text:
Can't find viewer node in 2.8
I've heard that it should be in the output but it's not there. It just has material output. I've enabled node wrangler which I've read should make the viewer node visible.

Just press Ctrl + Shift + Click  (while the node is selected for which you want the viewer node) after enabling the node wrangler addon and it should connect with material output node using viewer node otherwise you can use emission shader as suggested in answers.

The viewer node is actually an Emission BSDF with its label changed to "Viewer."  ShiftCtrlLMB on any node with an output and the the first output will be connected to the color input of "Viewer."  Successive clicks will cycle through all the outputs of the desired node.  Also note that if your scene exposure is changed, the viewer's strength will automatically adjust to compensate, but it will not compensate for changes to gamma or adjustment curves.

It is possible that your node wrangler is not activated. For that, go to Preferences (under Edit) >> add-ons >> check on node wrangler if not activated. Then press Shift+Ctrl+Left click on the grey fresnel factor node (as mentioned above).

For Macbook Users, it is Shift+Ctrl+LMB.
Using Shift+Cmd+LMB won't work.

Shift, ctrl and left clicking on the grey fresnel factor node added a viewer node.


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High poly blade sculpted axe with Notches in it baked to low poly model with that has no notches in its mesh
Is it possible to bake a notch of a high poly sculpt to a low poly mesh without having to add extra geometry to the low poly model. Would it be possible to use some sort of transparency map to make it appear that the lowpoly model has a notch on the edge of the axe blade? Modelling an axe for dota 2 if I didn't have to add extra geomtrey for notches in the axe blade I could spend the limited amount of tris on other parts of the axe.

No it isn't possible.
Baking a normal map only affects the shading of an object's surface to give the appearance of detail that would normally be created with extra geometry. A normal map cannot alter the outline of a mesh. You will need to have the notches in the outline of your low poly object.
While a displacement map can be used to move existing geometry, I don't expect it to fit into your usage. It would also mean having the geometry to displace.
Creating a transparency map would not get the result you are after. The material transparency can be restricted to certain areas but that area would be transparent from every angle, leaving the axe with a hole through it when looking towards the blade.

That's a shame. Thanks very much for replying to my question looks like I'll just limit the amount of notches on that axe blade to 2.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Transforming a cube to a sphere using transform to sphere isn't creating a sphere it creates a spike shaped mesh

Took a screenshot of blender pressed f6 to show the options that were by default for the to sphere transform. It creates a spiked shape mesh not sure why any help would be appreciated thanks.

Please see https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/38019/why-casting-a-sphere-to-a-cube-give-cylindercube/38021#38021

You are showing an image. That is good. I suggest you show before and after images for more clarity. There is a proposed answer below.  If you are a beginner you may have made a mistake which maybe easier to delete than to correct.  There is the Undo feature in Blender.  A fresh start sometimes is easiest.

There may be a scaling issue here. If you take a cube and:

In edit mode, subdivide it
In object mode, scale it along one axis
Back in edit mode scale it back down the axis so it looks like a cube again
And then use ShiftAltS .. 'To Sphere'

...you wind up with a similar result to yours.
In short, in object mode, CtrlA apply any scale that might be locked into the object's transform matrix.
If ever you make a non-uniform scale of something in Object Mode.. make a mental note of it, and/or keep an eye on the Transform panel in the Properties Region of the 3D view (in Object Mode). You may need to go back and bake the transform into the mesh by applying it.

If you only want a sphere shape

Start with the cube.  Ooops. Barely visible under menu.
Edit Mode subdivide some reasonable number, perhaps 3 or 5, for vertex density and cpu efficiency
Edit Mode To Sphere (Not Modifier). Menu Selection and Keystroke is in the image above.
Consider Shape Keys
There are always may ways to produce similar creations in Blender

Image above shows the high density cube transformed to sphere shape.  Well maybe not so high density.
You might start with sphere and then use shape keys to add spikes.

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


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X-Axis Mirror mirrors the bones, but they appear on the same side
So, my problem is this: I started building an armature for a character to do a walk cycle with Blender. Now with X-Axis Mirror ticked, the bones are mirrored but they appear on the same side of the mesh. Here's a picture of the problem:

So, I tried extruding the shoulder bone with Shift + E, and this is how it turned out. Blender automatically names these bones as _L and _R, why are they mirrored on the same side?

They are mirrored along -X/+X (in global coordinates). Blender handles bones mirroring along -X/+X only. So the problem is your character is rotated along Y axis. You should rotate your character 90° and preferably apply rotation on it (Ctrl+A then 'rotation'). More globally, rig with no rotation (either armature or obj) this is simpler.

A more complete indication (than the comments):
Blender's convention for armature is mirroring along -X / +X axis.

-X is the right part of the character (on screen on the left when looking in front view)
+X is the left part (same principle)

To avoid complexity, it is good to rig your character using the same orientation and scale for both the armature and your character. And much preferably no rotation and no scale.

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


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Use MeasureIt value in driver
Do values from the MeasureIt add-on have a data path we can point to when using drivers ?
I've scrolled through the code but couldn't figure it out.

I think you can. You can right click any value field in the advanced options (the cogwheel icon next to the eye icon) of any MeasureIt measurement, and then choose Add Driver. Or choose Copy Data Path to use in the Single Property Driver Variable Type of an excising driver.

Unless I have no eyes, there is no UI element containing the value of a measurement. It's only displayed in the viewport.
If measured values have a data path, they are hidden and can only be found in the python code.

Ah, i see what you mean. My knowledge is very lacking on this point but then isn't the data you're referring to the actual mesh data? I suspect that in a way the 3Dviewport displayed MeasureIt values are "driven" by mesh geometry, and that there isn't separate MeasureIt data that defines the mesh dimensions; Because one can't edit mesh geometry via MeasureIt UI. (but like I said i don;t really know.)

No problem, thanks anyway. But yeah in theory I could write math formulas as driver expressions to get the same results as what MeasureIt does but in practice it would come out as unreasonably long driver expressions. Or I could split expressions in multiple parts by adding more objects and using their properties to nest the different parts of the expressions. Or I could just write a python script that does the same as MeasureIt except it puts the results in properties that are accessible from python, which may be the most reasonable solution. I was just hoping MeasureIt already had this.

I just discovered custom functions which are a way to expand driver functions using python. This way I can use any complex geometrical calculation in a driver with the help of numpy and math.

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


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Importing After Effects .aep file
Is there any procedure/plug-in to import .aep files into Blender?

Welcome Marius :) Which objects you want to export from AE? Null objects and the Camera? Please add more context to the question! Maybe this one helps: http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?232032-After-Effects-To-Blender-2-70a-Javascript-Python-Generator&highlight=afterfx Enjoy, blender.se!

I have a template.aep file and I want to edit/modify in Blender or other open source linux based


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How can I animate a mesh moving in a spiral fashion?
I want to animate a paper as it's being tightly rolled. I've done some research and seen that using the spiral add on might be advantageous, but I haven't found anything relating specifically to my question.
How might I do this?

Do you mean something like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YY7XBpAeWE

Yes, that's perfect for me.

Plane with Curve Modifier animated with Curve Location

The Curve is animated on the X axis with 2 location keyframes.

Spiral, Plane, Lattice in the image above.

The paper in edit mode, high density, loop cuts in both directions to suit your needs.  The Curve Modifier on the paper performs the rolling.

2 options at least.
The spiral moved on the x axis toward the paper.

The paper moved on the x axis toward the spiral.

The spiral is the parent of the lattice which slightly squeezes the middle.  The lattice is optional and influence can be animated.  The spiral was created with the standard addon AddCurve extra objects.  The tail was extended on the x-axis to control the tangent and flatness in the XY plane. The origin was moved to the last point of curve.

In the picture above you see the origins of the spiral and the paper.  Be very aware of those locations.

More middle squeeze with Lattice.  The origin of the lattice is in the center of Spiral.
GIF created with GIMP.  Please excuse the jump.

Can you show me the blend.file?

authors: Златин Стаматов


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When I run Blender headless I do not get proper beveling if I unlink the object
When I use this code in Blender I get what I want.
When I run from the command line the result is not beveled like I expect
import bpy

def clear():
    bpy.ops.object.select_all()
    bpy.ops.object.delete()

def deleteAll():
    for x in bpy.data.objects:
        x.select=True
        bpy.ops.object.delete()

clear()
deleteAll()
bpy.ops.curve.primitive_bezier_circle_add(radius=2,location=(0,0,0),rotation=(0,1,0))
wiresize = bpy.context.object
print (type(wiresize))
wiresize.name="Size"
bpy.ops.curve.primitive_nurbs_path_add(radius=1,location=(0,0,0),rotation=(1,0,0))
wire = bpy.context.object
print (type(wire))
bpy.context.object.data.bevel_object = wiresize
bpy.context.scene.objects.unlink(wire)
wire.name ="test"
bpy.ops.wm.save_as_mainfile(filepath="C:/Users/in805/OneDrive/Documents/GitHub/pyBlender/test.blend")


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Artifacts appear when I use the subsurf modifier
I'm (almost) a complete newbie in Blender. I thought that modelling a greek column would be a great exercise for me. My mesh doesn't look so bad, but when I subdivide everything, some strange artifacts appear :(
Here is an example:

Also, here is a link to my .blend file, so you can see the mesh:
.blend file
Could you give me some advice how to remove those strange things? :/

In Edit Mode without any vertices selected, press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+M to select all non-manifold vertices. You have to fix these...


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How to model spread book interior?
I know the question can sound odd, but here's something I aim for:

I often need to create mockups, but I can't figure out how to model sheets of paper that are bent and closely packed. I tried to create planes with solidify modifier, bend them manually and then use array modifier to copy them. But it looks boring and unrealistic. I think that the visible pages should be created manually, but everything that lies beneath seems to be very hard to model in my case.

In the second example, you can see that sheets of paper seem to be different in size, position and maybe even in colour. The book's edge (the edge of the book's interior) looks rough just like in real world. I know it's a matter of randomness, but... how to achieve this kind of effect? I was wondering if my strategy of creating separate planes is good. Maybe there is a better way?
Basically, I'm looking for some idea that would help me to create bunch of pages that look like an open book.
Thanks in advance guys!

If you are trying to achieve a more organic render you could use an image of a book end or stack of paper as a texture and bump map. The "paper ends" image I captured for the texture/bumpMap is at the bottom of this post. I'm throwing it out to the Public Domaine CC-0.

The body of this book is a cube with some loop cuts which has a Lattice Modifier creating the bend. Then mirrored.

The two top pages are Bezier Curves which are Extruded. The Resolution of the curves was turned up to smooth the resulting curve.

I really like the approach suggested by Dontwalk as it seems easy to follow.
However if you need a little more interesting structure than 2 chunks of paper split in the middle (as I needed), you can somewhat improve the method.
I've found this tutorial on Youtube. The flow is very similar but instead of using Lattice to bend you model separate chunks of paper already as you want them (according to your drawing/photo).
This part briefly:

Start with curves (make one and dulicate/adjust). You need a pair of curves for each chunk.
Convert all the curves to mesh.
Bridge Edge Loop between each pair of (formerly) curves.
Extrude the faces to the needed book length.
Subdiv Surf the chunks (optional)

I believe this technique adds to realism.
And as already stated good textures are your big friends on book sides.
I've ended with something like this. It has three chunks (and two gaps inbetween) on each of two sides of the open book.

Hope this helps.

I think that instead of actually modeling individual pages, you'd do best by modeling a solid chunk of pages and faking the look by applying a linear striped texture (Checker Texture with serious Mapping node distortions) to the sides. You can produce a result like the following.
Img 1:

Img 2:

You might not be able to see the difference in Img 1, but you wouldn't be able to in real life either.
You can apply multiple textures to an object by following the procedure outlined here. The basic thing I did for the side material was using a black and white Checker Texture which I stretched out sideways and then squashed as aided by a Mapping node. I then ran that through a Diffuse BSDF.
Node setup:

Here is the .blend with the book and texture.


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How to get that pretty key name that Blender shows in a keymap button?
Is there a way to get the complex label that Blender shows for keymap items, when the only thing I have is the key type for that keymap?
That is, getting the "Spacebar" string, when all you have is "SPACE" (like from the event.type in a modal handler of a modal operator)?

Yes, you can get the same displayable key name.
You need to use that "SPACE" string (AKA the event type, which can be anything from the event type constants), as a key in the dictionary of enum items of the EnumProperty type of the bl_rna of the bpy.types.Event struct (phew!).
The path to this dictionary is:
bpy.types.Event.bl_rna.properties['type'].enum_items
To be accessed like this from Python (usually inside the modal() function of your operator, but not necessarily):
>>> eventType = event.type # This is a string. It can be 'SPACE', 'LEFTMOUSE' etc.
>>> enumItem = bpy.types.Event.bl_rna.properties['type'].enum_items[eventType]
>>> enumItem.name # The displayable key name.
'Spacebar'


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How do I animate a single face of a mesh?
I have my mesh which began as a plane and which I have extruded along the z-axis so it looks like a simple narrow block. I've edited the mesh to take the shape of a country with numerous states. In my animation I would like each of states to 'grow' upward from the plane along the z-axis. I've tried placing the object in its initial location at frame 1 and adding the first keyframe, moving to frame 72, extruding and individual state along the z-axis and inserting the second keyframe but this doesn't work. When I go to play the animation the extrusion doesn't return to its initial state at frame 1 and no animation occurs.
Any help is appreciated, thanks.

Which kind of keyframe you used? keyframes inserted in the 3d view are intended for object, not faces, edges, vertices. Imho you should probably learn shape keys, and animate those instead. This, if you really have to use a single mesh. I would probably separate each "state" face into a single object and animate each separately, if I got what you mean, because you didn't add not even a single image to explain...

You cannot keyframe vertices directly, but several possibilities to do that.
For instance:

Using an armature:

Create an armature, create bones in it and assign the wanted names to the bones (ie states names), in the map assign the wanted vertices to groups which are named the same way. Parent the map to the armature using 'with empty groups' option (as the groups are already created).

pros/cons: can grab, rotate, scale the parented group as you wish

Using a shrinkwrap:

Add a shrinkwrap modifier which applies on a vertex group. Here you can animate the plane target use in the shrinkwrap.
pros/cons: fast to do but static: only up and down movements

Using shapekeys:

Add a base shapekey, then a second one and this last selected, move the vertices to the target place you want. Now you can animate the shape key.

pros/cons: you can place the vertices exactly where you need, but static once done

Using scale:

Here, simply separate the country or state you want and play with its scale.
pros/cons: only for up/down movements

Edit:

Using a hook:

In edit mode, select the vertices you want and CtrlH to hook them:

pros/cons: nearly like bone here: grab, rotate, scale the hooked vertices (or group) as you wish

Using a lattice

Again with a vertex group but here with the lattice modifier.

pros/cons: not the simplest to setup but can grab and scale too.

You can't keyframe vertices in the GUI, but with python you can. Just saying because I initially thought I had to use shapes keys even with python. https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/9355/is-it-possible-to-animate-a-meshs-geometry-without-using-shape-keys


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Weird vertices after sculpting, what caused this and how to fix?
After sculpting for some time I noticed those weird duplicated faces had appeared and I don't know when this happened so I can't go back, there is a way to fix it?

If the faces are some kind of underlying duplicate mesh, in Edit Mode hover over your mesh and hit L to select linked faces and see if it is a seperate mesh that can be deleted.

Try to press "A" twice to select all the faces in Edit mode and then press "W"-"remove doubles". Maybe it can help.


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Blender Importing . How to reapply all textures and maps to Luxox18 import models?
Im looking for help to reapply textures and maps to models from r6 siege game  in Cycles Render.
I downloaded his imported models from his Devian (link below) and i imported .obj file , but i have no idea how to reapply specular,normal and detailed normal maps. Only what i've got is diffuse texture but no clue how to reapply other textures :
Here's the link to the character im trying to use:
http://luxox18.deviantart.com/art/Rainbow-Six-Siege-Tachanka-650518471
I hope someone can help me with this , because node setting is a painful and hard thing in blender :(
(ps): if someone had time to make whole node tree for this model i would be so glad for it , cause i want to use other models too :)

This is such a general question that would be best served by reading a manual. This youtube video is quite short and should get you more than far along:

How are texture maps imported into Blender?


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Motion Tracking Render - Invisible object in render
I've setup a motion tracking scene with trackers, background etc..
I have 2 objects in my scene: a cube that renders without problem, and an imported rig.
That imported rig does not appear in the render, but its shadow is present.
I have checked the layers, the texture..
Thank you for your help :)

maybe it's on layer 2, try moving to layer 1 -select and press M 1- that's how blender sets up a tracking scene, objects in layer 1 and shadows on layer 2

I've finally solved the problem ! Thank you for your answer anyway. It was because an object was in Blender Cycles, I've just converted it into Blender Internal and it worked like a charm.

I've finally solved the problem ! Thank you for your answer anyway. It was because an object was in Blender Cycles, I've just converted it into Blender Internal and it worked like a charm.


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I want the domain of a fluid simulation to abosrb the mesh (stop rendering splashes) as soon as it touches the bottom of that domain. Possible?
My fluid sim goes from top to bottom as a waterfall, but i want the water to be absorbed by the bottom of the domain as the fluid touches it. Is that possible?

Yes, that is what outflow fluid objects are for. Add a plane to the bottom of your simulation and set the fluid type of the plane to "Outflow".

thank you so much. i should've thought about that.


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How to remap my UV without messing with textures already applied to a mesh?
The title says it all but i'll give further details. I have a 3D mesh on which I have already applied some textures, but i didn't care about uv mapping it the proper way. The problem is I figured out I must care about that now but I don't wanna retexture it from scratch. Is there a way to remap the UV while keeping the texture intact in its place?

You can have multiple UV maps on an object*.
With multiple UV maps you can keep your "old" UV map for the texturing you already did. Then add a second UV map and properly unwrap your object.
In the Object Data tab of the Properties window under the UV Maps heading, you will see something much like this:

Click on the + button, that will add another UV map slot to your object.
You really should name both your UVmaps now, just double click or CtrlLMB  on the name in the list to rename it.
Note: Be careful which UVmap is selected (highlighted in blue in the list), simply clicking on a UVmap will change what UVmap is selected or active. When you are unwrapping your object you will be changing the active UVmap.

Last step, go to everywhere you used the "old" UVmap: cycles nodes, BI material textures, modifiers, and dynamic paint, and make sure it is using the correct UVmap.
Now you can safely, in the new UVmap, unwrap your object however you like and it will not affect your previous texturing at all.

* In reality it is not added to the object, but the object data. However for brevity I will refer to it simply as the object.

Actually i think I haven't asked right. Sorry. It should have been written like this: "how to reunwrap an existing UV map of a mesh that has textures applied to it without messing with those textures.

@MarcusLobo well, if you are using an image texture, especially if it was texture painted, then you can not edit the UVmap and keep the textures. You have 2 options: make a new UVmap (as shown in my answer), or bake all the textures in to a new color image. The irony here is you will want a new UVmap for that too.  Changing the UVmap after you textured your model, is not a good idea, or an easy thing to do. Unless you are trying to do something specific, (if so please clarify) then you probably will need two UVmaps.

Using Blender 2.79 and Cycles Render.
Learning texture painting, I had the same problem, this is how I solved it and was able to change my initial UV mapping without having to do anything to the existing textures.
Problem description
I was following a video tutorial. At 4:15, a torus is unwrapped, resulting in this UV map:

This simple map leads to problems that need to be fixed manually. To stop this repetitive chore, I tried to replace the mapping itself with a new one:

Solution for remapping
Note: Blender may rewrite one of your images during the process (in memory, not on disk). Be sure you can reload them from disk if needed after the Bake operation.
Situation with the old map:

(image can be read from left to right for logical steps)
i.e. two texture images, a Mix node for the shader and a correct preview.
The solution is to select the new mapping in the Properties Editor. However this will prevent the textures to be displayed correctly, as visible below in the 3D Editor.
After the new UV map is selected, the texture must be baked using the Bake panel of the Render tab of the Properties Editor. I needed to bake only the Diffuse color, so I adjusted the Bake options. When done, click 'Bake' (well... this is a comprehensive tutorial!)

(image can be read from left to right for logical steps)
Against all expectations, the baking result was an image correctly mapped with the new mapping. What a pleasant surprise!
At this stage the Bake result is available as an image in one of the open UV Editors. Maybe it has replaced the content of one of the image in memory. Save the bake result on the disk, reload textures/images as necessary.
Notes:

Generally you don't want all textures to be baked into a single image as I did here. You normally need to remap textures without mixing them. To do so you have to include only the texture to be converted in the object material (temporary removing the other). The bake operation must be repeated for all individual textures to remap.
Be sure to unselected shadows and lighting effects options in the Bake panel to prevent adding new information into the texture (unless you want to do an actual baking).
Remapping the UV vertices is a double projection. Some details can be lost in the computations.


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Problem with bones (enexpected scaling when rotating)
To the point:
I'm trying to edit Unreal advanced vehicle mesh found in this template ( https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Physics/Vehicles/DoubleWishboneVehicle/index.html#overview ) to my own model but when I check to see if all the behaviors of rotation are similar to the original (using blender), I get this weird effect when trying to rotate the back wheels around the bones they are associated to (VisWheel_BL and VisWheel_BR). All the vertex groups are present and all other rotation behaviors act as they do in the original template but  the two back wheel are wrong and they are keeping me stuck. Can someone help me, please? Thanks in advance.
Here's the expected and the unexpeceted behavior: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YK8V10jKTPg&feature=youtu.be


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Replacing a material found on many objects to another material at once for all of those objects. Possible?
Replacing a material found on many objects to another material at once for all of those objects.
Possible?

Yes
If you bring up the select linked menu (Shift-L) with one object that have the material of interest and then choose Material, then use the link menu (Ctrl-L) you can link material from the active object (last selected).

If you select an object and hit Shift+L you will select all the objects with the same material. (For first step)

Did I not get the question right?

They asked, how can change Material.001 to Material.002 on every object which has Material.001 so they has to select all of them first.

It was a bit ambiguous but I can see it now. Thanks... updated my answer


text:
Really slow 3D viewport render preview with gtx-970
I do have a new computer (much better than the previous one) and the preview rendering in cycles render is for taking REALLY long time, 5 samples/sec.
I do have Intel i7, 16gb RAM, MSI gtx 970 (4gb), so no idea why it takes so long time.
Any help? Tried changing to CUDA, changed both in user preferences and in the "render" tab.

Go to blenchmark.com and test your system. Compare that to other GTX 970 machines to make sure you know what "reasonable" is for your setup. Also post here what your time is, so that we have some more diagnostic data.

If you can upload your blender file, that might also be helpful.

You have to enable GPU compute in two places:
User Preferences (Which I think you've already done:

And the render panel:

I'm running a GTX970 and enjoying the performance. On a simple scene it zips through all 32 samples in the preview in about a second.
-- edit ---
Just say that you mentioned you'd enabled it in both places. I'll leave this post here in case someone else comes along.


text:
Faces left behind when I move a face back
This is probably one of the easiest things in blender, but I am a plain beginner and can't find any way to solve this. When I select a face and move it back in, the "faces" outside it stay. Not 100% sure how to describe it so I got a picture below.

Is there something like a "separate" function? opposite of merge?

Related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/24369/2843

There is a Mesh-Ripping tool activated with V.

Make sure, your mouse cursor is below the vertex (left picture)
You can rip complete Edges as well.


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How do I re-enforce the edge-split modifier on a linked proxy object
I am using Blender v2.74.
The situation
I am working with two .blend files.  The main assembly .blend and a separate subassemblies .blend file.  As it turns out, the two files are at two different scales.  The subassemblies .blend is at 1/10 that of the main assembly file.  I linked a subassembly of parths from the subassemblies file.  In order to translate, rotate and scale the subassembly, I converted the links to proxies.  When I do this, the edge-split modifier on the proxied parts loses its effect, and the smoothing result is not acceptable.
What I've tried
Since all the parts in the subassembly are children of on of the parts there-within, and since I was able to effectively convert its link to a proxy (with the disastrous effects) and have all its children follow the translation, rotation, scale I provided this parent, it made sense that if I were to make this parent part a child to an empty in the subassemblies file, I should be able to convert the link to it in the main assembly file to a proxy, and use it to translate, rotate and scale its children.
When I tried that, it enables me to translate, rotate, and scale the empty, but when I do, none of it's children respond appropriately as they did when their parent object (not the empty) is converted to a proxy and translated, rotated or scales.
The meat and potatoes of the question(s)

Why is this happening?  Why is it that when I convert a link to a proxy, it seems to ignore its edge-split modifier, even though the modifier remains in the stack?
Why wont the parents follow their empty parent?  Why does a relationship to a physical object allow for children following the translation, rotation and scale of their parent, whereas; one to an empty does not?
How do I get to work?  How do I either re-enforce the edge-split modifier on the proxy, or re-enforce the relationship between the parent empty and the child objects?

Going forward
In the meantime, I'll keep playing and hopefully solve my problem.  If I do, I shall, of course, post it here.
Yes, I know
In anticipation of some comments or answers suggesting I simply change the scale of either file:  I have thought of that, and while it would solve the scaling issue, it does nothing to resolve the translation and rotation issue coupled with the ghastly lack of proper edge-splitting.

As Promised
Like I said in my original post, I would keep playing and post here should I find a solution to the problem at hand.
Questions Answered

Still not clear why it was hapenning.
Not sure why the children would refuse to follow their empty parents.
I was able to get this to work the way I wanted by opening the subassembly's .blend file, and adding all the parts into a group and gave the group a name.  Next, in the main assembly's .blend file, I simply linked the group, and only the group, from the subassembly's file.  This brought in the subassembly with a lovely gimble for selecting the group.  I was able to successfully translate, rotate, and scale the subassembly by use of this gimble.  Worked perfectly, and all parts maintained their edge-split modifiers!

Any further details?
It seemed I have answered only one of three of my questions, but in all fairness, this was the most important of the three, since it enabled me to achieve my final goal.  Feel free to comment if you know the answers to the other two questions as I am still quite curious as to why it did not work correctly using my original method.
Final Thought
I sure hope someone out there finds this question and answer to be useful in combating any headaches they may experience such as the one I originally had.
Peace and all Good,
Sirach


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replace lowerbody animation of a skeleton while keeping upperbody animation intact?
i have multiple animations each with same skeleton ,each having same running animation but different upperbody animations,i changed running animation of one file,now i want to change the running animation of all with the one i changed without manually changing each one of them while at same time keeping the upperbody animations of all intact
so only running animations are replaced,
how can i do that?

I've done this with bvh (mocap) generated actions, by copying action, and stripping out hips and above in one (running, walking etc) and opposite in other.  Then place two  together using the NLA editor.


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Cycles Normal Map
I've been attempting normal mapping with three models now, and finally a normal map has worked in general, but when I try to apply it, it only produces a slightly-more shaded low-poly mesh.
Low-Poly
https://i.sstatic.net/3KcbG.png
High Poly https://i.sstatic.net/4MQxD.png
The nodes are there as well as the UV-normal map. I'm so confused and I haven't been able to find any other person with the same problem.


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Increasing the length of a frame and push following strips
I'm looking for a tool that I could use to extend one frame of a strip that I have so that the following strips position gets automatically adjusted.
|--strip a--|--strip b--|--strip c--|
Let's say that strip b has one particular frame that I'd like to freeze for 2 seconds. Currently what I need to do is to grab strip c (or however many strips are there), hard-cut strip b, then hard-cut the right portion of strip b so that a one frame strip is available. Then I need to manually move the remainder of strip b away from the one frame, extend the one frame to be as long as I want it to be and finally adjust the position of both the remainder of strip b and strip c.
Can this get any easier? Is there maybe a plugin for Blender that does that?

I just discovered the sequence "Shift-K", "A", "E", "G" :)

Position cursor on the frame you want to make a still from
Hard cut (Shift-K)
Go to next frame
Hard cut (Shift-K)
Go to previous frame (cursor left)
Extend from frame (E) <-- This does the trick!
Grab the remainder and move it as far right as you'd like


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I used the compositor to add blur effects but they are not showing up in my final render image?
I followed a blender tutorial and made the Earth. I have a sun in the background that I added some blur effects to in the compositor. When I rendered my image, the blur effects on the sun don't show up. How do I render the final image from the compositor? Are there settings that I am missing? Here is a screenshot of the composited image above the rendered image.

Make sure you are sending the final image to a Composite node. The Viewer node only displays in the backdrop of the node editor.


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stuck in a selected option
I'm new to blender and somehow I got into some mode or something (not sure what or how) but I can't find a way out of it. there is a constant orange dot in object mode (even if I press A to deselect everything) and if I change to edit mode a blue line around the object appears(pic) and nothing else except within that selection can't be adjusted or selected. how do I get out of this selection?
thanks

This orange dot is the origin of the object which will be visible in all modes (Object, edit and pose(armatures) modes), so it's not the vertex, as shown below:

If you press A to select all vertices then you will find the vertices highlighted as shown below:

You can select 1 vertex using RightClick then move it using G as shown below:

The edges are blue because they are marked. There are five types of markings you can apply to edges. The following is the basic colour scheme:

Red - UV seam
Pink - Edge crease
Blue - Sharp edge
Green - Freestyle edge
Orange - Bevel weight

To clear the mark edges yourself from Edit Mode, go to the Edge menu (Ctrl+E) then choose Clear Sharp as shown below:

Then edges will be orange again as normal as shown below:

I'm still unable to unselect everything even when I press 'A' there is still one orange dot which turns into the blue selection in edit mode

@Sam could you provide your .blend file on https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com to be able to help you?

@Tak
I'm not sure if it's an issue with cell fracture, but I tried making a new project from scratch and the exact issue came again after using cell fracture

@Sam answer updated

@tak ok so how do I get rid of this so I can select and edit all the pieces again without there being a blue line etc?

thanks for your help @Tak I was thinking about this in the wrong way but you have helped clarify


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Bsurface error problem
Encountered this error. Few times already. Am i stupid or it has a real problem?

Please flesh this out a bit. We can't do much with that little information. When do you encounter this error? What do you want to achieve?

That is most likely some sort of error in the addon, and should probably be reported to the author of the script.

Well. Im doing retopology of a character. And with help of this addon drawing a low poly mesh. It worked fine before. But today i encountered this bug.

I have had similar issues with Bsurfaces and it is difficult to pin point what triggers the error. The solution that works for me is making sure the automatic join is not ticked.

For the record: The error, when it happens, generates a number of overlapping files which essentially corrupt further work - specifically 4 files. In my case here only the Plane [green] can be considered not corrupt and the only one worth saving. I would advise that the other items be deleted, your file saved and Blender restarted.


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Rigid body not starting as deactivated
I am trying to create an animation of two billiard balls colliding. I have been following a tutorial which uses rigid body for animations. I have placed the two spheres on a rough model of a billard table surface and enabled rigid body on both. The rigid body settings are the same for both balls, except that the one that is supposed to first move when hit by the other, has "start deactivated" and "enable deactivation.." activated. The settings for the balls as well as the table is shown in the pictures.

The scene gravity has been put to X=0, y=20, z=-50. This seems to work in the tutorial, but when i playback the animation, both balls start moving from the beginning. I have not been able to fix this, does anyone have a suggestion on how to fix this issue?
Also, i am going to use this for a billiard tutorial video and want to do renders of several shots, so if you have a suggestion on a better way to do these animations, it would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance:)

Why would you have any gravity on the Y axis? Also 50 may be too high, the default is 9.81.

Open this url
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zu6zbf7tdoU
and go to 11:27 and see how he animated the sphere( this is really usefull i think in your simulation ;).

Notice that he animated the checkbox.

Also in the video he animated the ball location for about 15 frames.You might not want to do this because the billiard balls won't have enought time to "catch" a rotational spin while they collide with the table, instead(of 15 frames) ~2 frames would be nice (if this sounds confusing don't hesitate to ask!)

That seems to do it, thank you! It is however still a mystery to me why the "start deactivated" does not do its job. But that does not matter now that i do it in this way :)


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Draw line after path
I am making a tutorial for billard and i am trying to make an animation showing the path a ball will take. Over my 3D model i have imported a picture of the line i want to animate. My question is, how do i efficiently draw and animate this line? I just want the line to be flat and smooth. Current attempts include making a path or Bezier curve and then use the bevel feature, but here I am not sure how to avoid the line curving because it automatically interpolates between points, and when i find a workaround the corners just looks odd. Also, the bevel feature does not seem to allow me to make a flat line, but instead a cylinder, which i then had to press flat, which might be why the corners look odd.

The lines i want to draw

The corners i think looks odd

How it looks currently

I did something similar in the past, although I was looking for rounded bezier paths and I came up with this, which works - somehow - also when lines are straight, and not rounded. I'm not sure if it helps you but at least it's done differently, as it does not use bevel but an animated array modifier plus a curve modifier...
this is the setup: the bezier segments iirc have been straightened using: V => vector first, and then V => free.
I also exaggerated the line width (editing the small rectangle in edit mode) to better show it in pictures here.

and this is the animation that is produced:

I'm not sure if it solves your corners issues...
Here's the file, anyway.


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Window close button [x] ignores changes
I am kind of new to Blender and have only tried & used the video editor.
However, I am so surprised that Blender just quits when I click on the Windows close button (the [x] in the window decoration bar), despite changes have been made to the current blender working context.
Is it too difficult to have this checked and pop up a dialog with something like "All changes will be lost. Continue?  [Yes] [No]"?
Also, when Blender crashes, catching signals allows the software to at least try to make an emergency save of the current blender working context, which can be loaded next time.
These kind of actions are common in most software that I use on my Fedora Linux system. I'm surprised that a mature package as blender does not do this. Does it have a specific reason?
R.L.

possibly related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/1232/is-it-possible-to-make-blender-prompt-to-save-on-exit

I have a popup saying "Some changes have not been saved. Do you really want to quit?" on windows, but it looks like it's not in Linux systems (don't know why). Check this for auto save : http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/14413/11431

Is too dificult use standard CTRL+S shortcut?  :-) I'm happy that Blender does't bother by useless dialogs :-)

@Shubol3D - I like that, too. It rarely happens that I loose something important in Blender, even if it crashes hard, because there's always at least one auto save.

How to recover Lost work in Blender

Go to "File" -> "Recover autosave"
Use *.blend1 file - it is save before last save :-)
In splash screen use "Recover Last session" - open automatically saved project on Exit Blender.

Probably late for you, because the best is do this immediately after first Blender launch after crash, but can be helpful in future :-)


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Using loop cuts to smooth out a mesh
I was wondering if it is better or not to use loop cuts on a mesh when they are not really necessary to the shape of the mesh while using a subsurf modifier to make the spaces between each vertex approximately even, and to make the model smoother.
Here is an example: on this sword I'm modelling, there is quite a big gap on the blade without loop cuts because I don't need them for the shape of the blade.

Should I use those loop cuts to make the model cleaner or can I leave it as it is?
Thanks for your help!

If it's a game model then no, if it's a highpoly one then yes.

You didn't need to delete your other question. You could just edit it to remove the parts that have been asked here, leaving the parts about modelling the tip.

I'm sorry, I'm new to this forum, won't do it anymore.

You can increase the crease (in N panel to ) at the edge where you want the model to be tighter .

Yes, I know that but thanks a lot for the tip.

Don't add polygons for the sake of having more polygons, you are looking for a special shape. So would do better having a really simple shape to start with, bevel the edges that you want to be sharp and then apply a subsurface modifier. Add loopcuts afterwards if you need more details.


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Unit scale coherence in library .blend files
I want to work with libraries to model multiple objects of various sizes.
I have a two libraries .blend files with only a cube in them. The difference between these two files is that the scene's unit is in meters in the first one, and it is in centimeters in the second one, so I have a 1m cube and a 1cm cube.
I don't understand why, when I import (append/link) both of these cubes in a third project, they both are the same size (which is 1 meter), when the second cube is supposed to be one centimeter. Is there a way to do that without having to use the same unit everywhere and zooming in a lot ?


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Sculpt mode and number of polygons
When you use sculpt mode to create a model, is it more or less efficient than creating your standard box then extruding etc. to achieve the desired effect.  The reason I ask is that the sculpt mode is so much more intuitive for me than the other method probably because I am so new and don't know the tricks to round ends etc. more easily than how I do it now.
However, is the resulting sculp creation loaded with extra polygons because I am using an easier method to create the object and if so, is there any way to optimize the object to reduce the number of polygons yet maintain the level of detail.
I have searched on this subject but to be honest the couple of instances where I found discussions were just a bit beyond what I understand at this stage.  I would greatly appreciate any guidance.
Natarthos


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Sculpting and keeping an image visible
I can add a background image and, for example, assign it to top or bottom, cut off half the box, mirror add my other modifiers but this is when the problems start.
If I try to sculpt, the image simply goes away.  I have to hit top and then orthographic again to get the image back.
I guess I could assign the image to the camera and do the same thing and it would stay there, right but why does the image go poof as soon as I grab a brush and try to do anything to surface I am going to start working with?
If anyone knows a tutorial that covers this, please let me know.  I have chased my own tail for 4 hours in YouTube and in the Blender.org community and not found an answer.
Thanks!
Richard

Background images can be used either in orthographic views or while viewing from camera.So you can add background image for Camera view, lock cmera to view and sculpt straight from there (it may be not convenient). OR you could add a plane with this image assigned to it as a texture, position it so it to be seen while in Camera view and parent it to camera.

Instead of using background images you can use an empty to place an image in the 3DView.

You then get a reference image that is always visible as you rotate around.

Absolutely excellent suggestion!  Thank you!  Richard.


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Why does the outside of my glass of coffee look strange?
I'm currently following Blender Guru's beginner donut tutorial and I just completed Level 3 Part 4 where we made coffee, but for some reason, the liquid as viewed from the outside of the glass looks strange. Here’s the picture of the render:  Maybe this is what it is supposed to look like, but please tell me how to fix this if this is wrong. Thank you!
By the way, I am using the Blender 2.8 default denoiser with 128 samples and the Filmic Blender configuration that Blender Guru recommended.

Do you mean the muddy pattern? That is caused by the denoiser not being able to properly eliminate the noise.

I would suggest a good  step would be to render the coffee without the glass, to see if the root problem is about the interaction between the refractive surfaces.

Did you do the part where you slightly scaled up the liquid so it overlapped the glass a little bit?  That's what it looks like to me.

Yes, I did that, but I still have the problem :(


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How to import ogre .mesh & .skeleton files in blender
Using blender I generated .mesh & .skeleton files for use in OGRE. In OGRE I used skeletal animation to modify the skeleton. Using the modified skeleton & the original mesh I want to get the new mesh.
MY question is how can import the .mesh & .skeleton(modified) into blender.
Also how do I get/save the modified mesh in blender?

You can use this addon to import .mesh but not .skeleton . The link is provided by the creator of Kenshi https://www.lofigames.com/phpBB3/download/file.php?id=5037


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Transparent PNGs don't cast shadows (in BI)
Blender 2.77 - Blender Internal
Hello, I'm trying to make a simple animation about files entering an envelope. I have some troubles with "Import Images as Planes", they don't cast transparent shadows, despite I checked "Raytrace" (or Z-transparency) on them, and "Receive transparent shadows" on the envelope's material.
Envelope material settings, PNG settings, and the result:

Here's the full project:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_9DH8lxMw2bSE9hbWNPXy1DWm8
The example is frame # 397
After days and days, I still can't understand where I go wrong. Please help...

Related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/33214/texture-painting-transparent/33223

http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/30394/how-to-use-transparent-texture-in-the-glsl-shading-mode-in-bge/30395

I followed everything suggested in those two links but it doesn't work (that's why I asked the question and I attached the whole project).
Only thing I can't do is re-importing the PNGs, I'd have to redo all the animation job :-(

Select the "jpg" object and uncheck the "cast" option in the shadow tab.

If you want your object to cast a ray traced shadow you must add a ray tracing light (i.e. a sun lamp) and enable her ray trace option.
In your animation you will also have to move the object toward the camera to separate the plane of the object from the plane of the cast shadow.

That was the solution! The type of light! Thank you. Solved.

I don't see what to disable Cast option for because this will disable possibility of material to cast shadow at all. Also in BI when using Raytraced shading any tipe of lamp will be possible to cast shadows.


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How do I add text to an object mid animation?
I have a cube which changes colour at frame 10 & 20 then changes size at 30 but at frame 40 I want to add text. I also want the text to change colour at frame 60. I cannot find a tutorial about this.

You can use text object (Shift+A>Text) or create a texture with no background and text on it and add it to the cube and mix color You like the text to have with cube color using Alpha channel of this texture.


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Is there any way to swap editors between tabs / customize tabs in the 3d view tool shelf (the "T" bar)?
For example, if I could move all editors/panels such as the highlighted (Bevel Curve Tools) into one "Addon" tab, or just move the editors/panels around in general that would be great. There's a whole bunch of tabs in there that I would really like to consolidate; I'd rather not have to turn my addons on and off just to declutter the workspace.

authors: Атанас Воденичаров


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Unable to run simulation

I keep on getting this error message when trying to run a simulation and I have no idea why.

You seem to be using an outdated and old version of Blender 2.76. Have you tried a new one like the freshly released 2.78? Does the problem still happen there? If so then you should probably file a bug report and attach your problematic .blend file and a screenshot of the problem. (Next time use the PrintScreen [PrtScn] key in your keyboard)

By the way, the Blender install path shows 64-bit version, while in error it argues at the 32 bit compatibility. So it's worth checking installed versions of Blender, remove unnecessary and check what is your OS type.

@Tyler, Welcome!
Btw, your picture is showing your 2.76 Blender version (in the error log), but you are not saying much about which simulation, if you built it, or if you get it from friends, websites... it could be a buggy file, a buggy simulation, or not compatible, somehow, with your blender version (eg: it could be a very old file)... it could  be pretty much anything... help others help you giving some more info about how and where this is happening...
Anyway (again from the error log) it seems to use a "cellblender" addon, though. Did you have that addon installed? It's not in Blender by default... but if it's there it could be a different version from what your simulation expects (maybe an oldaddon version), or it has some bug...
I guess it is this:https://github.com/mcellteam/cellblender (related to http://mcell.org/): "CellBlender is an addon for Blender (2.6x-2.7x) to create computational cell biology models for use in MCell and potentially other cell simulation biophysics engines"
It could be needed to update the addon, or your Blender version, too. Version 2.78 is the latest in the 2.7x series.
edit:
I just installed mcell and cellblender, using latest blender 2.78 on my Windows 7 desktop pc, and then followed the "first time running" steps
http://www.mcell.psc.edu/tutorials/first_time.html
after which I ran this very basic tutorial, http://www.mcell.psc.edu/tutorials/single_molecule_diffusion.html
and it seems to work:

Maybe you can download and install a fresh new Blender .zip file (so you can keep the one you have installed), and double check to follow all required steps...
If this can help, here is the .blend file that I used to get those torus above:

The simulation I got was from the blender website. The cell blender add on is installed from the mcell website. Both the version of blender and the cell blender was able to work on my Mac laptop I have version 2.76 on my laptop. . But for some reason it won't work on the PC.

http://www.mcell.org/tutorials/  This is the website I downloaded cell blender from and used their tutorials

Ok, I could try to replicate your setup, but I've just seen this on the above linked page: "Although Windows is now a supported platform, some of the more advanced tutorials are still geared towards users of linux (e.g. Ubuntu) or OS X."... so, may this be the case? You could also try support on the mcell website, they could be faster to spot mcell issues, just in case...

I have tried to post on then mcell website but I haven't gotten any responses. I mean I tried to run the most basic tutorial on the website. And it still didn't work.

I updated my answer above, to reflect my successful 2.78 test, adding some details, a screenshot, and a .blend file. hth


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How to accelerate cloth simulation
Anyone knows how I can make my animation generate faster on the viewport? More exactly, when I try to simulate cloth for example, just 14-20% of my CPU is used, and to preview animation it's slower.... How can I make blender use 100% of CPU when it do that simulation?

I think we should mark this as a duplicate and move on.


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How to make a smoke for blizzard effect
I have a quick question if someone of you can help me would be great.

If you see I have this picture, in my final render I want to obtain the same smoke effect like in the right side, but from some reason... doesn't matter what I'm trying to do, every time it's looks almost the same like in the left corner of the picture.
Have anyone of you and idea how can I obtain the same effect like in the right side.


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UV map doesn't work correctly
I recently made my UV in blender, after I finished it I exported my model as FBX. After I imported it in another program, but I don't no why.. it see just one part of my UV.
Here it's result from blender  and here's on other app
If anyone of you guys knows why I have that problem and has any idea how can I solve it, please tell me, I really need to know how to fix it :(.

It might help if you upload blend file. Which "other" app are you using?


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Fade soft body modifier off an object slowly?
I am nearing the end of a project, but I have run into a hurdle that I have been trying to solve for ages (sweating face emoji)
In the video a dragon has had a spell cast onto it making its body into a floppy 'soft body modified mess'
What I now need to do is fade this effect out, as by this point it has been healed.
It will be in free fall this whole time. Ideally it will just be a shape key or something like that I can insert keyframes for...  going from 1 soft body full affect to 0 soft body no effect.
I have tried using drivers and shape keys but nothing is really working and it is a bit beyond me I think.
reference:
Thanks!

maybe baking your animation and applying the softbody as shapekey on a duplicate will help

this is just off the top of my head: If you use animation nodes, you can recreate a mesh respecting its modifiers. So if you average out the position of each corresponding vertex [pos_with_SB * f + pos_without_SB * (1-f)] where f(actor) ranges from 0-1. Don't quote me on the math here...


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I made some annotations (not grease pencil!). Where is the menu to remove / hide / edit them?
I used the Annotate tool to make some annotations in the 3D viewport.

I would like to edit, hide or remove them, but I can't find the annotate layers editor.

Asking and answering my own question because I've spent minutes looking for it in the scene / viewport / whatnot settings and in the annotate tool settings, to no avail. So I figured it could help somebody as a Q&A.

Selecting again the Annotate tool will display a menu in the header. By default an annotation layer called "Note" is used.
From that menu, the layer visibility can be toggled, as well as adding / removing layers, and changing some little things like the color and the thickness.

Note: if the header is hidden, it can be displayed again using the little downwards arrow at the top margin of the 3D window.

Edit: ᴊᴀᴄʜʏᴍ ᴍɪᴄʜᴀʟ made me realize that there is another, more natural, place where the menu can be found! The 3D viewport's sidebar (aka "the N menu"), under View > Annotations

Just to add - it is always accesible through Sidebar > View > Annotations no matter which tool is selected :).

@ᴊᴀᴄʜʏᴍᴍɪᴄʜᴀʟ I believe you should post your comment as an answer. I'd accept that as it's clearly the most natural place to look for that feature.

So for example, if I make an annotation pointing to a node, and then I move that node, there is no way to later move that annotation layer? In other words, it needs to be redrawn each time the node setup changes? (If so, that is an unexpected and unfortunate limitation.)

Another person described how to hide them, but to edit/remove parts you can hold LMB on the annotate widget and select the eraser tool.

Right Click on the Header area and select Show Tool Settings.  I was trying to find the solution as well and came across the instructions in the Blender Manual:
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/interface/window_system/regions.html


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Fluid leaks even through two thick obstacles
In short:  My moving obstacle leaks all the fluid that it's supposed to hold. I have tried tens of changes in the parameters (and all the solutions to similar questions), but it's not going to get better. What haven't I tried yet?
I've been very conservative and redundant with my obstacles: the ladle (already solidified to a completely unrealistic thickness) is duplicated and its copy gets scaled up even further during movements. The two ladle obstacles are initialised as shell and volume respectively.
However, even after trying different settings and setups, with or without the redundant obstacle, this is the average result:

My ladle spills all of the soup before reaching the target! And it does so even when the motion is really slow.
Also: the volume of fluid in the ladle is getting thinner and thinner but I'm not sure whether this is balanced by the fluid going out through the obstacle.
In conclusion: I have both Shell and Volume obstacles, my obstacles should be already properly solidified and pretty thick, I have tried with and without "Remove air bubbles", and I've even tried using an Impact Factor of 1.05 (very funny experiment: the ladle still leaked but it eventually created new soup on its way back to the pot). My resolution is 300 and the Scales are all applied to approximately real world scales.
In a total of 48 hours of simulations done, redone, and redone again, I haven't found a way to make it look right.
What else can I do before I scrap this project?


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How can I show the GLSL code generate by node?
Sorry for my english.
how can i show the code generate by the node and can i write my own node Element?
Can i add a uniform float var? in order to comunicate with the fragment shaders?

The easiest way to insert your own data into a node shader is to use vertex or object color (max of 3 floats each = 6 floats). Other than that you can either:

Use an image as an input, using a specific UV
lookup, and then using python to set a pixels colour.
use your own GLSL shader (which means you have to do all the lighting
yourself, and real time shadows become hard),
create your own node (which involves recompiling blender itself).

I wish there were a better way than the three above, but if there are, I am unaware of them.

I find a solution to export the material to GLSL and to it.
First install the plugin export to glsl.
Export the material.
Modify the fragment shader or vertex.
For example change const to uniform, and charge the shaders.


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name depending on the position on a line
I seek a means (python or other) to name objects aligned on an axis (in the example: z-axis)
I want all the objects that have:
the highest value on the z-axis is called "name_1.nnn).
the smallest value is called "name_2.nnn)
...
I have a lot of line so it takes a long time to do it manually!
addons like "name panel," "patch renaming" do not do what I want.

Sorting by z and x location
Simple script to sort all the objects in a scene named "Cube[.nnn]" by -z location and x location.  Added a tolerance of 0.0001, any cube with a z within is considered in same row.  The .nnn extension is the index in the order.
import bpy

context = bpy.context
scene = context.scene
# all cubes in the scene
cubes = [o for o in scene.objects if o.name.startswith("Cube")]
# row tolerance
TOL = 0.0001
if cubes:
    #sort them by -z , x loc
    cubes  = sorted(cubes, key = lambda o: (-o.location.z, o.location.x))
    row = 1
    z = cubes[0].location.z
    for i, cube in enumerate(cubes):
        if abs(cube.location.z - z) > TOL:
            row += 1
            z = cube.location.z
        cube.name = "Cube_%d.%03d" % (row, i)

To name them similarly to the convention in the q, could
cube.name = cube.name.replace("Cube", "Cube_%d" % row)

To make sure global locations are used, use cube.matrix_world.to_translation() instead of cube.location.
Or if the objects have differing origins, could use the bounding box centre as a location.

Is there a way to make it work for any kind of object in a collection?


text:
Detect objects that are touching
how one can detect two object contact. with python, for example, I want every sphere becomes the child of the cube it touches.

Using closest point on mesh
Test code, assumes spheres are named "Sphere[.nnn]" and cubes "Cube[.nnn]"  If a hit from the sphere's centre to a point on a cube is less than the sphere's radius, then it parents them.
import bpy
from bpy import context

scene = context.scene
spheres = [o for o in scene.objects if o.name.startswith("Sphere")]
cubes = [o for o in scene.objects if o.name.startswith("Cube")]

for s in spheres:
    o = s.matrix_world.to_translation()
    radius = sum(s.dimensions) / 6 # sphere radius guestimation
    for cube in cubes:
        cmwi = cube.matrix_world.inverted()
        local_pos = cmwi * o
        (hit, loc, norm, face_index) = cube.closest_point_on_mesh(local_pos)
        if hit:
            v2 = cube.matrix_world * loc
            # distance from global hit to cube
            l = (v2 - o).length
            if l <= radius:
                cube.parent = s
                cube.matrix_parent_inverse = s.matrix_world.inverted()

Thank you. the cube and the sphere was for example. if I have a more complex form a cube, it will not work.
your code gives me an error "need more than 3 values to unpack" on line : (hit, loc, norm, face_index) = cube.closest_point_on_mesh (local_pos)

What version of blender are you using?, closest point on mesh changed to include hit for 2.77 I think.

version of Blender: 2.76

Change to (loc, norm, face_index) = cube.closest_point_on_mesh(local_pos)
and just fudge in  hit = True  ... or better still upgrade.


text:
Help! Issue with Automatic Weight Paint
in blender
i just rigged all my bones
and i am trying to do the automatic weight paint feature
problem is when i do that the whole mesh alligns to the bones and it rotates the mesh and it goes all crap ill show you in a screenshot:

Before applying weight paint

After applying Weight Paint
Ill put the .blend file here and when i move the arm ik it also moves the head for some reason, if you guys could maybe fix my bones or just redo the bones for me that would be great :)
P.S im doing this for a project and i really need the bones finished to get onto animating :D

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-TRY6WbiTL-Wm5IRWpDd3NSOXM is the blend file

remember i said "if" :D

To have your weighting work, just select the armature, go to pose mode and search for the function "apply pose as rest pose". Then do the weighting.
Anyway there are some good practices not to have problems with armatures:
- Apply (CTRL A) location, rotation and scale to both your character and your armature.

See your character in center page from the front view (Numpad 1): yours is rotated 90 degrees
In edit mode set all the bones roll to 0, unless differently necessaire.
uncheck the deforming control from ALL non deforming bones
Have at least 3 edges loop in every bone joint that must bend: search the internet for good deformation topology, there are a lot of examples.

Have fun.

How do i search for a function?

press spacebar and type it (you must be in the right window, i.e. pose mode). Anyway it's in the lower header: pose - apply pose as rest pose.


text:
Bizarre 3D view glitch on Linux Mint
Working on a project, and for some reason the viewport jerks around, sometimes to the point of being nearly unusable.  When it's rendered, there are some weird distortions of models as well.  At first I thought it was because the view clip was really big, but shrinking it didn't fix it.  Does anyone have any ideas what could be causing this?
Here's a video of what I mean:
https://youtu.be/Xg1NvfckjRo

The video doesn't exist anymore

It looks like you are very far from the center of the world. You are basically loosing precision as you move away from the center. This is because blender uses floating point numbers for things as location and these can store more decimals on lower numbers and fewer at higher, moving the decimal sign but keeping the number of possible digets. Somewhat simplified...
Anyway, move you scene closer to the centre and you should be fine.
This problem is not related to platform and not unique for Blender.

Wow, I didn't even notice how far away I was!  That fixes everything, thank you!


text:
Automatically building a 3d object using 2d layouts or images?
Is there a way to automatically build a 3D object by using 2D layouts or images?
I have layouts for a house and it would be great if these layouts can be automatically transformed into a 3D object.

Theoretically you can convert layouts to to vectors (.svg), import to Blender and extrude. Practically is nonsense doing it this way.


text:
Saving Z data linearly (accurate depth map)
I want to create a depth map via the node editor by mapping the "Z" of my render to a "Map Value" node with Size 0.05. Basically this scales the depth down to 1/20th of it. When I save the resulting image as a .PNG or .EXR (using new GIMP version) the resulting grey values are not what I expected. They are not even linear. When I press the left mouse button in Blender on the render window, the values are very plausible (first RGB values where like R 0.1 G 0.1 B 0.1, the CM RGB values are off like in the saved pictures, e.g. R 0.3492, ...).
I made a test scene with planes at different z-values (see table) and looked at the curves:

I tried a gamma 2.2 correction and it seemed to linearize the output. But I cannot reconstruct my z values. With the plausible values from the render image "color picker" I can. How do I export THOSE values? I cannot post another link, but one person is saying that I should just output the Z directly without the scaling. Does the mapping node play a role?

http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/52328/render-depth-maps-with-world-space-z-distance-with-respect-the-camera Here's the link I mentioned.

There are a few things going on, here.
Firstly, the z-depth is exactly the distance of each pixel from the camera. You can demonstrate this by setting the clipping planes of your camera to specific values, and then using your mouse to inspect the RGB values in the render result view (not the saved image). The closest pixels will be the same value as your near clipping plane (assuming there's geometry that close), and the farthest pixels will be the same values as your far clipping plane (except for where the sky is visible, where the value will go to "a very large number"). I proved this to myself just a couple of days ago. I'll see if I can dig that project back up and upload a demonstration of some kind.
Secondly, those values don't fit in any typical RGB image. So anytime they need to be put into a file, they get mapped to 0-255. That means what might have been a 19-1200 floating-point range got squashed down to 0-255 non-floating point.
Lastly, when the image undergoes that transformation from floating point precision to 0-255, it ALSO gets mapped to a new color domain, which often includes a gamma adjustment and other strange transformations. It's usually quite effective for visual data, but plays havoc with numeric data.
The solution is an image format that is not limited to a 0-255 range for each RGB value. Enter OpenEXR and HDR. They can store the raw, floating-point values as they are in Blender, without compressing them... much. They're still limited to 32-bit floating point values, but that's plenty for just about anything.
So, if your data ever leaves Blender, it's been compressed somehow, unless you save it DIRECTLY to EXR or some other high-range format (without any intermediate nodes or processing). The best idea would be to use the buffer directly in Blender, rather than loading it from a file. If you do need to save it to a file, make sure that you're saving to some 32-bit format.
It may also be worth looking into the Mist Pass. It's similar... but different.

Also tag the data in the file as data, non-colour.

If I save the Z values directly into an EXR, it works. Don't use any intermediary nodes! Thank you.

I'll add that detail, for clarity.


text:
Rotate current selection of Objects .. Each object with a different Random Rotation ... Is this built into Blender?
Is such any such simple Object Mode feature/operation built into Blender? If yes what is the mechanism?
It is certainly built in to rotate all the objects by the exact same rotation.
The result might be for example each object has a random rotation about its own origin on the Y axis.  The rotation would be present in the object rotation entries.
Trusted Addons are acceptable if they of age 3 months or greater.
I checked the standard Addons.  I did not recognize anything.  Rotate has a proportional edit property though I did not see an explanation in the Blender documentation.
Please exclude Particles and Pythons Scripts and Modifiers/Constraints/Keyframes and BAN.  I can write Script or use Particles if necessary.

Applicable. Operator uses rotation. Disable scale and location in redo panel.  https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/75754/randomize-location-of-multiple-objects

You can do this using proportional edit mode.
If you have some objects in a scene that is already built and you need to do this operation without affecting anything else, first select your objects.

Press / to enter local view.  This will isolate these objects.

Change your tool settings to operate on individual origins, and set proportional edit to random.

You can now select one object and rotate it, with a large enough proportional edit strength, you will begin rotating each object a proportional amount to the rotation of the one you've selected.

Press / again to return to normal view.

Maybe I misunderstood and you wanted more control.  Hope this helps.

Your answer is useful.  Of course the BL s have closed the question.  This decreases the chance that others will see your answer.  I apologize for that behavior. I did not see any other answer and will not.  Thanks for the fresh response.

I guess Randomize Transform is better, but maybe there is some use for this in some edge cases.  Maybe this question and answer should be merged.

There is no need to merge.


text:
How do I morph between unrelated meshes
I have 5 meshes that are "unrelated" - they're reasonably complex shapes (derived from medical imagery) stored in separate files created by a 3rd party program and imported into Blender.
I would like to morph from Mesh 1 to Mesh 2, to Mesh 3, and so on.
I've seen various answers on here with "ShapeKeys", but these only appear to be for altering the same mesh manually, that's not an option here.
Is this possible in Blender, and if so how?

I'm not sure if what you want is possible, but there is a way to break a shape into pieces and have those pieces "rearrange" into a new shape. The tutorial is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=do0jF3zb5_U

Related: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/80868/transforming-morphing-one-objects-shape-into-anothers

Is your medical imagery made only of vertex (no planes)? If this is the case, you could morph one to another by using a particle system.

add a particle system to each object, with the same number of particles
create one additional object with the same number of particles
add Physics > keys in the last created object's particle system, create a key for each of your medical imagery objects.

Here is a complete tutorial about this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPCs4XbGth8
Hope it helps!

depending on what kind of rendering you are looking for, you can add some cool effects with the blender IK Particle Link addon.

This method will work regardless whether mesh is made of vertices or is it filled with faces and solid. The only downside is that Keys particles do not use physics, e.g. gravity.

That's right Mr Zak, what I meant is that if the medical imagery is in vertex he/she is already open to have a vertex(/particle) styled result. If the medical imagery has planes, that result won't be the same by using particles. French-speaking Belgian, doing my best here ;)


text:
Fluid Simulation went wrong
My Goal is a Box with closed doors hovering in the room with a golden Fluid flowing out of it.
My File was already looking good.
I decided to change the Body of the inflow, but when I bake it the Result isn't looking right.
The Fluid fidgets in a space but ignores my obstacle settings for the Sides.
Thanks for any help with getting my Fluid to flow properly in advance.
If you want to download the file here you go:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2KvkZumDeuJQmRfXzZBdlFPRnM

Things have to be completely contained in the fluid domain in order to be considered/Calculated.  You may need to scale up the domain so it completely covers the scene and the obstacles.  Also, if your domain's scale is off, your particles may phase through things because of size differences.  Try scaling your scene up (to around 4 or 5 meters), but also know you will increase the cache size and simulation complexity.
I'll load this up later to make sure, but this looks a lot like my struggles with the fluid sim.


text:
Update parameter on bpy.context.active_pose_bone changed
I would like to update a custom scene parameter when selecting between different pose bones.  Blender does not allow value to be updated on draw() method.  Though I might need to add a method to a handler but I can see any for active_pose_bone or selection changed.
Does anyone know how to update a parameter on selection event?

Getter (Setter) on a property
Small example, added active_pose_bone_length property to the scene.  Reports the length of the active pose bone or zero if none.  (AFAIK Blender bones cannot have zero length)
This way you are computing your property based on the selection, rather than checking selection change.
import bpy
from bpy.props import FloatProperty
from bpy.types import Scene

def get(self):
    pb = bpy.context.active_pose_bone
    return pb.length if pb else 0

Scene.active_pose_bone_length = FloatProperty(get=get)

alternatively could make this a context property
import bpy

def get(self):
    pb = self.active_pose_bone
    return pb.length if pb else 0

bpy.types.Context.active_pose_bone_length = property(get)

Thank you the getter setter is working I just had to drop the ', context' part following this page: https://docs.blender.org/api/current/bpy.props.html

Cheers, mixed update props with getter. Busted for not checking code.  Worth mentioning can do bpy.types.Context.foo = property(get) also


text:
Set Freestyle line thickness using python script
I have enabled the freestyle SVG add-on.  I can set the 'Line thickness' in the 'Render' tab.  But, I would like to change this value using a python script.  I can't find an example of this.
Does anyone know how to change the line thickness via script?

If you mouse over a field in blender it, amongst other things, gives you the script path

bpy.data.scenes["Scene"].render.line_thickness

For most scripts we use context.  If we are in scene "Scene" it is the context scene, rather than look it up from bpy.data.scenes
import bpy
from bpy import context # for testing
scene = context.scene
#set line thickness to 2.0
scene.render.line_thickness = 2.0

Or in the python console, where C = bpy.context for convenience.
>>> C.scene.render.line_thickness
1.0

>>> C.scene.render.line_thickness = 3.0

Stupidly, I never actually noticed that! (Ohps.)  - Thankyou.

authors: Алена Бусыгина


text:
How do I add a node to a frame using python
I have a frame node and a couple of other nodes.
I want to add the nodes to the frame.
I can't find any examples of how to do this.
frame = nodes.new(type='NodeFrame')
glass = nodes.new(type='ShaderNodeBsdfGlass')
trans = nodes.new(type='ShaderNodeBsdfTransparent')

frame.nodes does not seem to exist so not sure.  Do I have to append to something?

I found the solution as shown below and thought I would post the answer to help others facing the same problem.  It is actually more obvious than I first thought.
glass.parent = frame
trans.parent = frame

Could you please mark the question as solved?


text:
i'd like to view a textured model in one pane while deleting a vertices in another pane of the same object
I have an obj file that is quite large, while deleting vertices from the mesh in edit mode i need to be able to see the textures in another window in object mode.How can i do this?

Please reconsider title of your question. Maybe - How to view textured model in one pane and edit it in another.

It doesnt need to be in object mode. You can have both windows in Edit mode, then just have 1 of them show wire-frame, and the other material or rendered.

you little beauty, thank you, new to this stuff, and you just helped me a lot.

Thanks! And no problem what so ever offcourse. If i could just give you 1 piece of advice: stuff like this is covered in basic tutorials. Which leads me to believe you havent watched/read them. Fine, if this is the path you choose to walk, i will be here to help. But i wonder if you really like waiting for 2 days for an awnser that you can find in 1 minute yourself. So concider it bud. Trust me, being a frequent user myself, it will be worth your time! If not, let me know ;).

yes i know exactly what youre saying and tried watching many tutorials.but i only have one or 2 specific uses for blender as the rest of my work is generated on other software.so i dont need a comprehensive insight into the software.not yet anyway.i couldnt generate for myself a solution to what i needed after all the tutorials so thought the quickest would be to ask. so it did save me a lot of time.so thank you.


text:
How risky are boolean modifiers?
Years ago, I did some 3D work in Truespace. In Truespace, using boolean operations was a sure way the seriously mess up you mesh; many times to the point where you basically needed to restart from scratch.
I searched this site a bit and there seem to be a lot of problems related to Boolean modifiers.
So, my questions are:

How risky are Boolean Modifiers?
What 'rules' should I stick to, to minimize the risks?
Can I safely apply them?

I played around a bit with the scenario below, where I tried cutting a doorway into a wall with a Boolean Modifier (difference).

And it seems to work without unexpected side effects.
However, at least in Truespace, 'seeing no evil' is no guarantee that the mesh is still Ok. Hence my question.

AFAIK there aren't really any side effects other than mesh problems. If the resulting mesh has the correct topology and normals, there isn't really anything else that would be messed up as a side effect. That is, I have never known boolean modifiers to crash Blender, relink material nodes, delete animations, etc. In other words, "seeing no evil" is almost always the same as having no problems, because boolean modifier problems are (almost?) exclusively visual.

To stay absolutely safe, make sure to keep copies of pre-modified meshes separate. Depending on your desired result, you might find yourself frankensteining faces from pre-modified and modified meshes.

In my experience they are safe. Whenever I had problems with booleans, it turned out to be my fault, not Blender's. Note that a faster "boolean workflow" is possible with the Bool Tool and Carver addons, both of them are bundled with Blender since version 2.78.

I really appreciate all the answers! however, I can't accept comments. So, feel free to expand your comments into an answer :-)

I would pretty much never, under any circumstances, use a boolean.  They spit out bad topology and are the cause of untold headaches. To me they are lazy in a really bad way. And I admire laziness.


text:
How to correct non-connected edges/faces?
I've an object with edges that appear to be connected to a face, but when you move a faces touching the edge, it leaves a hole in the object:

I would expect the top and side faces to 'stretch' with the selected edge, when I move the selected edge (just like the bottom one).
This shape started out as a cube. I used only 'subdivide', moved edges to where I wanted them to be and tried the 'edge split' modifier. (what did I (likely) do wrong to create this mess?)
My question is: How do I repair the object?

This was caused by the Edge Split modifier, which, as its name infers, split your mesh at the edges. To fix it, select all the vertices and click the "Remove Doubles" button in the Tool Shelf.

If I do want the effect of the 'Edge Split' split modifier, but do not want to actually split the edges, could I just set the modifier but not apply it? or is that not how modifiers should be used?

Right, just don't apply the modifier. Modifiers are non-destructive until you apply.


text:
Can I "impress" one object's shape upon another object?
I have a landscape, but it turns out it is rotated by approximately 15°. Yet, I like the shape of it.

I would very much like to transfer the shape (the height of the various points on this plane) onto another plane, that has its grid aligned with the world grid:

So, my question is
Is there a method to do this? If so, how?
Note:
Yes, I'm aware that some information would be lost, both on the non-overlapping edges and because the two grids don't exactly match up. Both this loss of information would still be much better than trying to recreate the height information by hand.
Note 2:
I have a feeling this should be possible with scripting, and I would be willing to try and program one, but for now, I would prefer some non-custom script solution :-)

Wouldn't it just be easier to rotate the original mesh so the grid lines up with the desired direction or are there any other requirements?

I want the terrain orientation to match the orientation of various buildings that are to be placed upon this terrain. There is no 'need' for this, other than me finding this more convenient.

Create your final grid mesh and place it above the original one. Add a ShrinkWrap modifier to added plane, pick the original mesh as target. Set the  Mode to Project and Direction to both negative and positive.
Make sure to add enough subdivisions for newly created plane to make it catch as many details  from the original one as possible.


text:
How to model the interior of a building, inside the actual building
Let's say that I want to model the interior of a house, inside the house. By this I mean that I have a scene where the outside of the house is modelled but the inside of the house also needs to be modelled. What is the practical method to do this?
What is a practical/accepted method of doing this?
Should I cut away some of the walls? (but then, how do I render from a viewpoint that should include the walls that have been cut away?)
Is there some other clever method to do this?

Welcome to the site. You'd model the interior of a house using the same basic modeling techniques as you'd use to model the exterior.

I'm delaying a more detailed answer pending more information about exactly what you are wanting to model the interior for. Is this for a game, where you intend for a character to open a door (or window, or walk through a wall) and enter a room? Or do you intend this for creating a model of a house and use it for a virtual tour/ Or is this for a technical illustration where you want views of the interior to be unobstructed by the exterior? The three techniques might need different techniques in staging, lighting, and camera placement, besides slightly different modeling techniques.

You can set the house's max draw type to wireframe and disable selection in the 3dview port. This way you will only see the outline of the house and will be unable to select it, so it won't get in the way as you work on the rooms, but you can still visually position items so they are within the house. You may also want to use an object for the walls of each room and do the same for each one.

Also consider that you may not have to model everything in the location that it would exist in the real world. If you are planning a shot where the camera moves from the porch, through the front door into the lounge, then you might want them together. If you are going to have one shot outside the house and another later shot inside a room in the house, both locations can be completely disconnected.

I'm not sure what exactly you are trying to do but I think this might help:
You can "hide" the walls by selecting them and pressing "H". Then you can place your models inside the building. Also, you can make use of the "Wireframe" mode. Just press "Z".
I hope this helped. :)

So to my mind your question addresses two fundamental things:

Creating your set
Positioning your camera in that set.

For the first, I think you understand the difference in between an ext and int shot, and how they are typically lit differently.   So rather than think of as one setup where you can do everything, think about how you are rendering the shots within the scene.   You might need two scenes.  So maybe you have a mesh/model of the exterior, lit with a sunset type setup (using the Sun type lamp).  You have another model that's the same basic model bit with a wall deleted as you said and the interior lit with some Hemi and Spot type setups.
For the second (the camera) remember the camera has all kind of settings such as tense distance (so it doesn't render stuff really far away), focal length, lens length, etc.   You can change these settings for different shots (or Scenes in Blender).   So for an interior shot you might use a more "fisheye" wide angle lens (a shorter lens length) to capture everything.   This might give you more "room to work" on your interior shots.
Try the two scene setup and see if it works for you.

Would it not be possible to set up the lighting in such a way that the exterior light (sun) would also create the correct lighting for the interior scene? (just asking, I'm really new to Blender, so I may very well be asking stupid questions).

Yes, you do that.   You can also just set ambient light (in the world tab I think) to a high number and that will make a scene bright inside and outside.   It kinda depends on the style you are going for, realistic or cartoony.  Cartoons are often often evenly everywhere with just a few pronounced shadows, it's a cleaner look.  Addressing your question you'll be modeling both either way anyway, right?


text:
Can the 'top' view be rotated by 180° around the Z-axis by default?
Is it somehow possible to have the top view (Numpad 7) rotated by 180 degrees by default?
I can get the view I'm after using the key combination Numpad 7 then 12 x Numpad 6 (or 12 x Numpad 4).
I was hoping that there is some option or setting to rotate this default top-view orientation by 180° around the Z-axis?

If I understand correctly, you want to look at the x-y plane, such that +x is pointing left and +y is down?

@RonProctor, Yes. I would like to have hitting Numpad 7 result in a top-down view, with positive x pointing left and positive y pointing down.

This is an old post. But just wanted to add that now you can hold down alt and rotate around with the scroll wheel to snap to different angles.


text:
Is it possible to Link one or more layers from another .blend file?
Is it possible to link all object on on layer, in another .blend file, into a scene?
I've read:

How can I reuse existing materials, objects, etc from an existing .blend?
How to get objects from different files into one file? [duplicate]
How to add an object from another scene? [duplicate]

But those all give the solution for linking individual objects.

I would like to continue modelling an 'composite object' that is composed of many objects (some of which are parented to other objects), operators (including boolean) and materials, etc. organized across different layers, in a separate blender file, but be able to (sometimes) render this 'composite object' placed within a scene in another .blend file.

How can I link this 'composite object' in one .blend file for use in another .blend file?

It will be easier to do that the other way around - link objects from the original scene into new one within one blend file.

In that case you have the freedom to select objects as you wish, including selecting objects by 3D layer, selecting all the children of the parent or vice versa via Select Grouped menu and so on.
Once objects are selected, in Object mode press Ctrl+L > Objects To Scene (additional scene should be already created). You can either render from that additional scene or link/append the scene into another blend via Append or Link and choosing Scene.

I must be a complete idiot, but... when I link the scene (newly created in the first .blend file) into the second .blend file, it shows up in the 'Outliner' but I can't render it together with the 'local scene' in the second .blend file?

Never mind, I apparently needed to 'Ctrl+L' the linked scene into the second .blend file to the existing scene in that file for it to work.

@Jacco Ctrl+L to link objects works only inside of one blend file. Generally this solution assumes linking objects to another scene of one file and only then importing that newly created scene. This is to have possibility to select by layer or by parent etc which won't be available when just linking into another file


text:
Continues animation from certain point onwards?
I would like to animate an object to rotate contentiously, from a certain time onwards.
Let's say I have a windmill. At the start of the animation it does not rotate. then starts rotating, and continues rotating until the end of the animation.
How can I do this, without manually calculating how many rotations it needs until the end of the animation (which I would need to recalculate whenever I extend the total animation time)?

You can create 3 keyframes, example:

At frame 1: windmill's starting point
At frame 30: the windmill has rotated 20°
At frame 60: the windmill has rotated 180°

Then in the Timeline press ShiftE > Linear Extrapolation, and the movement will go on indefinitely (at the same speed as frame 60). To cancel, ShiftE > Constant Extrapolation.

In the Non linear animation window, create a strip for your action and open the options panel (using "N" or clicking on the small arrow at the top right corner of that window) when selecting the action you want to repeat, go to the "Strip" tab and open "action clip" options then, inside repeat select the amount of times you want to repeat this action, if you don't want to calculate the number just change the value until the Strip covers the lenght you're lookig for.
There are many ways you can do this, but this might be the easiest one and "non destructive" for your animation since you can still edit this action later.


text:
How to avoid/rectify pinching
How do I avoid and/or rectify the pinching, that is quite visible even with a subdivision-surface modifier active, that seems to be the result of one extra edge joining at a vertex?
I tried shrink wrapping it, but that doesn't seem to fix the issue :(

Here you could remove the edge loops in order to remove the triangles

@moonboots could you elaborate on your comment? I don't understand what you exactly mean by it.

To get rid of the triangles that create these bad pinching, select the edge ring with CtrlAlRMB:

Then X > Collapse Edges & Faces:

Result:

But that would reduce the 'resolution' on the model? I added those extra edges because they are needed there?

I'm not sure that they are needed, even if you need a high resolution mesh, apply a Subdivision Surface modifier?


text:
Stabilize 2D Node Creates Jumpy Renders
The stabilize 2D node in the compositor continues to produce jumpy renders on my computer. When I export using this node, the video jumps about every 30 frames.
Here is my setup in the compositor:

Here is what the output usually looks like:
https://youtu.be/PIEDARkL7iI
Note: The renders look fine when I use only transform nodes and offset them using the movie clips x,y, and angle outputs. I like how clean the compositor is when using the Stablize 2D node, so I would like to figure this out. Maybe it is my old macbook pro Mid 2010 that is having trouble.

I've not actually used the Stabilize 2D node before but it seems very wrong to me to have the image going through two opposing stabilize nodes like that. Surely you should be "stabilizing" either the original footage (the first, non-inverted node) and then adding the overlay without any additional stabilization, or using the inverted stabilization on just the image before overlaying it.

I gather that you are stabilising footage to add another image then reintroducing the camera movement. But I'm confused about what you call jumpy movement? It could be that the movie source is not decompressing correctly. Go back to the Movie Clip Editor and generate timecode for the footage. This should make it easier for Blender to recognise the correct frame order. Or you'll have to prerender as a frame sequence.

It re-introduces the camera shake if you have it set to invert


text:
Automatic weights deforming my character
I'm having problems when I want to set the mesh as the armature parent. Once I press Ctrl+P to open the menu and select "With automatic weights" it deforms the mesh.

Select your mesh
Delete the armature modifier it has and delete it's parent and delete all vertex groups
Select your armature
Switch to Pose mode
Select all bones
Press Space Bar and write
Apply Pose as Rest Pose
Select mesh then armature then Ctrl+P and choose with automatic weighting

THX. U AWESOME.

In Blender 2.8, the search menu has moved from Space Bar to F3.


text:
Is there a way to get Blender to remember my view settings?
I prefer my Blender set up with four view windows, like in this example:

However, every time I begin a new model, I'm presented with the default single view, and I have to re-establish the other three windows and perspectives, as well as reset other preferences, like the grid size.
How can I get Blender to remember my settings across models?

Technically a different question, but the exact same answer.  Thanks!

Actually, this quad view is even better.  Now the view doesn't get messed up every time I accidentally hit the middle mouse button.  I've been trying to figure that one out for months...