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Help creating a texture for cookie - not sure how to improve texture bump with my simple texture node tree
I am trying to recreate this cookie:

but I am stuck on how to create this crumbly/cracking like texture. I am using the Voronoi Texture -> Bump, which I think gives me a good starting point in creating that crackly-kind of texture, but I am stuck; not sure how to proceed or improve beyond this. I'm not sure how to get that texture to 'pop'  I've done the donut tutorial, but i am new to blender. Thank you in advance

It's far from perfect (it would probably be better to use a photo as texture and sculpt) but you can try the Voronoi in Distance to Edge mode, twist the Mapping a bit with a Noise Texture:

File here:

wow LOL. this is incredible. I will study what you have did and replicate it in my own file. not looking for perfect since i am starting out, but the use of all those nodes is great. I'm still learning how to use the input/output between those nodes, so this will be a good learning exp. thank you so much

Which version of blender are you using? i'm using blender 3.6.5. I tried replicating your efforts on my file, but my cookie doesnt look like yours at all, but i tweaked some of the settings to create another texture that i find acceptable for now. I noticed you also used a cube, i'm using a cylinder. Is there any reason why you chose a cube? Thank you again

please share your file so that I check your material. I've begun with a cube that I subdivided to have a coherent density on the whole object

My file is available here: https://blend-exchange.com/b/2Go3oEe8

here is my blend file https://blend-exchange.com/b/P0DmOv8L. your comment about the cube makes sense. I subdiv a cylinder and I honestly don't like how the geometry looks in edit mode; looks weird, but i dont know enough to make the right judgement on it. I'm considering restarting with a cube since sculpting this shape is very easy work. Let me know your thoughts. thank you.

Begin with a cube, in Edit mode right click > Subdivide and in the Operator Box choose the subdivision level and put the Smoothness at 1 to have a spherical shape, then flatten on Z, sculpt, etc

Your object is pretty small, so the Noise and Voronoi values probably don't fit, also its scale is not 1:1:1 so apply the scale and change the values or scale it up and apply the Scale, also the ColorRamp colors should be a bit more contrasted, they are a bit too close for the moment

I've recreated my cookie with a cube and applied your suggestions to that cube. I've also increased the scale. I'll keep in mind scaling; and that I dont need to scale true to size, at least for now as I learn.  My cookie does look more like yours now, yours is still better, but what I have is good enough. Youve been super helpful, I appreciate your time and I hope to see you again :) thank you

you're welcome   ;) .............


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Rename vertex_group in all associated modifiers
The mesh contains different Vertex Groups.
There are many objects that use the same Mesh.
Moreover, these objects have Mask modifiers that show only a specific Vertex Group.
If you rename Vertex Group, the name will change in Mesh Data, but in all modifiers it will remain the same! And there you will need to change it manually.
On the contrary, if Object data-block is used in some modifier, then when renaming Object, the name will be changed everywhere automatically.
How can I achieve the same behavior for Vertex Group?
Perhaps there is some kind of addon?
Thank you in advance.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Get a list of Vertex Groups filtered by name in Python
For Vertex Group there is a filter by name. Is there any way to get the filtered result in Python? Because object.vertex_groups provides a list of all vertex groups, not just the filtered ones.

using pure python to search for any occurrence of a partial string in the vertex group names:
import bpy

obj = bpy.data.objects['Sphere']
vgs = list(obj.vertex_groups)
ptrn = 'aa'

result = [vg for vg in vgs if ptrn in vg.name] # wanted contained anywhere in string

for r in result:
    print( r.name )

result is a list of vertex groups who's name contains the letter.
Or you can use the lambda:
     result = list(filter(lambda x: ptrn in x.name, vgs))
If you wanted startsWith(ptrn):
     result = list(filter(lambda x: x.name.startswith(ptrn), vgs))

I didn't mention, but it is also expected in the future to use other filters in addition to the name: use_filter_invert, use_filter_sort_alpha, use_filter_sort_reverse. Thus, everything that is in the default UIList. And for subsequent work, the result that is obtained in a combination of all filters is important. Order matters too. [a,b]!=[b,a]

@VadimTss -- as per my example solution, it is all just in python once you get past how to access names.  not in to invert, etc. google away your issues!

It is important that the user can use the GUI provided with the UIList for filter. It turns out that you are proposing to duplicate all the filters in Python to calculate the final list?

@VadimTss -- well this appears to be veering off from your original question that I answered.  I'm not suggesting you create any more code or filters than you need.

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


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The same object in different collections. How to determine which collection contains the selected object (highlighted in blue) in outliner?
The screenshot shows the outliner diagram.
The Cube object is in two different collections - Collection 1, Collection 2.
Using LMB I can select the Cube in Collection 1 and leave the object unselected in Collection 2.
How to use Python to determine the collection in which this object is selected?
Because obj.users_collection produces both collections. And I only need one.
Thank you in advance for any help.

It seems there is a limitation in the python API. But why do you need this? Maybe this is an XY problem? Maybe you can try change the workflow to avoid having it in 2 collections? Not sure.

using the selected object I want to make the parent collection active. a small addon that will do this automatically

maybe this can provide a clue: https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/283705/142292

oh maybe not. did you find an answer?

AFAIK and as far as the python API is concerned this is the same object, and it is selected, I don't think the blue tint hightlight state is available to the API. Happy to be proven wrong as it seems object linking and collection linking suffer from a bit of oversight API-wise. See https://devtalk.blender.org/t/unique-identifier-for-layer-collections/23966


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Cycles diffuse baking gives only black results with different settings
Ok so heres a weird problem I have. I try to bake a diffuse map from photoscan and it always gives black results no matter what settings I tweak. Ive tried with and without global light with sun without it Ive tried to combine with Principled BSDF and without it, with Diffuse BSDF and without. Ive tried to tweak emissions and Subsurface parameters rougness etc.
Nothing works or gives any different results than just black texture. Only thing that changes anything is output margin px size. outline seems to change properly. So whole image isnt black just the UV part of it. So it must be the light problem but with varying settings of it doesnt change the results whats the problem im running out of options. And yes i've tried to bake without cage also with different parameters there too.

Have you made sure your normals are pointing outside?

i did check normals quite a few times and did auto recalculation, did check manually also  they point outwards like they should


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Loop Cut with ctrl R doesnt work for me
When I try to add a Loop Cut with Ctrl R it simply doesnt work. It worked yesterday but when I opened Blender today it didnt work at all. Tried to reopen it but that didnt help. Im sure I havent changed any settings so the Shortcut should still be Ctrl R. I am trying it in edit mode and use the newest Blender version. Any suggestions?

Did you accidentally change the shortcut?

Did you change the topology? In such cases it may not work.

Does it not work even on the default cube?

In some cases other softwares can override the shortcuts. For example if I install the Radeon Adrealin driver alt+r no longer works in Blender, till I turn it off in the Radeon settings.


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Can I set max render time instead of samples?
Is there a way to set max render time instead of max render samples?
Can i tell blender to render for example for ten minutes, so that it reaches the best quality it can achieve in 10 minutes?
I know a lot of render engines has this option, but i couldn't find it in cycles.
Thanks

There is no such an option for it now (Good feature for sure). The similar way is to enable progressive refine in your Scene Performance panel.

It will treat all render area as a chunk, which give you the ability to manually stop at the point you think your image is well enough.
Here is the official description:

Progressive Refine
Instead of rendering each tile until it has
finished every sample, refine the whole image progressively. Note that
progressive rendering is slightly slower than tiled rendering, but
time can be saved by manually stopping the render when the noise level
is low enough.
For rendering animations it is best to disable this feature, as
stopping a frame early is not possible.

Note: If you found out that Progressive Refine check box is grey out. Then check if you are using Denoising option in Scene Render Layer. You cannot use them simultaneously.

Just a few opinion for developer: If we know the tiles need to be rendered. Can't we just stop at the time that sum up to user preferred time? Using timer or something else and emit stop event at each tile is done?

For anyone still seeking an answer to this, the LuxCoreRender add-on DOES allow you to set a time limit for rendering. And I believe I read that the upcoming Cycles-X release will allow for pausing of rendering. I really hope this will also address the timed rendering option, too.


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How to map a decal onto a glass mug
Complete noob here. I just started with Andrew Price's donut tutorial for blender 2.8. It's overall very informative (I'll have to watch it a couple more times for it to set in) but I went a little further with my coffee mug and am trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong. I looked at a few different videos on transparency in blender, then uv unwrapping...and down the rabbit hole. I'm really struggling with the idea of multiple textures on one object. In the tutorial Andrew shows how to unwrap his mug. I was trying to make an existing mug (see photo). It has a decal. I finally was able to get there, sort of. But I have a load of questions that I can't seem to figure out.
1. What is the best image format for blender to achieve easy transparency? I started with a tiff, but through some of the tutorials I ended up with a png. This took a few extra nodes to get to "transparent" even though the png has transparency already.
2.After applying the "condensation" in andrews tutorial there were two "unwrappings". When I tried to apply the decal, that made a 3rd. Where does blender keep previous unwrappings, and how does it know which you want when applying multiple materials on one object?
3.My rendering (see photo) shows all the textures, but even the transparent part of my decal is showing a weird refraction or shadow. You can see the border at the top and bottom where this decal was placed. I just want the opaque pieces to show on the decal, and I want the glass material behind. How do I do this?
4.Even though my decal characters are very bright in the png, the rendering shows them very very dark. How do I get them to look like they are printed on the outside of the glass?
Sorry for the noob questions, but I am totally in the weeds here. Thanks for your help!

For the decals specifically you may want to check tutorial posted by CG Thoughts. For posts in general you really should focus on a single question.

Note taken about limiting to one question in the future. I guess when you're starting out you still have so many questions. Just as a follow up to your video. This is great for the decals that are shrink wrapped, but I was under the impression that wrapping around 360 degree objects like a cylinder would be different. I'll do some more experimenting with the CG thoughts method. Thanks.


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Blender 4.0 bring back underlined letters
I just installed Blender 4.0 and usually I in nearly every menu,
the underlining of letters disappeared. And with it, the accesibilty through keys.
Is there a way to activate those letters again?

(that screen is from Blender 3.6)


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Colors along a spiral-like axis - Node generated texture
I've been struggling with this texture problem for a long time now, so I would be thankfull fo any help/solution. I want to achieve node texture, in which the gcolors are rotated along the cutting edge of the cutter tool (red-blue arrows shows how the colors/gradiant should go - it is like a spiral-like axis).
The real tool has such ranbow coating, which I try to simulate .
I thougt maybe it would be nice to have 2 points defined and between these 2 points the texture would rotate (scetch). Is it possible to achieve something like this with blender nodes? I am also open for other solutions.
My current nodes are these:
Thank you in advance.

you can use the uv map to do this. Make sure the uvs are square and fill the entire uv space. then do a node setup like this for example


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How to enable the Gltf import/export add-on
I did not find the gltf options under File/Import or File/Export menu
in blender 4.0.1 (linux). Looking into the add-ons I tried to enable the add-on named Import-Export: glTF 2.0 format. It fails and logs the following error:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/share/blender/4.0/scripts/modules/addon_utils.py", line 401, in enable
    mod.register()
  File "/usr/share/blender/4.0/scripts/addons/io_scene_gltf2/__init__.py", line 1661, in register
    blender_ui.register()
  File "/usr/share/blender/4.0/scripts/addons/io_scene_gltf2/blender/com/gltf2_blender_ui.py", line 521, in register
    bpy.types.NODE_MT_category_SH_NEW_OUTPUT.append(add_gltf_settings_to_menu)
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'NODE_MT_category_SH_NEW_OUTPUT'

Is there something I'm doing wrong here ?

I'm running Windows here, but usually that built-in addon is enabled by default as far as I know. If you click the down arrow against that addon in the Addon preferences, what version number does it show? - Should be 4.0.44.

It's 3.6.6 for some reason

I'd expect it to be the same version as the Windows download. The addon version included with Blender 3.6.5 is 3.6.28 so it looks as if your one hasn't been updated to comply with the Blender 4 APIs. See the answer below!

This issue is fixed in the arch package now; Run a system update to resolve this issue.

Previous answer, kept here as it may inspire workarounds for similar issues:
In short, install the compatible version of the plugin from github.
In long:
You'll need git installed.
Find where the gltf plugin is kept. On my system this was /usr/share/blender/4.0/scripts/addons/io_scene_gltf2
Delete (or move to a safe location) that folder. You may need permissions.
Clone the git repo
$ cd ~
$ git clone https://github.com/KhronosGroup/glTF-Blender-IO.git

Checkout the release branch for your blender version
$ cd glTF-Blender-IO
$ git checkout blender-v4.0-release

then copy the addon folder to where you found the old version
$ cp -r ~/glTF-Blender-IO/addons/io_scene_gltf2 /usr/share/blender/4.0/scripts/addons

In blender, open preferences > addons, refresh the list and check if the new version has installed.


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Unreal Engine Metahuman Rigging (Blender Rig)
Overview: Important information: Using Blender 4.0, (Blender Help Subreddit took my post down within the minute cause they can't read context), this is more of questions with a goal.
I've been trying to find an animation solution for Unreal Engine's Metahuman for a while now, it infuriates me that Maya gets a rig up front, and since I'm basically poor, Blender is my only animation program I have access to, and the fact that it gets straight up ignored has me infuriated. I've spent months looking for anything, and with all the results being either dead-ends or cop-outs, I decided the most efficient way for me to do it is just to create a rig in Blender. My ultimate goal for this rig is to be able to animate the Unreal Engine Metahuman in Blender to take advantage of action strips and other features to create animation montages and cutscenes. I've seen a ton of posts that just stop out of nowhere and conclude that it's not possible for no reason, so, this is my final solution for anybody that's found themselves in the same position I've been in for the past 2 years, when I'm finished with the rig I'm gonna release it for free on Gumroad or somewhere similar. That, and I'll make a simple tutorial on how to switch the meshes, please label responses to questions and feel free to ask more questions and provide feedback and thoughts.

Questions:
#1.   IK workaround
The bones provided in the skeleton are parented, but detached. Is there a way to get IK working with the skeleton like this? I've tried to use the IK constraint on the hand, but it's very weird. It works perfectly without any target or pole data, but the constraint is obviously invalid without that information, additionally, when I move the hand bone it doesn't save the world position leaving me unable to Alt+G the bone or animate it (Rotation is unaffected). What's a good way to achieve IK from the Hand to the Clavicle like my example without it breaking?

#2.   Twist Bones
I understand how twist bones work, but don't know to to drive the rotation of the twists with the rotation of another bone (Ex. Turning the hand twists the forearm.). Specifically the arm, when the hand comes up, the bicep twists outward. If I can't drive it, I'll just make a control for it.

#3.   Slide Bones ~
What is a slide bone, I assume it slides along an axis similar to a twist? Could I get any sources on this topic?
The main problem I'm encountering is how to implement these into a coherent rig, thank you for responses.


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Blender Benchmark crashes
I tried to run Blender benchmark because I felt it was a bit slow today working and the GPU was being used intensively in the task manager while sculpting, and I didn't used my new laptop for 3d too much yet. But it crashes when I try to run the GPU benchmark.
My model is the Gigabyte Aero 15 XA Oled, with a i7-9750H (2.6GHz-4.5GHz),NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 2070 With Max-Q Design GDDR6 8GB, and an extra 64 ram and 1tb Samsung 970 Evo Plus. (I think it should work very smoothly).
Thanks beforehand.

@Yohello1 They are likely referring to the Blender Benchmark / Blender Open Data: https://opendata.blender.org/ If you're not familiar with the subject matter, please do some research before commenting. Speculations don't help the asker. Unfounded advice such as "restart[...] your computer" isn't useful either.

Your hardware should be supported in Blender 2.81. The open data benchmark is still in development and may not be quite up-to-date compared to Blender, apparently there were some issues with RTX cards that haven't been marked as solved yet: https://developer.blender.org/T66415

Just checked, the benchmark version from the website is quite old (September 2018). I do know that the developers are working on a new version, I'm unsure when it will be released though.


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Weird deformation with subdivision surface
I'm new to Blender and I'm currently practicing by making a basic low poly character. I've encountered a weird glitch with when I apply subdivision surface to the model.

Used the boolean modifier to cut out some fingers for my model. However, when I activate the subdivision surface modifier, this happens.

How do I go about fixing this?

Take a look at the topology of your hand there. The entire part with the fingers is one big concave n-gon, not good.

The ngon is what is making the subdivision surface freak out.
To fix this you need to change the topology of the fingers so that each finger is a separate face (example below)

Sadly there is no easy to fix for that. I tried using the knife tool and cutting in some additional faces, but that just moves the problem ngon, not get rid of it.

Oh, I see
What's a good way of doing this after the fingers have been cut out? I know I can manually create loops (CTRL+R), but I was just curious if there's any specific tools to help speed up this process.


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Smoke does not show in Post-render (neither Cycles nor Evee) (Blender 2.81)
Please be informed that:
I have  reset the settings to factory default.
It does render in real time on both EVEE and Cycles but not in Post render.
Please Help out if you can think of anything it doesnt matter if you arent sure, just tell me caUSE I have been stuck for 2 days, and tried a lot of things, I need someone who can think out of the box, maybe the solution is very simple, and yes I did try reinstalling the app.
Thanks in advance

The issue is that you haven't baked the simulation.

Save the .blend file.
Open the Physics Properties and click Bake in Smoke > Cache.


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File view freezes blender 2.8
Every time I try to do anything with blender file view it takes a really long time to open it and it usually gives me a not responding situation . This happens for anything file view related : importing , exporting and any kind of saving ( from file to image ) . This is really tiresome because it happens only at work on most of the pc's here that use blender .
I have an intel core i7-7700k CPU , 4.20 GHz , 16 GB RAM and  GeForce GTX 1050 .

Do you happen to have network drives in your bookmarks or most recent directories?


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Adding grunge with nodes in blender 2.8
I am really new to blender and I am scrambling to learn as fast as possible however I am currently stuck. I have modeled a basic barrel and textured it as best as I can, I would like to add a dynamic kind of grunge to the barrel and I was assuming I could do this with nodes. The only tutorial I can find though is from back in 2015. Any ideas where I should start to achieve a grungy look? This is where I am currently.

Hello and welcome :). What exactly do you mean by "dynamic kind of grunge"? Do you intend to animate it?

Thank you :) Eventually I will combine a number of assets that I am in the process of building to create a medieval style village animation. At least that is the hope. Maybe dynamic isn't the right word but I don't want it to be static and the same on duplicated objects

Sure. Textures created only with nodes are called procedural textures. Sites like BlenderInsight have a nice free(!) library and also a facebook group (yeah, I know...) where you may find what you need. YT is also full of tutorials for procedural grunge look.

However, using an image texture like this one from Poliigon is a great way to start.

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/69469/how-do-i-make-a-grunge-texture-appear-only-on-specific-parts-of-a-model https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/75791/find-the-edges-of-checker-texture-for-adding-bumps-or-ridges https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/35224/how-can-i-make-a-realistic-cement-shader-with-old-cracks-crumbling-paint-chippin/35402#35402 https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/3105/how-can-i-blend-two-textures-together-using-cycles

Thank you both @JachymMichal that has been very helpful! :)

Thank you @DuarteFarrajotaRamos these are great posts to use as references.


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Texture painting stencil bug 2.8
I was following a tutorial blender fast track and in the tutorial they were using texture painting with a stencil to put runes on a sword, on the tutorial when using the stencil it shewed up as a see though overlay. on mine nothing appears but I can still use the stencil? It was a lot of trial and error to get an invisible stencil in the right place! is there a known fix for this or did I miss a step? I have been over the tutorial several times with the same result.

Which version are you using of 2.8 series, and what are your settings for the Texture Alpha option in the Display tab of the tool Properties?

hi @CraigDJones it is blender v2.81 and the alpha are all set to the default 33%

Sounds like a graphics driver issue then - do you have a graphics card or a particular chipset for graphics? There may be an issue with the drawing of the stencil.

I am not sure on the specific graphics driver because its an all in one with integrated graphics AMD Ryzen™ Mobile Processors with Radeon™ Vega Graphics. as I am only starting learning 3D I haven't forked out for a beasty system yet but it is on the to do list :) You may have a point though, I am also running a Linux distribution and they don't always play nice with the hardware.

Might try a different live distro to see if the graphics might draw better, or maybe check to see if there is a different driver available for your system.

Humm, it seems like this particular configuration doesn't really have any proper support. all forum questions that are the same have zero responses and I cant see any new available drivers. Might be time to look for that new system.

Try a live cd image of another distro first to see if it can be solved that way before ditching the system altogether - I had to do that a few years ago and found a version of ubuntu was nicer to me that what I thought would be equal , lubuntu.

Thankyou @CraigDJones lubuntu is what I am running at the moment but I will have a hunt around and see what I can find.

Mr. digitalGasim please watch this video might help you
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktFY3pcU1lo

If you have problems with rune emission (making the whole blade glowing instead of the runes) - just make sure that the left gradient button in rune emission color ramp is black


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How to make a collection's custom property animatable?
As far as I understand, custom property in UI, is nothing more than an "add-on" written in python. But for some reason collection's custom property cannot be animated.
Does anyone have any ideas how to fix this?

Hello. This looks like either a bug or an oversight because every single other instance (AFAICT) of custom properties accessible with UI is animatable.

@Gorgious, So it works (doesn't work) the same way for you? So as I understand it, there is no way for me to fix it?
Then where should I write about it?
Apparently it has something to do with the fact that this is a collection, and blender by default prohibits animating all the properties of the collection.
For example, there is a post (https://blender.community/c/rightclickselect/VMfbbc/?sorting=hot) about the ability to animate the "disable in render" property of collections. I realize that there may be pitfalls that make this feature forbidden, but it's still a very strange decision.

Yes I'm sure there is a technical reason why it not possible, but the limitation affects everyone. You can report it to the devs from within Blender (Help> Report a bug) but I don't think they will consider it a bug. Although we might have a first hand explanation by an actual dev of why animation is not supported on collections

That's not possible at the moment. I talked to the core developer of blender. He didn't give the exact reason why, but they have no plans to change it.
Here's the link: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/issues/120356


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What is the purpose of select_id in Gizmo(bpy_struct)
I am trying to write a custom gizmo in which the movement of its 2 different elements will be responsible for two different properties of the object.
(I realize that the most correct way is to create two different Gizmo and call them in the same GizmoGroup).
But I'm not getting the hang of the select_id variable in the draw_select method.
I haven't found any information at all, neither how it works, nor what it's for. I even went to the old blender commit on github and it seems to be written that it doesn't work at all. And the comment was written either 2 or 5 years ago.
But my “experiments” show that it nevertheless somehow affects gizmo drawing (but all I achieved was laggy highlighting and wrong highlighting color (blue instead of orange)).
So the question is how this property works and how to work with it correctly.

I am not sure how crucial this custom Gizmo is but an alternative might be employing the new gizmo nodes inside the geometry nodes. However you do not have control over the color of the gizmos but you can attach geometry to gizmo which might work.
For instance Transform Gizmo:

This node would give you the following viewport elements:

There are other gizmo types like Dial Gizmo and Linear Gizmo


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Maximum of value
I need to get the maximum of an animated value to get its ratio (current/maximum). How can i get it? In driver edditor, the max function gives a maximum of 2 functions, or can clamp the value as I know. It doesn't really matter which way I would do it (python code/driver editor or something else).

You need to find out the maximum yourself, or play the animation once and use the script to make the measurement of the maximum and store it in some way accessible by drivers (like by positioning an empty on height equal to the maximum).

So there is no way to get information from a key or information about a value at a particular time in blender, really?

Depends what kind of information. Let's say you have a simulation and you want to get the maximum x coordinate of an object throughout the animation. You need to evaluate the entire simulation first. If you simply animate a value, you need to evaluate the f-curve controlling it, which is basically bezier, and finding the highest point of bezier is not trivial mathematically, so it's done by subdividing and sampling it (it is not computationally expensive if you don't do a lot of this), and you would use Python for that.

Well my specific example - I made a node that creates a ruler and shows the length in selected units. But in order to animate this ruler correctly, I need to know what the final length will be (i.e. the second key) to calculate the "life factor" and use it in various mathematical operations. Now the node works through a "crutch" - the user needs to manually enter the maximum length in a separate line. I want to get rid of this and have the node get information about the maximum length automatically.


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Where is my script?
I started using Blender recently. I wrote a very nice and long script doing an animation in the text editor. I saved my project. When I reopened my project, I couldn't find my script! Where did it go?

See the answer below. You should have your text stored in your saved .blend-file, it is in the dropdown list. If it isn't there, maybe you unselected the blue shield icon (fake user) that makes sure to keep the text file stored in .blend-file. This is a really strange concept Blender uses in other parts too. In that case you may have lost your code, unless you saved it out as a text file.

If you don't save it in a separate file, try searching in the datablock selector:


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Slow down hair simulation
I have an issue with hair simulations and hope somebody here can help me figure it out. I am new to them, and there seems to be much less information about them online than many other Blender features.
I have downloaded a model with a rig and a preset animation. I wish to slow down that animation to various speeds to record it from interesting angles.
When I slow down the characters animation, the speed of the hair simulation does not change. Playing back at 1x speed no matter what I do.
Using the action strip to increase the playback speed changes the character's animation as expected, but the hair animation is completely unaffected. It is always playing back at 1x speed.
Using time interpolation almost gets me there. The hair and character slow down, but the hair moves incredibly choppily. Taking 7 frames to switch to a new 'pose' instead of smoothly moving between frames.
I understand that one solution could be to slow down the animation and simulate all the hair animations again; however, this would ruin the desired look, as the intention is to show a creature running incredibly fast in hyper-slow motion. Resimulating it at a slower speed would make the hair move in a far less dynamic way.
I am curious whether there is a way to convert hair simulations to keyframes, which would allow me to change the animation speed? If anybody has any ideas I'd love to hear them!
I hope this makes sense just through text but can share any useful screenshots or files (via DM) if it would help get to the bottom of this.
Thanks in advance Blender community!


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Modifier issue in Cycles - Black Ghosting
I'm fairly new to Blender and was hoping you could help.
I'm creating a short animation for a University project and have come up against an issue.
I'm creating an animation where a sphere splits in half. Either side of the sphere is a separate shape. A shader is used to gradually make them transparent to give the feeling they are vanishing.
There is also an Array modifier applied to either side to give the feeling there are multiple spheres inside. The issue I'm having is when the shader removes the shape. It leaves a black shape where the modifier was.
I've tried troubleshooting myself. At first, I thought it was because Cycles couldn't calculate all the light bounces, but it still happens with the Array set to 1. I thought the shader was not interacting with the modifier, so I tried a Boolean to remove the shape gradually. This didn't work either. I also tried playing around with the Alpha mode of the material which gets it to work in Eeevee but does not affect Cycles.

Here is a link to where you can download the file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZoFcQ6YbOK4teLA0KJbSaMIzYOqEgesO/view?usp=sharing
Thanks so much in advance!

The renders are too dark to tell exactly what is going on or what it’s supposed to look like. Maybe add solid view screenshots instead?

Hey my bad, it doesn't show in solid view as it's only in Cycles where the issue lies. Here is an image where you can better see the problem - https://imgur.com/jTRIqs0

"Instead" was a bad choice. I need the Solid view renders to see what the scene even is.

Using an array can easily create more surfaces than there are allowed transparent bounces. Eevee doesn't really care, since it's less optimized in that regard. Material options don't really affect Cycles renderings. Anyways, bump up the transparent bounces and you should be fine.

If not, share a screenshot of the material and I'll edit the answer accordingly.

Frederik this works perfectly. Thank you so, so much for the help - I was really stuck! Hope you have a great week.

Thanks, could you please upvote and accept the answer, so others only need to look at the thread if they have the same problem?

Sure thing. Apologies I'm new to the forum, thanks for explaining.


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Help with rotating at an angle
I'm hoping you can help.
I am working with a downloaded drone model. I wanted to animate the blades to spin.
I'm having an issue because the arms are at a slight angle. Rotating on the Z angle does not keep the blade flush with the arm as it spins.
I thought that this would be simple enough to fix (which I'm still sure it is), but I can't seem to find a working solution.
The closest I've got to work is parenting the blade section to an empty and spinning that. When I do so with the rotate tool, it looks perfect (as the X and Y fluctuate to compensate for rotation. However, when I keyframe the Z axis, it doesn't take the X and Y data. I am guessing there is a way of capturing this information that I don't know about.
I have tried so many solutions from this message board and also YouTube so decided to make a new post in case there is a specific issue here.
I should also note, this is using a custom transform orientation using the angle of the surface below the blade.
I have updated some images below to show what I'm talking about.
Any help here would be much appreciated!

If your blade is a bit tilted, the solution is indeed to parent to an empty and tilt the empty, the blade will only rotate on its Z. Not sure what you mean by "when I keyframe the Z axis, it doesn't take the X and Y data"? Could you please elaborate, maybe show some drawings?

@moonboots.. is this a duplicate of your classic windmill answer?

@Robin Betts it looks like there's another problem here but I'm not sure what

Hey both, thanks so much for your replies.
What I mean is when I rotate the empty manually and it looks fine, I can see the X and Y data fluctuating to keep the bases lined up. For example the X goes up to around 6 and then back down to 0 when a rotation is completed.
However I can't work out how to capture that data in a keyframe. If I spin the Z axis using the rotation controls on the right, the X and Y are not affected.

Thank you for the windmill response. This is essentially what I've tried but it's not working. Any insight to where I'm going wrong would be much appreciated.

Are you sure that the origin of the blade is correctly oriented? Maybe share your file (only the useful objects): https://blend-exchange.com/

I believe the origin is correctly aligned yes. I've cleaned up the file and attached it here:
Thanks so much again for your help.

I guess your problem is that you've applied the rotation of your objects while their local orientation were not aligned with their faces anymore. See the problem:

To realign the origin orientation with the mesh, first select a face of your mesh (for this one I first recalculated the normals because they were uncorrectly flipped), create a custom orientation in the Transform Orientations panel:

Then in Object mode activate the Transform Affect Only Origins option:

And Object > Transform > Align to Transform Orientation:

Once done disable the Transform Affect Only Origins option, and in the Transform Orientation panel come back to Global. Then AltR to reset the rotation:

Now if this object needs to be slightly tilted, parent it to an empty and tilt the empty, not the object! This way if the object needs to rotate it will do it correctly around its onw Z axis.

Thank you so, so much for the help here. I really appreciate it!
The model had been downloaded from an asset library. I believe it was originally made in 3ds Max. Is it fairly standard for some of these issues to happen when working with models from other programs?
I am trying to understand if I caused an issue through my process of trying to fix it, or if it's something that will always need doing when you put models into Blender without any data.

I can't tell, you need to check the origin orientation, especially if you plan to keyframe the rotation

All good thanks. Looking at other pieces of the model, I think the origin orientation is off across everything. This was really useful. Thank you again.

You're welcome   ;)  ......................


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Geometry nodes - How to select the largest duplicate index of each mesh islands
I have 2 faces as mesh islands, each has random duplicate amount so how do I select the largest dup index of each mesh island?

You can do it with this setting:

Which outputs:

Capture the original face indices

Accumulate "one" for each original face index (with group ID from the captured index), as accumulation is done following the index order

Compare the leading (last) to the total: this comparison indicates the last duplicated element

For each group ID (so for each original face), you'll have:
leading: 1, 2, ... n
and total: n, n, ... n
So the last is when leading = total.

Alternative approach (more simple):

Capture the amount of duplicates for each face

Compare the duplicate index (+ 1) to this amount

Perfect! This is just what I needed, thanks mate.

There is an even simpler solution in this specific case - the duplicate faces are offset above the originals.
It uses the Raycast Node with minimum additional nodes and is executed after the Set Position Node:

The principle is as follows: Use the faces as source positions of the rays and slightly offset them so you don't get self hit. Use the Z+ Ray Direction vector (0,0,1). Each ray will hit the face above it. Invert the Is Hit output result to select the faces that do not have anything above them.
The lemon's solution is superior as it doesn't depend on the vertical offset of the faces.


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Texture Paint Slot not showing up
Watched a couple tutorials on texture painting and for some reason they have a "Texture Paint Slot" tab that isn't showing up for me. Was it moved somewhere else?

Since Blender 4 it's in the header bar:


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there is a gab in the donut icing however i increased the geometry and also the thickness with the solidfy and sub devesion modifires

i applied a subdivision modifier as well as solidify but when i used the proportion editing tool to move the vertices downward a gap was caused, and I tried to increase the thickness and that did really solve the problem but with a high amount of thickness it doesn't looks like an icing

Hello maybe use the snap option to stick the vertices to the surface of the donut? If it doesn't work please share the file

@moonboots
acutally it think you just said what is inside me : the guy in the tutorial  when he moves the vertices i was moving on the surface of the donut but mine gone underneath it
so how could i move them on the surface and prevent them from moving down?
note: i did use the snapping tool and use the option "face project" but this is the result the camed

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

@moonboots
okay i did share it along with the URL of my question, thanks in advance man❤

I can't see the link, you need to copy paste it in your question

this one?
@moonboots

@moonboots
i am sorry it may sound impulsive, but can we chat over discord or something?
i mean it will be a lot easier this way, or if you know a discord blender community please share the link, thanks.

sure please join https://discord.gg/E6wXbR7A5S

@moonboots
thanks so much i joined it

Press G and your vertex will stick to the surface of the donut, you can also choose Snap Individual Elements To > Face Project in the Snap With panel, and if you select several vertices it will snap them individually to the surface:


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How to bevel edges smooth and rounded?
I am trying to round edges but if I'm applying more segments it doesn't help.

maybe check the Shape value in the Operator Box, or please share your file: https://blend-exchange.com/

Hey, I found solution.
The problem was that in the bevel profile type was (Custom) I changed to (Superellipse)
Thanks!


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How to create an invisible mesh like CTRL_Hole in Archimesh?
As far as I understand, to use the boolean modifier to cut a hole, the selected object has to be a mesh. Is it possible to create a mesh that is invisible like CTRL_Hole in Archimesh to create the hole? I've tried to delete the faces of a cube but it doesn't work (there is no hole created when a mesh has no faces).

Thank you,
Sicong


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How do I add delay to the effects of a geometry node?
I am creating a robot with 8 identical arms arranged in a circle (a bit like an octopus). I have modelled and rigged one arm, then I made a simple geo node modifier which rotates the arm separately by 45, 90, 135, 180, 225, 270 and 315 deg using a 'transform' node, then joining each rotation together using a 'join geometry' node. Since the armature modifier is before the geo node modifier, I can animate the rigged arm and all the other arms copy it's movement. However, I want there to be a delay between the arms' movements (example, first arm starts it's keyframed movement, 10 frames later the arm to it's left starts doing the same movement, 10 frames later the arm to that one's left starts moving, all the way around the circle). Is there a way to do this using geo nodes or am I best to use another method?

Unfortunately, geonodes can't evaluate an armature in a posture of choice. You can animate the posture and geonodes can access the posture of the current frame. You can have multiple duplicates of the armature and so an access to multiple postures at once, or you can have a simulation zone gathering data of all possible postures. Other than that you can try to reproduce the animation within geonodes to be able to calculate any position on demand.


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How to reference rotation of every instance
I'm trying out simulations in geo nodes and I want to have the cones (instances) to move around and follow each other, similarly to a school of fish. I currently have this set up,

I want to get the rotation of every instance to connect to the normalise node and progressively rotate every instance to a common direction.
thanks!

The rotation you want to reach is given by an empty in this example.

Invert instance current rotations and rotate the empty rotation by it. So that we have the rotation to reach from each instance point of view.
Then take some amount of this rotation (mix vector node with factor as rotation speed) and rotate the instances with it.

+1 because as shown on screen capture it works :D But I'm worried scaling (that's what effectively the mix node does) the Euler rotation might give 'unnatural' results, and it's probably better to Mix in "Rotation" mode (using the new pink = quaternion sockets)

@MarkusvonBroady, ok understood. Could be a rotation mix instead. But as provided in Euler in the right order, do you think that makes a difference?

quaternion rotation is the shortest path, whereas Euler is linear interpolation of the XYZ components, and that's not the same, which I think I show clearly here: tree gif blend BTW, while this is an extreme example and in practice the interpolations will happen over much smaller range of angles (because they happen all the time), you can produce an even more extreme example: an euler interpolation of 0° to 360° is one rotation, and quaternion is... No movement at all.

@MarkusvonBroady, Markus, thanks, this is clear. Some kind of mix of rotation will give the "shortest path" to the max rotation... But not sure this is preferable in all cases. But that understood, Thanks. I think the OP may read all this.

Thanks for the answer but I'm looking to use the vector of the other instances and not an external source so i can create more organic and fluid-like motion and potentialy have two groups colide and split, instead of following a predefined path.

@FelixGroves, could you detail all that in your question more accurately? Because the normalize node is linked to nothing in the question.

« I want to get the rotation of every instance to connect to the normalise node »

So, just replace the object info node by the normalize node. Right?


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How to use mesh surface height for shading nodes?
I want to make the color of my mesh change according to the global height of my original mesh (it is rigged) using shader nodes. I’m looking for a way of obtaining the height of all points on the mesh in 3d space and inputing it to a color ramp node. I don’t want to change the UV map because I already have other shaders on that object. Does anyone know how to do this? I can use basic geo nodes but would prefer not to.
Thanks!

Enable Add Rest Position under Mesh Properties > Shape Keys. Then, use it in your shader as needed. It's called rest_position.

Even if you're using a few UV maps for your material setups, you can add one more for other needs. I wouldn't rule out this option.

Thank you! this worked great :) I also didn't know I could have multiple UV maps for one object, thanks for the clarification

You're welcome!


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I'm having weird rigging problems with this model i was trying to rig
im currently very new to modeling and rigging and i've been struggling to fix these weird problems with the model where other parts of the model move when i move something like the arms or legs. I have tried weight painting, but it has not helped, ive put an image below.

Select the vertices that don't work correctly, remove them from all groups:

Then assign them to the correct vertex group:


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How do I render like this picture?

I'd like to render flat and wireframe like this.
How do I control render setting?

Hi. Please use a title that matches the content of the question. It should be descriptive but succinct, unique and identifying, summarizing the issue in such way that anyone searching for a similar problem is likely to find it. Use the [edit] link above, remove anything superfluous, avoid words like "this", "help", "issue with" or "question about". Remember, your title is the first thing potential visitors see, answers you get depend heavily on how insightful it is. See What is the problem of asking “How do I do this?"

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos This is quite a simple question on how to create a certain shader and I've almost finished my answer.

The keywords are 'wireframe' and 'shader'. You already have the 'wireframe' in the description but not in the title. If you search for it you will find several similar questions: https://blender.stackexchange.com/q/36701/107598 - https://blender.stackexchange.com/q/23616/107598 - https://blender.stackexchange.com/q/51802/107598 - https://blender.stackexchange.com/q/221321/107598 - https://blender.stackexchange.com/q/132556/107598

A relatively easy way is when you have a quite low-poly mesh with a Subdivision Surface modifier on it to smooth it out. And the faces of the object should be quads. I call it an easy way, but I'll take the time to explain it in detail.
At first, I'm using a simple plane to show the basic shader setup for a single quad face. A plane has a square face that by default completely fills the UV map. The UV map is 2-dimensional and goes from bottom left X, Y = (0, 0) to top right with X, Y = (1, 1), so in X it has a range of 0 to 1 and the same for Y.
Which means, if you take a Texture Coordinate node and then plug the UV output into a Separate XYZ node, the X values are a black to white gradient from left to right, and the Y values a black to white gradient from bottom to top, here showing the X values:

If you now plug the X values into a Math node set to Compare, leave the second value at 0.5 and the Epsilon (the tolerance in this case) to something between 0 and 0.5, you will get "true" (=1) for all values in the range of 0.5 - Epsilon to 0.5 + Epsilon and false (=0) outside this range. Here is an example with Epsilon = 0.45, the plane is now showing black borders to the left and right where the result is false, from 0 to 0.05 and 0.95 to 1. The rest is white:

When you do the same with the Y values, you get black borders on the bottom and top of the plane. Now you can combine both with a Math node set to either Minimum or Multiply (the result is the same) and you get a black border around the square (I also use a Value node for Epsilon to be able to adjust them both simultaneously):

If you use this as a mix factor for a Mix Color node, the black area will show the first color and the white area the second color. I'm using some kind of greenish and a dark grey and you probably already get an idea where this is going:

This is basically the material, to get some shading on it you just need to plug this color output into the Base Color of a Principled BSDF node, but I'll get to the rest later. The more important is now how to get this on any arbitrary model.
I'll take Suzanne as example. The mesh is mostly quads with some triangles, which is not ideal but sometimes it does not really show, depending on the actual mesh. If you go into Edit Mode you can see, Suzanne comes like most mesh primitives in Blender with a ready-to-use UV layout:

But this is not needed. Instead, select all faces with A, then you can either press U > Reset in the 3D Viewport or in the UV Editor menu choose UV > Reset. What this does is placing all faces individually on the UV map, each face normalized and using the complete map. Sounds complicated, but for each quad face this simply means, no matter what dimensions they have in the object, their UVs will be a regular 1×1 square. In the UV map they now all lie on top of each other (the diagonal lines come from the few triangles):

So when you now put the basic material created before on Suzanne, each face will become dark grey with a greenish border. It is not perfect though, because extreme size differences between the faces in the mesh will lead to varying line thicknesses, this method works best with meshes that have a mostly uniform resolution:

And adding a Subdivision Surface modifier now on the object smoothes out the low-poly edges of the base mesh (I've adjusted the Epsilon values to make the lines a bit thinner). Then I plug the color into Principled BSDF with a high Roughness value for the shading:

And this is it. For the background you can use a subdivided plane also with reset UVs and it is finished. You can also use this border separation for other settings like roughness, emission, metallic, bump if you want to make a slightly different material then the reference.


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How to batch specify the weights of vertex groups
Some bones on my model have weights of 0，I want these bones to have a small impact on a certain point. Can I batch select these bones and assign weights?
For example, selecting all the vertex groups of these bones and assigning a weight of 0.001 to a point on the mesh.

You want to assign a single vertex to a large number of bones easily?  In most cases, the easiest way to do this is going to be to select the vertex group, click the assign button, select the next vertex group, click assign, etc.  Yes, there's some redundancy in clicking the assign button that many times.
For some hard-to-imagine situations, it might be useful to set up a geometry nodes modifier to control your weights instead.

It's hard to be sure what would be best for you, because there are few situations where this would be easier than manual, per-group assignment, but this is a template for the sort of thing you can do.  Here, I'm assigning arbitrary weights to 4 bones on a vertex marked by membership in a group named "selection".  I'm using an arbitrary string to define one of these to demonstrate that GN string operations could be used to, possibly, simplify the process for a lot of bones with well-organized names.  Bone names could also be supplied by modifier inputs (and could be outputted directly as modifier outputs, rather than via "store named attribute".)  And of course, if there's arbitrary math you want, like don't replace the value if it's already higher, or whatever, you can implement that too.
The GN modifier can be applied to write the values into the mesh.  Something similar would be possible with vertex weight mix modifiers, but I can't imagine that would ever be easier than GN or manual assignment.

Thank you for providing such useful help!!! But because I have just started working with software, I am very unfamiliar with GN. If you have time, can you teach me the process of establishing nodes above？（I don't know how to create and connect them.）Thank you!

I'd recommend looking at some Youtube tutorials.  Most people get started with shader nodes, and so probably the most beginner-friendly tutorials will be related to shader nodes.


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how to make round edges with thickness
（Sorry, my English is not good .The pictures I drew are also very poor）
I want to make the model on the right side of the picture.
I selected the top and bottom edges and use bevel . The middle is too straight

Your reference looks like  a swollen trim (raised from the face, like piping), and your drawing does not. can you say which you want?

While you're bevelling move the top and bottom bevelled edges as close together as possible, increase the number of segments with the mouse wheel to give you the curve you need. Then Shift-Alt-select just the two centre loops and use S Z 0 to move them together and M > Merge by Distance to delete the overlapping vertices.

Probably a combination of the two? Sorry, I will definitely draw clearer next time! Everyone's answers have solved my problem. Thank you very much

If you have the 'Clamp Overlap' box checked, you can increase the amount of the bevel and it will stop when it meet the other bevel, giving a round edge.
You can also se the Width Type to Percent and 100%. If you put another edge loop down the middle, the bevel will reach it

Maybe there needs to be a reminder to merge duplicate vertices, where the bevels meet, one way or another.

Thank you for saving me


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I'm not sure if it's a normal issue, can everyone help me take a look

I'm not sure if it's caused by a normal error
The shadow on the left is the same as the grid, and carving it feels uncomfortable due to the jagged feeling,
The right side will be much smoother
It needs to be subdivided several times to make the left one smooth as well
This is the pants I made from Marvelous Designer
I don't know if anyone can help me see how to make the left and right sides equally smooth
My English is not  good. Thank you！
I uploaded a file：
https://file.kiwi/dc03ac07#evezknRlD5xLFZ8OdTFYsw

It's due to the folds, the topology doesn't follow the shape of the folds, it creates this bad shading because the quads are very twisted. I guess there's no other solution but to give it a Subdivision Surface modifier to add enough (virtual) topology, or you can smooth this part: Use the Smooth brush in Sculpt mode, or use a (Deform) Smooth modifier on the desired vertex group, but of course this solution tends to make the folds disappear:


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How to quickly fill holes
I made some belts.There are many such holes on my model.But I don't need these holes now. I used the method of deleting faces and merging points to fill them one by one. Is there a faster method or plugin?Thank you.

I don't know if there's any quick trick, maybe select the circle, merge at center, then do the same on the opposite side, remove the inner edge that will remain between the vertices, at the end select all and press X > Dissolve Vertices to remove of the useless edges.

Thank you for your detailed process and answers! I am currently using this method as well, but there are many holes that require a lot of time to fill one by one, so I am asking if there are any techniques for batch filling. Thank you!


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How to make coffee beans move on impact?
I've created a scene where coffee beans are on the ground, and a coffee package falls onto them. However, the issue I'm facing is that when the package falls, it only drops, bounces slightly, and that's it. Coffee beans don't move at all and they don't react to the impact.

You could make a hundred of coffee beans that have rigid body fall on the ground, bake to keyframes once they don't move anymore, then give them back rigid body, make the coffee pack fall with a high mass value so that it pushes the beans (maybe also create a Force Field > Force to increase the explosive effect, if the pack has a high mass it will be less affected). You can can also add coffee beans with a particle system (but of course they won't move):


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Video Color Replacement that changes
So Blender might not be the right program for this but it's my current video editing platform so I'm hoping I can do this all in one place. Basically what I'm trying to do is have a video of myself wearing a red face mask but the mask changes from a lighter to darker red depending on my speaking. I've done this before on actual models by changing emission levels with the f curves of a sound file and was hoping I could do this with a video. Thanks again!

There is no easy way to do that. Some Keying Compositing nodes like Chroma Key may help but it depends on your video lighting conditions. The best result you'll get by creating an animated mask of the parts you want to color correct using the Movie Clip Editor, but it takes some time and skills to do that accurately. Maybe if you post a few frames of your (test) video new suggestions could be offered.

Are you asking if it is possible to use sound's f-curve as factor for color change (darker-brighter red) in video-sequence-editor (VSE) or in compositor?

@vklidu I think that's exactly what I'm looking for, if it's possible

What stoped you to use the same sound curve? Since you already know how to color your red mask by curve what is your issue to reuse this technique for footage? Sounds to me the same. I can check that tomorrow, but would be helpful if you can extend your post about some details what you have tried and where you failed. Screens of setup or simplified blend with a sample and some mockup or sketch of desired result ... It can speed up delivery and attract more people here to answer.

From currently given info it is hard to say how do you need to color your video. VSE doesnt support keyframing RGB CUrve modifier, so if you need that kind of modification you should use compositor.
In this example I animate Opacity of Color strip by sound's f-curve.
To do that, select the Color strip create a keyframe for Opacity (doesnt matter at what frame or what value) and under Graph Editor go to Key > Bake sound to F-Curve

There are other methods or addon, that you can copy&paste to where ever you need ... you just need to set the first keyframe for such parametr so f-curve is generated, than copied curve can be pasted.

If this is not your case -add more info or mockup of desired result (like I asked in comment already). This is the reason why did I vote to close your Q ... we need to know more.


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Bezier curve produces sharp angles on extrusion
I'm trying to create a 3D model of an awareness ribbon (shown in images on the right). To do it I'm using a bezier curve, which I then extrude to 0.1m and apply tilt angles at certain points of the curve.
On the attached photo with the bezier curve outline it is seen the curve is smooth and has no sharp edges. However, when I extrude it a sharp edge appears at the top of the ribbon (highlighted with arrows).
I also can't manage to twist ant tilt the ribbon like in the reference image. What am I doing wrong and is there any way I can solve this issue?

I think you'll be happier if you set the tilt interpolation (properties/data/active spline) to "cardinal".

That worked indeed! Now I just need to figure out why the tilt displays the width at the fold as 0

The width-- as in, the length of the edge-- is exactly the same at your sharp edge as it is anywhere else.  It is, in part, an artifact of the view and of how the curve is divided into segments.


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Armature Deform Bone Axis
Like sorry for the weird title, but I really don't know how to explain what I want to do with few words. So the thing is. I got a sphere and 3 rings around it; I want to make the rings and the sphere rotate constantly on the same axis, I want to specifically do it with armature deform cause is better for the kind of import I want to do later. So I just created one bone for each part, root for the whole ball and one for each ring and assinged the weigth manually to each part, the thing is, the bones that control the ring rotation are 3 and to rotate them in the same axis the bones need to stay in the same point as far as I know; there is a way of not doing it like that? Cause having the 4 bones exactly at the same place is kinda meshy to operate with.

I want the bones at the top to ratate the rings as if they were in the position of the ROOT one

If the rings have to rotate on Z axis only, bones could also remain where they are, but if the rotation has to be on different axis the head of the bones has to be on the pivot point of the desired rotation (as your root's head and 3D cursor).
So the best solution is to give to the bones a custom shape and translate the shape instead of the bone, so to easily manipulate them without moving their head location.
Any mesh with any shape can be a custom shape, in my example 4 bones with same loc rot and scale, but with 4 different custom shapes.

When you have multiple bones on top of each other, there are a couple of ways to help with selection.

Pressing Alt + S, and Left Click over the bones, will give you a menu to select the one that you want.

You can change the Display As option in the Viewport Display for the Armature to B-Bone. Then you can adjust the width of the bones, to make some wider than others, and easier to click on.

The keystroke to do this changed in Blender 4.0, so:

Ctrl + Alt + S in versions before 4.0
⇧ Shift + Ctrl + Alt + S in 4.0 and above

The width change is just a viewport thing. It won't change how the bones behave at all.


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Hdri map flickers in Layout workspace, but works normally in the other workspaces

Maybe someone knows, what the problem is?

I suspect without any further explanation, nobody knows what the problem is. You post 3 screenshots but explain absolutely nothing. You say in the title, the HDRI is flickering. In which way? You show three still images, flickering is usually visible in animation. I cannot see any flicker in those stills. And why is the Fake User option on the world shader keyframe animated? Never seen someone do that, did not know it is possible and do not know what is the use of that... Maybe this has to do with whatever flickering you experience?

Flickering when i move viewport position by using middle mouse button, and it doesn’t show up at all, even when I don’t move it. I see just one of the hdri map colors, which changes, when I move scene position with middle mouse button.

Now this was a useful information which could have been needed in the question. This kind of flickering is normal. You can only see the HDRI map when in perspective view (at least with equirectangular projection). In orthographic view you only get a color, which is constantly changing when moving the view because it is averaged over everything visible in the current view or just the color in the center of the current view (I actually never bothered to find out what exactly it is showing). Unfortunately you did not tag me so I was not notified of your comment. Well, you found out yourself.

Problem solved, you need switch from Orthographic to Perspective.

I don’t consider this a solution. The problem is that orthographic view is useful — I use it a lot — and having an HDRI background causes flashing in orthographic view! Any thoughts? (Or should I open a new Q?)


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Mesh become weird when added to vertex group
im still new in using blender, i was following this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI1uObIx4lM&ab_channel=3DJeffAllen) to make the model, but when i trying to add shoulder mesh to vertex group, the mesh become weird, the mesh has 2 mirror modifier (main & shoulder) and the one has problem is the shoulder mirror. I hope someone can help to solve this problem. Thank you very much.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/185745RvH2boslpRQP4kAoraoRG7oSOUK?usp=sharing

tbh and i don't wanna be disrespectful, but if you are really new to Blender you shouldn't do such complicated things with a video which isn't made for beginners at all (and without voice explaining what he is doing). I recommend watching some of Polyfjords tutorials, which are beginner friendly and he explains what he is doing.

The deformation comes from your armature, you haven't symmetrized your armature, so for the moment the bone called Shoulder Armor.L controlled the 2 shoulders, as soon as you rotate it, it also rotates the right shoulder. To fix that, symmetrize your armature and parent the right hand part of your robot to the right hand bones:


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Image (as background) affected by depth of field?
Blender 4.2.1

How do I make an image, added as background, be affected by depth of field and visible in render?

Empties will never be visible in render, image planes might but that’s a bit clunky. Only use that if world background doesn’t work or your desired bg is strictly a regular photo (looks like it is). Not sure if world background is affected by depth of field or not. Worth trying.

Side note, you could artificially blur the world background if need be.

Image planes not only "might" be visible in render and affected by depth of field, they definitely are. The same goes for an HDRI if you use it as an Environment Texture in the world background. The problem you have here is, as @TheLabCat said, you are using an empty. Rendered in a scene are only objects that have a mesh surface or volumetrics (and lights depending on setting), generally speaking only things that are still visible when you disable the viewport overlays. An empty with an image is usually good for reference images like blueprints etc. that should not be rendered.

@GordonBrinkmann I meant to say they might work, not just “they might [be visible].” That was a typo, and you are correct they are real mesh objects so they will show up. It looks like your comment is a complete answer, I recommend you post it as such.

@TheLabCat Yep, sure you meant work, that's why I said "be visible and affected by dof" (which I would call "work" in this case). And it definitely works, not just might. Actually the main problem here is you cannot use images as empties for rendering, and this is merely a often asked question so it's rather a duplicate... but I'm busy and have no more time now to search adequate duplicates, maybe tomorrow.


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Recalculate Roll breaks IK foot controls and character's legs
Blender 4.2.1

My paste flipped wasn't working

Trying to make it work, in Object Mode, I selected the armature, Ctrl + A and applied Rotation & Scale. Then, in Edit Mode, I selected all bones, ⇧ Shift + N (Recalculate Roll) and View Axis.
Doing that, I was now able to paste flipped, but my character's leg and IK foot controls broke.

Well, if the IK controls were based on the old messed up rotations and bone roll then of course they are broken now and have to be made new.


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Weight paint brush behaving weirdly
The brush in weight painting mode is acting really strangely for me. It barely seems to go over the parts that I'm trying to paint, or like it can only hit very specific spots. It's making it very difficult to work.
Here's a gif of how my brush works

If anyone could help me figure this out and what I could do to fix it, I'd greatly appreciate it

Hello, I'm not sure what's the problem here, your object is very low-poly, weight painting will assign a weight to a vertex, and visually it will create a gradient between the painted vertex and the adjacent, that's what is happening right here, please tell what is the problem in more details and what you're expecting?

As @moonboots says, this looks totally normal. Weight painting is not like texture painting. The weights are stored in the vertices - so very large faces with just a few vertices on the edges cannot be painted directly in the middle of the faces. For that you need vertices inbetween. Have you done tutorials on weight painting to learn how it works?


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Export does not include keyframed properties
My animations have keyframes on the "Inherit Rotation" property, as it is used in some animations, but not all. I see that this keyframes are not stored in object, like all other animations, but only in the armature. Seen in the action editor I named it Inspector.
Everything looks good in blender, but these keyframes do not transfer to Unity. So it seems that the exported FBX does not include the changes on the armature action channel. What should I do different?

I turn on/off "Inherit Rotation" because I also turn on/off IK influence, where I want the hands to be stuck to a object that is pushed.


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How to boost FPS for animation in Blender?
I need some advice on how to improve FPS in the viewport while working with animation.
The issue is that the same model runs at 40 FPS in Maya but only reaches 12 FPS max in Blender! The model is around 200k faces (no modifiers or subdivisions), and I'm importing the rig and animation from Maya.
PC specs: RTX 4090, Ryzen 9 7950X, and 64GB RAM.
What I’ve tried so far:

Decimate Modifier - FPS actually got worse. It seems like the modifier needs to be applied, but that's not an option right now. Solid View - This does give the highest FPS, as
expected.
Disabling Overlays, Effects, and Anti-Aliasing - Doesn't help much.
Turning off Graph Editor window - Even in full screen, I didn’t see any significant FPS increase.
Playback > Sync > Frame Dropping - This doesn't boost FPS; it just skips frames to keep up with the animation.
I might have tried some other things, but I can't recall...

Any tips or ideas would be appreciated!

Hello, do you mean that you are in Rendered preview and Cycles?

I cannot tell how often I commented here that the FPS setting was never meant to be perfectly working in the viewport. It is a setting in the Output Properties, mainly needed if you render directly to a video file which has to have an FPS setting and for simulations to be calculated properly for the intended playback speed. It is also used for playback of previously rendered animations. Blender will always have problems playing animations in the viewport if the scene is using a lot of resources.

One tip that some animation tutorials usually give to check if the animations look good at the correct speed is rendering quick previews from the viewport, with View > Viewport Render Animation. They are rendered much faster than normal renders (even EEVEE renders), and you are not limited to the camera's view, you can basically render any view you are currently looking at in the viewport, maybe to check how something looks from a different perspective (or orthographic) or to see something closer in more detail etc.

@moonboots no, i'm working in solid view, of course

@GordonBrinkmann yeah, thanks! but i'd like to use this method as a last resort :)

@EvgeniyPupkin So, what do you actually want from us? As far as I can tell, you've done almost everything you could. If there is something in your scene which could be improved, we cannot tell from just knowing it is a model with 200k faces, nothing about the rig or animation or anything else. And keeping in mind that there are scenes which simply cannot run at the desired FPS in Blender... the fact that Maya runs quicker doesn't say anything. Fire simulations run faster in EmberGen than in Blender as well. That doesn't mean Blender is able to do the same.

As Gordon say,  View > Viewport Render Animation is probably the best to have a quick preview of the real speed of your animation, I don't think that there's any trick except the ones you cite, like drop frames, or hide some objects of your scene...

thanks for the replies, guys. another thing i found is that collapsing all meshes gives you 5-7 more FPS

I'm not sure if I know what you mean by "collapsing all meshes" in this case, as I said we don't really know anything about your scene so it's hard to give more specific tips than what you already tested yourself.


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how to make a bone move (slide) on one axis while following another bone?
i want to make the lower piston slides along the larger cylinder. maybe there are other ways to achieve this?

For the general situation, with any meshes, this isn't reasonable-- it's what physics are for.  But for your situation, where your drawings indicate that you're interested in the abstract sphere-and-plane situation, this is reasonable with bone constraints alone:

I've created a three bone IK chain, originating at the lower piston, continuing on with a bone the length of the spherical radius, then continuing on at a 90 degree angle to position of the cylinder.  This final bone has an IK target at the same angle, placed some distance away.  Not the hierarchy on the outliner.
The first bone in the IK chain is the only deforming bone in the chain.  Here, it is axis locked to rotate only in its Z axis (we don't want it rotating in Y and flipping the piston inside the cylinder.)  The second bone is also only allowed to rotate in its Z axis.  The final bone is not allowed to rotate in any axis-- all IK axes are locked.  But it is allowed to stretch (IK stretch on the bone is set to 1.0.)

The piston's angle is defined by the fact that the point that the sphere will touch the plane is always tangent to the sphere.  We have enforced that by placing the third bone at a right angle to the second bone and preventing any IK rotation of that third bone.

Thanks a lot for such detailed answer, Nathan! That's very interesting way so solve that. I have poked around in your file and I find a small flaw in this method
https://i.sstatic.net/mEo5j.jpg I used transformation constraint. Mapped from Z rotation (of piston_big_01) to Y location (using Z as a source axis) https://i.sstatic.net/a2HiN.jpg


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How to include smoke/fog/volume into mist pass
I'm using mist in this node for compositing

And have run into the problem that a smoke domain using a volume shader is rendered as white

Is there any way to fix that? Or maybe getting the same mist effect in other way that takes volumes into account?

4 years old post https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/issues/68346 there is a workaround that I didnt understand how can be useful, but probably for you ... honestly I don't know how to imagine the volumetric pass should looks like. Mist or depth pass represents pixels in space ... where should be positioned a pixel of volume? It is the same like if you use GeoNodes to convert volume to mesh. The result of such thing wouldn't be useful for compositing at all.

OK so there is something you can do as workaround, but it requires some steps over (and probably impossible for complex scenes or shaders).
This scene is just Cube emitting smoke in box ...

The only one thing (at the moment) that came to my mind is to render it separately with gradient shader.
Here Normalised in Compositor

Node group (used in all shaders).

Solid objects

Normally you could use blender's feature "Material Overwrite", so just by one click you can render scene with a single material, but since smoke requires different material you have to assign them manually. Or render smoke as separate layer and compose it into depth.


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why does smoke simulation in solid view look better than rendered?
i'm styding smoke from this this post's file Smooth decay of smoke simulation
and i'm wondering why does smoke simulation in solid view look better than rendered? i mean it's more stylized, but that's exactly what i'm looking for!

is there any way to achieve similar to solid view result in render? i know that in solid view the domain uses grid display option so i think i have to look up somewhere in shader of the domain. am i right?

Have you set up a material for volume?

@Crantisz as i can see it is set up by default for the domain - principled volume shader

To me it looks as if on the left side, towards be border of the smoke where it gets thinner, i.e. the density goes towards 0, it turns to black.
I cannot exactly reproduce it, but a similar effect can be achieved if you plug the Density output of the Volume Info node into the Color ot the Principled Volume and use a Color Ramp inbetween where you move the black slider from the left in to color the less dense borders with black.
In my example I also made it a bit pinkish red as it it seems in your example, maybe you can even use the density info for some emission. My answer is more a general idea of what you can do to get more stylized smoke, not a finished replica of the reference. It's all a matter of playing around with the settings to get it right. Or to get it somehow as you like it.

As asked in the comments: this works in Eevee as well, but most likely you have to adjust the Volumetrics settings, because volumetrics do not work to well out-of-the-box like in Cycles. The settings shown here are just for my specific scene (especially the Start/End values), you might need them to be different:

man that's awesome! thanks a lot. btw is it working only in cycles?

@EvgeniyPupkin You're welcome! No, it's working in Eevee as well, but as other things it might not exactly look like in Cycles but basically it's the same. I've edited my answer for an Eevee example. If this helped you, you might consider accepting the answer.

thank you, i really appreciate it!


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Object masking/ dynamic hiding in render is not exporting to .glb
I'm new to GLB export. I am using a series of models generated in a structure deformation calculation code as .ply files, that I import in my scene. Each model represents the studied structure at a different stage of deformation.
What I would like to do is to export an animation showing them one after each other in a .glb file.
I tried it with a mask modifier on each of the models and tuning them all so that only one model is visible at a time, but it does not work. The GLB file even has no animation at all.
I also tried to toggle the renderability on and off with keyframes, while ticking the "limit to renderable objects" option. But the result is the same.
I am aware that I should use identically named NLA tracks for the export to include several animations on different objects. This was the case in the attempts I described. I checked that I was able to export the models moving, but the visibility in the GLB file is the property I can't find how to animate. It seems to just be ignored when exporting.
Any ideas or suggestions as to what I could change would help me a lot !
Thanks :)

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/57531/fbx-export-why-there-are-no-materials-or-textures

Thanks a lot for this one ! I didn't come across it. So if I understand well this is doomed... Even though I have no business with shaders and all I want is geometry, the problem is that the dynamic hiding is blender-specific.

I ended up using an animation on the scale of the models. They're all set to zero scale except for the time I want them to appear, with keyframe interpolation set to "constant". This animation works in the .glb with the same result as if dynamic hiding were possible.


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Link geometry node sockets in python
I'm trying to link the values of a Named Attribute node to the scale vector of the Instance on Points node in Python but I couldnt find a way to do this anywhere...
I want to do something like this:

Here's my code as is:
def geo_node_func(node_group):

    #in and out group node
    inNode = node_group.nodes.new('NodeGroupInput')
    node_group.outputs.new('NodeSocketGeometry', 'Instances')
    outNode = node_group.nodes.new('NodeGroupOutput')
    node_group.inputs.new('NodeSocketGeometry', 'Points')

    #rest of the nodes
    mesh_cube_node = node_group.nodes.new(type="GeometryNodeMeshCube")
    instancepoints_node = node_group.nodes.new(type="GeometryNodeInstanceOnPoints")
    attribute_node = node_group.nodes.new(type="GeometryNodeInputNamedAttribute")
    node_group.nodes["Named Attribute"].inputs[0].default_value = "width"

    #instructions to link them
    node_group.links.new(inNode.outputs['Points'], instancepoints_node.inputs['Points'])
    node_group.links.new(mesh_cube_node.outputs['Mesh'], instancepoints_node.inputs['Instance'])
    node_group.links.new(attribute_node.outputs['Attribute'], instancepoints_node.inputs['Scale'])
    node_group.links.new(instancepoints_node.outputs['Instances'], outNode.inputs['Instances'])

This is a common problem caused by the fact some nodes have multiple inputs or outputs with the same name. It's not so confusing when they are visible simultaneously, but some nodes have modes, which switch which sockets are visible (and a user thinks a socket's type is changing, rather than which socket is visible). So the solution is to find the socket with the correct name and type:
output = next(o for o in attribute_node.outputs if o.name=='Attribute' and o.type=='VALUE')
node_group.links.new(output, instancepoints_node.inputs['Scale'])

To further clarify: you were creating a link successfully, but to a vector output, which was hidden, and a link to a hidden socket is hidden as well.


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Save/bake Transformed texture

i imported a PNG image in blender using import as plane addon. after importing i added some loopcuts to adjust it. Now i want to bake it again to save it in other software.

Can't you simply render it as an image?

is there any simple way to save it because i do it regularly, rendering image will also add specularity.

I don't think so, but I must admit I've never had any reason to try to use Blender for that. To be honest I'd have thought that almost any other image software would be more suitable than Blender for simply manipulating the shape of an image.

You can of course use the òverlays`button to disable any linses of the loopcut and then save a screenshot. But still, the imported image itself looks a bit "dull" compared to the original display  of the image file. This seems similar to a result of rendering the image out.


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Join objects with varying thickness
So I'm wanting to join all of these together into one object, but when I do the solidify modifier fits them all the same. Anyway to make it so they stay the thickness they are after joining? Thanks.

Apply the modifier before you join them

Welcome, try setting a vertex group on the modifier after joining the objects.

pls provide blend file so we can see what and how you did it. thx.


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Way to subdivide beveled face automaticaly
Im beveling simple cuboid and in order to create edge loops after that i must manually reconstruct some of the faces. Im just a beginner so maybe i missed something in documentation. What i want after beveling is something like that:

so my loop cuts won't complain. Just vertical or horizontal subdivision would be suffice i guess. Any help or nod to the right direction is much appreciated

If you want to create the edges you are showing, use the knife tool, but maybe it is not even useful, it depends on what you want to do next

well that's what i thought. i was hoping for some kind of checkbox for blender to apply its magic. thanks


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websites or software for creating a 3D character
Could you please guys give me some good websites or software for creating a 3D character so I can use my own character in Blender? it is kind of hard to create a character in Blender.

Sorry but this question doesn't seem to be about using Blender and any answers would in any case be opinion-based so it's likely to be closed. See https://blender.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic. You could try asking on Blenderartists.org.

MakeHuman is listed in the linked Resources for Blender page under "External Tools". There is also another free add-on called MB-Lab.


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Cable getting stuck - pyhsics
I've been trying to create an animation in which a high-poly object is lowered from a building using a pulley. I'm still a beginner when it comes to physical simulations. The pulley cable is made of metal, but I assumed it starts from a point (I'll animate the texture), and I've applied a cloth simulation, making it quite taut to give it an aluminum-like appearance. My goal is to simulate the cable momentarily getting stuck, as if the object starts swaying from side to side for a moment before stabilizing. How do you suggest I proceed? Thanks!

first thought: simulations are expensive and can be tedious with trial and error adjusting the dozens of parameters.
What about using a vertex group Shape Key with proportional editing around the area you want to bend:

And then you would animate the keyframe where it would start to bend and eventually straighten again.
Here is an example file with animation


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Make a slice of sphere full inside
I have a question about modeling a sphere that is fully solid on the inside. I need to take a section of the sphere, as if it were a slice, from the top half (attached photo). I can't figure out how to make the sphere solid on the inside, meaning that there are walls on both sides of the removed section and the remaining section. Thank you very much.

You can model this shape by deleting the faces of your selection first.
Then, in edit mode,  alt   to select the edge loop of the hole.
 e   Extrude all of the points of the edge loop and  s   resize them so they almost meet.
 m  Merge the vertices at the cursor if it is the object or world origin.
In object mode, select the sphere, and rmb  to set the shading to auto smooth.

This is a simple way to do it, but not automatic.

Use a boolean modifier. Make a cylinder that is the same number of rings as your sphere. Then delete everything except the "pie slice" you want to extract. Then line it up with the sphere, try to line things up as perfect as you can. Booleans can get messy so if you try to stay exact it will probably work out better.

It's usually a good idea to give yourself some space "outside" of the mesh you're extracting from, things can get weird if the two meshes overlap too perfectly.

Then you'll need to duplicate the sphere, add a Boolean modifier with the mode set to "Intersect" to get the inner piece, and the other set to "Difference" to get the sphere with the cutout.

Or you can just enable the BoolTool addon, which comes built-in. Then just select the cylinder, then the sphere and push "Ctrl+Numpad /" and it does all this automatically.

Then you just tweak the shading a bit, maybe add a weld modifier to get rid of any doubled vertices and you're good to go.


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Do particles fly uphill because of physics, not momentum?
How do I set up the particle system so that they fly upwards in Blender 3D? I don't want the particles to fly upwards due to the Wind Force or just the momentum in the normal direction. I need the particles to fly upwards due to the settings. Like, for example, fire particles, even if the momentum of the particle was sideways, they would still fly uphill, due to the heat that lifts the particle up

You can set the Field Weights > Gravity of your Fire System to -1.

or just set gravity to 0 and use velocity to set the speed

I updated my answer with a way that will not affect other physics objects.

Thanks_________

authors: Андрій Левченко


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Empty Weights not working Rigify
So I was making a rig and it was working just fine earlier when I regenerated the rig but when I did it again and applied the empty groups like I usually do it just completely broke.  I've already deleted all vertex groups and redid the rig but the problem is still there. Some weight paint is just not transferring when I regenerated the rig, and both automatic weights and envelop weights don't work since I have some manual weight paint. But the problem only happens when I regenerate the rig. The base rig still works fine

Please clarify what you mean by "regenerating a rig". It will be useful to provide the steps you are performing that lead to the undesired result in more detail as this could help finding the solution quicker.

have you tried to check if there's another modifier in the object? seems like you parented 2 different armatures, also try to unparent all then try again

Hi Anity, sorry for the late response but I've already tried doing that and still no luck. For some reason the rig just has deformation off and I have to usually manually turn it on but that isn't the problem, the problem is that the weights from the reference rig don't transfer to the generated rig for whatever reason when it was working fine a while ago.


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problem with particles not coliding
I'm making a animation with balls rolling on a plane. I cant figure out how to get the balls to collide.
Thanks,
sincerely TC

pls provide blend file because you didn't provide any useful information. thx.

Are your balls particles or can they be rigid body instead? In the latter case, the simulation will be more accurate

Please bring up a specific case, with the work you've done so far. Tell us what you want, in your case. It will be even easier for us if you share a file on  https://blend-exchange.com/. If you illustrate your post, folks will be able to judge whether they can help before committing to a download.


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Poor quality of texture painting
Im still learning blender and have just created a simple racetrack with some red and white curbs. I have added colors by selecting the objects and applying different materials.
Now I want to add a little bit more details to the racetrack, like for example tire marks. As far as I understand, the best way to add more details to the colors would be to use texture painting. (Or is there any other good method to do this?)
So I unwrapped my racetrack with the "Smart UV Project" option and painted it by selecting the faces of my mesh and using the fill tool. However, the result does not look very clean but rather a bit pixelated, like you can see on the attached picture.
What can I do to make the texture look better with a cleaner edge? (The resolution I used for the texture painting was 4096x4096)
Thank you! :)

Probably low texel density. Basically the UV Island is not covering too many pixels. No matter how much hi-res your image is, if the UVs don't use that much resolution, then you will have this pixellated look. Solution; try ur best to make sure that your UVs are able to efficiently cover as much of the image as possible. This comes with a bit of practice.

Okay, thanks for the tipp. Is there the possibility to draw the edge a little softer, I think then you should also recognize the pixels a bit less?

The selection masking doesn't have any falloff AFAIK, you could just hand-paint the edges with no masking to not have them jagged.


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Ocean Modifer >>Foam Loop?
Can someone please point me in the direction of properly looping the foam for the ocean modifier. I have searched the web high and low and no one seems to know, lots of tutorials mention adding the foam but nothing to make sure it loops with the rest of the ocean. Is this even possible? Because I see this question asked as early as 3 yrs ago and late as 10 and yet no one seems to have an answer or even replies. I have tried to set key frames to quote fade in and out but it never ever matches up. The foam in the first frame never matches up the last in either modifier. Even key framing 0.00 coverage for the first and last frames gives a different result wth...can someone please help? This is driving me mad.


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shadow only looks good when it has to be behind the character. on the front does not work correctly
how to make the shadow stay correctly in front of the image plane, when it is supposed to be behind it is perfect, when it needs to be in front it is cut off and away from the character.[In this first image we see the error that happens, whenever the shadow needs to be in front and in no way is it correctly close to the character's feet.In the second image we see that if you throw the shadow back it fits perfectly to the character.

Looking OK when the shadow is behind the man could be an optical illusion. Maybe he is still hovering above the plane and when you move the light source this becomes obvious.

Is there any way to agree on this? Or do I need to create an illusion with animation in the light?

The best way is to have a cut out figure with both feet perfectly horizontal. You can edit the photo and make both legs equal in size, or cut the back leg and import it as a separate plane and scale it, or just take a new photo with the feet placement in mind.


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Unwrapping and Texturing a Sphere
I've been trying to unwrap this christmas ball, and add glitter normal map to it, but the seems are too visible.
Is there any way to apply a normal map that ignore the seams, or a better way to unwrap it?

Personally I would try to use Generated mapping, why not even box projection with some blend on the texture file, bake that into a new texture, and then use that baked texture with UVs.


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Compositing not saving all layers
So I have done a compositing, which one layer consists of my objects and the second one of my lights.
After compositing and rendering, the result looks like this:

But when I save to my computer, it looks like this:

Am I missing something?
Thank you

Search for saving emissive data over transparent ore semitransparent ... basically - lights are there if you save as EXR format.

@vklidu even with EXR you won't save the bloom effect, you need to use some mask tricks in the Compositor or in the Video Sequencer

@moonboots yes you can save bloom https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/164940/2214 (if there isn't a change from that time) ... you can't see it as it is (if you mean that), but the emissive data are saved in file. To make them visible on transparent/semitransparent pixels is another topic :) https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/271902/2214 or here https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/165275/2214

@HaruShiba ... to answer (or close as duplicate) your Q we need to know more about your file format, expectation of how result should looks like or how do you plan to work (your next steps) with these renders.

@vklidu OK i'll try to understand   ;)


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Model objects inside a plastic bag
I'm trying to model random objects inside a plastic bag.
Reference:

Can someone give me some tips about this? I've only seen tutorials with shrinkwrap but I think that's not the case for this.
Thank you

Might help: How to do a vaccuum sealed pack?, How to make a trash can with a plastic bag?


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Model clouds tablecloth with animation
I wanted to create animated clouds to position over a mountain footage.
I want to achieve this effect: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOpkXBACDU4&t=9s

How can I do it?
Thank you


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Star / Magic Particles
I'm doing something for Christmas and I would love to add a stars/lights/magic trail to Santa Claus.
Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-6cggDxzBk

How can I do that? I will render using Cycles.
Thank you!

Particles with an emission as material?

Create a curve, create an object that will be your emitter (here icosphere) and another one that will be your particle:

Make the object follow the curve with a Follow Path constraint, give it a particle system > Emitter, under Emission choose the number of particles that will be emitted, the start and end frame, their lifetime, under Velocity decrease the Normal value so that the particle will be slow, choose the other object as particle under Render > Render As, deactivate Show Emitter to make invisible (you can also deactivate it under Viewport Display):

In the Scene panel, disable the Gravity or low it down a lot, give an emission material to your particle, enable the Bloom effect (or Glare in the Compositor), play: