9.
(I used Blender2.91)


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Outputting emission with transparency -what am i doing wrong?
im trying to render a laserbeam animation. (In EEVEE)
The beams need to be on a transparent background, as they will be projected over an image/animation for a project.
here is the problem: it looks correct in blender when rendering, the background is transparent, the beams glow. i added a glare node in composite and everything looks fine.

Now when i export the picture as a png or tiff or anything, it wont save the glow/emission , while it shows in the render window. In photoshop it turns up like this: (no glow! - black layer added to show)

Why doesnt it export the glow/emission ? what am i doing wrong? it drives me quite nuts at the moment ;|

Hello :). PNGs cannot handle both emissive and alpha pixels (due to it's bad alpha handling). Use EXR instead for compositing.

hi jachym, trying this EXR still results in the same images as above , but actually trying a few other different image formats, i found out the bmp actually stores the right alpha but still requires me to cut it out manually in photoshop to get it transparent ;/


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How exactly do you color models?
As my understanding goes there are 3 ways to color a model:
-Download another software for that
-Download photoshop/gimp/paint and color the unwrapped version of your model
-Use the blender brushes
but I don't know what are the other softwares to download, I don't know how to color something that was unwrapped... any link for tutorials out ther? cause I can't find any.
I tried the blender brushes and they are very limited.

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/75816/how-to-distinguish-material-and-material-slot/ https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/72811/materials-textures-and-how-they-relate-to-models-before-after-render


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whenever i render my model, my GPU instantly goes to maximum usage
blender noob here. I have just finished my first model in blender. all I have to do is render it. but whenever I render it is all pixelated and distorted, this massively intensifies whenever I move the UI camera. I went to the task manager and my  3d graphics card is at maximum capacity. I have a powerful one too. I have tried the entire very little amount of things I can do and it just wouldn't work. pls help
and thank you
HELP WANTED

The pixelation is called noise. Until unless your scene is denoised, you will see noise whether how high the samples. I think you sould watch some blender tutorials and learn more about gpus. It is normally ok for your gpu to max out at 100%.

Maybe you are using a small amount of samples (like 128) and there is not to much lighting. In that case, if you have the denoiser is going to look weird. Also, maybe you are using both the GPU and CPU, I have bad results when I do that (I asume that there is a way of doing it properly). Try to increase the number of samples, change between CPU and GPU and see if something change...
And some pictures of your problem can help!
Good luck


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Is it possible to reduce the influence that a bone will have before parenting with automatic weights?
I can see that in the deform section in the bone properties tab there are options to reduce the "envelope weight" of a bone but are there similar options for bones that aren't of the envelope type? Maybe even an add-on that does this would be helpful.

You could reduce the weight afterwards (for example in Weight Paint mode > Weights > Levels)


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Blender Python bpy build with Python 3.8
I would like to try Blender's bpy module with FreeCAD.
Thing is FreeCAD is currently built with Python 3.8, when I went to build bpy it wants Python3.9. Is it possible to build bpy with Python 3.8?
I built with 3.9 and copied bpy.so to a location that FreeCAD would find but when I try
import bpy in FreeCAD python console, FreeCAD crashes.

From https://wiki.blender.org/wiki/Building_Blender/Other/BlenderAsPyModule
Testing
This allows 'bpy' to be imported from python or other applications/IDE's which embed python, eg:
python -c "import bpy; bpy.ops.render.render(write_still=True)"
Or:
python -c "import bpy; bpy.ops.wm.save_as_mainfile(filepath='my.blend')"
This runs in background mode and has similar restrictions to running a script:
blender --background --python test.py

Yes. Download any python source tarball > 3.6 (or whatever the min is) , and build blender against it.  Was building against 3.92, ... was shocked to DL an official version and see it was 3.77 Found cmake-gui a very handy tool tool for configuring a build.  @ZargulTheWizard bpy as a python module is. Prob the best way to get auto-completion etc working in IDEs. Suggest removing comment.  (IMO would love to see it distributed)


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Solidifying SVG remains 2 dimensional
I am attempting to import a basic SVG enclosed path into Blender (2.8) and extrude it so that it becomes a solid. From other website resources, it seems that the best way to do that is to import the SVG, convert it to a mesh, and then solidify it. However, when I apply solidify to the mesh the object still appears completely flat. For larger values of solidify, what looks like a second mesh starts to warp. With smaller thickness values, it appears that a clone of the mesh is superimposed on it (but still no thickness).
Thanks for your help in advance; I am definitely a beginner.
Here's the imported SVG

Here's the result of solidify

Here's from another angle showing the flatness

Hello :). The Solidify modifier says: "Faces needed for useful output". That's gotta be a hint :).

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction, @JachymMichal I definitely did not realize there was that warning.

And next time change the viewoport background color or select your mesh, to make it more visible, dealing with wires.

From the comment, I appeared to figure it out. Selected the mesh, went to edit mode, selected all vertices, press F to create a face, then solidified.


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Where is the At field for custom shaped bones
In Blender 2.79 used to be an At field for placing custom shaped bones at different bones. In the manual of 2.83 there is still a reference to it - see below copied text of the manual
Workflow
To assign a custom shape to a bone, you have to:
Switch to Pose Mode Ctrl-Tab.
Select the relevant bone by clicking on it.
Go to the Display panel Custom Shape field and select the 3D object previously created in the scene; in this example we are using a cube and a cone. You can optionally set the At field to another bone.
However, in my version (2.83.1) there is none. Was it moved to a different place or is there a different way to place a custom shaped bone at a different bone?

I've never seen that field. But I can tell you that I've had a lot of trouble with getting custom bone shapes to work right in the past. Aligning them with the bone when the bone is already in its pose position (as opposed to being newly created, and as such, still at the world space origin) is a pain, and not at all straightforward. I eventually learned that I needed to make sure that the custom bone shape and the bone itself share the same local axis orientation. If they don't, they won't ever align properly.

"AT" inside bones is now called "Override transform" and it's below the "Custom Object" ( Bone Properties >Bone Shape >)


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How get mouse position for a custom selection script in Blender 2.8/2.9?
I`m trying to make script that selects objects with the same property. Operator "bpy.ops.view3d.select" selects only in the zero position (0,0), and function "event.mouse_x" returns zero mouse position too. Is it possible to solve the problem in blender 2.8/2.9?


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Blender to unity - object is offset
Ok, so basically I made a 3d model using blender, and I imported it into unity by right clicking -> import asset -> 3dModel.blend.
It looks fine and all, but if I try to move the object, the object is far away from the thing that moves it.
Here is a screenshot of what I mean:

As a result, the asset would rotate in a BIG circle.
So... How do I revert this to a normal state? (Like this one)

Any help is appreciated.
Thanks

I don't know a lot about Unity, but in Blender, is your pivot point located in the center of your object?

How do I know this?
Because I am new to blender :)

When you select your object in Blender, there will be a small orange dot somewhere. This is your origin point. Your origin is probably not centered in the object you're exporting.

Hm... there is no orange dot anymore.
What do I do?

Right click on your object > Set Origin > Origin to Geometry. Check if you can see it after doing that.

I found that in Blender if you delete the Camera object if you have one will reset the center to the position that you are looking for


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How do I parent these two bones in the hip the same way they are at the shoulder? Can I?
How can I make it so the lowest circle thing (armature?) on the bones in the spine is the parent of the highest armature in the leg? Is that even something I can do? When I try to parent it in the settings for the Bone, it parents it to the bone directly above the bone instead of the one under it.
What I have now

What happens when I try to parent it.

Your bone is correctly parented, when a bone is parented (child), there's a dotted line that goes from its head to the tail of its parent. So maybe I haven't understood your question correctly but it looks like you're good.

I wanted it to parent like this
https://imgur.com/a/HiKhEJ4
But when I think about it, I think you're right, and that this may be better for posing anyways. Thanks!


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How to render every face with a unique RGB value?
I have a pretty simple scene with a variety of textured cuboids. Additionally to rendering the cuboids with their texture, I would like to create an image where every face is shaded with a unique, single RGB value, such that no RGB is shared between different faces (the value itself is not important). I know that it is possible to use the object ID in the rendering pipeline, but this will give a unique color per object, not per face.

Have you tried the random pet island input?

In my blender 2.81 and cycles engine the geometry node doesn't have that output. Can I enable it somehow?

you didn’t mention geometry nodes before.

Oh, I thought you meant this random per island input, which can be found on the geometry node when creating a material: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/render/shader_nodes/input/geometry.html
Is there another random per island option somewhere?

Maybe I’m naming it wrong, but there is a Geometry node for SHADING that has a random output. Yeah, pretty sure it’s actually not called “random per island.“ PS: no offense with the all caps, just wanted to be sure you knew that the geometry node is not geometry nodes.

Apparently this was a version problem, in 2.93 I found the random per island option. But I'm still not sure how it can solve the problem efficiently.

Enter edit on your cuboid.  Select all.  Mark seam.  Unwrap.
In UV editor, change pivot point to individual origins, select all, and scale to 0.
In your material, use the UV as a lookup on a scaled up Noise texture, and look at its color.  You'll get a different, unique color for every face.
To get different colors for different objects, perturb your coordinates by an object/random factor.  I'll use vector math/scale to do this, since UV is a vector and object/random is a scalar, but it really doesn't matter how you do it; "add" would work as well.
In the image below, I'm also using an RGB curves node to enhance the contrast.  (A white noise would have been preferable to a noise texture, but in testing, it seemed that there were small imprecisions involved in the lookup that led to non-constant values.)

This already looks pretty much exactly like what I'd want, thank you! Since this is a new material and I'm also changing the UV coordinates of faces, how could I render both my original, textured image, and this rgb-per-face image simultaneously? And when I look at the resulting image from this, I actually have over 1500 unique rgb combinations in the image, altough there's only 6 faces visible. I guess it's some kind of interpolation at borders. Can I somehow disable it?

@jiggy there may be small imprecisions, but any number of rendering options, even rendering with a sample count of greater than 1, are going to mean that in strict image analysis, there exist more colors than faces.  Some info about your end goal would probably help people get what you want.  In terms of rendering some other image, it depends exactly on how you want to combine those, but you should probably be looking into either render layers or additional UV maps.

Thanks, I'll have a look at render layers and additional UV maps.
The end goal is to have ground truth plane segmentation for machine learning, i.e. I want to know which pixel belongs to exactly which plane. I guess a different method would be to directly render a "face/plane-id" into a grayscale image.

@jiggy well, this isn't going to be a good solution to that problem, which involves more than materials, but rendering settings as well, and doesn't require perceptually different colors.  Among other reasons, you're going to get collisions well before you reach 2^24 faces.  You should definitely edit that into your question.  Note that it's basically impossible if you are working with an arbitrary number of objects, even if the sum total of faces is less than the max; consider joining all objects into a single object, at which point you can get guaranteed unique values for each face.


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Bake single frame of ocean modifier into texture
I am new to blender and I would like to know if it is possible to bake a single keyframe of the ocean modifier into an image.
The goal then would be to export the mesh created with the ocean modifier as a .fbx and then apply the texture to the exported mesh.
I am not sure that this is possible though.
Thanks for your help.

Yes it looks like it works, either normal baking or baking the height with a b&w gradient on the Z axis:


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Bake shader output into an image texture
I am really new to blender and I am trying to get some basics so forgive me if my question is not clear, uses the wrong terminology, or does not make sense.
I understood what is baking by watching some tutorials but maybe not at 100%. I followed a tutorial through which I was able to create a nice looking floor with different nodes. The nodes all converge into a Material Output node. I was wondering: is it possible to bake all these nodes into an image texture? I was trying to do it but without success.
Below you can see a screenshot of my current project also with the options I used to try to bake the nodes into the floor_bake image texture. I think that what is definitely not correct is the "Bake Type" which I set to "Diffuse".

Could you please help me?


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Does anyone know of a tutorial series that walks you through adding clothing to a rigged character?
Basically I have a modular item system that acts similar to the BOTW system, with swappable items for pants, torso, and head. I've spent a crap ton of time weight painting and doing every trick I could find but my pants and shirts still deform weirdly whenever I move my character. Sometimes they even split off from the character model, and I can't fix it without making the whole model look stretched and ugly.
I've looked everywhere but most of the clothing tutorials are only about cloth physics, or skintight clothes that don't really apply to what I'm trying todo. I feel like I just must be doing it all wrong, and would appreciate something to base my work off of. Thanks!

I’m voting to close this question because it is a tutorial request, which is off topic for this site.

Sucks to be me. I was hoping for an answer. Guess the search continues.


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Shape key animation applies to all animation actions, how do I only apply it to one?
Like the title says, I've been learning how to use shape keys, and need to change the value differently based on my animation. But when I make one shape key animation it applies to all of my actions. Would appreciate any ideas on how to have separate shape key animations for each action

Alternatively to accepted answer: If two or more objects share the same mesh, they will share the same shape key animation.  Go to the mesh properties, where mesh name is click the number to make the mesh a single user copy.

Thats not really the issue though, it's the same object in each animation. I just need different shape keys on the same object based on it's animation. Would that be possible?

Ok, think I'm with you now.  One way is to drive a shapekey value with something on the object, eg a custom property or a pose bone.  This way even the shape key animations will belong to the one object action.   https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/164834/15543     Or use the NLA.

Drive the shape keys
Instead of keyframing shapekeys can drive them with a custom property on the object you are animating.  Change and keyframe the custom property.  Keeping you to a single action.
Example image, Basis and five keys on the Cube Mesh. Five custom properties with matching name are added to  Cube object.  These can be keyframed, and for default scene example will become part of the "Cube" objects "CubeAction" along with transforms etc.

From Python: drive a shape key with scripting
There is a script to set up the custom properties and drivers for you.
Converting Shapekey Action to Object Action
If you already have a shape key animation, this will transfer it to object action as custom properties.
Eg the cube has an action "CubeAction"
The shapekeys are part of action "Key.001Action"]
The datapath keyframed for the value of shapekey "Key 4" is
key_blocks["Key 4"].value

will convert to a fcurve on "CubeAction" with data path to custom property "Key 4"
["Key 4"]

and copy over the keyframes.
Conversion script, change name of shapekey and object animation to suit.
import bpy

context = bpy.context

sk_action = bpy.data.actions["Key.001Action"]
ob_action = bpy.data.actions["CubeAction"]

for fc in sk_action.fcurves:
    data = [0.0] * 2 * len(fc.keyframe_points)
    fc.keyframe_points.foreach_get("co", data)
    dp = fc.data_path[len('key_blocks'):-len('.value')]
    ofc = ob_action.fcurves.find(dp)
    if ofc:
        ob_action.fcurves.remove(ofc)
    ofc = ob_action.fcurves.new(dp)
    ofc.keyframe_points.add(len(fc.keyframe_points))
    ofc.keyframe_points.foreach_set("co", data)

This is fantastic thank you.

I think you will need a different shape key animation for every action. To simplify this you can copy the shape key you already have.
It's sometimes hard to notice but you have to click the little downward pointing ">" icon. Make sure you have only the correct shape key activated by having its checkbox checked, and having the other shape keys unchecked (since the new shape key will be a combination of all the activated shape keys). Then have the Value set to the correct value (in this case 1), and then choose New Shape From Mix.

That's unfortunate but I guess I don't have much of a choice. At least I'll still be able to make modifications now, thank you for this.


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Blender 2.83 not opening
I'm on Windows 10, Intel i7, GeForce 1070. A while back I had Blender on this PC, working fine. But my RAM was corrupted, and after a couple months the problem was fixed. I recently decided to get back into Game Dev, and decided to get Blender again to do a little modeling. But all that happens is the program flashes grey, and it shuts down. I've updated all my drivers, Windows 10 is fully updated, run_debug_gpu is doing nothing anymore. I've uninstalled and reinstalled countless times, including older versions. It just will not open, no matter what. Are there any alternative solutions?

Try portable .zip Blender versions and try installing a different GPU driver. NVidia may have 2 versions - Game Ready and Studio, make sure you try both.

I am using a 1070, i7, win 10 as well,  using the latest studio driver with no issues. Try running blender from a command line with  --debug-all --factory-startup or use an earlier version


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How to bring back the mainframe
I'm not sure how I did it but I accidentally deleted the mainframe and don't know how to bring it back. while I was trying to, I duplicated the thing under the mainframe and put it above it. I have tried so many things to get It back for so long. I noticed that when I went to another project or a new one it was like usual. Please help I am extremely frustrated. Here are some pictures to show what I am talking about if you got confused:

It is not called a mainframe, it is called the Outliner. This took me a while to figure out what you meant, but that's fine.
Look very closely at the top right corner inside where the outliner should be. See that gray arrow pointing down? Click it or drag it down. A bar should slide down. Go to the left side of that bar, and there is another dropdown. Click it, and from the window types select Data->Outliner.
Click the arrow to unhide the header and switch to Outliner.

Good eye! I didn't even know you can hide it like that :)

Thank you so much I’m glad I asked you guys. It would have taken me forever to find that out! I love the monkey to the side (:


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Blender is not rendering in the viewport
In the viewport, it doesn’t render (when using cycles because eevee doesn’t look right) on the top left corner it says initializing but it never starts rendering. I have let it sit for more then 15 minutes. I do have a slow computer but not that slow. here is a pic of the viewport:

Your render is paused .
Click on the top right icon shown in the image to switch it back on.
Don't mind the clipping... (The one in the second circle)
This function is normally used to prevent a view port render from updating even if we make any changes to any thing or try to mave in the viewport.

wow a click of a button for almost 2 weeks of mental pain. thank you so much (:

You can select the answer as the correct one if that solved ur problem . Happy that I could help u :)

have you tried altering the resolution and number of light bounces to see if that speeds up rendering to help resolving your issue? 15 minutes does seem like an extremely long time to see something from most computers. Is the item just using a standard colour as well?


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File output Node not working
So for whatever reason the File output node doesn't work for me, doesn't matter if i do render image or render animation I've double checked that the output folder actually exists, but nothing happens. Am I missing something obvious?

Check the permission on the folder. Also, try using forward slash / instead of backslash \  in the folder path ex: c:/test/

@Bruno I've tried both version of slashes, I also tried browsing into the folder using the gui with no luck. as far as I'm aware there is no special permission on this folder and I also tried to change it to a folder that takes the rendering output using the regular way.

Do you have multiple render layers and this one might not be included?

@Bruno nope, I had 2 layers but deleted one of them and saw no change

Ok so I figured out what was wrong, the compositing in post processing was disabled so I just had to tick the box to enable it.

quote form blender doc:
"Unlike the render output filepath, this node uses a base directory and an image name, by default the output path is composed of: {base path}/{file name}{frame number}.{extension}."


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Speed up Fluid Simulation for Fluidless Frames
In my fluid simulation all inflows are disabled until around frame 620. There is absolutely no fluid in the scene up until this point.

I would have thought that the fluid simulator would quickly process these frames and skip them since it would be trivial to determine that there is no fluid to simulate.
However, during baking these frames are taking as long to process as a frame full of fluid would. It seems like it is going to take blender an hour to "bake" 600 frames with zero fluid.
Is there any way to make blender skip the processing of these frames and only start the actual simulation at around frame 600?

The speedup is possible:
Update based on comment for Blender 2.81a:
(To my best knowledge, as it is a good bit more complex.)

This older version does not use Mantaflow, means it's still using the older fluid solver, which takes it's Time Start and End values as Seconds and not frames.
There is a bit more to the simulation with the old solver:

Time Start and End are values expected in seconds
Using any value higher then 0 as start essentially means the simulation skips the time til then and the result will be like starting in the middle of a movie.
The time between start and end (default 4 seconds) is stretched/squished according to the timeline given Start and End. Lets say start frame 1 and end-frame 200 with 25 fps, would mean the 4 seconds would be simulated over 200 frames.Essentially stretching it as 200/4 is 50 and not 25 fps. So to have the speed correct we would need to set End to 100. If the simulation is set to end at 8 seconds, 200 frames would be right, different fps though can make this equation a bit tougher.
After the simulation is baked, it can be played with an offset, means then you can use a positive offset to start the simulation again somewhere(depending on the frames given) from the middle, or use a negative value to delay the simulation and start it later then it was calculated for. "-25" would make it then start 1 second later at frame 25. (Why at one hand seconds and on the other side frames are used, is beyond me.)
Last but not least, there are 2 other places you may need to visit and adjust:

Making the timeline show seconds as to have a better indicator for how long the simulation may go and

the Output Properties to adjust the "Frame Rate" with it's "fps", as that influences the timeline as well as the calculation you may need to do to figure out what to set the simulation end and later offset.

Friendly suggestion, I'd update to the new stable Blender version 2.82a with Mantaflow if possible, as below shown the setting up became a lot easier:
You may not only have to time the inflow(s), but also set the Frame Start in the domain. See picture below, the frames that will be calculated, be there fluid or not, are set in the Cache Section. All in frames.
Version 2.82a+
While you can always cut off the inflow, the simulation is stubborn and goes through all frames between Frame Start and End when you bake.
Happy Blending

Thanks for the answer, but I have completely different settings in the domain physics properties tab. I am on blender 2.81a.

I would not mind to add to, or correct my answer if my knowledge was not deep enough. We all learn new things, so i would highly recommend the newer version as Mantaflow is really simpler to set up and it allows a very nice preview instead of having to bake everything to then look and maybe having to redo it.
I already wrote an answer based on Mantaflow here I am trying to fill a bottle with liquid, maybe helpful after updating Blender, Youtube has a lot Mantaflow tutorials as well.

I ended up just bearing with the long simulation times as there does not seem to be a good way to solve this problem in 2.81 and this is for a time constrained project where I do have the time to upgrade blender and learn / convert to the new mantaflow system. I have accepted your answer though because I see that the solution to this problem is essentially just "upgrade to 2.82". The new mantaflow system looks very nice and I will certainly be upgrading and experimenting with it once this project is complete.


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Excluding mesh from UV map
I need to add some new details to an existing project that's already UV mapped.
To be more specific I need to add glasses to the canopy of an aircraft. The aircraft has been mapped from the original mesh designer and I'm not an expert in Blender to remap the whole project.
I successfully add the glass elements to the canopy but they are mapped with a weird pattern.
This's the result:

I tried to modify the material assignement to such mesh with no result.
The full project is here. Items to be exluded from mapping are: canopy.glass and cockpit.glass.
Of course the new material to assign to such items should be transparent.

Hi! Your question is a little bit confusing.
What do you want this to look like ?
I mean... can't you just assign a new material with a transparency if you want the canopy to look transparent?

since your using eeve, you might run into some issues regarding the transparency.
I would suggest watching some tutorials about transparency in eeve and also about light map baking if you want to get best results.

@Nand27 of course I tried but as long as I can see if I assign a transparent material to this nothin happens (but of course I'm probably doing something wrong)

I fixed it. The problem was given from the useless stack of materials applied to every mesh (also to newly created ones?!) ... I needed to empty object materials stack and then the transparent material worked (on Cycles of course...) right now I'm looking a tutorial about glass material in EEVEE as Nand27 suggested. thnx.


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Locate sparse faces
I noticed that the mesh I'm working on has some 'disperse' faces I noticed a couple and removed them but I think they can be many more and I need to avoid that... how can I select them?
The object is too complex to select all the faces manually (at least using the basic methods I know) and then use 'select -> inverse' to get all the remaining.

You could try (in Face Select mode) to use the Select > Select All By Trait > Loose Geometry?

Could you be more specific about what you mean by "sparse", "disperse"?  Maybe some pics demonstrating what those mean to you.

Hi. This question was put on hold because as it stands it is not answerable for lack of essential details to understand the issue. Remember only you have access to your scene, so unless you describe it thoroughly only you know your exact setup, settings and what steps you took to arrive where your are now. Please describe in detail what your issue is, possibly supported by some accompanying screenshots with the [edit] button above. Don't post a comment or ask a new question, editing will automatically put it up for review so it can be reopened.

Select your object, got to edit mode and select a vertex of your "main" mesh. Then do this: > select linked

Result:

If you then invert your selections (CTRL-I) you got all "dispersed" selected.

I tried this but probably because of topology issues (in this mesh) almost no vertex where selected using this approach.

hint: next time provide your blend file, so we can help with your mesh.


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The materials tab seems to be missing
So i imported a model from mmd, and i need to materials tab to add textures to it.
but the materials tab is nowhere to be found.
I tried selecting the model( Also tested it on a basic cube mesh, and the tab suddenly appeared )
And also tried to change the blender render.

Maybe the mmd importer creates a collection and adds an instance of that collection while hiding the actual objects in the collection. (Collections don't have a material tab)
Check the Outliner and see what exactly you are selecting. You can also change the outliner display mode to Blender File and then search your imported model under Objects. You can then select it and should be able to change materials.
Hope that helps!

Thank you very much, it helped, and it seemed to be the case with collections