text:
Animate Soft Body Along Curve (Holding Form)
I'm trying to animated a shoelace along a curve that spells out a word in cursive. I know the simplest way is to just keyframe an offset along the curve but I'd like to have the shoelace being a complete and wholly formed object rather than simply appearing out of nowhere.
My first thought was to use a soft body for the shoe lace (because if possible I'd like to keep a little jiggle and physics), and animate it along the path using hooks. I was going to put hooks at every major point along the curve and keyframe their strength so that as the soft body passed through each one, it would "switch on" and start holding that part in place until it forms the entire word.
Something tells me this isn't the most intuitive way to do it, though?

I am one reader.  What is your goal? I do not understand this phrase [I'd like to have the shoelace being a complete and wholly formed object]

I mean that if you just offset a curve it's going to go from non-existent and slowly appear over the length of the curve. I want the shoelace to exist 100% in the scene from the start, and wind into the shape of the curve, not appear to "grow" into the length of the curve

Curve Modifier is being used, correct? Yes No?   Multiple Curves are being used? You can state that in your question.  Or a screen capture of your work or similar work can be shown to understand your starting point.

I am assuming when you state [offset a curve] you mean .. using a Curve Modifier. If this is not the case please state so.  Once that is clear this questions can be deleted by me.  The Blender screen capture or simplification would be helpful to see.

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/50396/how-can-i-animate-a-mesh-moving-in-a-spiral-fashion/50407?r=SearchResults&s=21|20.4508#50407

When using a [Curve Modifier] the curve can have 2 portions. That is a starting portion and a final portion.

The starting portion could be a wound up visual of the shoe lace or other artistic vision
the final portion can be the cursive words.

This may or may not suit your artistic needs.

My initial mock up was done in C4D and I was approaching it that way, with spline wraps, etc. and after looking more closely at the curve modifier I see that you're right. I could create a long path for my curve to follow in whatever shapes I want, all while maintaining the same dimensions (not growing along the path). Maybe a noise modifier on the graph can give the movement some of that "physics" feel where it's slightly bouncing and jiggling as a real shoelace would


text:
bpy Camera Stroke Modifier code attempt: Menu not showing, property not working
I'm trying to create an addon that offers a sort of third option from the Screen Space vs World Space stroke thickness. Inspired by this post, the idea is that upon activation, and on every update when there's a change in distance between the scene's active camera and a Grease Pencil object with this option active, the script will get the distance between the object and the camera, divide it by a set base distance which can be set and modified by the user, and then set the Thickness Scale option underneath the Stroke Thickness dropdown to the resulting value.
Problem is, there are some gaps in my knowledge, and I can't seem to figure out what I'm missing because the menu additions I'm trying to create in the Data section of the Properties Editor just isn't showing up.
Here's what I have so far:
import bpy
from bpy.types import Panel

from mathutils import Vector

#Create property on grease pencil object. It should work as a checkbox over the stroke thickness text box of the adjustments subpanel on the Layers menu of the Data section of the Properties Editor.
class CamSpace(bpy.types.PropertyGroup):
    use_CamSpace: bpy.props.BoolProperty(
        name="Camera Space Adjustment",
        description="Enable persistent distance adjustment for stroke thickness",
        default=False
    )

    base_distance: bpy.props.FloatProperty(
        name="Base Distance",
        description="Base distance value for stroke thickness adjustment",
        default=1.0,
        min=0.0
    )

    #Maybe it can be keyframed? How would I do that.

#Function to determine the distance between GPO and active Camera
def calculate_distance(self,context,obj):
    #Establish active camera, =active_cam
    if context.scene.camera:
        active_cam=context.scene.camera
        camera_loc = active_cam.location
    else:
        print("camera not found")

    obj_loc = obj.location

    #Get current distance from active camera, =current_distance
    current_distance = (camera_loc - obj_loc).length
    return current_distance

#Function to determine Stroke Thickness Scale
def calculate_stroke_adjustment(scene,context,obj, base_distance):

    current_distance=calculate_distance(scene,context,obj)
    stroke_adjustment=current_distance/base_distance
    return stroke_adjustment

#Update function for when a frame changes or the GPO or Camera is moved
def update_stroke_thickness(scene,context,obj,base_distance):
    for obj in context.scene.objects:
        if obj.type == 'GPENCIL':
            #call the function nest, introducing the next layer
            adjustment=calculate_stroke_adjustment(scene,context,obj,base_distance)

            #for every layer in GPO, bpy.context.object.data.layers[layer].line_change = stroke_adjustment
            for layer in obj.data.layers:
                obj.data.layers[layer].pixel_factor = adjustment
    return('FINISHED')

#Create options in Data panel, under the Strokes submenu, to activate the CamSpace properties.
#Use conditional text box under the property checkbox to enter, modify and store the default comparative distance to operate from, =base_distance.
def draw_CamSpace_options(self, context):
    obj = context.object
    layout = self.layout

    layout.label(text="test")

    # Add the checkbox to the 'Adjustments' submenu in the 'Layers' panel
    layout.prop(obj.CamSpace, "use_CamSpace", text="Camera Space", toggle=True)

    #Add the input for the base distance property
    if obj.CamSpace.use_CamSpace:
        bpy.context.object.data.stroke_thickness_space = 'WORLDSPACE'
        layout.prop(obj.CamSpace, "base_distance", text="Base Distance")
        #maybe grey out the thickness adjustment text box while this is active.

class CamSpace_Panel_Adds(Panel):
    bl_label = "Camera Space"
    bl_idname = "DATA_PT_camera_space"
    bl_space_type = 'PROPERTIES'
    bl_region_type = 'WINDOW'
    bl_context = "data"

    @classmethod
    def poll(cls, context):
        return context.object and context.object.type == 'GPENCIL'

    def draw(self,context):
        draw_CamSpace_options(self, context)

#--------------------------------
#register classes
classes = [
    CamSpace,
    CamSpace_Panel_Adds,
]

def register():
    for c in classes:
        bpy.utils.register_class(c)

    for obj in bpy.data.objects:
        if obj.type == 'GPENCIL':
            if "CamSpace" not in obj:
                obj.CamSpace = bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=CamSpace)

    # Set up the frame change handler  (possibly redundant)
    bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_post.append(update_stroke_thickness)
    # Set up the update handler for object transformations
    bpy.app.handlers.depsgraph_update_post.append(update_stroke_thickness)

def unregister():
    # Set up the update handler for object transformations
    bpy.app.handlers.depsgraph_update_post.remove(update_stroke_thickness)
    # Set up the frame change handler (possibly redundant)
    bpy.app.handlers.frame_change_post.remove(update_stroke_thickness)

    for c in reversed(classes):
        bpy.utils.unregister_class(c)

Three things, possibly:
At the end of the script, you should call register.
if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

The property should be assigned on the type (here I've changed it to be for grease pencils only (not assigning it to each object of type GPENCIL):
bpy.types.GreasePencil.CamSpace = bpy.props.PointerProperty(type=CamSpace)

Then in the draw function, you have to change from 'obj.CamSpace' to 'obj.data.CamSpace':
def draw_CamSpace_options(self, context):
    obj = context.object
    layout = self.layout

    layout.label(text="test")

    # Add the checkbox to the 'Adjustments' submenu in the 'Layers' panel
    layout.prop(obj.data.CamSpace, "use_CamSpace", text="Camera Space", toggle=True)

    #Add the input for the base distance property
    if obj.data.CamSpace.use_CamSpace:
        #obj.data.stroke_thickness_space = 'WORLDSPACE'
        layout.prop(obj.data.CamSpace, "base_distance", text="Base Distance")
        #maybe grey out the thickness adjustment text box while this is active.

But you cant call obj.data.stroke_thickness_space = 'WORLDSPACE' in a draw context (the prop can not be changed in this context).
So that:

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Cant pick an object on bevel path curve menu
I was trying to do a stylizied hair but couldnt do it, so i opened a new file and try it there, it was also not working, what can i do?

If you hover over the Object dropdown list, you will notice that a tooltip pops up saying that you have to pick a Curve object. You only have 1 curve object which is currently selected, and ofcourse you cannot use the same curve object as the one you are selecting. So you have to create another curve object. In the below example, notice that I have an Arc curve, in addition to the selected NurbsCurve object, that I can select from the list.

sorry forgot to erase the scribble over the end mapping thing. ignore that.

right, thank you so much, but i have to choose the circle to make the path get it's shape, if you look for stylized hair tutorials you will see that it should be possible to select a circle for the path to follow, yet i cant. But weird that it says only curve objects, im curious now, because i have done this before and it worked. really odd

wait, so i a just add a curve circle and it works, wow sorry for the slow realization lol

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


text:
why some curves does not work properly
I am trying to make the particles follow a curve.
I make a curve, add a force field to it, set it to a curve guide, and let it run
This works great for most curves but for some reason not for others, and the particles float a little around the curve.
like shown in the picture:

does anyone know why this happening?

could you provide your blend file so we can see your settings? thx

 HERE IS THE LINK TO MY FILE. THANK YOU!


text:
Array modifier apply. Keep objects and origin point
Is there any way to apply array modifier but with making each object separated and with right origin straight away?
Here is the problem. Each my object (flower) contains different parts (petals, stem etc) which are not connected. So if I apply modifier and then do 'Separate by Loose Parts' it divides not my flowers but each part of it. And also I loose origin point. So I need to join together all parts of the flower and set origin point as well for each. And I have about 30 flowers so it's not very effective at all...
So I hope anyone can tell me better and faster way.
Thanks!

No, I don't think that is possible with the array modifier. You could always consider the Copy-Paste technique.

That's a shame but thank you for your answer!

Does this answer your question? How to obtain a set of separate objects from an Array Modifier (or other method) and keep their rotation and scale?

Funny I used it for delphinium flowers too.

@SteakOverflow That's great! Probably you could create a plugin from it so it'll be easy to use?


text:
Intersect coplanar edges with creating new vertices
I'm trying to switch from SketchUp to Blender and have some issues with flat surfaces.
In SketchUp if I copy any line and it intersects another it creates new point on intersection automatically. It's different in Blender and all information I found is very dated.
So basically I'm asking the same question as here: cut intersect edges
And trying to do what is described here: https://archive.blender.org/wiki/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/Modeling/mesh_tinyCAD/

I tried function 'Weld Edges into Faces' but it actually changes a shape of your surface instead of creating new vertex.
So I'm curios if any new information available which could make this task simple.
I'll be very grateful for any help!

Hello :). There is a useful TinyCAD addon shipped with Blender, that does exactly that. Just enable it in Preferences > Addons.

It's important to note that "TinyCAD only works on one objects mesh, means if you have multiple objects you need to join them by selecting them and pressing "Ctrl+J", also if you did not have the transformations applied, weird results are to be expected. Pressing "Ctrl+A" -> "All Transforms" should prevent that.

Thanks! It works! But it deletes all connected surfaces, is it normal? So you need to fill them manually with F? @Jachym Michal

@LiliaLilia I'm no expert on TinyCAD, sorry :). Feel free to post a new question about it :).


text:
Bake Specular Map
I'm trying to bake Specular Map.
I have 2 materials. If one of them has Specularity - 0 and another one has - 1, it works correct. Not specular - black color, specular - white color.
But any middle number (or grey color, or any map) it bakes as white.
I set Bake Type to Glossy.

Please explain me what is the problem.
Thank you!

Do you need to bake this in the first place? If you use the same value everywhere, you don't need an image texture, just write the value as is.

The specular input of a principled BSDF is not the same as specular color.  Principled's specular is much more akin to a remapped Fresnel or IOR.  The specular color of a principled BSDF is derived from the base color instead.
In earlier versions, Blender baked only by pointing a camera down the normal of the sample.  This mostly makes Fresnel, a view dependent effect, irrelevant to bakes.
In current versions (4.0.1 or around then), the specular settings have been renamed to IOR level which should dispel some of the confusion, and you can now bake from an active camera rather than above surface in order to get view dependent effects like Fresnel:

As Blunder offers, if your goal is just to bake some color, just bake it as emission-- that's the best way to get exactly what you want, when you know exactly what you want.

I'm not sure if Specular is the same as Glossy and I have no idea why this black/white conversion occurs. The documentation is not helpful here: "Glossy - Bakes the glossiness pass of a material."
I would just bake the Emit type and you'll get what you see. Plug the desired node into an Emission node or use the preview function of the Node Wrangler's addon:


text:
Subdivision Surface Modifier is bridging/filling in the area under a curve
I am modeling the anvil from Blender Guru's intermediate tutorial and have encountered an issue. When I add the Subdivision Surface modifier, Blender partially fills the area inside of one of the curves. I have tried creasing the bottom edge, but that does not seem to have helped.
The included pictures are using the modifier with the default settings. When I messed with the settings, nothing appreciable changed with the anvil.
If anyone has insight into this issue it would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

Looks like subdivision of a concave ngon.  Is your bottom made out of quads?

No my bottom is not made out of quads. I can try making it into quads.
Here is an image of the bottom: https://imgur.com/VVJajUE

Thank you! Changing the bottom to quads fixed everything.

Solved! https://imgur.com/5B9W5dE


text:
Ways of Baking Animation with Applying Modifiers to Each of the Keyframe?
Good day!
Prehistory:
I'm creating website which would display different styles of tying shoelaces on 3D shoe mesh.
Problem I faced with:
I created and keyframe animated shoelaces using an array and curve modifiers. The problem is, that I would like to export my animated 3D model to the website with glTF file extension, and it doesn't support modifiers.
Question:
Is there a way of baking animation with applying modifiers to each of the keyframe without doing this all by myself or are there any other method to animate curve that follows the path?
P.S. Alembic and Light Point Cache extensions doesn't seem to work for me.
https://i.sstatic.net/fMxlS.jpg


text:
Align origin and axis to custom vertices
Let's say you have some vertices which are places randomly in space.
You want the origins to be aligned based on these vertices. I struggled a lot with it previously
so I want to share the easy method I found.

Here is a solution:

In Edit mode select right vertices.

Go to Transform Orientation - Plus icon to create new orientation based on your selection

Back to Object Mode check ‘Origins’ box

In Object Mode use ‘Align to Transform Orientation’ operation

Enjoy!

I hope it was useful! Happy holidays everyone!


text:
UV Unwrap with correct rotation
I'm wondering if there is a way to make unwrapping process faster and more pleasant.
So I have wood texture and simple model of the window, which has mostly vertical  faces. I want the lines of the texture to follow Z-axis on each surface. Smart UV project of simple unwrap rotates it kind of randomly. So are there any techniques or plugins which could help me? It would save lots of time!
Thanks in advance!

selecting the offending areas should be easy using the L key, which considers seams disconnecting. Then in UV editor you can simply press R, 90, Enter, and pack islands.

@MarkusvonBroady it kind of works, but after that the new islands are overlapped with the old. Should it be fixed manually? If I select everything and then "pack islands", it rotates the old ones randomly..

You can disable rotation in "pack islands"

@MarkusvonBroady It worked! =) Thank you so much! Could you write it as an answer please?


text:
Can't switch rendering engines
First off, I'm a beginner, and started yesterday at the time of writing this. I was working on a project (the donut) and when it was time to switch rendering engines, I switched to Cycles and it worked at first, but when I tried to switch to GPU rendering on my RTX 2070 Super, it reverted back to the look of Evee, but it still said Cycles. I switched back and forth a few times but it was identical no matter what engine I used. I restarted Blender, my PC, and I tried seeing if cycles would work in a fresh project (the cube only), but the same thing happened. I might try a reinstall, but I dont know if it'll work properly if I store the .Blender file elsewhere and reinstall then. Thanks to anyone that can help!
 - A confused beginner

Hello and welcome :). Does this happen when rendering? Or in the 3D viewport? Because viewport uses Eevee for Material preview, even when Cycles is selected for rendering.

please share more info, for example screenshot (https://imgur.com/upload) so we can understand what do you mean by "it reverted back to the look of Evee".. what does it mean? are you doing the render (F12 on keyboard)? what viewport shading are you working in?

Is this in render mode, or object/material mode? (hit shift+z until you don't see a wireframe to enter Rendered mode)

So sorry everyone, I just had the wrong viewport shading on! I feel like such an idiot... Glad to be a part of this community though, and thanks for the help!


text:
Pile up objects and attach them for mass 3D printing
I'm completely new to Blender. Because of Covid-19, my dad got a 3D printer and we are printing protective visors for hospital workers here in France.
We have been given a 3D model that we can simply load on the printer and it works pretty much alone. The 3D-printed part is quite small and very flat so we thought about piling six or seven of them up so we can let the printer work during the night. Then in the morning we would simply have to detach each piece from the pile using pliers. This is the piece (or two pieces, actually) that I want to pile up.

My strategy would be to extrude small cylinders to the shape from different points and copy and paste the model several times. The end result would look like this:

The yellow bits are the cylinders I want to insert to separate the different parts. So when it is printed, I can simply cut them to separate each visor.
To do this, I think the best way to proceed is the following steps:

Load up the model as I did (imported an STL file)
Add some tiny cylinders (or another shape) on the top of it by extruding them
Copy and paste the shape and move it along the Z axis to pile them up
Fuse everything together and merge it as a single item
Export as STL
Put into 3D printer.

Is that a good strategy? How should I proceed?
I looked up everywhere at how to extrude a cylinder, or copy-paste a shape and attach it together, but in vain. I'm too clueless about Blender to figure how to do this. I could only manage to make a circle spawn at the origin of the plot.
I know stackexchange is mostly for professionals and this is a beginner question, but this is a quite peculiar situation. I really want to do it fast, as the quicker we print the visors, the faster the medical staff can have them.

Welcome to Blender Stack Exchange! This question isn't really Blender specific though. You'll get a better (and quicker) answer on the dedicated 3d printing stack exchange, found here: https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/

Thank you, I'm reposting there.


text:
How to confine particles within a volume?
Hi I am using Particle Properties - Hair to put slender particles inside a specific volume mesh (Emit from: Volume). But I find for some particles, they can go outside my volume. How can I confine particles within a volume? Thanks a lot!

Duplicate your main volume in place
Remove the particle system from the main volume
Scale down the duplicate so that the particles fit into the main volume
make sure to turn Show Emitter off in the Particle Settings panel

Thanks for the answering! Is there a feature that goes with the original volume to confine the particles?

Not that I know of. I think the particle system is using the Origin of the particle object to determine its position within the volume.

OK! But this works pretty well though! Thanks a lot!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I can't get this to work as expected unless I add Collision to both volumes.

Add a solidify modifier on the emitter
Place it above the particle system in the modifiers stack

Switch on 'Use Modifier Stack' under the particle system's Source options, if not already
Turn up the solidify thickness value until the particles are filled in properly


text:
How to keep cloth from stretching infinitely?
Trying to simulate a balloon on a cloth ribbon. However, the rising balloon stretches the cloth infinitely, while I want the cloth to keep the balloon down. I have played extensively with cloth settings, to no avail. Any help is appreciated.

Under the Stiffness tab in the cloth settings, turn up the Structural slider, that should fix it.
The Bending Model under Physical Properties must be set to Linear, otherwise, the slider will not show up.


text:
Animating Depth of field - not smooth change of focus
I've been trying to animate simple change of focus between background or foregroud. Everything should be fine, but for some reason focus change is not fluid - it looks like its changing depth of field amount every few frames instead of doing it slowly every frame.
I use eevee as my renderer, i've tried keyframing focus distance but also setting an empty and animating its position.
Do you have any idea how to approach this problem?


text:
Dragging new link to an already linked node input doesn't delete the existing link: it switches it to the next input instead. How to avoid that?
Blender seems to have this default behavior when editing node trees:
If I have a node with an input that is already receiving a link, and I drag another link to that input, the existing link isn't replaced with the new one: its end gets displaced to the next unoccupied input (if any), instead.

This, at best, forces me to manually unhook or cut the displaced link to eliminate it before or after the intended operation. At worst, I can completely miss that it happened and so introduce a "bug" in the node tree.
I've tried disabling some usual suspects (Nodewrangler, etc.), but none of them seem to be producing this functionality, and I'm not finding anything about it in Blender's documentation.
So, my question is: is there any preferences setting, keyboard shortcut or other methods to avoid this behavior and effect a link replacement instead of a displacement?

This is native functionality, not part of any addon, as far as I know can't be toggled off unfortunately, other than changing source code compiling it yourself

Digging into the matter, I'm discovering that this behavior seems to be type of node-dependent. For example:

When working with a Bright Contrast node, the new link fully replaces the existing one.

When Working with a Principled BSDF node, the existing link jumps to a different, not necessarily consecutive input.

So, it seems the behavior has different settings at the type of node level.

It's even more complicated than that: in the case of the Principled BSDF node, the existing link often replaces the previous one in certain inputs, but in others it can make it jump to a different, not necessarily consecutive input, if it is related somehow: for example, from SS IOR to SS.
This is a rather confusing behavior, conducive to producing inadvertent mistakes if one is being fast at editing a node tree.

Blender does this for "similar" or equivalent input sockets, which either have the same data type or at least are part of a series of sequential inputs. Real world results from the user standpoint may not be as predictable as one would desire.

To add to the previous mentioned things: this sometimes can even be desired behaviour, for example if you coincidently plug in values in the wrong order for e.g. subtraction or division. If you plug the first value in the wrong socket, it's not necessary to unplug it and do it again, just plug the correct one in afterwards and the other switches automatically. Or if you plugged shaders in the wrong order in a Mix Shader or colors/textures in a Mix RGB...

I'm posting a petition to make this behavior optional, at the Preferences or keyboard shortcuts level. I guess it won't have much traction, but…  Thank you all for your comments . https://blender.community/c/rightclickselect/4zJg/


text:
How to reduce cylinder faces?
How can I reduce those cylinder faces so that theres just one face for each two faces? I want to make fitting teeth for the tooth gear nearby and the faces are too small.

I would select all the longer edges, check or deselect, and dissolve, but that may not work for you.

Thanks you're a hero! I was looking at the cleanup functions but none did work!

praise The Lord.

you meant Select > Checker Deselect


text:
Project vertices to middle plane
I have two rectangular profiles that face each other at an angle (see image). Now I want to create a middle plane in between those faces with the outer vertices on the continuation of those profiles. How can I do that?

You could do it with the TinyCAD addon:

Extend the edges along their axis with GG + C:

Activate the TinyCAD addon, select all and right click > TinyCAD > XALL:

Clean the result, remove vertices, merge by distance to remove doubles:

Fill the faces:


text:
How can I turn this into a perfect cylinder
During modeling, I often find myself having this problem. How can I turn the following face loop into a perfect cylinder?

The easiest way is to use the LoopTools > Circle. Enable the LoopTools addon, select the bottom and top edges (or as you say, simply select the face loop), right click > LoopTools > Circle:

Thank you, works like a charm! Even with the face loop selected. I should add that you need to apply scale of the object first, otherwise it will turn into a distorted cylinder.

Upvote for the expressive action lines

@glades, you're right, I've edited

@Duarte Farrajota Ramos, thanks for noticing, it took me hours to make them look nice  :/


text:
Understanding BMLoops: Does every loop enclose a face?
I'm using bmesh to alter my geometry via python. Now I don't seem to understand loops correctly. I thought that a BMLoop always covers the edges of a face as in it loops around it once. I can manouver back and forth between the next and previous loops via link_loop_previous/next and switch to adjacent face loops via link_loop_next_previous/next (order determined by the edge disks cycle around the loop vertex: https://wiki.blender.org/wiki/Source/Modeling/BMesh/Design)
But recently I stumbled upon a problem when i logged the loops that pass through a vertex which was the corner of a cube. The vertex had 4 loops. I don't understand what face the fourth loop should belongs to? I'm maybe understanding it incorrectly.

could you provide code to demonstrate the anomaly on default cube?

Could it be that there was an internal face?

I have tried reproducing it for a cube but it was all ok, 3 loops per vertex.

I believe the problem was that I was adding geometry while I was running the function and it right away included the additional loops that were being created in the background.


text:
Insert new vertices into face using pyhton & bmesh
I want to add vertices to a face. Can I only do this by redrawing the whole face with bmesh.faces.new(loop_vertices) or can I also just add some to an existing face? The documentation states that the BMVert sequence of a face is read-only.

Subdivide an edge or edges.
Just as with using the UI to add another vertex to a face would require subdividing an edge.
The loop vertices that define a face, will also be a part of another faces loop verts, if connected via an edge.  Bmesh gives us a quick API into  all the loops and linked geometry of each element. In most cases these are read only.
To add a single vert to an existing faces verts, requires subdividing one edge.  Using the bmesh subdivide edges operator will ensure that the links and loops are  correctly maintained.
Simple example, using active face and subdividing the zeroth edge.
f = bmesh.faces.active # the active face
bmesh.ops.subdivide_edges(
        bm, # the bmesh
        edges=[f.edges[0]] if f else [], # zeroth edge  if face
        )

This will ofcourse add an edge also.  If another face shares the edge it will also share the newly created geometry.
How to subdivide mesh with Python and Blender 2.8?
How to use "bmesh.ops.subdivide_edges" on selected edges
import bpy
import bmesh

ob = bpy.context.object
me = ob.data
bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(me)

f = bm.faces.active
e = f.edges[0]

bmesh.ops.subdivide_edges(
    bm,
    edges=[e],
    cuts=1,
    edge_percents={e : 0.33},
    )

bmesh.update_edit_mesh(me)

Thank you very much that is very helpful! Is it somehow possible to control the position of the newly created vertex also? Or do I have to do this after the fact?

For single edge after fact is pretty simple. However Have added example that subs a vert at 33% along edge instead of default 50.  Look to see which is edges first vert for which end.

Thanks a lot! The first vertex would be the one with the lower index or the one appearing first in BMEdgeSeq?

IIRC edge.verts[0].  First in edges  BMVertSeq.  Easy enough to test...

That concludes my question. Thanks you!


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Fitting rods into a wooden truss (cut off edges)
I believe to have a very simple problem but I'm somehow too stupid to solve it. I want to fit a wooden rod in between two plates. To do so, I need to cut off the top and the bottom end so that the ends of the rods lie flat on the surfaces of the top and bottom plates.
I have tried the following:

Use the shear operation. But it turns out it doesn't work like intended when the rod is already rotated (I'm confused however why this is?). Shearing also begs the problem that there is no option to adjust the face to exactly horizontal (or is there?)
Use edge slide without clamping (c). I thought this would work great combined with the snapping options, so that the top and bottom edges of one end would snap neatly to the top face of the bottom plane for example. It turns out to be quite buggy and it snaps to everything else than the top and bottom plane.

Now I'm wondering whether there is an easy option to solve this seemingly easy problem :/ Any ideas?

you can cut orthogonally with the Knife tool (K to activate the knife, Z to cut through, C to cut orthogonally), you can also use the Bisect tool... but do you need to join your middle bar to the other ones?

This is simple topology, so using boolean should be fine. Just make middle rod longer to overlap two rods on sides and use difference operation to cut the centre one.

thanks @moonboots that's the solution :) didn't know you could cut through with knife

The Shear tool won't work the way you want because your object is oblique. The Shear tool moves the selected vertices on one of the 3 axis, it doesn't slide the vertices along the existing edges, therefore the object you want to shear needs to be parallel to one of these axis if you don't want it to be deformed, and it is not the case here. Examples with shear on the Y axis:

In your case the solution is to use the Knife tool (K to activate, Z to cut through, C to cut perpendicullary).
That said, we don't know if you want to merge your bar with the other ones, in that case you'd better use the Bridge tool to join 2 faces of the horizontal bars.

There is bunch of options
Modeling from scratch

add Plane
rotate on Y axis
in edit mode Extrude along X axis

Adjust ends

select top edge
move G on Z local axis

or use Edge Slide (press G twice)

Cuts
mentioned in comments

Boolean operation (by Cube can be cut done at once)

Knife (see moonboots answer)
Bisect Tool

In some cases you can try Remesh Modifier https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/165574/2214

I see what you are doing, but I'd like to adjust the rotation after the extrude so i can fit it in and then cut it.

Edit: added few more options ...


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How to attach eyes to a character's head in Blender with armature and shape keys
I have created a puppet character model where the head moves when the mouth opens and closes. The character is rigged with Rigify and I have also added different expressions using Shape Keys. However, I am having trouble attaching the eyes to the head correctly.
I have tried parenting them to the head using "parent to object" and a vertex group of the head, but the eyes move strangely when I move the armature of the body.
Is there a way to attach the eyes to the head so that they follow the mesh both when I move it with the shape keys and with the armature?
I have attached images to help explain the problem.

Do the eyes have armature modifier?

is the "open mouth" pose done with shape keys or the armature?

The "open mouth" is done using shape keys and the eyes don't have any modifier. Thanks in advance!

How about joining the eyes to the body/head mesh? Then you can create shape keys for the eyes, too. -- Or use bones for the mouth, maybe?

Awesome, it worked! I actually gave it a go earlier, but for some reason, the topology of the head got messed up. I figured it might have been because the head mesh had a subdivision modifier and the eyes didn't, but I tried it again and it worked like a charm. Thanks so much for your help!


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How to remove red highlight box in blender scene
So I just clicked something and created this Redbox that I cannot move, or recreate, and if I press ctrl Z it doesn't remove it. Is there a way to delete it?

This is a render region (made by ctrl+b keys). To remove it ctrl+alt+b keys.

It worked, thanks!

Hi, Mike, since this is a fix (great!) without needing an answer, and has been asked before, I think we can call it a duplicate.


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I don't see normal direction in the spreadsheet
For some reason I don't see the normal direction in the geometry spreadsheet, I tried to add the viewer node, didn't help.
The first screenshot is what I have, and the second one is how it is supposed to be:
enter image description here

That seems to have disappeared between versions 3.5 and 3.6 for some reason. I'll bet that your second image is from Blender 3.5 or earlier! It seems to be a bug from comments on https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/302937/spreadsheet-shows-values-for-vertices-but-not-for-edges-or-faces

Yes, it was from a YouTube video posted a year ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCwujyy89lg&t=91s

Don't know if it's a bug, if so, it will not be repaired soon as it seems, at least the bug is still present in my 4.0 beta and 4.1 alpha versions. But as I commented under the question which @JohnEason linked to, maybe this is not a bug but intentionally... the Spreadsheet shows data stored in the specific elements in the specific domains (those values are shown even if you have no Geometry Nodes modifier on the object), and things like normals etc. do not need to be stored additionally wasting memory, because they can be evaluated from the position data of the vertices when needed.


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A problem with array
So I have an object that I mirrored, and then I created an empty cube, the Origin point of the cube and the origin point of this object is in the same position, in the middle of the 3D cursor, but the problem is when I try to array this subject by empty cube, it gives me a very strange result. Here is the video with the time code of how it is supposed to be https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkxers6YUajXyxG3KgqTjMgX9B82WUd8hTr
And I will leave a picture of what I have,  (I turned the face orientation so it is visible that all the normals set correctly)
Would appreciate the help!

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?""

Apply rotation and scale and that should be ok. Ctrl
A then "rotation & scale".
You'll eventually need to change the mirror modifier axis after that.

It worked, thank you!


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Geometry nodes: can we do without Capture Attribute?
As I understand, a capture attribute node takes the value of an attribute in the context of a geometry, and stores it into that geometry. What I would like to understand is why that attribute cannot simply be referenced later on in the network? I illustrated both cases in the node network below: both viewers yield the same values. Isn't the Capture Attribute node just 'syntactic sugar', which keeps node network a little more readable?

As far as I understand it, the Capture Attribute node is mostly helpful to output an attribute from the node tree so it can be accessed outside the Geometry Nodes editor, for example in the Shader Editor via an Attribute node.

@GordonBrinkmann: This is just one feature of it. Even better or at least the same worthiness is that you can "save" values from other node tree branches to your branch, e.g. if you want to color your instances.

Chris gives a good answer.  For a different case requiring capture attribute, which is probably simpler, see my answer at https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/251426/material-shifts-in-geo-nodes/251443#251443 .

Here you see a very simple setup and i hope can explain it so that is is understandable:

Here i connected the viewer to the group input geometry which is a cube, so i see eight vectors in the viewer.

Now i connected the viewer after the instance on points nodes and the transform node, so i see the "new" vector values which have increased x values.
And this although it is the same position node (which always relates to the geometry where it's plugged into)!
With the capture attribute node i can now "transport" my 8 vector values to my nodes AFTER some other nodes and can there "do something" with these values.
node setup here:

Here i connected now the capture output to the viewer so i can see the "original" values before the transform node changed them.
Note: This is just a very simple setup so that you can easily understand the principle.
It makes not much sense so. But....capture attribute is a very powerful node with which you can e.g. give all your instances different colors.

With this setup you can colorize each instance independently:

it works, if you use capture attribute to "fetch" the index from the right geometry -> so captured index is right.
it doesn't work if you plug in the index directly to the output -> so index is wrong.
Shader setup with wrong index

shader setup with right index

So to finally answer the question:
No, you cannot reference that values later. This is exactly what the capture attribute does. Without it, the "values before the geometry change nodes" would be inaccessible. This nodes makes them accessible for "later" use or other node branches.
And no, therefore it isn't syntactical sugar at all. It is a very powerful node which makes a lot things possible at all.

Except that there are other ways to color the instance differently that don't use the index.  So sure, you can't use index in this way, but that's not the same as 'you must use' capture attributes.

Your first comment is in line with mine, and you could do without the capture there, so the Capture Attribute is syntactic sugar there, which leaves the export from node group as valid use case, as  Gordon Brinkmann suggests. I cannot get your second example to work right now, I'll take a closer look tomorrow. What version of blender are you using?

i am using version 3.1

I can just repeat, although i don't think both of you "see" it: The capture attribute node is not syntactical sugar. It might be in easy cases - but it is NOT a useless node. If you think that, you didn't get it. Maybe my explanation wasn't good enough. And i never said, that my "solution" couldn't be solved in another way. So i don't understand the sense of your - in my eyes - useless comments. It is just an example to explain the functionality!!

I'm afraid making stupid remarks and asking stupid questions is part of the learning process. My sincere apologies if my learning annoys you.

Well, if you learnt something from it and now your solution works and you understood it - i am happy and i am glad i could help.


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How to restrict distortion along curve?
So, a curve modifier distorts meshes to fit a curve. What I don't get is that the curve modifier distorts the mesh where it is not needed. For instance, where the curve goes straight, I expect the mesh to be not distorted at all. As in the example below, I expect distortion around the corners, instead of everyone else. Is there any way to restrict distortion along a curve?

i know you might not want it, but you could give geometry nodes a try? or parent your objects?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTHiRZebl48

I would say it is caused by modifier stack where Arrayed object is taken into account for Curve modifier as single object - imagine that as object seen as inside a cage with deform control point at curve points ... alll between is interpolated. That is why it is squeezed on the way.

If you want to avoid such behaviour you would have to add more control points (for curve object) ...

I would take Chris's offer with GN :)

Adding control points works for me, geometry nodes are overkill here. The array modifier is not the problem.


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Camera view aspect ratio doesn't match output proportions?
When in camera view, if I change 'Resolution X' in the Output properties tab, I expect the width of the viewfinder in the camera view to change.  However, it is the height of the camera view that changes. What is going on here?

The camera view has a fixed maximum area of 1:1 proportions corresponding to the "sensor" of your camera, then an appropriate rectangle is drawn inside that square area to represent the ratio defined by your output values:

This is because, by default, your Sensor Fit is set to Auto. You can choose to set one axis to be the decisive side from Properties > Object Data (Camera) > Sensor Fit. Horizontal will fix the X axis, so the output frame can go outside the sensor area on the vertical, and vice versa.
You can enable the sensor outline (white dashed line in the screenshot) from Viewport Display in the same properties panel:

More contrived than expected, but thanks for sorting me out!


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Blender 3.0 Geometry Nodes: density from texture?
I would like to grow grass in the joints of pavement, so for this I connect an image texture to the density of a distribute points node, with color ramp and multiply for finetuning. Whatever I try, the density doesn't seem to get influenced by the texture.

Connecting the texture to the instance scale works as expected, I just cannot get the density to work. What am I overlooking here? Any help is deerly appreciated.

did you subdivide your mesh? This node setup works for me:

Hmmm... looks like density is defined per face, which should be documented, to say the least.

This seems like a reason to carry on using particles in some circumstancdes - until this is fixed at least


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Extremely slow rendering for reversed video strip in Sequencer
I noticed that in the Video Sequencer when I enable Reverse Frames for a cut-out video strip under N > Strip > Video, and then render the MP4, the rendering becomes extremely slow when it reaches these reversed video strips. This is a problem if I have to reuse this reversed strips. How can this be? It makes no sense. The current workaround is to render the reversed strip and then import it again, but that will still require me to render it, which will take forever. Is there a better way to accomplish reversing a video strip instead of rendering it out and re-importing? Maybe some other way to apply reversing?

It makes sense. The standard compression algorithm stores the movement of pixels from frame to frame (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_compression_picture_types). This means that when playing backwards, you have to read data through multiple frames to get the current frame.

@Lutzi thank you for sharing :) Still the lag I'm experiencing is way too extreme. Why does it work fine for other video editors like Corel Video Studio? I used to be able to reverse frames and render that at no additional overhead.

Video streaming in Blender is quite unoptimized I think, and the VSE in general is one of the least updated feature. Compared to DaVinci, Blender has quite a long journey of video streaming optimization.

@Lutzi good point hehe. Thank you for inputs.

@Lutzi I checked also with using Strip Effect and set multiply to zero so I can freeze the frame and get same effect: it gets really slow so I think it's not the compression algorithm but some buggy implementation.


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macOS flamenco worker test fails: blender_cmd […] does not exist
so I fire up the flamenco worker in test mode, it registers at the manager (yay!) and then I send a test job. Here's what comes next:
2020-04-04 15:52:23,700     INFO flamenco_worker.worker.FlamencoWorker.fetch_task Received task: 5e8890f55061d1b8b40f1217
2020-04-04 15:52:23,700     INFO flamenco_worker.worker.FlamencoWorker Task changed status to active, pushing to manager
2020-04-04 15:52:23,700     INFO flamenco_worker.worker.FlamencoWorker Updating task 5e8890f55061d1b8b40f1217 with status 'active' and activity Activity(activity='', current_command_idx=0, task_progress_percentage=0, command_progress_percentage=0, metrics={'timing': {}})
2020-04-04 15:52:23,720  WARNING flamenco_worker.commands.blender_render.(task_id=5e8890f55061d1b8b40f1217, command_idx=0) Error in settings: blender_cmd 'Volumes/Applications/Blender' does not exist
2020-04-04 15:52:23,720     INFO flamenco_worker.worker.FlamencoWorker Task changed status to failed, pushing to manager
2020-04-04 15:52:23,721     INFO flamenco_worker.worker.FlamencoWorker Updating task 5e8890f55061d1b8b40f1217 with status 'failed' and activity Activity(activity="blender_render.(task_id=5e8890f55061d1b8b40f1217, command_idx=0): Invalid settings: blender_cmd 'Volumes/Applications/Blender' does not exist", current_command_idx=0, task_progress_percentage=0, command_progress_percentage=0, metrics={'timing': {}})
2020-04-04 15:52:23,722  WARNING flamenco_worker.runner.TaskRunner Command 0 of task 5e8890f55061d1b8b40f1217 was not succesful, aborting task.
2020-04-04 15:52:23,722     INFO flamenco_worker.runner.TaskRunner Aggregated task timing info: {}
2020-04-04 15:52:23,722    ERROR flamenco_worker.worker.FlamencoWorker Task 5e8890f55061d1b8b40f1217 failed
2020-04-04 15:52:23,722     INFO flamenco_worker.upstream_update_queue.TaskUpdateQueue Pushing task update to Manager, queue size is 2
2020-04-04 15:52:23,733     INFO flamenco_worker.upstream_update_queue.TaskUpdateQueue Pushing task update to Manager, queue size is 1
2020-04-04 15:52:38,726     INFO flamenco_worker.worker.FlamencoWorker Updating task 5e8890f55061d1b8b40f1217 with status '' and activity Activity(activity='', current_command_idx=0, task_progress_percentage=0, command_progress_percentage=0, metrics={'timing': {}})
2020-04-04 15:52:38,733     INFO flamenco_worker.upstream_update_queue.TaskUpdateQueue Pushing task update to Manager, queue size is 1

I think the important part is the first warning in line 4... I've read a couple of times that this path that "blender_cmd" wants to use tends not to work, but how can I change it (I've tried editing $PATH and .profile) and is that the issue at all?

Turns out you have to set the path to the blender binary of the workers in the setup of the manager! Switch the manager to setup mode, add the path to your blender binary (not the .app) and I set that binary to 'worker' only and added another one for 'user' only that points to the .app.


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Why is the material used by boolean modifiers randomized?
I'm trying to learn to create models using non-destructive techniques, so I'm using a lot of boolean operations. For this workflow I create some primitives, and they each get the last material added to the object I most recently modified. When I boolean the primitives together, existing faces retain their materials, but new faces get a material assigned at random. Rerunning the same script several times produces otherwise-identical meshes with different materials on some faces.
Why is there random behavior with materials? And is there a way to control what material is used by booleans?

Are you actually interested in why, or do you want to know how to make it stop?

Both, really. I'm quite lost as to why the boolean API would include random behaviour, which seems obviously bad to me.


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Import issues with 3D model from Blender to web
I am new to 3D modeling and 3D for the web in general. I created my very first model in Blender. Once finished, I tried to export it via ThreeJS. The textures became terrible and some of them didn't show up. Then, I tried it on a model viewer like https://sandbox.babylonjs.com/ and the model displays exactly the same as with ThreeJS. Do you have any advice or suggestions?
My export is in .gltf file format.
My model on Blender:

My Model on web:

Looks like you have doubled objects there, the one you want with textures and one without. Do you have an older version which has disabled visibility in viewport and/or render? This property might not be transferred to different formats so those hidden objects become visible.

In addition to Gordon's comment you may find that https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/57531/fbx-export-why-there-are-no-materials-or-textures applies here...

Thank you for your answers, I will explore all of this !


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How can I make my mousebutton4 act exactly as Enter?
I wish to be able to get into quick favourites (by pressing q), then I want to scroll to my favourite of choice and confirm my selection. I now have to press the return key, I wish to make my mousebutton4 on my mouse to act exactly as the return key to confirm my selection in the menu. Does someone know how to do this?

Probably your best bet is to map the button in your operating system. On Windows you'd use Autohotkey for that.

The problem then is that I cant use my mouse buttons for other things in windows, I use mousebutton5 and 4 when using my browser for example. Isnt this possible to achieve within blender only?

If you're on Windows, you can use the power toys keyboard manager program:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/keyboard-manager
It lets you limit a remapping of a key to only a specific app. In your case, you could remap your mouse button to enter and limit it to only work in Blender.

In Autohotkey you can also easily limit a mapping to a single application - wrap your mappings between #if WinActive("ahk_exe blender.exe") and #if.


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Cant swap tools in edit mode for hard ops and boxcutter
Is it possible to quickly switch tools in edit mode for hard ops and boxcutter. Right now the shortcut Alt+W only works for swapping tools in object mode.
When in edit mode, it only goes to boxcutter and doesnt swap to hard ops.

Both addons are third-party addons not built-in to Blender so you will have to ask the addon authors that question. This Q&A site can only help with questions about Blender itself.

In addition to John Eason's comment regarding 3rd party addons, I'll add that YouTube has many tutorials for these particular ones.


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Bug for export my project
Good morning,
One of my Blender project bug. I don’t have access to my main menu and therefore can’t export my project. Can you help me?

I think you may have set the interface size too big. Place your cursor in the top row where the menu should be and CTRL + mouse wheel scroll up so the buttons move to the right

You can also hold the middle mouse button down over the menu bar and simply drag it sideways.

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?""


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"extrude" bézier line along hair curve
I'm trying to create a curl curve hair setup that creates a a long mesh to apply a simple texture to it, but I don't want to use a closed curve like a circle to generate the shape. Instead, I'm trying to use a curve line.
For now I have this setup:

Ho Can I fix the extrusion to make the line have this shape:


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Rotating bone scales/shrinks mesh
After I rigged my 1911 gun I rotated the hammers bone to see it shrinks/scales on rotation:

As you can see the bone has all of its weight on the hammers vertex group, so I dont think weight is the problem.

Ive seen other threads with similar issues and the answer has always been to apply transforms which I have already done. Im very new to rigging/blender in general so I probably did something stupid.
Thanks for any help.

how is it rigged? Is the armature modifier and weight painting required for export, otherwise hammer could for instance copy bone loc and rot, or be a child of the bone. My guess is

Yeah it’s necessary for exporting as I use the bone in unreal engine for some positioning stuff.

Apparently since the root bone had the whole object assigned to it (which obviously includes the hammer) that was causing the distortion. So I simply removed the hammer from the root bones weight paint.


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Move another mesh along a surface when animating
I am trying to make an animated lock tumbler and the key pins should move along the contour of the key.  My goal is to move the pins up when the key passes underneath them by using some sort of snap to surface setting and constraining the motion of the pin to only the Z-axis.  I'd also like to set a minimum for the Z-axis so once they get to a certain minimum height they won't drop any lower (to simulate the pins resting at the bottom of the cylinder.  I have been doing a lot of searching for snap to surface and motion along a path but I'm not sure that I can use that during an animation.  Does anyone have advice on how to approach this?  I'm attaching an image of the key with the pins snapped to the part of the key I'd like it to track.

Read about drivers

Here's one way, it's not perfect, because of the limitations of the Clamp To constraint.

Duplicate a central loop of your key, and Header > Object Menu >
convert it to a curve. Extend the curve to tip-base level on both sides.
Place the origins of your tumbler-pins at their tips.
Assign them each a Clamp To constraint, targeted on the curve.

(It's sensible to get this constraint working on one tumbler to begin with, after settling the curve, making sure its scale is applied, etc.)
Because of the way the constraint interpolates the curve, there's some drift in the horizontal direction. You can eliminate this with another constraint on the tumbler: Limit Location to fix it in all axes apart from  up-and-down.

If the whole lot is to be parented to other parts for rigging, it might be better to do that first.

the curve remains editable to make small adjustments to the pin positions, if necessary. Excuse the grotty .gif

Thanks! I gave it a try, and I got the pins moving but I am getting some drift along the Y axis even with limit location Y set to 0.0-0.0 local on the pin mesh.  You don't seem to be having the same issue.. trying to figure out the difference. Including a link to the gif of my animation. link

Also adding a grab of the object constraints on the pin mesh. link

I did convert it to a poly curve which simplified it and it didn't line up so well with the key, but it did reduce the drift significantly.  Then when I remapped it to the key contour the drift came back.  Do you happen to know where the limitations are documented so I can understand them better?  Hoping it will let me work around them a bit.  Thanks again for all of the info, accepted this as the best answer as it gets me 98% there.

@mord Aaah ! the limit location should come after the clamp.. be superimposed on it. Hold back, You never know, someone might come up with a better way.

@mord The explanation of how the constraint works is in the manual page linked in the answer.

Actually, by using limit location and using global coordinates instead of local, and then setting the y value to the location of the pin I was able to stop the drift and it is working nicely.  Maybe a bit hacky but it's achieving the desired result. And I tried changing the order but it didn't affect it.  Thanks for pointing out the link, I did not notice it my first read through.

@mord.. yup, this is all a bit hacky.


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Export a 3D model with texture , into element 3D
Is there any solution to import a 3d model with its texture, into element 3d?
I'm using blender 2.8, and I will appreciate if you mention any reference wich describe that, using 2.8 version
Thank you very much

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/57531

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/131069/exporting-textures-for-obj-file-for-element-3d/131071#131071


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Wave Texture: How can I have even bands proportions and distributions?
So I have been trying to make this semicircle with lines radiating from one point using wave texture node.
The problem is that the lines are not equally distributed and are stretched and compressed as they get closer to the x and y axes respectively, making them having uneven thickness.

I don't know though if the Normal mapping type has anything to do with these weird observations, but so far it is the only method that gives results close to what I want.

I would very much appreciate sharing another approach or a fix to this situation.
thanks...

Use a gradient texture in Radial Mode.

Same idea with the wave texture:

Thank yoou so much for help...


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Trying to make a tapered screw blade
I'm trying to make a copy of this rocket engine part from a photograph and I need help with the blades.

As you can see the blades at the top, increase in thickness as they approach the 90 degree mark, and then decrease in thickness as it completes its rotation at 180 degrees.
Making a blade of uniform thickness is trivial, I just use the screw modifier, but I can't figure out a good way to modify the thickness through the curve.
Thanks.

related: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/94602/a-strange-bias-for-vertex-weight-edit-modifier TL;DR Use the solidify modifier with vertex weights. The weights can be controlled with textures.


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Want to use python to create edge loops with z positions that match to the z positions of a series of vertices
So I'm trying to create a very precise model of a rocket engine impeller.

I'm trying to make the mesh as clean as possible. I've created one of the blades and the center, and the number of steps I used in the screw modifier match up perfectly to the number of faces on the cylinder.

What I want to be able to do is to create a series of 66 edge loop cuts, where each edge loop's median position corresponds to the z position of one of the vertices in the following picture.

That way, after the loop cuts are created and positioned appropriately, I could just hit remove doubles and I'll have a clean mesh that I can subdivide smooth with little difficulty. Doing it manually is possible, but I would like to be able to do it with python. I'm a beginner with python though and don't really know where to start.
To be clear, I'm not asking to write the script for me! I'm just asking for some guidance.


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Anime material shade
Do you know how to make exactly the same shading? I tried with toon material, but I did not manage to get such shading, I want the edges to be shaded like this, simply identical.

are you using Eevee or Cycles? You could use vertex paint but it needs enough topology

I use eevee, I want to animate later so I'm afraid it will take me a long time in the cycle to render the video.


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UV Orientation Display
Can anyone suggest a UV Editor addon which shades UVs according to whether they're flipped or not? One of the few basic features I miss from other 3D software.

Hi :). The shipped UV Magic something addon can do that i believe ;)

Thanks, I'll check it out. :)

Took a quick look at the Magic UV addon. It's definitely useable but relies on the user hitting the Update button regularly (to redraw the overlay) while editing uvs. I'm actually surprised the Blender devs didn't consider a red/blue UV display mode when they implemented the exact same thing for face normals. I know a while back there were multiple proposals on Right-Click Select,


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Eevee Render looks WAY DIFFERENT than Viewport Render
That's pretty much my whole question. I've followed various tutorials on rendering and nothing seems to change. But something is clearly very messed up.
Here's my screen capture of the Viewport Render. Pretty great.

And here's my actual render...

The totally black areas seem to be the JPG filling in transparent space with black. Here's a screen cap again, before I save the image from the Render.

It almost looks as if its loading some objects, and then entirely forgetting others. Except that the eyeballs on the head are one object with the head, but have also vanished. Help?

Are you using compositor? If not, please share simplified blend, just with one object that still produce issue in render via https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com


text:
Strange artifacts in a simple object
I'm modeling a mirror. I created this frame by extruding planes for the outside part and then connecting both holes from the front and the back. I used and applied a mirror modifier for the Y axis.
Everything looks good until I render the file, it shows a strange line as you can see below in the screenshot. I can solve this by using a Subdivision modifier but then I lose the sharp edges. Tried adding more edge loops and beveling but it seems I'm missing something.
Is there anything I can do to avoid these artifacts when rendering?

have you tried recalculating normals in edit mode?
You can also select the edges and increase their Crease value in the Edge data on the N-Panel so they stay sharp when you add a subdivision modifier.

I tried recalculating normals too but didn't help. The other answer I got worked but I will try increasing the Crease value too and learn from this. Thank you :)

The problem is that you have activated the Smooth Shading option of the T menu, but your object is a low-poly mesh. If you try to smooth a low-poly mesh these strange artifacts can happen. It's true that you have given your object a Subdivision Surface modifier that is used to simulate a high-poly mesh, but you have disabled its Display modifier in Viewport, so the artifacts still appear.
You say that you did that because you wanted to have both smooth and sharp edges.
If you want to have a smooth appearance but at the same time keep some sharp edges, add some additional edge loops close to the angles you want to keep sharp. Here is how:

If I enable it it will make the object look smoother, but I'd like to keep its edges sharp. Thus I activated Smooth Shading to have a mor rounded shape without adding more edge loops. Is there a way to keep Smooth Shading activated and avoid the artifacts?

Thank you for such a detailed answer! That's exactly what I wanted.


text:
Material Reflection: Creating an Optical Filter in Cycles
I am very new to Blender and am using it to create images for a new kind of solar energy device.  However, one of the pieces of this device is an optical filter: i.e. it is a square plane that reflects ONLY the red light.  Thus, blue light can pass through.
My question to the wonderful people on Blender Stack Exchange: is there any way of creating a material that reflects only a small portion of the visible light?  I realize that this is a very niche topic, but any ideas or advice you may have will be much appreciated!
Thanks so much in advance.

Would something like this work?  The Glossy reflects only red and the Transparent Shader allows all the Green/Blue to pass.

Ah!  This is perfect, thank you so much for your help -- it is much appreciated!

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


text:
isolate node on an object in your scene?
I've seen people on other softwares isolate their nodes directly on their objects, in the render viewport, to better work on it.
I was wondering, is it possible to do that in blender ?

You can use the built-in Node Wrangler addon to do that although you do have to activate it from Preferences > Addons first. See this Blender Manual section which explains how to use it.

Use  CTRL-SHFT - LMB to activate the viewer on the clicked node.

@JohnEason Thanks !
I'd also add that the downside of it, is to not forget to do CTRL + SHIFT + (selection mouse button)
on your last node to put everything back how it was

@Chris ctrl+shift+7 doesn't seem to work...

@Shad I'd not call that a 'downside'. It seemed obvious to me so I didn't mention it but I've been using it for so long that it's an automatic reaction to reset by CTRL-SHFT clicking back on the original node.

There's a node preview feature coming in 3.0 that will change this workflow, because it will add the ability to see the effect of each node as a thumbnail, along the lines of this add-on.  I can't wait.

@MartyFouts yeah, though I'm aware, I'm really looking something that show on specifically on your object.


text:
Textures are gray after Blender crash
I spent about three hours painting textures on to a creature I sculpted and decided that I wanted to add some hair to it. I go into edit mode and pick the circle select tool to select the portion of the head that I want to add hair to. I press the F key because that's what I thought was the shortcut for adjusting the radius of the select tool and then suddenly Blender just crashes. Now every time I open up the saved file all of the textures images are just gray. There has got to be a way to retrieve the old textures right?

Alright never mind I've figured out that Blender doesn't actually save the textures to anywhere in your computer once you make them so I guess I'm just gonna have to bite the bullet and start all over :/

Hey :). You can recover automatically saved files through File > Recover > Auto Save. Files are backed up every 10 minutes, but it can be adjusted in preferences > system.


text:
Rigging: editing bones and mesh
During my rigging process I’ve decided to make the legs of my character a little shorter. I do not have any drivers or shape keys. Just already weighted bones.How do I approach this?
Can I just edit the mesh in edit mode?
Also, the bones then need to be scaled down a bit. Can I do that in pose mode?
Do I need to unparent? If yes, how do I do that and then parent back to the armature after I’ve made the changes?


text:
Strange Perspective and Viewport Issue
I have been having an issue with my viewport that I can't seem to figure out. The mesh that I have for my ground plane has strange clipping and perspective issues in wireframe mode and object mode. When I am in render view or lookdev mode the plane appears as normal.

I have tried deleting the ground plane and the camera. When I delete the camera the 'shadow' of the camera position remains. When I try to add a new plane I still have the same perspective and clipping issue. It seems like I have somehow locked the camera in this position, but I am still able to move the camera around and into new positions, but there is strange clipping on them within this new perspective I somehow manage to create.

Does anyone have any idea what I managed to do here? I have been trying to figure it out for 2 hours...
Many thanks,
Collin

Have a look to https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/167746/viewport-only-showing-objects-in-camera-shot/167749#167749


text:
Create default scene with Screen cast keys addon enabled and turned on
I always want to enable the Screencast keys addon when using Blender. I'm trying to avoid having to remember to turn it on for each new Blender project. I tried turning the checkbox for it on in the N-key side panel and then saving that scene as the default Blender scene. Unfortunately the checkbox doesn't stay turned on in new scenes regardless of that.
Is there perhaps a scripting solution that would allow having the checkbox (that turns Screencast keys display on) always activated in my default Blender scene?

Today there is a property for this (I found it in version 3.7):

I believe this will keep an addon enabled. You can paste and run it from the Script Editor. Just replace the string with the name of your addon. If it's not working then you're probably using the wrong addon name.
import addon_utils

addon_utils.enable('shortcut_VUr-master', default_set=True, persistent=True, handle_error=None)


text:
How can I make hair strands look less sharp?
I'm attempting a hair render in EEVEE. The problem is that I can see the individual strands of hair too clearly in the render. How could I make the hair strands blend in a bit more so that we can no longer see indivifual strands of hair so easily? If you view the attached image in full resolution you should see what I mean.


text:
Can we write a script that will apply the scale of all objects?
I'm sure I'm not the only one who is a bit annoyed at the current workflow for applying the scale of multi-user objects.
We first need to make one copy unique, then apply the scale for that, then re-link the other copies back to that object and hit alt+s to apply their scale values.
This can get especially tedious, if the scene has multiple different object types with linked duplicates.
Could we write a script that loops through each object in the scene, and applies their scale if it's not already 1,1,1? And if the script encounters an object with linked duplicates, then it should make one copy unique, apply the scale and then relink everything back like it was before.
I asked chat GPT to write such a script and here's what it came up with. Are we anywhere close for this actually working?
import bpy

# Loop through all objects in the scene
for obj in bpy.context.scene.objects:

    # Check if the object has a scale other than 1
    if obj.scale != (1, 1, 1):

        # Check if the object has a data block associated with it
        if obj.data is not None:

            # Check if the object is a linked duplicate
            if obj.data.is_library_indirect:

                # Make the linked duplicate a single user
                obj.data = obj.data.copy()

            # Apply the scale to the object
            bpy.ops.object.transform_apply(scale=True)

            # If the object was a linked duplicate, relink its object data
            if obj.data.is_library_indirect:
                obj.data = obj.data.library.remap_data(obj.data)

How do you want to relink the objects after applying their scales, if the scales were different? Let's say you have a sphere of $r = 1$, then you linked-duplicate it and scale up to scale = 2. Now if you apply the scale of the new sphere, the mesh radius is 2, but this means the first sphere either has to use another mesh, or will also have a big sphere of radius 2.
Also, the answer you provide goes way over answering the question, as it changes modifier settings to keep the same visual effect after applying scale.

@MarkusvonBroady I think the proper way to handle linked objects with different scales would be not re-link such objects with each other, but instead only relink copies with the same scale value and create a new linked duplicate set for the object/objects that had a different scale.

Looks like someone already beat me to it, the script provided here worked great for me:
https://blenderartists.org/t/apply-scale-to-linked-duplicates/1182294
import bpy

scale_length = bpy.context.scene.unit_settings.scale_length
objects = bpy.context.selected_objects
linkedoblist = {}
latticelist = []
latticedata = []
latticechildren = []

# Runs through modifiers to change values based on object scaling and scene scaling

def modifierfun(var):
    if mod.name == 'Bevel':
        mod.width *= var
    elif mod.name == 'Solidify':
        mod.thickness *= var
    elif mod.name == 'Array':
        mod.constant_offset_displace[0] *= var
        mod.constant_offset_displace[1] *= var
        mod.constant_offset_displace[2] *= var
        mod.merge_threshold *= var
    elif mod.name == 'Boolean':
        mod.double_threshold *= var
    elif mod.name == 'Mirror':
        mod.merge_threshold *= var
    elif mod.name == 'Screw':
        mod.screw_offset *= var
    elif mod.name == 'Wireframe':
        mod.thickness *= var
    elif mod.name == 'Cast':
        mod.radius *= var
    elif mod.name == 'Hook':
        mod.falloff_radius *= var
    elif mod.name == 'Shrinkwrap':
        mod.offset *= var
    elif mod.name == 'Warp':
        mod.falloff_radius *= var
    elif mod.name == 'Wave':
        mod.start_position_x *= var
        mod.start_position_y *= var
        mod.falloff_radius *= var
        mod.height *= var
        mod.width *= var
        mod.narrowness *= var

# Append lattices to a list. Append their children to another list.
for ob in objects:
    if ob.type == 'LATTICE' and ob.children:
        latticelist.append(ob)
        latticedata.append(ob.data)
        latticechildren.append(ob.children[0])
    if ob.type not in ['EMPTY', 'SPEAKER'] and ob.data.users > 1 and ob.type != 'LATTICE':
        linkedoblist[ob] = ob.data

# First pass. Change modifier values to compensate for any object scaling. Make any linked lattice children single users.
for ob in objects:
    var1 = min(ob.scale, key=lambda x: abs(1 - x))
    if latticechildren.count(ob) > 0:
        bpy.ops.object.make_single_user(object=True, obdata=True)
    if ob.modifiers:
        for mod in ob.modifiers:
            modifierfun(var1)

# Clear parenting of lattice children but keep lattice modifier active
for ob in latticechildren:
    bpy.ops.object.parent_clear(type='CLEAR_KEEP_TRANSFORM')

# Resize all selected objects based on the scene's unit scale
bpy.ops.transform.resize(value=(1.0 * scale_length, 1.0 * scale_length, 1.0 * scale_length))

# Deselect objects we don't want to apply scaling to
for ob in objects:
    if ob.type in ['CAMERA', 'LAMP', 'EMPTY', 'SPEAKER', 'LATTICE']:
        ob.select_set(False)

# Make objects single users and apply scale
bpy.ops.object.make_single_user(object=True, obdata=True)
bpy.ops.object.transform_apply(location=False, rotation=False, scale=True)

# Relink duplicate meshes
for ob, data in linkedoblist.items():
    ob.data = data

# Second modifier pass. Change modifier values to be proportional to scene's unit scale.
for ob in objects:
    if ob.modifiers:
        for mod in ob.modifiers:
            modifierfun(scale_length)

# Re-parent children to lattices
for child in latticechildren:
    bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='DESELECT')
    latticeparent = latticelist[latticechildren.index(child)]
    child.select_set(True)
    latticeparent.select_set(True)
    bpy.context.view_layer.objects.active = latticeparent
    bpy.ops.object.parent_set(type='LATTICE')

# Re-link duplicate lattices
for ob in latticelist:
    ob.data = latticedata[latticelist.index(ob)]

# Reset the scene's unit scale back to 1
bpy.context.scene.unit_settings.scale_length = 1

# Reselect original selection
for ob in objects:
    ob.select_set(True)
```

This script does answer the question but it also does a lot of other things that you didn't ask for, I think you can strip it down consequently

Yes, it's even better than I hoped for: it even seems to take modifiers into account when doing the scaling.


text:
Blender 2.9 How to use an Xbox joystick controller as an input to control an armature? (NOT GAME ENGINE)
I’m trying to figure out how to use a joystick controller as an input device to control an armature. The idea is to assign the joystick (perhaps as a driver?) to a joint or bone and create a kind of puppeteering system where the keyframes get recorded in real time.
I'm using Blender 2.9 and so therefore NOT the old game engine.
So imagine the left joystick x direction maps to the x rotation of the bone, and the y direction controls the x rotation.
I found a python library called Inputs https://pypi.org/project/inputs/
but when I run it in Blender 2.9 it will show the results in the console, but it basically freezes Blender… and i don’t know how to grab the values and map them to my joint rotation position.
here is the code:
"""Simple example showing how to get gamepad events."""
#https://pypi.org/project/inputs/

from __future__ import print_function

from inputs import get_gamepad
myVal = 0

def main():
    """Just print out some event infomation when the gamepad is used."""
    while 1:
        events = get_gamepad()
        for event in events:
            if event.code == 'ABS_X':
                print('X position RAW: ')
                print(event.state)

                #need to add sume kind of conversion factor to map absolute values to degrees of rotation
                #need a way to store the values in a variable that Blender can access
            if event.code == 'ABS_Y':
                print('Y position RAW: ')
                print(event.state)

        #for event in events:
        #    print(event.ev_type, event.code, event.state)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

I got this to work using the python package XInput.  I made a Youtube video ( https://youtu.be/Ng7E10a1brc) showing the process, not sure if I can post that as an answer so here is the method I used:
To install XInput I used the following code in Blender (run as administrator) adapted from https://b3d.interplanety.org/en/installing-python-packages-with-pip-in-blender-on-windows-10/:
import subprocess
import sys
import os

python_exe = os.path.join(sys.prefix, 'bin', 'python.exe')
target = os.path.join(sys.prefix, 'lib', 'site-packages')

subprocess.call([python_exe, '-m', 'ensurepip'])
subprocess.call([python_exe, '-m', 'pip', 'install', '--upgrade', 'pip'])

subprocess.call([python_exe, '-m', 'pip', 'install', '--upgrade', 'XInput-Python', '-t', target])

print('FINISHED')

I then used the modal code from Blender developer site (https://developer.blender.org/diffusion/B/browse/master/release/scripts/templates_py/operator_modal_timer.py) with some modifications - note that mine controls custom property fields that control drivers simulating a vehicle using rigid body physics in blender.  I used an XBox One controller.
import bpy
import XInput

class ModalTimerOperator(bpy.types.Operator):
    """Operator which runs itself from a timer"""
    bl_idname = "wm.modal_timer_operator"
    bl_label = "Modal Timer Operator"

    _timer = None

    def modal(self, context, event):
        if event.type in {'RIGHTMOUSE', 'ESC'}:
            self.cancel(context)
            return {'CANCELLED'}

        #Controller Code
        state=XInput.get_state(0)
        bpy.data.objects["##Controller"]["TargetSpeed"] = 100
        bpy.data.objects["##Controller"]["ParkingBrake"] = 0
        if XInput.get_button_values(state)['A']:
             bpy.data.objects["##Controller"]["ParkingBrake"] = 100
        if XInput.get_button_values(state)['LEFT_SHOULDER']:
             bpy.data.objects["##Controller"]["TargetSpeed"] = -50
        bpy.data.objects["##Controller"]["Accel"] = XInput.get_trigger_values(state)[1]*100
        bpy.data.objects["##Controller"]["Brake"] = XInput.get_trigger_values(state)[0]*100
        bpy.data.objects["##Controller"]["Steering"] = XInput.get_thumb_values(state)[0][0]*100

        bpy.data.objects["##Controller"].location[0] = 0.00 # For some reason need this in here for it to update

        return {'PASS_THROUGH'}

    def execute(self, context):
        wm = context.window_manager

        #Reset rigid body physics simulation
        bpy.context.view_layer.objects.active = bpy.data.objects["##Controller"]
        bpy.ops.rigidbody.constraint_add()
        bpy.ops.rigidbody.constraint_remove()

        #Play animation
        bpy.ops.screen.animation_play()

        self._timer = wm.event_timer_add(0.1, window=context.window)
        wm.modal_handler_add(self)
        return {'RUNNING_MODAL'}

    def cancel(self, context):
        wm = context.window_manager
        wm.event_timer_remove(self._timer)

def menu_func(self, context):
    self.layout.operator(ModalTimerOperator.bl_idname, text=ModalTimerOperator.bl_label)

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(ModalTimerOperator)
    bpy.types.VIEW3D_MT_view.append(menu_func)

# Register and add to the "view" menu (required to also use F3 search "Modal Timer Operator" for quick access).
def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(ModalTimerOperator)
    bpy.types.VIEW3D_MT_view.remove(menu_func)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

    # test call
    bpy.ops.wm.modal_timer_operator()


text:
How to do support loops to combine smooth, curved surface with hard edge
So time and time again I come across a problem with shapes like that one below, where the smooth faces are ment to keep the curvature but the extruded bits shoud have sharp edges and blend seamlessly at the top last face with to curvature.

But I'm unable to route the support loops in a way that would gime me a clean surface without pinching
Below are few of my failed attempts at this:

Using Bewel weight:

You simply could model the surface and the details as different, not connected parts of the same mesh.

hello, please share your file: https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/

AFE-GmdG I think it defeats the whole purpose of subd modeling

This topology works:

Same with 3 edge loops:

if you need a sharp horizontal edge:

I guess the first photo is the best , but its missing the support loops on the flat face. Then again the second photo has that sharper horizontal edge that Im not looking for

I've edited, please tell me if that's what you're looking for

Sorry for late answer, but honestly your method you added works better then it looks from topology(with that triangle which everybody tells me are basically worse then hell). Many thanks man!

yes sometimes don't hesitate to use tris   ;)


text:
Tracing object with rotation constraint
I tried making a gun turret that would be pointed at the empty , and that part works so far but the limit rotation does not work at all and the barrel goes up too high:

The constraints are shown there, I tried changing the order and using locked track and track to but the results are the same.

Put the Limit Rotation after the Damped Track and it will work fine:

Well you are right, but I thought I tried that, and I discovered that changing the order of modifiers does not update them, and I need to turn one off and on for it to start working

oh ok interesting information


text:
Normal map baked in Marmoset has artifacts when imported to blender
Made a high and low poly models in blender and exported them to Marmoset for baking
First picture is how it looks in Marmoset, ok for the most part
Second photo is the same texture imported onto the same mesh in blender, it has these weird artifacts on flat parts of it

Mesh looks like this:

I have tried adding additional edges like this and it eliminated the problem but creates another one...

Here the picture is with these edges, it makes spaces around corners look bend
Marmoset render still looks fine, as if these edges were not there (they are)

I have tried changing settings in marmoset
I have also tried inverting green channel
Artifacts are showing in Cycles, Eevee and material view about the same
Some help or pointers would be appreciated

Your screenshot shows that the original edges are marked as seams (red color) I guess for UV unwrapping. Probably they are also marked sharp (blue/cyan) but this is not visible because of the red markings. When you have inset the edges, they inherit these seam and sharp marks, so I would recommend you select the new inner edge, then either from the Edge menu on top or pressing Ctrl+E for the edge context menu you choose Clear Sharp to get rid of it. And by the way, on the holes at the front you've inset too far, there you have overlapping faces which is not good.

I forgot to mention it but there are no sharp edges here, but after cleaning the new edges from uv seams, the issue didn't went away.

Then it's hard to tell what else could be the problem without checking your file. But as I mentioned, the overlapping faces are not good for shading either.

Did you set the color mode of your normal map image node to non-color?


text:
Help my texture is distorting
Hi i'm trying to project a image onto a plane, i lined up the UV's with the correct perspective but my image distorts on the plane, subdividing the mesh a few times solves the issue but i would like to know if there's a better fix?

yes when you make a project from view with a non-frontal picture you need to make sure your plane is subdivided enough, that's the fix actually

That error is common, if there are not enough subdivisions.
You need more subdivisions on the mesh.
In edit mode, subdivide the plane, or add a subsurf modifier and set it to simple mode (instead of Catmull-Clark).
If you look carefully, the texture is divided in two triangles, which is how 3d Engines work, by triangulating the geometry. Without any form of interpolation, the engine cannot deform a rectangular texture into a trapezoidal one. By interpolating you are still getting the triangles, but since the distortion is made in many places it will not be as noticeable.
The best solution, though, would be to use a shape that is not trapezodial at all, but rectangular like in the real world and is deformed by the perspective from the camera and the lens used.
Use Fspy, that way you can reconstruct the geometry, so that it resembles the real world.
Read all about it in the following post:
How can I recreate geometry using a photograph?

(For a longer explanation on why this happens maybe someone more versed in OpenGL and the algorithms used for texture mapping can edit or delete, or write a new answer, in the meantime do a google search for "affine" texture coordinates)
I'll leave this image here to picque your curiosity:


text:
interactive is not showing as per render image output
I create geometry node setup for increase performance of viewport by convex hull. I attached convex hull with switch node by viewport node. Why blender is not showing as per render output in interactive. It is showing convex hull also in viewport


text:
particle never settles in place
Here is a situation I cannot solve in Blender :confused:
I have a particle emitter, that emits one particle.
there is a cube object that has a force on it with the strength of -50 to suck particle near it
the cube is animated but stops moving at a certain time
the partrricle is getting sucked/pulled by the cube to its origin but it just keeps bouncing eround without settling in place at some point
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6dU-xFeT1A

Damping/damp/damping factor is the thing you should be looking for in simulation settings in case of issues like this.

Try increasing it a bit. The value is usually a fraction of the speed or energy that will be reduced during interactions.

+1 Still it might be possible for the particle to "vibrate" a lot even with damping. To help with that you can additionally increase the Subframes under Integration to a higher value, depending on the Damp value and the Strength of the force field.

thanks
cant play with damp as I need responsive fast movement of the particle without drag or damp.
playing with subframes helps a lot but doesnt stops it fully.

I would try using a very small value anyway.


text:
HDRI won't show on render mode
HDRI I set wouldn't show on any view mode.
It just comes up all black or orange but it's supposed show buildings.
What I 've already checked are below.
・Environment texture is used (not the image texture) on the shader node
・transparent mode is OFF
・HDRI file is exr type

Maybe switch to Perspective mode (numpad 5 key), if it's not the problem please pack your image and share your file

@moonboots It worked! Thank you.

You won't see the HDRI in Orthographic view, switch to Perspective view (numpad 5)


text:
smood shading turning out odd
I am currently working on a model of a cat.
I sculpted the model and then finished making retopology.
Now I would like to smood shade it and go make materials, but the smooth shading isn't turning out well. Square's appear on the cat's face so I would like to remove it...
Thing's I've already checked.

Face orientation. I made sure everything is blue on overlay.
Retopology's angle are smooth and not too sharp.

may be custom normals? Could you check?

please share your file (or at least a part where you see the problem): https://blend-exchange.com/

here.

merge by distance until it is ok

it worked! thankyou.


text:
fbx export destroys the bone direction
When I try to export the model as fbx file, the bone structure is destroyed.
I've checked not to add leaf bone when importing/exporting the file.
It is suppposed to look like this.

After I export/import it as a fbx file, it turns out as below.

If you have any suggestions please comment.
I will also attach the file here.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7szzi3teq2m1b99/neko%E5%AE%8C%E6%88%90%E7%89%88_%E4%BF%AE%E6%AD%A3%E4%B8%8D%E5%8F%AF_20230528.blend?dl=0

If I display all the bone layers, and export only the armature object, the imported armature doesn't seem broken:

It has all the bones present in the original, they seem in the same place, aside from  mixamorig:HeadTop_End, but it doesn't seem to impact the mesh deformation anyway, so maybe nothing to worry about:

The only real difference is the presence of "leaf bones" with the _end suffix at the end of their names, like these:

Like the mixamorig:HeadTop_End which I suppose was generated by mixamo, these "leaf bones" are generated by Blender's FBX exporter:

These bones are harmelss, their only purposes is to define the position of the tail of a bone. It's more of a display conveninence for when you export a skeleton made out of bones to a software that uses "joints" instead of bones. Joints only have one point of reference, unlike bones which have two (heads and tails). Joints have their end point where their child is and therefore "no head point" when a joint have no child, while bones have an indepentend tail, so you can chose to export an extra bone (called a leaf) when a bone is at the end of a chain so that a joint-based skeleton system (like Maya) would still know where the bone tails are.
It is completely facultative, you can disable it from the exporter, and you can also choose to ignore leaf bones when importing:

More about it:
Maya Help | Joints and bones | Autodesk

Thankyou for the explanation, now I understand.


text:
Render view incorrect (Maybe)
I have a file that includes Camera Animation.  It renders the animation fine or a single frame after selection.
What I want to do though is manipulate my viewport view and render that as a single image.
What happens is I get the animated camera view at whatever frame it is on and not the viewport view.
I tried using the view-viewport render image option but that does not do a full render.
I also tried adding another camera but still it takes the animated one...
Please advise what I am doing wrong, and YES I am relatively new to this.

Does this answer your question? How can I make a camera the active one?

Fantastic.  Thanks so much. That did the trick.

Oh, hold on... That did the trick but even though I select render Image, it goes and renders it for each frame in the animation (or steps thereof)  how do I turn off the animation part whilst I render a single view?


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Strange photo appears when creating mirror
I was trying to make glass, instead of it I got something like mirror, but it reflects unknown photo of trees I haven't ever seen before.

it's the standard "viewport shading > material preview" settings. it's a "nice" standard feature to simulate that your mesh in somewhere in a real place:

you can also switch the shading preview if you want using this toolbar:

Probably worth mentioning it can be turned off by checking Scene World :)


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UDIMs not compatible with object particle systems?
I've made particle system based on single feather alpha and to color it I used color map based on main object. Since it has UDIMs I used them as well, just scaled color map to 512p to save space. All worked just fine in viewport, but when I decided to make test render - it was all wrong. To make it more interesting the other particle systems which only used paths, had correct colors in correct places. I tried everything, and finally found solution - I isolated texture tile mapped to main body, where most of the object particles were and it suddenly worked.
Could someone explain to me what's happening here? Why this particular fix worked? Are UDIMs not compatible with object particles?

If it's working in the viewport there is no reason why it shouldn't work for the final rendering. Maybe a screenshot of your particle settings help solving the issue.


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How to make bones follow each other instead of individually?
Now i know this may sound weird but I am wondering if there is a way to make bones follow each other once subdivided. E.g. the last bone to bend with the others before it. The reasom behind this is im wanting to do a creature that has tentacles coming out of a mouth that is a hole (sort of like how HL:2 has those barnacles on the cieling - only thing i can compare to). I want these tentacles to be sparatic and flailing in the air much like how some flood forms are seen in Halo Wars 2.
Or if there is another way or tutorials out there you guys can help me with. I have used 3DS And maya and they have different IK solvers for this like when moving the hand of a character the arm will follow etc.
Thanks guys, im really wanting to learn how these AAA studios did these advanced models.

2 Options from the top of my head. 1. Spline IK, 2. Bendy Bones. Both a bit too complicated to explain here.

I agree with Frederik's comment on your original post, using either the spline IK or bendy bones would be how I would approach the problem if you wanted to have animation control over the tentacles. For the flailing, you could parent the IK targets to empties that are randomly animated using noise/sinusoidal modifier on the animation curves or the "wiggle" feature in animation nodes.
Another way to approach it if you don't care about being able to pose the tentacles could be to use cloth physics for each arm as is done for a rope in this post: How To Simulate a Rope. You could use hooks as is done in the tutorial, or alternatively use a wind and turbulence force field on the "ropes" to get them to wiggle randomly. In the example below, i used the skin modifier on the cloth "string" to give the tentacles some mass and a subsurf modifier, then duplicated the objects around the hole. The wind and turbulence fields give them the "wiggle".

Of course this is just one suggestion. You could combine methods and have one or two you animate and the others random. Hope this is helpful?

Oh damn thats it! Thank u so much guys. Would i be able to animate using wind and turbulance overtime on the timeline so that i can use the movements it creates as an animation. This way i can interpolate between the start of the animation so it looks as if it continues all the time.