text:
Compiling Blender - Python Error
I'm a noob when it comes to compiling. I've followed the instructions for compiling Blender on OpenSuse Linux.
https://wiki.blender.org/wiki/Building_Blender/Linux/OpenSUSE
I downloaded the sources.
I downloaded the libraries.
But when I follow the Update and Build instructions
cd /home/myprofile/bin/blender-git/blender/
make update

I'm given the following error:
python3 ./build_files/utils/make_update.py
Python path configuration:
  PYTHONHOME = (not set)
  PYTHONPATH = '/usr/local/lib/python:/usr/lib64/python/'
  program name = 'python3'
  isolated = 0
  environment = 1
  user site = 1
  import site = 1
  sys._base_executable = '/usr/bin/python3'
  sys.base_prefix = '/usr'
  sys.base_exec_prefix = '/usr'
  sys.executable = '/usr/bin/python3'
  sys.prefix = '/usr'
  sys.exec_prefix = '/usr'
  sys.path = [
    '/usr/local/lib/python',
    '/usr/lib64/python/',
    '/usr/lib/python38.zip',
    '/usr/lib64/python3.8',
    '/usr/lib64/python3.8/lib-dynload',
  ]
Fatal Python error: init_fs_encoding: failed to get the Python codec of the filesystem encoding
Python runtime state: core initialized
  File "/usr/lib64/python/encodings/__init__.py", line 123
    raise CodecRegistryError,\
                            ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

Current thread 0x00007f9baaa00740 (most recent call first):
<no Python frame>
make: *** [GNUmakefile:504: update] Error 1

@robert-gützkow thanks for cleaning up the post, but but do you have an answer to my question?

This is likely related to your PYTHONPATH, possibly due to one of the paths referencing Python 2.7 libs. I would try to use unset PYTHONPATH to temporarily clear the environment variable and check if this resolves the issue.

@robert-gützkow thank you! That was the solution to the issue. Blender compiled successfully.

The issue is caused by the PYTHONPATH. It seems that /usr/lib64/python/ points to the libraries of Python 2.7, which results in the aforementioned error. The PYTHONPATH environment variable can be temporarily removed for the current terminal with the command unset PYTHONPATH after which you should be able to run make update successfully.

A proper fix would be to either adjust the PYTHONPATH so you're able to run Python 3.x or set up and activate a virtual environment for Python 3.x.

I'll have to research that.

would using update-alternatives suffice? With this I can switch between the three versions of Python on my machine.

@leoplaw Since I can't tell with certainty what the original source of the issue was that resulted in the improperly set path, I don't know if this will solve the problem. I can only suggest you to try it on your system.


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Spotlight not illuminating. Cycles
Little trouble here.
i've got spotlight emitting light on the cube (in rendered view), but the cube does not get illuminated.

Thanks!

it does, but it's really weak: try  setting background to grey, and disable sun rendering, to see it better, then enhance spot strength to 10.000:
here it is:

Thanks! Did not try to raise strenght that high :D

That high value is needed, imho because your cube is black. A light grey cube need a less strong spot light, apparently. IRL black color means "absorbs most visile light", maybe Cycles is reflecting that...

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Mirror X topology problem
i've run into a problem here.
When i want to use mirror X topology option in edit mode - my mesh gets distorted in the middle and cannot find any options to fix that.

BLEND:

Please upload a .blend file to be able to help you

Is your model directly over the x-axis? It appears to me that your model is shifted slightly in the -x direction.

@Tak Added Blend file.

Your model is not constructed with x-mirror perfectly and the armature is not placed in the exact middle of your mesh as shown below:

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


text:
Downloaded DAE that's inside out, unable to export properly
complete newbie to Blender here. I'm trying to get 3D models into a WorldWind application. I'm not doing anything fancy with them (yet), all I want for the moment is to get models showing up correctly in my application.
I downloaded several models from Sketchup's 3D Warehouse. Some of them were in .kmz format, others in .dae. Using WorldWind's KMLViewer as an example, I am able to easily load up the .kmz files. I can also load in the .dae models like so--write a .kml file that contains several Placemarks, each of which links to the appropriate .dae file for the model. Zip that .kml up in a .kmz file with the linked .dae and image files, and then load that into my program.
My problem is this: all of the models have their meshes outlined on top of the materials/textures.
After some research, I thought that perhaps the normals were flipped, so I tried to fix that in Blender. I'm not sure how well I did that, because, upon export, I now only get the mesh showing up in my application. In Blender, everything renders just fine. I've tried a few different export to .dae techniques as well as trying to see if my .dae IMPORT into Blender was wrong. Seen here, here, here, here, and here. None of them have worked.
My steps include: un-checking the "Sequencer" option in Properties, making sure that the "Include UV Textures" and "Include Material Textures" are selected before exporting, and ensuring that all the materials' filepaths are correct. Again, it's showing up perfectly in Blender's render view, just not when I export it.
1. How do I get the models to render correctly after downloading from 3D Warehouse? Preferably straight from the "box".
2. If the answer to (1) requires adjusting & re-exporting from Blender, what steps am I doing wrong?
If more clarification or details are necessary, please let me know, I'll be happy to provide.
For reference, I'm running on a Linux computer. The graphics cards and drivers are all up to date.
** EDIT: I thought this was just a dae vs kmz original download difference. It's not. Whether I download a model as a .kmz file or a .dae file, they all show up in WorldWind inside out. If this is a problem with WorldWind and not a configuration of models, I can get this question migrated to the correct SE. **
As requested, here is the image showing the difference, I'll link the .dae files in a bit. The colored+outlined image is what loads from pre-Blender .dae file; in essence, what I downloaded from 3DWarehouse. The mesh-only image is what renders after I try to fix the outlines and re-export. Neither of those are correct, as the image should have no white outlines.

The model that I'm using is (this one here).

@cegaton, thanks for the suggestion. I tried this (In edit mode -> ctrl+L -> W -> Remove Doubles) just now and it still renders perfectly in Blender but only shows the outlined mesh in WorldWind

@cegaton, I think this is a Blender problem (not 100% sure though...) because some .dae models do load correctly in the WorldWind application, but not all of them.

Edited with an image; sorry for all the whitespace above/below it...

The problem you have, is with the model it self. I have downloaded that Voldemort model and imported to Blender as DAE. Changed to Blender Render, and set the viewport mode to Material. There I can see exactly your triangles as material. What WorldWind will show you is exactly what you have under Blender Render's viewport material.  if you rotate your model, you can  notice that you have a non well structured model (you have planes and edges that intersect themselves) To fix this model, you should retopology on him, and build a single object, after this, you will want to bake the texture of the old model to the new model. Exporting the retopologized model, you should have no problems loading it into any other software. You may consider to download/search 3D models in other sources, like this: http://tf3dm.com/3d-model/lord-voldemort-13066.html. Then you just need to add an armature/rig the model and deform it to the pose you want, and export as DAE, so your software might read it (this process will be really faster than retopology the model and correct it, and retexturing it).

PS. It's not Blender's fault. It's the original model that just looks good but was wrongly built. (non manifold edges, non manifold faces, non manifold vertices, etc)

Thank you! I'm glad to know that it is the model itself that needs work. As I don't need this specific model, I'll find ones that don't exhibit this problem. I'll definitely try retopologizing this model once my application is complete. I'm curious as to why so many models that I got from 3Dwarehouse are like this. Bad luck perhaps? But that might be beyond this question.

the problem is that users that upload to 3dwarehouse are commonly people giving the firts steps in 3D modelling, and usually building them in skecthup. Later, they discover to model in other software, and share models in OBJ files or other file type. And that's when they understand the issues related with previous methods that they were applying, and hopefully they start to correct it.

authors: Виктор Воронов


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Way to create these kind of "gravitional waves"
I would like to have this style of waves

with dynamic paint, but I can't quite get the waves to be large/defined enough. Maybe theres a way of doing this with curves in Geometry Nodes? Is this effect possible? Procedurally is preferred but if it's baked that is also acceptable.
EDIT:
I was inspired by @vklidu's answer using the mesh spirals and did that with a geometry nodes setup.

And we get this output

If you have a black and white spiral image from some source you can use a [displacement modifier]. Blurring the image will create the gradient effect.  As you know .. a high density mesh is useful for smooth appearance.  Source of image.  Proportional edit can take an radial mesh .. like the spokes of a wheel and twist them.  Shader nodes can create spirals.  Perhaps there are free Spiral patterns on the glitchernet.

Use may also use Curve Modifier on the spirals curves to get tubular spirals as depicted in your moving image. Perhaps you like the fact that there is no decreasing thickness at the center of the spiral.  This could also be the source of an image in the step above.

Suggestion .. show your work with displacement modifier and spiral image as a start, that might be a good experience for you.  Someone else might do it for you below.

You might also use the radial mesh from the top of a sphere or similar, extrude some elevation, and proportional edit the spiral rotation from the center.

@TheJeran ... Hey - GN has already Spiral primitive? My living in a box :) Thanks ...  I edited this part of my answer if you don't mind :) BTW you can post regular Answer and mark it as accepted. BTW2 I didn't check the rest your node tree, but Two Spheres part could be simplified (see my edit).

@vklidu Yea, that's simpler. I forgot about instancing and had a one track mind on transferring attributes. Thanks!

Thanks to @TheJeran's edit - GN has already spiral primitive :) so just join with rotated instance ...

... to be seen by Geometry Proximity node add Curve to Mesh node
and continue with this node-tree ...

The violet field of Z rotation is driver expression to animate rotation without keyframes ... done just by clicking into the field and type #frame*0.2 or some similar value.

For low-res grid like this you can add Set Smooth node.

Edit: Speaking to your node-tree with two Spheres - you can simplified tree ...

Simple grid shader based on Brick texture node ...

To be assigned the final object you would have to add Set Material node at the end of GeoNodes tree.

This is not with Dynamic Paint and it won't give exactly the same but you could try with Shrinkwrap:
Create this object with 2 curve spirals that you convert to mesh and parent to an empty, make the spiral object invisible:

Then create a plane, subdivide, give it these 3 modifiers: Subdivision Surface, Shrinkwrap (with the spiral object as Target and Wrap Method > Project), and Corrective Smooth:

Here is what it gives when you rotate the empy:

Here's geonodes solution:

Shader:

Result:

last minute errata, rather than ${x\over{1\overτ}}$ you could do $xτ$ (one multiply node instead of two divide nodes)…

Here i the node setup for a displacement modifier producing the desired shape.
It relies on a cartesian to cylindrical coordinates transformation and then a cosine function.
You can then animate it with a #frame driver, but I was too lazy to do it :P
Or you can use the same nodes with blobs placed on a mesh with geonodes.

If the ripples decrease in intensity with distance, a negative exponential can be added:

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


text:
Fixed rendered text size in 3D animation
I made a 3D animation with some camera moves, rotations and changes of orthographic scale.
I would like to render some pieces of text that would "follow" each 3D objects, but I would like to have all the texts with a constant defined size during all the animation (no increase / decrease of text size).

I have tried the following methods:
1) Render object and text separately and use VFX trackers to match text to object.
It would consist to :

render objects without text
render some "dummy" spheres on the same locations than objects
use VFX to track the spheres
associate some empties to the tracks
parent some text to the empties
combine in VSE the render of the objects and the render of the text in a final render

This method works but is not very efficient.

2) Render object and use VSE_Transform_Tools to track and associate text.
It's similar to case 1 but tracking can be done directly in the VSE via the VSE_Transform_Tools plugin:

render the object
render some "dummy" spheres on the same locations than the objects
use VFX in the VSE to track the "dummy" spheres and create some empties
create the text in the VSE
link the text to the empties via the VSE_Transform_Tools plugin
make the final render in the VSE

For unknown reasons, the text rendered by this method has a very very low quality

3) Try to link the text size directly into the 3D animation to the orthographic value of the camera:

Insert the text directly into the main 3D animation
Use a Copy Rotation Constraint to have always the text parallel to the camera
adapt the text scale with some key frames in order to match the orthographic scale
render all at once

I didn't manage to adapt properly the text scale to the orthographic value of the camera. Is it possible to do it via a driver or other ?

Are there some better ways to proceed, like for example exporting some empties coordinates placed into the initial 3D scene animation into a 2D scene in order to directly link some 2D scene empties to the text and avoid to go thru the VFX tracking process ?
Thank you for your help.

@RobinBets are you interested, ideas for 3rd option? To drive Text object size by Camera's Orthographic Scale parametr to keep text constant from camera view. Thanks you

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


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Simple water ball simulation?
So its seems simple enough but I cant seem to get the result im looking for. Its just a spinning water ball like the one seen in Harry Potter.

I thought you could just turn off gravity and quick liquid a sphere thats rotating via keyframes but that doesnt work, the liquid still falls immediately, even with no gravity.
The closest Ive gotten is using quick liquid on a sphere set to geometry and putting a vortex force field in the middle. The fluid spins but quickly gets stretched out to the domain borders.
Can you change the shape of the domain perhaps?

If it's not meant to be acted on by outside forces, consider using a shader for this.  A simulation would be a lot of calculation but the end result is still a sphere

In 2.93, at least, you don't turn off gravity, you turn off the Gravity influence setting in the Domain's Field Weights; but if you do that all you'll get is a ball of water that doesn't move.

Fluid Sim

for Domain object, under Physics Properties > Fluid > Field Weights set Gravity to zero (or set Force Field of effector object higher)
add Sphere, search for Quick Liquid
add Force Field (Empty with Physics > Force Field enabled) > type Force > Point into a center of sphere
add some distractor ... it can be duplicated previous Empty just with positive Strength
animate this "distractor" to generate some movement of liquid

... all additional setup depends on desired appearance (if you have some specific needs please add some reference.

Edit:
Sorry I didn't notice, you aimed to HP orb waterball ... try

add Spiral curve (enable Extra Curve addon for that)
animate spinning
enable Physics > Force Field > Vortex > Curve Guide (here Strength -4)

When I watched the reference a few times now, it seems to be a fake ... like a mesh sphere with spiral edge, )spinning and emitting just a falling liquid :)

that's awesome!!

I agree with Allen Simpson - use a shader something like this for the "water ball" (object is just a simple sphere). Use a Value Node with #frame entered in the field to make the value match the frame. Slow it down a bit by dividing it, and connect it to a Vector Rotate node to make the ball "spin" when animated.

For the dripping water, make a second (smaller) sphere, and make it the instance object of a Particle System attached to the big water ball. Give "water drops" the same material as the main water ball.

Play around with the particle settings a bit (scale and scale random are important), and then animate. End result looks something like this:

Awesome! Thank you so much for the in depth explanation!


text:
textures are not appearing on viewport (only color of my texture appearing)
Textures are not appearing on the viewport (only color of my texture appearing).

My UV

Edit:
UV is looking like this my texture image is extremely small to my top.
How to fix it?

How does your UVs look like? Try to unwrap your model if you haven't already: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7M-B6xnaEM Also I'd suggest take the [tour] to learn about how this site works, thanks.

my answer is below

I think you answer your self already ... Texture doesn't appear because it is too small ... Technically texture is there, but repeated in such small size that appears as single color.
Select all vertices of your UV map and Scale (S) it down.

Upvoted just for the sake ;)


text:
How to change texture file names of imported GLTF file when exporting
I have a 3D object with parts of it a particular color and I edited the main texture file to change the color (using Paint Shop Pro tool).
Color change works well and I can IMPORT the .glTF file and see that it is what I want. Then I EXPORT as an extended glTF to a new folder.
Problem is that although I called the model a different name the texture file names are exported the same as the other one.
Is it possible to export textures with different filenames for the imported texture files?

.glTF file imported to Blender has textures packed.

You have to click Unpack icon in properties panel (accessible when image node selected in Side panel N) ... Blender Creates texture folder (directory) where textures will be stored.

Or you can Unpack All see Manuall.

Than you can navigate to this directory and rename your texture files.

Note: ... but then you have to rename the path to those textures in blender as well.
I don't think there is an option to batch rename via blender's exporter.

Thanks I too wondered if the textures were packed but also noticed that if the textures are not in the same folder as the .glTF files they don't display when imported (in FS2020 the texture files must be in a separate folder named textures. Unfortunately I got lost trying to follow your instructions. I referred to my Blender for Dummies to find out how to get the Properties and then could not understand what was displayed on screen. I also tried just pressing N and only got the Transform menu. I also searched for UNPACK in the manual and didn't find anything.

https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/files/blend/packed_data.html ... If you are still lost I will add some screenshots ... I refered to individually unpack - switch to shader layout, select texture node and when hovering mouse still above shader window press N to bring up side panel with properties.

Thanks. I never thought of looking in the (official) Blender manual thinking that Blender for Dummies (over 600 pages) would include most if not all. I will give that a try later.

Thanks for the screen shots


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Substance painter textures look different in blender
I imported some textures into blender from substance painter and they look drastically different. I think the main issue I the roughness.
I have all the maps set to non-color and the normal map is an OpenGL map, does anyone know what would be causing this and how to fix it?

EDIT
Curve Modifier Adjustments
Cyles:

Evee:

Nodes:

Edit: New object textures (for @vklidu)

You could add a Curve node between the texture and the Principle BSDF to adjust the Roughness

so what soft is it in the first image? Are you sure that it is not a problem of environment? A metallic material needs an environment to reflect (like an HDRI image)

As @moonboots said above. Unless you have environment and lights set exactly the same in both programs and it still looks different, then you could have an issue.

+1 moonboots ... also eevee/cycles?

@vklidu it is cycles, and i have messed around with different hdris and lighting but the roughness always looks very odd. It isnt smooth like in substance painter, its very harsh instead

@moonboots I added a curve node and it didnt seem to help, do you have any other suggestions? (I added pictures of the curve node so you can see the results)

In Eevee, by default, your object won't reflect any other object, only the HDRI image and the lights. But you can create a Light Probe, and also an HDRI if it doesn't already exist. See this question: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/190642/how-do-i-get-proper-reflections-eevee

The curve node could help a bit, but you need to add more than one point to the curve. It's a try and test. The curve is manipulating the amount of white, grey and black on your texture, play with that

OK... Would be more effective if you can share metal object and room object with lights (packed texture)... https://blend-exchange.com

@vklidu i added the file to the post

Thanks ... first your panel object has no material, secondly - packed is only Roughness texture, but Substance Painter generates for PBR material several textures (Albedo (color), Roughness, Glossiness, Metallness, Normal, Bump, Ambient Occlusion ... or what ever) ... you can setup material with just single one, but if you are looking for the same result you would need them all. At third - The packed texture is for Plane.007 and 017.**

Import the HDR map you're using in substance painter to blender so you can have a similar lighting. It might still look a bit different tho. If you want to make sure the texture maps are not the problem, open a new substance scene with your model and add the exported textures in your material. If it looks the same as the other scene (the one you were texturing your model in), then it's a lighting problem

@vklidu sorry for the issue with the packing. I tried applying only the steel roughness material to an object and i brought over all the textures into blender the roughness still looks terrible. I posted new pictures to the post for you to see

Your images are not helping me. To compare screen of one object and texture of another with different view angles dent make a sense. I suggest to you clean up your Question - add a Cube (on a white Plane), add material to the Cube. Take a shot in Substance, take the same shot (view) in Blender. Pack imported textures into Blender and share those files by editing your Q. To compare reflective material make a sense only if a light condition, environment and view angle matches. ... and probably Alex is right -you deal with differences in environment texture reflected in texture (object).

Substance Painter, material Steel used Scan, environment corsica_beach ...

... exported textures ...

... used by Blender ...

Note:
I have an access only to Substance Painter 1. By default the app is using environment "panorama.exr", that is not (for some reason) in resources folder. So I used "corsica_beach.exr" located inside the app with others ...
Mac
Substance\ Painter.app/Contents/Resources/shelf/allegorithmic/environments
Win
Substance Painter\resources\shelf\allegorithmic\environments\

For downvoter: Please, share your thoughts. Would be helpful to comment a reason for your act. So I can improve the answer. Like now I don't have clue what is wrong with my answer for you. Thanks


text:
Textures are inside the model
I've imported a FBX model (made by someone else in Blender), but the textures are inside the model. Recalculating your and reuploading the textures didn't help.

UPD: the model itself https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Btqvb60qj4HtmpKEWG0E-dG--hYd7dR6

Please share your file so we can see what's going on with it. My first guess is that there's a Geometry node with the Facing attribute somewhere in your shader node tree.

May be the light source is inside of the object.

@PJM I've added the link

You need to enable Backface Culling in the material settings. It is the extra geometry for creating an outline blocking the view.

You can build a custom toon shader. Here is one:

This is for EEVEE only.

If you want you can watch some tutorials on Non-PBR shading. For example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3zHGD8V2IY or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCF29s2FRsQ


text:
Help with modeling a turret's arm from Portal 2
I am quite new with blender and I've been trying to model a turret from Portal 2. I've managed to create it's body but I have no idea how I can create it's arm. Look:

It would be a christmas gift if someone teached me how to create the arm. Thanks for your attention

This is probably not the answer you want, but if you’re here to learn Blender, start from square one and work your way up to a car tutorial (where you’ll learn how to create that type of shape). If you’re just doing this as a one-off, you’re better off purchasing the model online—I see one for just $9. The Stack Exchange isn’t for project assistance, but we can help with specific problems as they arise. Sounds to me like you’re simply in too deep for your skill level.

In my head I thought it was something simple to do, that's why I made this question. But thanks for explaining

No problem. The quick answer you’re looking for is: take a plane, stretch it to a rectangle, round the top and bottom with edge loops and proportional editing, then slightly round the length with more edge loops and proportional editing, and solidify. If any of that doesn’t make sense, you should give yourself a Christmas present and search BlenderGuru on YouTube. Good luck, and welcome to the Exchange!

Thanks for the patience. I will!

This task is quite simple.

Add the torus.
Go to edit mode and cut the half of it (actually more than a half) in "face mode".
Flatten this figure a bit.
Use a preset viewpoint (any dot of navigation "cube" that lets you to see the figure at a whole).
Enable "Snap - Increment", choose tick strict snap to grid, and snap the figure to grid. Add three separate dots (left/right mouse button + Click). Snap them to grid too!

Select all (A button) and use Bisect. Connect dots to slice the figure.
Select  everything that you don't need and delete. Disable snap.

"Extrude along normals" this figure.

Voila! Then you can add other inner parts that are simpler.

Thanks for showing me the steps! Merry christmas <3

Welcome! And happy holidays to you too =)

Model the egg shape of the body then make a copy
Make an object to boolean the cutline so the part can fit back again when not deployed
Adjust topology and edgeloops using the copy from the model without the boolean and skinwrap
Add solidify Modifier

Thanks a lot! <3


text:
Animated objects as particles - Is there a way to tell them when to start their animations?
I have this issue where I have an object with an animated material (also rigged meshes in another case), and using it as a hair type particle on a mesh. The problem is that all the particles animate at the exact same time, that is when the actual instanced object does. I’d like to be able to control when these particles start their animations. In my particular case I have a rectangular mesh, and I’d like to start the animation of the particles in the center where the object’s origin is, and gradually move out in a circle gradient. I kinda stuck here and really don't know how to solve this issue, so if you know any type of solution or approach to this issue please let me know!
Thanks!
Edit: added particle settings

In order to do this you will have to make a gradient texture which starts from white and slowly reaches to black with circle emerging from its centre(can be easily achieved by using a color ramp.) Then you will have to unwrap the face you want to apply particles on and place it in centre of unwrap grid and then apply the texture in length of particles under textures tab.
For editing the materials you will have to use only one object to be rendered as hair instead of a collection( if you want variety of hairs you can add displacement modifier and change it to local for random results). After this you can go into material tab and animate the material(press I while hovering over your mouse on color). Later on in animation you can add  random node in material or use multiple particle systems if you want to keep all the colours still there.

Added it to the OP, all collapsed options are as default, I just rotated it 90° in the rotation menu.

Thanks for the answer, but I'm not exactly sure how this method will allow me to adjust when the actual animation of the material of the instanced object will play. As I see this, it will just start emitting the particles in the middle and move out in a circle, but all the animations will still play at the same time. Anyway, here's a simplified .blend file: http://www.mediafire.com/file/uwk1vlqgdcjdcx1/particle_animation.blend/file
Maybe your method will work, I don't know.

I will return to you soon

I actually got it to work as you suggested, and that part works great, but the main issue of the animated materials playing all at once still stands.

https://github.com/JacquesLucke/animation_nodes Try this addon


text:
Convert object constraints to keyframes?
I have a camera object that has a track to and a follow path constraint on it, which serve as a mean to animate it on a curve, and tell it where to look.
However, I'm using an add-on called Flares Wizard, which has features that doesn't seem to work if the camera has basically any constraints on it, or is parented to anything. But keyframes are fine.
The camera doesn't actually have any location+rotation transforms on it, all of it's values are zeroed out, all transforms are done visually via the constraints. So my question is, can I somehow turn these constraints into LocRot keyframes on the actual camera itself?
Thanks for any help!
Here's a simplified demo file:

There is a function for this, called "Bake Action": https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/animation/actions.html#bake-action

Thanks! But that's not a solution unfortunately, I've already tried that. As I said, the camera doesn't have any animations on it, on the constraints that are on the camera, so when I bake the action it just comes out empty, nothing happens.

I've added a simplified blend file.

I tried it and it works fine, just check in "Clear Constraints" and "Visual Keying" on the pop-up panel.

Yes! visual keying is the one I needed. Thanks a lot!


text:
When using warp modifier, is there a way to keep the warping speed constant?
Context:
You can see below what effect I'm achieving using the warp modifier:

What's essentially being done here is the radius of the warp modifier is keyframed to gradually increase. You can check it in the .blend file:

What's also important to mention is that there's a custom falloff curve used in the warp modifier, and the increase of the radius isn't completely linear/constant either. That is so I can control how much of the mesh is being warped to the destination over time.
Question:
What I'd also like to happen, is for all of the vertices to have a constant speed during the warping process, which is currently not the case. It seems like it starts off at a certain speed, and gradually slows down as the radius increases.
The problem, as far as I can tell, seems to be that as the radius of the warp modifier gets bigger, it's influence on the mesh becomes weaker. But I'm not sure if that's the case.
But what I can tell for sure is that how quickly the radius increases, directly influences how fast the vertices move from A to B. Which is not what I want. I simply want to control how much of the mesh is being warped, not how fast.
Idea I had:
So, I'm not sure if the warp modifier is the best to use in this case, but I'm really not sure what else to use to get this result. One idea I had however, is to take the original mesh, and and scale it proportionally to get an object like so:

Then I can animate it's location to get a constant speed, and somehow flatten it back out when it "hits" the destination object, but I'm not sure if that's even possible. Plus it would remove a lot of the parameters that I could control, so I don't know.
So, if you know a solution to this, please let me know!
Thanks!

Maybe instead use Displacement and Vertex Weight Proximity to control the shape see https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/153177/worms-crawling-under-skin/153181#153181 https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/165827/using-a-b%C3%A9zier-curve-to-raise-lower-height-of-vertices/165831#165831

Interesting idea, but I'm not exactly sure how to implement it in this specific situation, can you please explain more in depth?

Make the vertex group affect the displacement modifier, than use some circular shaped object to affect the weight of the vertex group. You can scale the circular object up or down to change the influence radius

Well I'm getting some interaction between the targeted object and the circular object now, but I honestly can't get it work, I've never used this modifier before, and I don't know what I' doing. Could you give it a try on my blend file? To see if it's a viable option at all? As it looks like with this method, the whole warping thing is gone, or I must've missed something.

Yeah, looks like it can be done, though not sure it exactly matches your requirements. https://i.sstatic.net/jeUVW.gif It takes some tweaking with the min and max values for the Vertex Weight Proximity


text:
An animation within an animation
I've created a pendulum rotating around a circle with a Follow Path constraint. I would like this animated pendulum to follow a curve in my scene, but as soon as I constraint my pendulum to this curve with a Follow Path, the pendulum goes completely crazy (because the position of the bone following the circle is relative to the center of the scene).
How can I fix this and make my animated pendulum follow my curve? In other words, how can I create a Follow Path animation within another Follow Path animation, and if it's not possible what is the right way to create a animated object like this pendulum following a path?
blend file:

thanks a lot!

I'd see two potential ways:

use an intermediate empty, plus parenting and constraints, which is a little finnicky to set up, or
use a group instance

Method 1

The idea is to use an empty, and first parent the circle (your already working path) to it. Then add a child of constraint to the main bone of your armature, and make sure to click set inverse right after that. Now both the armature and the curve follow the empty. move the empty to the scene origin, and the second curve as well. Use the follow path constraint on the empty to target the second curve and set the parameters as you like.

Method 2

Select every object which the pendulum is made of - that includes the armature object and the curve - and hit Ctrl + G to create a group around it. Name it appropriately (I chose Pendulum). Make sure to also use the Offset from Cursor function like in the GIF. Basically, this allows you to define the Origin Point of the instance relative to the current cursor position. Then, use Shift + A and add a group instance of Pendulum to the scene. Use the follow path constraint on this new instance.

Personally, I find method number 2 far less convoluted and error-prone, but what fits your situation best is up to you.


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How to copy BGE logic from one object to another using script?
How to copy BGE logic from one object to another using script?
I use the following code (coppied from an addon) to create a duplicate of an object ...
def copyObject(scene, name, copyobj, location ):

  # Create new mesh
  mesh = bpy.data.meshes.new(name)

  # Create a new object.
  ob_new = bpy.data.objects.new(name, mesh)
  ob_new.data = copyobj.data.copy()
  ob_new.scale = copyobj.scale
  ob_new.location = location
  scene.objects.link(ob_new)

  return ob_new

But this does not copy the game logic from the original object.
Thanks!

this answer will show the python paths of the logic bricks data. I don't think you can do a copy() but you can step through the properties of each brick and recreate them.

thx sambler. selecting the object and using bpy.ops.object.duplicate_move seems to be working. I'll post the code.

Following workaround of selecting the object and using bpy.ops.object.duplicate_move works for my case ...
def copyObject( scene, name, copyobj, loc ):
  bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='DESELECT')
  copyobj.select = True
  l = (loc[0] - copyobj.location[0],loc[1] - copyobj.location[1],loc[2] - copyobj.location[2])
  bpy.ops.object.duplicate_move( TRANSFORM_OT_translate={"value":l} )
  obj = scene.objects[0]
  obj.name = name
  return obj

To copy game logic from one object to one or many others:
Select the other object (or multiples using shift) first (object you would like to copy game logic nodes to)
Select the object you want to copy from (using shift to select)
Click Object->Game->Copy Logic Bricks
( or script as bpy.ops.object.logic_bricks_copy() )
Can be done for Properties as well as Physics properties.
Is this the type of copy you are looking for?

I was looking for copying the whole deal (as when you do with shift-D). But this script would be handy if I wanted to copy just the logic bricks. thx!


text:
Only weight paint on visible vertices
How do I only paint on visible vertices?

The brush used in the image a full weight, full strength projected add brush with constant fall-off.
In image A I only want to paint on the visible vertex. However, the occluded vertex is painted as well.
In image B I want to paint on all the visible vertices. However, the visible vertex in back is not painted on, although it is enclosed in the brush circle.
Both scenarios don't work as expected. How can I weight paint, so that the visible vertices under the brush get painted on?
PS: The circle select in edit mode works exactly how I would expect a paintbrush to behave. It paint on all visible vertices in the circle brush area.

One possible solution for you:

Go to edit mode and enable: Viewport Overlays / Shading -> Vertex Group Weights:

Create a Vertex Group and select the desired weight.

Press "C" to circle select and select the vertices.

Press "Enter" (or right click) and then "Assign" button in the Vertex group:

*Tip: you can add "Assign" as Quick Favorites, so when you press "q" is handy.

Click on an empty space to deselect all vertices and then repeat the process.


text:
green smoke turns blue
After adding a gas domain and a planar, green (0, 1, 0) smoke inflow with an initial velocity, the resulting smoke is not green (1, 0, 0).

This happens with every color except for (1, 0, 0) and (0, 1, 1). How can I make the smoke color stay consistent?

i would say: it is a bug. If you use a "normal" volume shader and change to render display - it works.

@Chris It may be a bug, but the behaviour is independent of Rendering Mode. The wrong colors seem to be baked into the geometry information.

If I give a volume shader in render mode, I got the color of that volume shader.

I am using the smoke color attribute for multicolored smoke.


text:
Some particles go straight through collision objects

As the title says, some particles don't seem to be effected by an object with collision enabled on it at all.

I found a couple threads on this, but they were all really old, and the things suggested in them, like enabling "size deflect" in the physics tab of the particle system, doesn't work for me, as I don't want my particles colliding with themselves.
Thanks for any help!

Try subdividing your collider.

Subdivided 100 times, then twice again, same thing happens still.

Well, I just found a sort of answer. If I duplicate the collision object and move it further down the direction of travel of the particles just a tad bid, it catches some more of the stray particles. I needed at least 4 planes to stop all particles, but at least it's a solution to my specific issue. It's kinda a hack solution so I'm not posting it as an answer.

I had a similar problem way back, if you don't need the particles, you can kill them on collision. Apparently they collide, but if they are fast, they don't "realize" it until they're "through". Maybe that still works.

I need them, so that won't work unfortunately.

If you just need them to stick there, there's an option to render dead particles.


text:
Principled volume material renders incorrectly when exported as PNG with alpha channel
I made a very simple volume object to create an atmosphere for my scene, however, when I save the render, all the color is gone from the volume. Also the alpha of the image is wrong. I tried to convert to premultiplied alpha, which did make it better, but it did not fix the color issue.
Here's what the render shows inside blender:

And what the saved image is:

I very well know emission volumes don't work if you save them to a PNG, but this is principled volume, so it should really work. Any ideas why it doesn't?

Have you tried this: https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/215722/71578

I don't have access to photoshop, but I might try it with Retrobatch. Not really an ideal solution though.

I don't have Photoshop either so I tried with Krita but couldn't do much. Even if the solution is not ideal, if you can confirm that that's the problem, you can narrow down your search at least.

Here's the solution for EXR. I hope it fulfills your needs.
The VolumeDir pass should include, what you need.

You can combine the VolumeDir pass to use it as a png. Don't forget: It's emission data you are using. It's really not easy to transfer emission data to a png, especially if you're using transparency.
You could do your compositing completely in Blender. Then it may be easier to handle everything.
Here's an example how to combine the data to a PNG with transparency and the VolumeDir as backdrop:

Thanks, but I really would need it as a png.

Than combine the Alpha and the VolumeDir passes and save them as PNG in the compositor. So you get what you need. It works per frame and can be used for animations, too.

How do I combine them? I tried the Set Alpha node, and save that as PNG, but I just get the same result from before.

See my edited post above, please.

The mist is sort of a light source. So no matter what you do, you will not be able to use it with alpha or transparency, not because of any alpha format issues, but because of physics. Emission needs to be added, not mixed in to an image. You can add volume passes together in the Compositor and output them to a file in any format with File Output node. It should not be transparent, but should be added during compositing.
If you use PNG format, you will have an image that has color management transforms applied to it so it will likely go through filmic and sRGB transforms depending on your color management settings and that makes the color values not linear, which means even if you add it while compositing those PNGs in non-linear color space, the result will be incorrect and might differ from your expectations. Compositing is done with linear color, so it doesn't matter if you like it or not (doesn't even matter how hard you are going to press that down-vote button :D ), EXR is the way to go here.
If you absolutely need to do this with PNG, this should be considered artistic process keeping in mind that the workflow is completely flawed and the best thing to do would probably be concentrating on the visual look, so you might need to adjust color and density unrealistically if you need more or less of it. What you use for alpha in that situation makes little difference - the result is going to be wrong in any case. You might as well use the combined volume passes themselves as alpha since the brighter the mist the better it is visible (but again - that's just wrong).

Switch the Film transparency off. Then you'll get the right Background. But if you need the transparency, then actually all works like expected (Emissions will not be displayed with transparency).

I need the transparent background, and when I save it to a png, I get the result from my post.

Have you tried to do an AlphaOver with the saved PNG just to check? Emission volumes normally look transparent in the saved file, but they work correctly when you compose the image over another. (note that you need to set the image Alpha to Premultiplied when you load the image)

I have, and as I wrote in the post, the premultiplied alpha did make it better, but did not fix the color loss. Also, as I wrote, this is principled volume, not emission volume.

@Geri Did you test to use a regular color instead of an emission shader for the Volume Scatter? This should result in an image that could be better used with transparency. I haven't tested it, yet.

Not sure what you mean there with the regular color, emission shader and volume scatter. I used a principled volume node for my material with no emission.


text:
Why do volumes appear more dense when sliced with a bunch of transparent planes?
I encountered a very weird behavior with my procedural clouds. For context, I also used VDB clouds, which were full of artifacts where they are intersecting with each other. I found a hacky workaround to this issue, which is to place a ton of transparent planes inside the volume.
Now, as I forgot to hide these planes, I turned on the procedural clouds, and noticed how they appeared completely differently.
Without planes:

With planes:

You can see how these planes are placed in the scene. What also confuses me, is that originally I had a multiply node to increase the density of the clouds, but it didn't really appear to be doing anything. But with these transparent planes, it seems to work as intended.

Does anyone know what's going on here?
Edit:
volume bounces: 2
transparent bounces: 120
volume step rate: 1
volume max steps: 8

Missing some details here, shaders and light path settings would be useful.
Some experimentation tells me that a transparent plane using Principled BSDF has odd behavior, I'm guessing because it has a lot of surface components in addition to transmission.  If you use Transparent BSDF it should be different.
Other potential causes:
Light Paths -> Volumes is default 0
Clamped Indirect Lighting
Step count or step size in volume settings?

Added these info to the post. I'm using the transparent shader.

Of course setting Transmission > 0 on a Principled BSDF behaves differently than a Transparent BSDF. Transmission makes the Principled BSDF work like glass and takes the IOR into account and still has reflections, a Transparent BSDF creates alpha transparency (with the difference that you can color it i.e. give the RGB channels individual alpha values). Fully transparent becomes invisible, fully transmissive not.

@GordonBrinkmann you're right, I was just tooling around at work while I was on break and breaking the rules on BSE.  Hello, btw, feels like a while since I've seen you but I'm sure you've been around

@GordonBrinkmann fwiw I did set IOR and it didn't solve the apparent problem of cutting light to volumes or whatever was happening in my test file.  It was a long day, lol.  Question just says 'transparent planes' and I was trying to determine what that meant

Yeah hello, actually when I saw some of your recent posts yesterday I also got the feeling it's been a while :-)

Transparent planes are self explanetory. Planes that are transparent :p not sure how else to explain it.


text:
How to rotate an object around another object's local axis?
I am making skyboxes for a game, and would like to prototype the skyboxes' rotation angle in Blender. I made a simple vertical mesh line that represents the rotation axis of the skybox, and I would like to be able to rotate the skybox along the mesh line's local Z axis, no matter how I rotate the mesh line itself.

Here you can see if I rotate the mesh line on the X axis, and make a new custom orientation from it, the skybox rotates around the mesh line as expected, but I would like this to be dynamic, so I can animate the skybox rotating, and when I rotate the mesh line, the skybox rotation adapts accordingly.

Rotation on local axes can always be achieved by pressing R and then twice the key for the axis: R, Z, Z to rotate on local axis. Pressing Z once is global Z axis, pressing Z again is local Z axis, pressing Z a third time gets you back to global rotation. Or to generally rotate on local axes with pressing the key only once, you can change the Transformation Orientation to Local instead of the default Global at the top menu of the 3D Viewport. If you do this, pressing Z once rotates on local Z and pressing it twice rotates on global Z.

Oh, I'm stupid, you want it for animation. I'll write an answer.

I finally understand the question: the simple parenting doesn't work because you don't want the sphere to follow when the rotation axis is moved. Therefore this solution is wrong: https://i.imgur.com/r09WqPD.gif

@HarryMcKenzie no, just simple animation of the sphere (animating euler Z rotation)

I think you're looking for driven axis-angle rotation.  I don't think this is doable with constraints only, because of the way that Blenders handles rotation in its constraints (it decomposes rotation into Euler triplets and adds/subtracts them, which isn't really right.)
Start by making an empty at the world origin and empty.001 at world Z = 1.  Parent empty.001 to empty.  Change your skybox rotation mode to axis-angle, then create drivers for its X, Y, and Z rotation.  It's X rotation should equal the world space X location transform channel of empty.001, Y should be the Y location, and Z should be the Z location.  Keyframe W to 0 at the beginning of your rotation and 360 degrees at the end of your rotation.

Now see what happens when you rotate empty.  Its child follows, which changes the axis along which your skybox rotates.

You can change the axis of rotation ussed by your skybox to any axis desired by rotating the parent empty.

Hah, that is perfect! It's doing exactly what I need. Thank you very much! And thanks Gordon too, I hope you didn't really go crazy :D


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How to create high altitude clouds? (cirrus and cirrocumulus)
Pretty much all cloud tutorials show how to make Cumulus clouds, or some random blob of a cloud, but I'm looking to create high altitude clouds, which you can see below.

I'm most interested in the cirrus and cirrocumulus clouds, of which you can see some bigger pics below.

Any way to create these as a procedural volume material or as a world shader perhaps?
I would prefer a volumetric material though, as I need a transparent background behind the clouds, and lighting in the scene to affect the clouds.

I have found these higher cloud formations are a good place to back away from volumetrics and rely on the world shader.

Yeah I thought about that, but I still need them to react to lighting. In either case, if you could help either way, I'd be very grateful, as I haven't managed to get realistic results.

I haven't tried this free addon but Simon Thommes' work is usually worth investigating

To get the best looking volumetrics you needs to increase the Max Bounces for Volume as well as look at the settings under Volumes a few panes down.
Also worth noting make sure your Principled Volume is set to pure white.

The optimal settings here will depend on the size of your object, for example in my scene a fairly large object renders like this with the above settings.

By decreasing the Step Rate you slow down the ray as it passes through the volume and allow for more accurate detection of the edges of the volume.  It's essentially the same as increasing the number of volume slices in Eevee, but for Cycles rays.
Increasing the max steps is maybe not necessary, but... it's an option.  Using these settings we produce this image from the same volume.

Fairly detailed, reactive to light, but the downside is render time.
Here's the node group I used to make this:

Wave texture seems particularly suited to making an array of clouds if you spend enough time messing with Detail Scale and Detail Roughness.  Be sure to turn Detail up to 4 or higher but beware of performance considerations.

I'm sure with some masking and modifications you can get close to some of these formations.  I'm completely lost on how to achieve the swoosh shape right now, but hopefully this gives you a starting point.

I apologize if the images are a little hard to see on some screens.  On my main monitor it wasn't that hard to distinguish.

Not problem, and thanks. It's a start, but it still needs lots of work to approximate those clouds.

This reply might be a bit late, but I figured out a way to at least approximate cirrus clouds using purely volumetric modeling with noise and gradient textures.  To begin, I tabbed into Edit mode and scaled the default cube by 4 on X and Y, leaving it at 1 on Z (final dimensions are 8 x 8 x 2, but the scale is still 1 — make sure to apply scale if it isn't 1).  Then I applied the material setup pictured below.

If you then add a plane, give it a hair particle system with a low number of particles, choose the cube as the render object, choose a scale of 1, and give it appropriate rotation and rotation randomization. This gives you a field of cirrus clouds.  Paired with the Physical Starlight and Atmosphere addon for the sky and sunlight, it looks like this in EEVEE (with best volumetric tile size of 2 px):

Obviously, more work is needed to finesse them and give them some more random variation, but it's at least a start.  I'll update with any further improvements I make.


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Only one object has bloom when Z combining
I have some trouble in the compositor and I need help. I made this super simple scene to demonstrate the problem:

Then what I did is render out the cube and the sphere separately into two images with transparent backgrounds. I used OpenEXR format with Z buffer enabled, and I connected the depth value of the render layer to the Z socket of the composite node. (Though I don't need depth values in this example, I do in my actual project.)
Then I Z combined the two images and also rendered out the floor plane and put the two objects on top of it with an alpha over node: (It is necessary to have a non-alpha background to get the bloom to show at all.)

An now you see the problem, only one object shows the bloom effect. If I swap around the image and Z values of the two objects, the bloom swaps as well for some reason:

I am absolutely unsure about what causes this behavior, by all means it should work in my opinion, both objects should have bloom no matter in what order they're combined, but they don't.
If you know a solution to this, please let me know!

Edit: With the colors set to black and white, you can see only one object is visible at a time:

I believe Z combine is only a masking technique helping you to mask objects with higher depth value. Only the contour of the  selected pixels are used, not any post proc effect. Just try with flat color image inputs, one black and one white for example, keeping the Z inputs the same.... What are you trying to achieve exactly here?

Well, in my actual project which is too complex to show this with I also have an emissive object with bloom, and a particle system with thousands of object particles that are also emissive. I've rendered out these 2 thing onto 2 separate image sequances, and I wanted to combine them back together. However, when the particle emission starts, the bloom from the other object disappears.

Also you are right with the silhouette aspect, only one object is visible at a time, I'll add a picture of it to the post in a minute.

Well, I found an answer myslef. Thanks to Bruno, I got the idea of combining the masks that the Z combine node creates for each object, so I made a setup like so:

It combines both objects' silhouettes to make a combined mask, and as you see, the depth values are correct as well.


text:
Make particles start their animations when they're emitted using Animation Nodes?
I've asked at least a dozen questions on this same problem I've had, and pretty much managed to filter out every singe idea to solve it, now I'm 100% certain AN is the only option.
As I've already inquired about this issue, I'll paste parts of my older questions here to clarify what my issue is, so:

I'm using an instantiated collection(!) with 4 meshes in it as
  particles, each of them with shapekey animations. The problem is that
  all of them play at the same time. I'd like each particle to start
  it's own animation when it's emitted, and not based on the timeline.
Example: Let's say I modeled a piece of popcorn and have base shapekey
  as just the corn seed, and another shapekey as the actual popcorn
  itself. Now when I make a popcorn machine, I want each emitted popcorn
  to start as a seed when it's "emitted", and turn into an actual
  popcorn after however many frames it's born. With the default
  particle system, all popcorn would pop at the exact same time, meaning
  some would be emitted already popped, which makes no sense.

Now, I actually found the perfect video tutorial for this, it shows the solution to this exact problem, but it's for an older version of AN, and some particle related nodes have been removed, naturally. The nodes in particular that are needed that have been removed are the "get particles" node, the "particle list info" node, the "object list" node and the "float list" node.
You can see the full node tree here: (source) (I've also highlighted the missing nodes)

Now, what I actually need help with is to find a way to make this work for the latest version of AN, which is I think 2.1.6, in addition to make this also work with a collection of objects as the particle instance, because in the tutorial, only a single object is used. I'd like to know how to substitute those removed nodes, or, if you're really proficient with AN, maybe you can figure out a better way to do this, as I must say, this node tree is pretty nuts, and I really don't know how to use AN at all tbh. Either way, I'd be very grateful for help!
Thanks!

It has basically three steps:
1) Transform of the objects at the particle location.
2) Delay the shape key of individual objects based on the birth time i.e., shape key animation starts when the particle is born.
3) Then making objects visible only when they are alive.
============================================
Single Object:
Here is the complete note-tree:

Blend File:

============================================
Multiple Objects:
1) Here I have made a Group-Node which gives the instance amount per objects (say multiple ships) by keeping the total is equal to the total number of particles. We will use these amounts in the instancer node to generates the instances of the individual objects (or ships).
2) Here is the setup to instance individual objects (or ships),

3) Complete node-tree:

Blend File:

============================================
Multiple Objects with different materials:
For this, you need to install Animation Nodes + Extra Nodes which has the Material Instancer Node and Material Attribute Output node,

Blend File:

============================================
Multiple Objects with animated materials:

Blend File:

Thanks a lot! This looks exactly like what I needed! Interestingly though, when I append the node tree and swap out the emitter and object to my own, I'm not getting the collection created that contains all the instanced particles. Do you have any idea why's that?
Please can you also show a version that works with a collection, rather than just one object? I've tried out some things, but I can't get it to work.

You're welcome. Sometimes during append, the blender only appends the object-data but not the actual object. So, in the node-tree, select the correct emitter object and instance object. We can't offset animation (shape-keys) of instanced collection. I'm using Blender 2.83 and the latest version of Animation Nodes (2.1.7).

Yeah, that's what I did, after appending the node tree, I crossed out both the particle system node and the object instancer node, and use the eye dropper to select my own objects. So, about the collections, maybe we could use a object list to have multiple objects as particles? And randomize them? I guess that would result in the same way as using a collection. But idk, I'm still learning AN.

With the Object List, it is possible. I'll update the answer soon.

Thanks a lot, I appreciate it. So, I'm probably reaching with this, and might just make a new question for this (maybe not, as I'd ask the same thing), but is there a way to make this approach work for any object animations? I know in the post I specifically asked about shapekeys as those were used in the original tutorial I linked, but what if I have lets say an animated material on an object that I'm using as a particle? Or a rigged mesh? Basically what I'm asking with this is that is it possible to make this node tree work for all sorts of animations, and not just shapekey animations?

Yes, just make the changes in the "Object Properties Controls" group-node accordingly.

I finally got it to work, kinda. I'm getting some weird behavior with the scenes. I realized why it didn't work before, all the instanced objects were put into a new scene for some reason. Other than that, I'm not sure what changes should I make to make this work with animated materials? Can you help with that as a final thing?

Let us continue this discussion in chat.


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Unwrap > Follow Active Quads tool doesn't work
I am trying to straighten my UVs which i unwrapped using sphere projection, but the follow quad tool just isnt working ... I have tried it multiple times.

Everytime i use "follow active quad" after positioning my central face and scaling its vertices in X and Y at 0, i keep getting that flat uv which does not really resemble my model.

Edit:

From your personal experience, do the uvs still look stretched to you guys?

Are you selecting all of the faces THEN the straightened face last BEFORE using it? I actually made a quick tutorial a while back on how to do this so it might help:
https://youtu.be/h0VC1njc8w4

could you please share your object? https://pasteall.org/blend/

I made an object similar to yours and actually Sphere Projection gives me straightened UVs if I set Direction > Align to Object, and Follow Active Quads also gives me straightened UVs (but the Sphere Projection preserves the correct aspect of the faces). Are you trying to straighten those already distorted UVs or have you reset the UVs before unwrapping them with Follow Active Quads? If not, the result might be quite different.

i created 2 identities because i couldnt find a way to log into my first account, so i just created another

thanks @TheJovialBrit brit...it helped out..my UVs are..simingly straight. i appreciate the help!

i hadnt tried to reset, but i think i'll do it in my next project..you guys are super helpful!

Are you selecting all of the faces THEN the straightened face last BEFORE using it? I actually made a quick tutorial a while back on how to do this so it might help: Example

... it is designed like this. There is misunderstanding which active quad is followed ...
It doesn't follow mesh face shape, but already unwrapped UV face shape ...
Plane in Edit mode ... UV Map with Vertex edit ... Unwrap > Follow Active Quad

... Reset helps, because UV of active face become square :) Check Blender Manual (Note)

Anyway in your case ... When I try to create something similar to your model with same Seams I Unwrapped like this ...

First - in edit mode select all faces ...

Unwrap > Reset
Unwrap > Cube Projection - for top and bottom part selected
Unwrap > Unwrap - for selected sides selected

If your result is stretched, check if Scale of your object is one in all axis.
If not Apply Scale Ctrl+A before Unwrap.


text:
PNGs imported into sequencer lose quality
I have exported an animation as PNG files and am re importing them into the sequencer.

When I view the PNGs in another application they look great
as they did in the render view initially.
When I import them into the sequencer however they have lost quality and look pixelated. Even in the preview screen in the sequencer they are pixelated.

What am I doing wrong?
Blender 2.93.
These are jpgs (to save space), original is PNG.

Are you referring to the blocky bottom part of cat's head? Seems more like in render - fluid sim border ... If you mean edges (like on shirt) it's probably because it is not Zoom 1:1  ... press Numpad 1

Yes the Shirt. That fixed it!  Why does the pixellation change at different zoom levels?  what if I want to view it at different levels?  itś final form will be small but what if someone wants to view it larger and how do I get it to not be pixelated when view small (it is very pixelated when zoomed way out...)  crap, can of worms?

Probably it is not anti-aliased ? ... I can't say it is not happening on my side, and I don't see any option related to it, but I would say if you render sequence from VSE it would be fine.

Weird.  It looks different depending on what program I open it in.  I think maybe I've just never looked so closely at a digital image before...  Thanks for the help.

Check your resolution:

Blender just takes a default resolution here.
To make sure you have the same as in your png you can right click on your strip and choose "set render size"

The resolution is the same, and clicking set render size doesnt seem to do anything.  Its weird the files are actually pixelated in the preview window before importing them...  Just checked and ALL Images and video have this problem...

That’s weird. Can you provide some images with your blend file so I can check it out?

How can I share my .blend?

Grab the URL of the question.
Go to https://blend-exchange.com/.
Select the blend file.
Add the url of the question.
Grab the url that results.
Go back to the question and edit it.
Add the new url to the bottom of the post.


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Fixing Descending stairs walk from mixamo
The issue here is the descending animations from Mixamo.
(You will need an Adobe login to download the animation.)

The floor doesn't move as the legs are moving down, I have to manually fix every keyframe.
The issue is also reported on the Adobe site.
Currently there isn't a fix for such an issue, but I am wondering any of the following.

Is there a workaround you found with the mixamo descending issue?
An easy way to fix it without keyframing each step.

Is there an alternative method to generate a quick walk animation down stairs?

see attached Blend File here on Pasteall
https://pasteall.org/blend/183f43dc099a45ec8cc8ea78ccacbdf7

Hello, hard to tell without any screenshots, file, etc, I've made a tutorial in french about what sounds like a similar problem, maybe take a look and tell if it seems to answer: https://youtu.be/kVCTgDZFSEk

hi @moonboots It looks like vklidu was kind enough to edit my post with a screenshot and image. I have also uploaded a Blend file to Pasteall with the descending stair animation seen here. https://www.mixamo.com/#/?page=1&query=descending
I think the issue is similar but with the descending stair animation it seems that all the objects are hitting the floor. I will admit that your video seems to tackle correcting a looping stair animation from Mixamo but not exactly sure if its the same issue.

ok, doesn't seem to be the same problem, I'm not sure there's an easy way to fix it, it looks as if some keyframes are missing actually?

Probably better to use another BVH resources ... like here is free set of Carnegies Mocap data files (includes AVI file for motion preview) ... converted version to BVH is here ... up and down stair is under 114_09 file ...

hey @vklidu That is a great resource. I will need to go through the website and start cataloging each Mocap.
I looked through a few tutorials on how to import BVH and it looks relatively easy with some minor rigging. Some youtube videos I watched to understand the process. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ux959so49Xk
Then it got me thinking if there are other easier workflows and I found this add on. https://blendermarket.com/products/Pupa
Not sure if the addon is any good, will need to investigate.
thanks for the help.

Mixamo's source data definitely doesn't follow same conventions, bone structure, naming, rig etc ... it generates issues ... here it looks like the data was automatically processed to keep feet contact with a floor without care of specific kind of motion.
Motion is baked into bone rotations keyframes per frame, that make it quite difficult even for just 30 frames.

Luckily for you Adobe released a Control-Rig addon that make this fix quite simple, because addon generates also IK controllers, that let you animate a leg almost by one bone.
In your specific situation you would have to fix only Z axis of this controller by just 2 or 3 keyframes.

One of the well knows issue is wrong interpretation of bone orientation. Import FBX addon has a feature Automatic Bone Orientation, but it will mess Mixamo's addon as well. Instead ... upload your character (or download from Mixamo and re-upload "as your model") to let Mixamo run through its auto-rig process, assign motion and download as FBX. Import FBX (without any changes in import properties) into Blender.
Download, install, enable addon ...
and if all worked as supposed to, just press Create Control Rig in 3Dview > Mixamo side (N) panel.

Now when feet use IK rig, all you need to do is correct damaged Z information.
Right Feet (fix from frame 5)

Left Feet (fix from frame 17)

For the left foot you would have to fix also Foot Rotation ...

(copy first keyframes and move them on X axis to frame 30 and one more keyframe to replicate motion from frames 1-15 ... or just delete 16-30, duplicate 1-15 and Mirror on X axis)

Note: I used a screenshot of sideview (3) on frame 1 to get a pose reference and drag&droped into viewport to match on frame 30 (not 29). Since all bones are OK up to Hip bone you can nicely see if you match a loop animation.
For more informations about addon or usage of Mixamo data in Blender check this video.

Ahh Thank you. Going to check out the add on and try the fixes you recommended today.

Would you have to have the blend file you worked with?

Scratch that I got it to work. Thanks.

Thanks for your reply. I ran into this same issue. Could you post a link to the corrected file?

There was some issue to upload 3.x blend files ... here it is.

authors: Геннадий Горбач


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Silicone/glass material
Hello blender wizards,
I need help creating this kind of rendering with silicone shader looking like this:

Clearly this is not physical based material and it needs to use some trickery to make it look this clear. Do you have any ideas how do they managed to achieve that mockups look?

what is your current result and setup?

hmm, probably glass material with glossy shader to make it more shiny, It's clear to see through so no roughness, maybe little clearcoat rouhnes... This page shows that IOR for Glass, Fused Silica is 1.459  ( https://pixelandpoly.com/ior.html )

You could try a mix between Glossy and Transparent with an (Input) Layer Weight (Facing) as factor, and keep the Roughness of the Glossy rather low:


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How do I move the hair above the mesh?
When I am adding hair to my horse model, the hair is going inside the body and not outside as I want. I tried using the particle edit mode but it still doesn't work. That's how it looks like and I want the hair on the upper face.

Hello and wecome :). This can have multiple reasons. Could you please upload a few images, and perhaps share your .blendfile?

@ᴊᴀᴄʜʏᴍᴍɪᴄʜᴀʟ I've edited the post and added a picture.

It appears you are using a separate mesh for "neck hairs" instead of using vertex group of the main horse. It also appears you're using a plane.
My suggestion would be delete the plane, and use vertex groups. You make them while in edit mode, and then assign them in the particle system under "density".  Then you don't have to worry about trying to warp that plane to fit the underlying mesh during animation.
If you have to use the plane, then flip the normals, or flip the plane.

I actually added a duplicate as the scalp but I'll try what you told me :) How do I flip the normals/plane btw? (sorry, started with blender a week ago)

https://www.katsbits.com/codex/flip-normals/
Started blender about 3 weeks ago.  :D


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Is there a way to keep the shadow but turn off the light in EEVEE render
I've set up an animation with a object rotating. I've added one point light which is casting a shadow. I like the softness of the shadow, but it's also making my object more brighter. My Scene has environmental HDRI to it, where my object is already getting the reflections when it's rotating. Is there a way to turn off the light from hitting my object?
Thank you.

Does this answer your question? How to make a cycles light emisson object invisible to the camera?

Is this possible in EEVEE?

I think the only way to do this is using passes, in the passes menu you can enable the shadow pass and some others, then compositing them together. Do an initial render, enter the Compostiting workspace, and you'll see the different inputs for different values.

I did some goolging and saw this option as well, just turning off the shadow option. So it keeps the light on the object and hides the shadow. https://ibb.co/ZM78dw7


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Image Is Blurry When Using Glass Node In Cycles
I'm rendering my model in cycles render, and I have added a glass node on the screen (separate object) in front  where the text is, I'm doing an orthographic view render. But the result I'm getting is somewhat terrible. The image from behind is just blurry.

Hi. Please make the title of your question specific to the problem you are having and not just the general topic. Thanks.

It looks like you used a solid glass ball instead of a hollow sphere as a real life front glass.

Does this answer your question? Blurry Text On Model After Render

Please don't post the same question more than once. See What should I do if no one answers my question?

These a totally different questions. One has to do with the blurry text using EEVEE render and Cycles render.
And the other question is with blurry glass which has to do with glass node set up rendered in cycles.


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Lights And Shadow Animation, lowering the opacity of a shadow
I'm doing an animation using EEVEE render,I set up 2 lights to my scene. Once the animation is exported, the drop shadow doesn't seem to intense. The reflections I like, giving it a realistic glare as the Handle animates. But the shadow doesn't seem to be there. How can I improve the scene set up, or what do I need to do to get a better shadow?
Thank you.
https://streamable.com/3ime3w

Try selecting your light, and in the light properties section (the tab with the lightbulb), under shadows, check the box that says "contact shadows".

That did the trick, how ever, Im trying to fade the opacity of the shadow because it's too intense. I tried manipulating the values but that wont work. the only way I could fade the opacity was by lowering the strength. Any information how to lower the opacity of the shadow not to be so intense? Thank you.
https://ibb.co/LSh0snS


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Making a Speedometer
I have been trying to make a speedometer for a racing game I'm making, but all the methods of making a speedometer I know of don't work on the vehicle wrapper for some reason. It may be that there are either too little solutions to this problem posted to the internet or I'm terrible at coding in Python.
Here are some of the resources I've tried to use in several attempts.
Number one
Number 2
Number 3
Thanks to anyone who helps.

What is the issue: A) measuring the speed B) the display C) the communication between the A) and B)

Mostly A, I've tried a lot of ways to measure the speed to no avail. However I would love to have B explained as well, to know how to make a display like a real car speedometer.

I will focus on A). You can find a possible solution on B) and C)  at http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?249078

How to measure speed
Speed by build-in Physics
When you let the build-in Physics engine calculate the motion of your game object (dynamic, rigid body etc.) you can directly ask the game object.
The object will provide you the current linear velocity (there is an angular velocity too). The linear velocity is a vector that tells you the direction and the speed the object traveled since the last frame. The speed is the length of the vector (speed can never become negative!).
import bge

object = bge.logic.getCurrentController().owner
velocity = object.getLinearVelocity()
speed = velocity.length

Speed by positional change
In some situations you can't or do not want to use the build-in physics engine. In that case you can "manually" calculate the speed from positional changes.
This method assumes the object traveled from the location of the last frame to the current location with constant speed on a direct line. Typically this is a pretty save assumption (but it does not consider if the object really moved or teleported such as static objects do).
Here we use the school math:
speed = distance (last position, current position) / time

We need to record the current position, to be used within the formula of he next frame, while we use the recorded position of the last frame. The time is the reciprocity of the frame rate (typically 60):
time = 1/frame rate

This means you can calculate the speed this way:
import bge

object = bge.logic.getCurrentController().owner
lastPosition = object.get("lastPosition", object.worldPosition)
object["lastPosition"] = object.worldPosition.copy()

step = object.worldPosition - lastPosition
speed = step * bge.logic.getLogicTicRate()

What to do with the speed?
Just now the speed is in a local variable and will get lost as soon as you leave local space.
From here you can place it in a property:
object["speed"] = speed

to be used within other Logic Bricks (including other Python code).
or you send it in a message:
bge.logic.sendMessage("speed changed", str(speed))

You can do that even with a message actuator:
messageActuator.body = str(speed)
controller.activate(messageActuator)

or any other logic brick.
How to get the speed for displaying?
Dependent what you did with the value, you can retrieve it an use it e.g. in a Text Object:
for body in messageSensor.bodies:
    textObject.text = body

or as property to play an action:
    for body in messageSensor.bodies:
        actionPlayer["frame"] = float(body)
....
There are really many options.
The message method is described in detail in the BGE Guide to Messages

I just noticed that there is a small mistake within the code you gave. In the one that says '
speed = velocity.length()' There should be no parentheses on this.


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Mipmaps look terrible in BGE standalone player. Can this be fixed?
*NOTE* All of the pictures, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are with mipmaps enabled.  Click to get the full-sized images to better see the problem. *NOTE*
It really seems self-explanatory here, but to put it simply, if I enable mipmaps and play the standalone player, the scene's textures have a horrible-looking down-sized effect placed on them.  It is noticeable in all resolutions, from 144p to 1080p.

On the other hand, in the embedded player, this doesn't happen at all, no matter what the resolution is:

I have tried turning off mipmaps, but if I do that creates a very grainy and noisy image that is totally undesired.
So to put it one last time, I need to get what I see in the viewport into the standalone player.
These are my settings:

Thanks to anyone that tries to help.

Maybe this related post (or the answer by Strapicarus) will help you

When you let the BGE automatically generate the mipmap-textures it will partially result in blurred images. I do not know if there are parameters that can help generate better mipmaps.
To avoid automatic generation you can create your own mipmap textures and provide it in a dds texture file. You can create them with GIMP (DDS plugin). The drawback is the additional work. The advantage is that you do not need to do that for all objects, just the objects where the automatic mipmap generation is not sufficient.


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Can I control an object using a driver with multiple inputs?
I'm trying to set up a facial rig, and I want to control each eyelid with a control object, or both using a slider.
I have set up a simplified example where a slider moves both eyelids together. How do I set it up so I can also move the controls to move each eyelid?
I'm thinking that it should use the maximum input of either the eye controls or the slider. I also experimented with custom values, but didn't quite get it.
In my actual project it uses shape keys to close the eye lids, but the principle should be the same as this example.
Here's the blend file:

And here's what the example looks like:

I don't get the point. If max or average value do not correspond to want you want, what is expected here?

I didn't realise you could add multiple values, but when I did I can't combine the slider going down (from 1 to 0), and the lower control going up (from 0 to 1). I can't get either maximum or minimum in that case. So I'm now trying to set it up using scripted expression instead.

Yes with an expression, you can combine the several 'var' obtained from several objects

I got it working like I wanted to:

Upper eyelid
Just add both values (slider and ctrl_up) as variables and use Type: Minimum Value, since they are going from positive to negative and we want the smallest one.

Lower eyelid
Just add both values (slider and ctrl_down) but use Type: Scripted expression, and invert var2, so when it moves up, it still gives a negative number.

Here's the final blend:

Hope this helps someone with understanding drivers!


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Tile an Image in a Compositor
Is it possible to tile an image in the Compositor? I would like to use the compositor to tile an image and preview in live what the final "tiled" render will be like.

EDIT2:
As noted in @ayoreis's comment, I want to obtain a result like this:

@vklidu: I realized that I needed to scale down to 0.10. However, the input image is very small, so the image is very pixelated:

However, I found a solution to avoid that (let me know if it's better): create via an empty texture a full-sized image, and then alpha over the (usually non scaled) version. Moreover, I can still use the scale factor to zoom more or less in my picture:

Problem solved, thanks! (I'll accepted the first answer that provided the first part of this solution)

Do you mean like tiling a texture like this: https://img.freepik.com/free-photo/blue-square-tiled-texture-background_53876-63563.jpg?size=626&ext=jpg

@AyoReis Exactly

On @vklidu answer as on mine too, you need to change the scale on the transform node.

BTW when used image as texture for shader (Material for object in 3D scene) it is repeated by default.

Seems to be working fine for me ...

Note: in a case you want to fit tiles into Render Dimension ...

ad Scale node, switch to Render Size and
use Mix node to combine outputs of Scale node and Transform nodes.

Thanks a lot! Note that both Wrapping: Both Axes and Scale: 0.1 are important here. However in my case it was not enough because the initial image was very small (so the output was pixellated). I solved that issue by adding an empty texture below (using alpha over), cf my edit. I don't need anymore scale, but I can still use this parameter to zoom in/out in the high resolution image. Thanks!

I used Scale node with Render Size coordinates ... I will check your solution later :)

Thanks for your edit, interesting trick to obtain a white image!

Ha :) it seems like your Texture node does the same ... so the same trick :) I thought  with Absolute I can specify dimension independently from Render, but I can't ...

Yes, the idea is the same. But I don't think it's possible to produce an image independant (or bigger) than the render, which is very sad… In case you know a trick I'd love to hear that!

Sure you can just instead of scale or texture node add big image ... But it would be more flexible to change render dimension directly (or percentage).

I have used this node setup many times.
You could even make a custom node to control it better.

Thanks! Your solution is very close to vklidu but he was first (still, +1 ;-) ), so I'll accept their answer (and indeed I missed the scale parameter the first time, thanks!). This solution suffers from the same issues when the input image is small. But the same solution I put in edit applies.

The answer using the translate node to wrap has been "fixed" as a bug in the newest versions of Blender, so I still have this question.

You can do "something" like tiling like this:

Thanks, however it seems very tedious to create whole tiling that way... But vklidu solution makes it easier to use.


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Clean Scattering borders using cycles?
In forest pack for 3dsmax, they use vray to cut out part of the scattered assets going out of the emitter mesh boundaries.

It's completely possible to do the same thing with cycles transparency but only with a texture projected on a global space.

I found no way to make such boundary filter work with a procedural method, that would for example, analyse the emitter geometry.
Any thoughts on this?
Is this truly impossible to find a non destructive method that don't rely on projected uv-images?

Thanks, i was searching for such option

"Analyze emitter geometry" ... like face of plane (emitter) will be a factor in Z axis for transparency? Or factor should be a shape of another object? It is not clear for me what kind of final shapes are you looking for and how much factor should be procedural and how much controlled or defined by user.

I meant by that, from grass shader, remove all parts of the grass that is going outside of emitter geometrical boundaries


text:
How to correct normals along the Z axis
Im creating grass for my scene and have watched a walk through which says Alt+N > Point to target > Z axis large value, which should point all the split normals straight up, but end up leaning.
I thought I would have to freeze transforms, but that didn't help.

This should work, provided that the Z value is indeed quite large (e.g. 100000 m). Alternatively you could use ALT-L, enable align with A, then press M and control the normals with your mouse. This will however be less accurate as you will have to estimate the alignment. You could also set them through a Python script.

If you want the custom split normals to be perfectly aligned with the Z-axis in object space you can accomplish this with the following script:
import bpy

obj = bpy.context.view_layer.objects.active
custom_normals = [(0., 0., 1.) for loop in obj.data.loops]
obj.data.normals_split_custom_set(custom_normals)

For alignment in world space you can use the following script instead:
import bpy
import mathutils

obj = bpy.context.view_layer.objects.active
custom_normals = [mathutils.Vector((0., 0., 1.)) @ obj.matrix_world for loop in obj.data.loops]
obj.data.normals_split_custom_set(custom_normals)

Switch to to the Scripting workspace.
Copy and paste one of the scripts to the text editor.
Switch to object mode in the 3D view and select the object for which the normals should be aligned with the Z-axis.
Run the script by pressing the play button in the text editor's header.

I think the reason why its leaning is because it's a plane, when I've tried it on a sphere or square it works. Also I tried the script and I'm getting an error not sure if I'm using it right.

That shouldn't make a difference. What error are you getting?

When I run it without the import bpy I get Python script failed, check the message in the system console. When I try the full text nothing happens also Im sorry this is the first time I've used a script.

If you execute the script as shown above and its throws no error, then you should see the changed normals when switching back to edit mode.

You're right but for what every reason my normals for the grass stay slanted and when i try it on other planes they are also the same. but the script does work, awesome. I think my only option is to manually fix it with enable align at point

Bear in mind that this script aligns normals to Object-Space Z, not World-Space Z ?

Yes, if the object is rotated (axis of object space does not match world space), then this will only align with the local Z-axis. Alignment with the global Z-axis can be achieved by adding import mathutils and using custom_normals = [mathutils.Vector((0., 0., 1.)) @ obj.matrix_world for loop in obj.data.loops] instead.


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Keep Shape Keys After Modifier was Apply
I wanted to duplicate a body mesh and remove some parts of it to make it look like a shirt, and that's almost done. Now the mesh look like a shirt but I needed to add a Wireframe modifier so it turns into a fishnet, now just like that, everything must be done.
This model has to be exported as a FBX and be used in Unity, Unity didn't show the shape keys Blendshapes and that's because of the modifier. All I need to do is apply the modifier, but the modifier didn't want to be applied because of the shape keys, it throws an error saying "modifier cannot be applied to a mesh with shape keys".
I found an add-on that let's you apply a modifier with shape keys, this one: https://github.com/przemir/ApplyModifierForObjectWithShapeKeys but honestly the result of the modifier being applied is not what I really wanted. I prefer the result of the modifier without the application, and I found a way to do so: the convert > mesh function, but it doesn't keep my shape keys.
I saw this forum Converting a curve into a mesh does not copy over shape keys and it kinda did what I wanted, but remember how the end results of the applied modifier isn't really appealing, well it's being transformed into the Join as Shapes...
I just need the results of the modifier without applying it, and keeping the shape keys. Is there a way to do so?

I'm not experienced with Unity, but if FBX protects Shapekeys and Unity can use it ... it should be working in this order ...

Duplicate object with the Wire modifier and the Shapekey

Set Shapekey to 1

Convert to Mesh
(This applies modifier and shapekey.)

Select original object with Basis key shape and also Convert to Mesh
(so the modifier became apply and shapekeys deleted in one action)

Select both objects with Base shape Active and search for Join as Shape

If this doesnt result with expected result for you ... you would have to share screens or blend file with your specific issue.


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How to disable bone colors from appearing on Timeline tracks (and Dopesheet, Graph Editor)
Since a few days in 3.6.4 my bones group colors are making the timeline editor's channels unreadable. It must be an option that I somehow turned on, as it wasn't the case before or when opening the same file in 3.5. But I can't find this option in any menu like View, nor the preferences (but I didn't touch them when it appeared.)
Here is how it should look, readable:

And here is how it looks in all my files now, unreadable:
(if it's an option it should be saved in the file, strange that it poped in all files suddenly..)

Thanks !
Also, "Show Bone Color" would solve it, but it does not exist anymore as an option it seems:

Hello please check the answers here: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/206210/change-the-channel-color-in-dopesheet-graph-editor

Hi, thanks, yes I saw this post but it seems to be outdated, the "Show Bone Color" option does not exist anymore it seems, I don't have it in the graph or any other timeline editors (can't paste the screenshot.)
So my question could also be, why does "Show Bone Color" not a thing anymore ?

OK, weird, maybe in the Preferences > Animation > F-Curves > uncheck Chanel Group Colors?

that's it, thanks a lot ! It's probably one of these things that were moved from the view options in the grapth editor, to the preferences, like the option to show only selected curves, that I was using all the time in the view panel, and that's now inaccessible in the pref so no quick favorites anymore.

Preferences > Animation > F-Curves > uncheck Chanel Group Colors
Thanks @moonboots !
(no idea how that could have toggled on its own..)


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cloth floating effect? (Superman cape)

So above is what I am trying to do :
I am trying to make a cloth that stays at the same position but sort of waves very slowly like that superman cape is doing, so that it looks like its levitating.
Below is what I have made so far

I am trying to do so on the red cloth above, but I made that with sculpting features.
No simulation or physics are applied.
So I think that when I apply physics it wont work as expected and Ive never done cloth related simulations before so I have no idea where to start :(
Would there be any recommendations for getting that cape effect in the first gif?

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/177484/adding-cloth-physics-to-vertex-group   https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/93641/creating-looping-cloth-animation-for-sprite

You could create a plane, subdivide, mask one of its ends, in Sculpt mode use the Cloth Filter brush / Gravity mode to already give it a cape look:

Then give your cape a Cloth physic, pin the same end edge, choose a very low Speed Multiplier value (like 0.1), enable Self Collisions, create a Force Field > Wind, give a Strength around 10 000:

Bake (here it is still a bit fast, my Speed Multiplier was at 0.2):

You only know this because you wear that cape all the time…

hey you swore not to tell my identity!

yeah...but honestly...you revealed yourself by this animation which is just a movie taken from your back with your iPhone. Everybody can see that this is NOT an animation.....!!!!‼‼‼‼ And only because you converted it to BW doesn't mean we don't see that....!!!

yes but Loïs asked me to spend less time on my computer

And she is right!!!! Listen to her!

to tell me that I suspect you're no other one than Lex Luthor  :((

I‘ll be back!


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Why did part of my mesh suddenly turn purple in sculp mode? (Face sets)
I was just sculpting a rock object in object mode, when all of a sudden, parts of it just turned purple.  I don't think I pressed anything I shouldn't have.  I don't know if this is normal of not, but does anyone know how to fix this?

In Sculpt mode, Face Sets allows you to create separate areas, a little bit like the Mask except you can create as many face sets as you want and you won't have to mask and unmask to switch from a face set to another, when you'll sculpt on a face set it will only affect this face set until you release the left click and click on another face set.
To paint your face sets you need to press left click. Release and left click again to create a new face set, Ctrl and left click on a face set to extend it, Shift left click to smooth the boundaries. In the Face Sets menu > Init Face Sets you can choose another way to create face sets (for example By UV Seams):

Once you've painted, choose your sculpt brush and enable the Face Sets options:

It looks like once you've painted your face sets you can't enable Dyntopo without deleting the face sets, Dyntopo creates new geometry so it makes sense.
Now sculpt:

never mind, I figured it out.  I had accidantally enabled "face sets"  whatever that is.  But anyway, I got it back to normal now

How To Remove Face Sets
To remove/reset all Face Sets, you can navigate to the top left corner of your viewport and click the Face Sets button.
From here, click Face Set From Visible to reset the entire mesh back to the default grey.

Alternatively, you can go to the top left corner and click on Viewport Overlays. Then at the very bottom, toggle off Face Set visibility.


text:
Whats the difference between these two?
[![enter image description here][1]][1]what is the difference between these 2 ? can you please sepcify
and how to convert the atoms one diagram to the solid form one, can you please tell the steps?
i am a total beginner so dont mind as i have searched many places but i cant understand
thank you

File:

Select you domain and in the Physics panel > Liquid > enable the Mesh option

On the first picture the fluid is displayed as particles, on the second it is displayed as mesh, to display as mesh, go in the Properties panel > Physics > Liquid, and enable the Mesh option:

i have ticked both of the options but when i baked it again it dosn't transformed to the mesh one, what to do

what do you mean by mesh 1? Maybe share your file (only keep the minimum): https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/

please see the 1st image

could you please share your file? I'm not expert enough on physics so I can't guess

done! please help me

you need to copy paste the link (read the instructions): https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/

maybe try that: activate Mesh, then in the Cache, swtich from Modular to All, choose Frame Start 1 and End 30 to make it short, click on Bake All, then test

yep its blue and looking like a mesh thanks