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Tool dialog popup has disappeared
I am working on a blender model that, at some point, has failed to display any popup dialogs associated with tools .
For example, using the Bisect tool in mesh, I would expect the bisect options to appear in a popup at the left bottom of the screen. Similarly, in Clean Up>Merge By Distance, when vertices are selected and this clicked, I would expect the dialog to adjust the difference. All tools are failing to work in this way. No dialog boxes appear.
If I open a new blender project, all is working fine. So something has occurred in my specific project to stop the dialog boxes. Any ideas?

Are you sure it’s not just minimized?


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FBX file imports and textures
Starting to use Blender again after a couple of years. Currently trying to import some free model downloads that include FBX files. I thought that just importing these would also import and apply the texture files but the objects do not appear to be rendering.
One of these files is here:
birch-bush
I have tried all the files in a single folder, the fbx file in source and images in textures, (all with "image search" ticked in the Import) and none seem to apply the images.

Any ideas what I am missing?

It seems that the FBX file you provided doesn't include any materials, or not in a way readable by Blender. But we can rebuild it easily.
First, make sure you have the addon Node Wrangler enabled under the menu Edit > Preferences > Addons tab, search "Node Wrangler" and make sure it is checked ON.
Then, open the Shader Editor (you can use the popover menu in the top left corner of an area or put your mouse in the timeline editor and press ⇧ ShiftF3).
Click the New button in the middle of the header to create a new material.
Select the Principled BSDF node, and press ⎈ Ctrl⇧ ShiftT, navigate to your model's textures location, select them all and press enter. It should have imported all your images and plugged them into the Principled BSDF. We just need a few tweaks:
Look for the node named "Base Color", drag its Alpha output to the Principled BSDF's Alpha input.
Press ⇧ ShiftA > Color > Mix and put that node on the Base Color node's color noodle, it should automatically plug it on it. Change its Blend Mode from Mix to Multiply, set the factor to 1, and plug the Ambient Occlusion node's Color output to the B input.
If you use Eevee rendered, in the sidebar > Options tab > Settings panel, change the Blender Mode and Shadow Mode to Alpha Hashed.
The final result should be this:

Thanks. That worked as you described. Just want to understand the actions of the mixrgb node in this case. What does Multiply actually do to the mix of those 2 images and what is Factor 1? I can see that the shape in the AO ensures the coloured image only shows that image and the background is totally transparent. I assume Factor of 1 means total transparency rather than a percentage of opaqueness (I think???) but what is the difference between Multiply and the other options?

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Select all vertices within box boundary when in Front view
I have seen other posts relating to this but I am posting now because of a specific situation.
I have a Blend file, created by a designer online, that allows me to create radiators using templates and modifiers.
A video was supplied with this showing how to use the objects.
One of the actions was to increase the height of the radiator by moving the top vertices up, thus ensuring that the scale remains correct. Simply using scaling on the object will change the dimensions of the top part of the radiator. Although this is not by much, given my current requirements, this raises an issue I have come across again and again with selecting vertices. I understand the concept of how box selects the visible vertices in Front view and also that Wiremesh would help. However, in this instance, the vertices combination at the top of the model is very complex and I have been unable to select all the vertices so this Move method cannot work as it reduces the model to a bunch of unselected vertices left behind.
The video, however, worked perfectly (on an earlier version of Blender but, nonetheless, perfect). I could not see any sleight of hand and believe the actions were genuine so this suggests either the object was a damn site simpler in construction in the video or Blender could select all vertices in the box on that plane.
There must have either been a means of selecting all vertices in the current plane view in the previous version or I have completely missed something in latest Blender. I have seen similar in other videos but this is the first time I really want to get this to work in my Blender model.
I am unsure about posting where the video is as I do not want to suggest an issue with the supplier as I am sure everything is genuine.

Does this help? https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/46636/why-can-i-not-select-vertices-located-behind-others

It's not wireframe mode that lets you select backfacing vertices, it's X-ray mode. They are two separate modes. The one you want is the button with two interesting squares. Turn that on and you can select all vertices inside the rectangle. Also you can constrain your scale to X, Y or Z by typing "SX", "SY" or "SZ" and inputting a number or moving the mouse and clicking. You can also omit axes from scaling: "S+SHIFT+Z+2.5" (no plusses) scales the object along the X and Y axes by a factor of 2.5 but ignores Z. Also note that you can change the orientation of these axes (global local normal, etc)

The question was answered by the following comment:

It's not wireframe mode that lets you select backfacing vertices, it's X-ray mode. They are two separate modes. The one you want is the button with two interesting squares. Turn that on and you can select all vertices inside the rectangle. Also you can constrain your scale to X, Y or Z by typing "SX", "SY" or "SZ" and inputting a number or moving the mouse and clicking. You can also omit axes from scaling: "S+SHIFT+Z+2.5" (no plusses) scales the object along the X and Y axes by a factor of 2.5 but ignores Z. Also note that you can change the orientation of these axes (global local normal, etc) – hatinacat2000 Jul 15 at 23:33

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


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Render issues with subdivision surface
The issue is I modeled a coffee mug, and I did several renders of it with different colors. But at a certain point it started rendering as though the subdivision surface modifier wasn't there.
For the time being I found that if I set the viewport value to 6 it renders alright. But if I set it to a lower value it looks pretty horrible and square.
Working like this is tedious because I set the viewport value to 1 to make the computer go faster while I am making some changes to my design, and then I forget to reset it to 6. Then I find myself swearing my head off to the ceiling as after 20 minutes of rendering I have to start over again. And my computer isn't terribly quick, which doesn't help.
I hope someone can help me out and explain why this is happening to me, and what I need to do in order to fix it. I am a complete novice in blender and for the moment I am completely clueless.

Best to post a screenshot of your mesh and the modifier.
Check the image attached to make sure the camera icon on your modifier is on.


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Eye gone dark with light
I'm having trouble with the eye, I been follow tutorial of making an eye then it skip the set of light and my eye came up with very dark glass.
I've been researchin for a long time but nothing helps.

To left eye is outer eye in glass and inner eye texture
To right eye is just outer eye.
Both are very dark with or without lighting

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/2558/how-to-illuminate-the-darkness-inside-glass-objects-in-cycles

Are your lights bright enough? If you add a cube and it is also dark, then just increase the brightness of the lights.

Yes, I have a character model and the light it bright and working but as I try to shiny to eye, it didn’t bright it


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Enable disable masks in Sculpt mode
How to disable the paint mask in sculpt mode without removing it (Alt +  M). Because in some case i may need it later so i don't have to redraw it again.

In the Face sets menu you can create a Face set from masked.
Then the Auto masking menu lets you turn on and off the face set limits for every brush, or every single brush can be limited in its action on the face sets using the brush menu.
Anyway you will loose the softness of the edges (a face in the face set is on or off).


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Cryptomatte from Blender to Nuke using custom fileout not working
my 3d scene :

In the render layer, I turn on Cryptomatte for object and material and this is my setup in the compositor (I render out the fileout node as CRIP02.exr - multilayer EXR) :

I also save render result from image editor as CRIP01.exr :

Both CRIP01.exr and CRIP02.exr are multilyer EXR, the difference is the CRIP01 is saved using default naming via 'save as' in image editor - while CRIP02 using custom name for the cryptomatte channels via compositor.
When I import them into Nuke , the CRIP01 (default names) works fine while the CRIP02 gives me error. Inside Nuke , I connect them to cryptomatte nodes. This is what I got when using CRIP01 ( works as I expected) :

And I got error when using CRIP02 - It doesn't display correctly and also the selected Names showing the weird naming :

Does anyone know what the problem is ? and how to fix it ?
Is this a bug? I'm using 4.1.1
blend file : https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PYkEGV6-9UzV6pR2lJg1N-ljpPnIt2r_/view?usp=sharing

This issue should be fixed in 4.2 if you haven't updated to it yet.
Note that 4.2 has a bug with the new GPU compositor that completely breaks the cryptos output from the compositor, only CPU mode works. You can track my bug report here


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Weight Paint only Upward Faces
Can I somehow accurately only apply weight paint on faces pointing upwards?

In edit mode select the faces you want to modify and then, in weight paint mode, enable the faces or vertices selection masking button. Remember that weight is a property of a vertex relatively to a vertex group, so face normal is not taken into account.

Thx for the answer! Does that mean I cant spawn particles based on the direction of the normals?

In the particle panel there are some controls that let you take into account the face normals, while wheight controls only density of the spawn and some hair controls (like lenght or clump). Search for the "velocity" tab, "normal" and "tangent" controls.


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Scaling an Object Using a Single Face or Edge
Imagine I have a simple bowl. What is the best way to scale the entire object so that the base has an accurate diameter of 50mm? In effect I need to scale the object by the dimensions of the bottom face. How can it be done?

Someone will probably give an elegant method, here are some trashy ones (if I've correctly understood your question):
You could separate (as new object) an edge (that is aligned with X or Y) from the bottom of the bowl, open the N panel > Item > Transform, select the bowl object, shift select the edge, scale up the edge until you reach the wanted dimension, press Shift while scaling if you want more precision:

Or parent the bowl to the edge, scale the edge, or type the good Scale values so that it reaches the good Dimension value. Don't forget to apply the scale afterwards.
You could use a measure tool: Duplicate 2 vertices of the bottom of your bowl and fill an edge between them, activate Edge Length in the Viewport Overlays panel, scale up your whole mesh until you reach the wanted length:

You can also activate the MeasureIt addon, select the edge, open the N panel > View > MeasureIt Tools, click on Show, click on Segment, and its length will display (you can remove the length display if you click on the X or Delete all a bit further down). Scale up your bowl until you get the wanted length:

Objects with circular symmetry almost beg for the Screw modifier
Using only a profile, you can precisely adjust the diameter of any part.


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I can't see half of the mesh in camera view
After working a long time I made a preview in my camera view by pressing 0 .
I cant see half of the mesh I designed in my camera view

As a guess clipping values for camera are too low / too high. See https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/5201/how-do-i-increase-the-render-distance

Though you are not descriptive, I think I've had this problem before. Change the clipping values in your camera.

Hi. It would be useful if you could be descriptive of where these clipping values are, what values should be set and why this is effecting their scene.


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How do I export an fbx with textures?
I want to export an FBX with textures. How do I do it? All I get is the model without textures. Please explain with as much detail as possible. Basically I want to convert an GLB into FBX with textures because Unity doesn't like GLB.


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How to make a texture blend into the specular
does anybody know how to make something like this:

As you can see the procedural texture changes to create a blending-like effect. Or does anybody know what that is called so I can look it up myself?

I'm confused about what you're looking for. In the picture, the Material has a certain degree of Specularity, and the Diffuse texture gets a bit swallowed up by the specular highlight, towards the centre, but that happens automatically without you having to do anything.

@Susan, perhaps, but anyway let say that he's right about what's happening. The part with spots can easily be done with a mix of Noise and Voronoi, but it's harder to find a nice way to make what he asks.

@moonboots OK. I don't think I've quite understood the question, or else I need to put my glasses on.

It's alright, I think I was able to replicate that: https://gyazo.com/296555af950e11c3e79c8235fdef97bc Thank you anyway!


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Dimensions of Smart Project UV Unwrap
I'm UV unwrapping voxel-based models using the Smart Project. It can unwrap my models nicely (example below).

But I'm also trying to automate the process of exporting a properly sized image. For this I need to know how many edges are unwrapped in each dimension (For example, 32 edges by 32 edges in the posted image). Is there any way I can tell how many edges (or faces,tiles,vertices) the Smart Project unwraps in each direction without manually and visually counting them?
Or is there any other anyway I can set the image pixel dimensions to a certain size based on the number of faces?


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Blender Constraint : Slide Link
I am writing this post because after hours of browsing I can't really find what I am looking for... Or maybe  didn't look in the right place...
So I'd like to know how I can simply apply a slide link with a constraint between a tube and a cylinder :

I have both of my objects on blender but I can't find a way to link them...
Thank you very much for your help !
killian

In my example the bigger cylinder is parent of the small one,and it's rotated 45 degrees on its Y axis. The small one has X and Y loc locked, so it can only slide on its Z local location. The same can be achieved with bones, locking their local attributes.


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Python to get Rgb of mesh faces
This is my first use of Python in blender, although I have had Python experience elsewhere some time ago (Arcpy).
I have a mesh object with several faces that has a material calculated for each face using a complex node group that I am utilising from another licensed coder.
I know that the faces are all a block colour and not a mix of different coloured pixels.
Having selected the mesh, I would like to get the RGB (or hex) value for each face. This would allow me to manipulate the output colours without compromising the complicated node group.
I am struggling with the operators and types in bmesh to get this info. I have seen some solutions online but all seem to be using a very old version of Blender Python and have not worked. Anyone have a 2.83 solution to this issue?
Cheers

Hello, judging by your description would manipulating the colors with cryptomatte in the compositor after rendering be sufficient ?

I need to look into that. Not got to that level of blender knowledge yet so need to learn about cryptomatte


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Create painted wood with grain
I need a material that looks like painted wood in Blender 2.83.
I have attached an image that shows the colour and grain. Any ideas with Shader Editor would be grtefully accepted.
Cheers

Hi. Please show what you have tried and where, specifically, you are getting stuck. Thanks.

I made a very similar procedural wood in answer to a question here.. and here you will have to supply your own world HDR, or use one of the previews, to stop it appearing magenta.. I didn't pack that in the .blendfile

I usually start with a Wave Texture set to ring. Since the door is made from many parts, it should be uv unwrapped to reflect that, or copies of the material made per board so the grains can be different. The position of the ring, and scale, is set using the mapping node, and the output fed to a color ramp, which feeds roughness in the principled BSDF. The original ring output can also be used to control a second noise texture to add the lines.

As @robinbetts points out in his excellent answer it would be better to use geometry space rather than UV unwrapping, especially if you want the grain to go around a corner.


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Array - clock face issue
I am following the concept of using the array modifier on an object, using an Empty axis, to create 12 points on a clock face.
I have failed to get to the point of turning the axis to create each new object copy.
The issue is that as soon as I select the Empty as the Object Offset, I get exponential creation of cube objects with huge dimensions.
I thought I had set everything correctly on my object.
The cube object dimensions are .002m x .040m y .001m z
This is .11615 up the Y axis.
The Empty is at the 0 origin point
The Array modifier on the cube has a Fixed Count of 12 with Relative Offsets ticked and set to 0
As soon as I tick the Object Offset with the Empty object, I get the huge object dimensions created (eg the X dimension is 1999999878979204987924730871808 m!!!!!)
I have attached images of the object, empty, and result of Object Offset.
Also, I have saved a version of my issue, without the Object Offset ticked, at https://www.dropbox.com/s/b961mhcttzhbzfq/stack.blend?dl=0
I realise I will be missing something simple but have not spotted this in videos I have seen online.

Almost always a scale issue. Make the cube object the dimensions you desire and apply scale Ctrl-A - Scale

Try Applying the Scale to the object before using the modifier. In Object mode select the object then using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + A, open the Apply menu and choose the option All Transforms.

Yes as Batfinger says you need to apply the scale of your object. Also, if you want your object to rotate around the empty, put its origin at the same point

You need to go to the cube and enter Ctrl + A and hit scale to apply the scale of the object, this is to avoid the size issue. However this does not completely solve the issue because when you rotate the empty by a whopping -800 degrees on the Z axis it is off centered and the rotation is not right as seen below.

To fix this, remove the empty as the object offset of the cube, and put the cursor with Shift + S in the center of the selected cube. Then create a new empty and make it a child of the empty at the center of the scene by clicking the new empty and Shift selecting the empty in the center then hitting Ctrl + P > Object.

Afterwards make the Object Offset in the array the new empty at the center of the object. Now you can rotate the center empty by 30.1 degrees (360 degrees / 12 pieces, the added 0.1 makes it more centered somehow).
EDIT: 30.0939 is the precise rotation seems like.
The final result should look like this with no weird rotations.

Keeping it simple :) 1) With object selected Ctrl A > Apply Scale, Ctrl A > Apply Location. (or Apply All Transforms). 2) Array Modifier switch from Relative Offset to Object offset (Empty). 3) Turn Off Proportional editing in the Header of the 3D Editor. 4) Select empty rotate 30° in Z axis (R Z 30). Done.

Ohhh, proportional editing was most likely the problem. I was very confused because I had used this method so many times for castle towers and lighthouses and weird rotations were never an issue. Thanks for clearing that up, both methods work but yours is definitely a lot easier.


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Creating 3d printable model - non manifold issues

blend file
I am using a 3d model https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/tool/ender-3-front-pi-case to create a slightly altered version of the Pi 4 Base stl (ie. the model with the Octoprint logo). I am attempting to reduce the logo size, add 18 vent holes and add a switch hole too. I know there are variants of this pi case but really would like to include the Octoprint logo. I have tried other variants of an Octoprint vented logo but they have been such a pain that this seems to be the simplest way.
To do this, I imported the "Pi 4 base" stl, reduced the size of the logo vertices on the x and z axis (leaving y ensures thickness of wall is intact), created solid vent shapes and a circle (called Yvents and Ycircle in my blender files) and used boolean difference to apply these to the Pi 4 base model (with the smaller logo already applied). The issue I have is this creates numerous manifold edges and, when I export the new model to a slicer (in my case VoxelMaker), supports are added everywhere I would expect except the vents, which I think is due to the non manifold issues. I have had so many issues with amending models using simple blender tools and the result being "damaged" 3d models, I feel like giving up on Blender altogether. I end up having to fix every dodgy edge, faces and vertices individually as Clean Up tools end up creating faces over designed gaps in the model walls. I have attached screen prints of the blender issues, plus how these appear in the slicer plus a link to a packed blender file. The problem model in the file is saved as "Pi 4 base small print". The original is "Pi 4 base".

You have three kinds of problems.  Two are easy enough to solve:

There are some doubled vertices.

switch to vertex select
select all
M to bring up the merge menu
select by distance.

You have some interior faces.

Deselect all (short cut Alt–A
Use the Select → Select all by Trait → Interior faces menu entry to select the interior faces
X to bring up the delete menu
select faces from the menu

Some strange geometry around the vent in front.  To see it

Deselect all (short cut Alt–A
Select → Select all by Trait → Non Manifold
result:

I don't know how you want to fix this, but if you zoom in on the vent you'll see that there are vertices that I think should be merged but aren't, for example:

There are a lot of verts and edges involved in this, so I didn't want to attempt it by hand; but I think you'll need to fix it before you can print.
EDIT:  I've added my version of the file as it appears after step 3.  The only remaining non-manifold geometry is selected.

I did the select by distance for the circular hole and that is ok. However the 16 vents are a complete mess even though I followed the b

I did the select by distance for the circular hole and that is ok. However the 16 vents are a complete mess even though I followed the creation of those holes using a boolean difference operator, with very simple shapes in the YVents object. All the videos online suggest using this method. It still created non manifold edges that I have no idea how to deal with. the second option deleted all the faces so the object is even more non-manifold than it was before. I may look for something other than Blender. I will try copying the lower vent vertices over the top to see if usable faces are added

If you followed the steps exactly, your file would look the one I just added to the question.  Does it?


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Connect "islands" for 3d printed models
I am working on several models for cases, for home automation and electronics components, including raspberry pi and esp32 boards.
I realise there are many models online but need to make bespoke cases.
The issue I have is that I don't know if there is a simple way to connect elements of cutouts in a print model so that the model retains integrity and the cutout looks decent. An example is the raspberry pi logo I have cut out of one such case (pictured). As it is, it is clear that many elements of the cutout are not connected physically to the case so these "islands" need some form of small struts to hold them together. Is there a smart way of doing this whereby the struts are small enough to not spoil the aesthetics too much but strong enough to keep the case and logo intact when printing? An addon maybe? I want to do a few of these, not just the Rasp Pi.

Some options.

You may need to change the orientation of the print, so that the symbol is printing on the bottom.

Design your own 3D supports within the model (this is what I do for various holes / openings that are needed)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upqTE8EPZIQ

Also make use of the 3D printing add-on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rgrLWFUjlk

You can emboss / engrave it (you may need to convert it to an svg)

SVG to FONT:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13278707/how-can-i-convert-svg-files-to-a-font
Emboss / Engrave:
https://youtu.be/lc3d0pM2fpo

You may also want to try it with Geometry Nodes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srmzM2cWW7U

I do all my 3D printing designs using Blender and I find it works very well once you get the hang of it.
A good how to when FDM printing:  (the best idea I got from this series was to angle things at 45 degrees)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvpDgC7g68o&list=PL80oNe5cvR7886KeFH5YNhE0Io7YYgEIi


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Boolean Difference behaving strangely
I am attempting to create a 3d model for printing that will be a small plaque with embedded text (the text will protrude a little and be a different colour). As I have a one material 3d printer, I need the plaque to have the letters engraved into plaque and, later I will print the letters in a different material (very slightly smaller) so that I can stick these in the engraved lettering.
I am at the point of creating the engraved plaque. However, using boolean difference for the plaque (called Cube) and using Difference for the text (Text 001), the result strangely appears to be the Text 001 letters only, rather than an an engraved plaque.
The images below show:
Cube selected
Text 001 selected
Boolean difference with Cube as object and modifier of Text 001
Result
I have also saved a copy of my blender file at:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/h3vjvap55gmsuaz/untitled.blend?dl=0

Your text object is total rubish ... check edit mode. It doent make a sence to clean up, just write text again. To see graved text in a board you have to hide Text object in Outliner.

It locks up Blender (3.0.1) here unless I remove the modifier. I agree that the text is diabolical. Each letter appears to be made with 3 connected objects, one inside the other so it's no wonder that the boolean modifier doesn't work!

Don't hold back! Fair enough, I can sometimes get in a pickle with Blender objects and guess I have managed to completely mess up the text. I will redo that and make sure I carry out the simplest actions to ensure the text topography is clean.

OK, I have created text that does work and it has created the engraved text on my cube. However, I have an issue which I thought might occur. As I want to print the text letters in a different colour, I need to make them very slightly thinner to fit inside the engraved letters, otherwise I expect to be trying to force them in.. Font size will not do it as this changes width and height I need the solid letters to just be thinner. Saying that, I have not printed yet so maybe exact same size may work?? Anyone have experience?

If we enable face orientation and look at the cutter, we can see some strange issues with its normals:

Everywhere it's red, something weird is going on with its normals, and its normals are how the boolean knows what's inside and what's outside-- the difference between a cave and a rock-- and so with these weird normals, the boolean doesn't know what to do.
If we zoom in on the problem areas further, we see stuff like this:

Well, that doesn't make any sense.  It looks like its been solidified, and then had some faces deleted.  Let's look at the whole thing in wireframe:

Well, some faces have been soldified, and some haven't.
Whatever techniques you've used to create your text object have led to a wildly non-manifold mesh that is not appropriate for use as a boolean cutter.  It does not have clean normals that allow Blender to tell what the inside is vs. what the outside is.  I can't tell you more about why those techniques weren't good for this application without knowing what those techniques are.


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Material looks different on object
I have been using a procedural material that I go online. I appended the object from the blend model it was supplied in (the SolidModel) and that looks brilliant in rendering, once I ensured the rendering settings were the same.
I have been attempting to use this on a plane outline of a house wall (with a solid modifier) that is in my blend file. That looks 2d rather than 3d. So I added a cube to test whether this would look 3d using the material. It was 2d. So only the original object supplied with the material looks right.
This, I realise, will be a basic misunderstanding I have of how to utilise procedural materials i rendering but I do need help. Can anyone explain what I need to do to ensure I get the 3d effect on my objects?
I have attached pictures of the rendering (couldnt wait until finished but the tiles i am interested in are fully rendered).
A copy of my blend file is at the following address:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/kmc1zl3ds7xnpwd/canterbury.blend?dl=0

You have to add a subdivision modifier like your other objects in the scene to get the displacement.
Result after subdividing some times:


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Custome shape Labels
I just started using a Blender. I was Maya and Keyshot user for years.
In Keyshot making, custom shape labels is 2 mins job, but how can I do it in Blender?
The problem is how to create these types of labels and wrap them on the objects, without having to model each piece of a label? Is this possible?

Hello and welcome :). What have you tried so far and where are you stuck?

Please [edit] your question to add more details. Are you stuck on the modeling part or rendering?

"In keyshot making custome shape labels is 2 mins job." Funny, in Blender too

@Duarte Why did you reopen this question? It currently is only an open tutorial request without a clear problem or any research.

Making a label around a bottle seems like focused enough question, even though there really doesn't seem to be any attempt on the user part to show what hes got or where he is stuck. Is this what you are looking for https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/52278/i-want-to-unwrap-a-label-which-has-a-transparent-area/52280#52280 ?

I am so sorry For not so clear questions. Since am only starting and trying to switch to Blender I didn't even try to make custom cut labels since I have no clue if it's possible without modeling. You helped a lot with your post. So we can use Lpha to cut out unwanted pieces. Ty so much


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My mesh becomes messed up when I join different mesh. Why is this happening?
I am a beginner, started working on a model few weeks ago but i was using blender 2.8, when i came to know about an update, i quickly upgraded to 2.82a but my blend file got all weird after re importing.
When I separated the mesh in edit mode, by materials or by lose parts,mesh becomes normal again. I have linked the images as well as the blender file regarding the problem.
I have tried importing and exporting using fbx, obj etc. I also removed all of the shape keys but it also did not fix the problem. The file still opens and works fine in blender 2.8 though.
this issue is also happening with 2.81.

Blend file
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1KNnAh_Hxqvh1U13GGNjy6QK5Zc_utLq_

There is only one mesh object in your file and it looks like on the first picture in 2.82.a. Don't you have any add-on enabled?

When I open the file, it's supposed to be broken?
Because it looks fine for me. I think you just need to switch to the latest stable (not a) and book this under "strange bug, happy it's fixed"

I actually looked into it and discussed in the community, it's opening properly on every other pc except mine, actually no file is opening on my pc on Blender 2.82a but everything works fine with 2.80


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Closed mesh has weird artifacts (Blender Guru Anvil Tutorial)
I'm making an anvil and while the wireframe of the mesh looks fine, there are weird artifacts near the base of the anvil that I can't seem to get rid of (I tried recalculate normals and merge by distance).
The problem is exacerbated in lookDev, where I'm getting an odd, swirled stretching effect.

You have ngons (faces with more than 4 vertices). Try to avoid that, especially on twisted surfaces. Just join the vertices with J to make quads.

You also have faces overlapping like these ones. Delete them but also the ones underneath because sometimes the face is large as 2 faces. Here again make sure that you have quads.

Adding to moonboots's answer, make sure to disable the Subsurf modifier for the Edit Mode, otherwise you'll have a hard time fixing your mesh.

Another issue is that your normals are mostly inverted. Enable Face orientation in the Overlays menu, as shown below; then, in edit mode, make sure all the faces are coloured blue. You can change a face's colour (that is, their normal's orientation) by selecting it and pressing Alt + N > Flip.
(N.b. You can flip multiple face's normals at once).

Edit: the keyboard shortcut for the normals menu is alt + N.

Oh, my bad. Edited it.


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Blender VSE (VideoSequenceEditor) Slows drastically when adding strips
When I'm adding several strips at top of each other in VSE, it slows to one frame per second render speed, which takes even a several minutes render for, like, hours.
Is there any way to avoid this, like, changing strip overlapping settings, or is there any new updates planned for VSE?
Or, it's at the state of old Blender Render and Game Engine, left just cause it can do something?

There is not really a fix for something like this. You can sequence it overnight, but there is no way to speed it up unless you set the output to a lower quality


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How to make a large library with bookshelves in Blender?
Modelling the books on the shelf if easy, since only the binders would be visible, but what if we have to model an entire library of books, and books whose spines contain big letters?
Suppose we've got to model a large library of books that we're going to run our camera thoroughly and up very close.
We could model our books but when it finally comes to texturing them, do we texture the entire array individually or is there a workaround?
Since, the books are supposed to carry random styles and letters(describing their titles) individually, is texturing them entirely the only way?

This is clearly a very interesting project to look into. Recently I saw a post on the agenzasbrothers blog, that mentions random distribution of textures. The setup had only four textures, which doesn't deliver much variety. I also remembered another tutorial about randomizing color values on leaves.... I'll try my hands on that as soon as I have some spare time.

thanks a lot, could you perhaps drop a link here of the aforementioned blog?

Of course. Randomize Textures (https://agenzasbrothers.com/en/blender-tip-26-distribute-textures-randomly/) and randomize colors (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LeFij0JS6w)

I wish I could give an upvote, thanks a tonne

@metaphor_set, have you ever used the below mentioned 'free' addon?

No. I only use very basic addons, since the more complicated ones tend to clutter up the UI

The solution here I think would be particle systems.
Model a few different book shapes, apply a few different book cover textures and you should have enough variation to make it seem believable.
You can then use some sort of emitter object running along the length of your bookshelves with a particle system to quickly distribute the books
Manually modeling thousands of books would be cumbersome and unpractical, but modelling a few variations, like say 10, with a few different textures , like say other 10 and you already have 100 possible different combinations of books.
You could also look into randomizing the textures procedurally, which would add even more perceived variation with little additional effort. If you are using Cycles the Random output socket of the Object Info node may help.
There are also a few book generation addons, both commercial (here and here) and free that could help if you want to automate the process.

it seems it is a purchasable addon, do you think there is a free addon though?

Yes, there is also one free apparently. Answer updated, added link info for BookGen addon.

is the free one only for modelling books(i tried it and it's really great), but How do you also texture them randomly?

Never used any of them but my guess is after creating the books you can customize the materials and assign your very own random book cover shader. If they are a single object you may have to separate them into several objects.

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


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Maths question regarding curved bay window
I have been using Archimesh to create floor plans for a representation of my house. Generally, this is OK but it really is not very flexible with curved walls and cannot reflect my bay window at all.
All curved walls so far have not been smooth enough to add the 4 bay equal size window panels that I have.
I have finally decided that I will succumb to splitting the bay into 4 straight walls.
As it is not an exact representation, but I do want it to look right, I realise I have a maths problem to solve to identify the angles and lengths of these 4 walls.
The width of the bay on my plan is 240cm. At the centre of the bay, it should reflect a protrusion of 70cm and the curve of the bay is consistent with an arc on a perfect circle although I cannot be sure how many degrees of circumference this would be. It looks roughly 75 degrees to me. I expect with the width of the bay and the distance the window protrudes, this can all be calculated.
If anyone could provide me with wall lengths and angles to create this, I would be grateful.
Also, in case I have to change scale but with the same ratios, I would be grateful for the working to calculate this in the future.
Width of bay  240cm
Maximum protusion at centre of window 70cm
No of sections to split curve 4
Cheers

Hi. I understand you would be using these measurements in Blender, but I think asking a question which just requires maths for the answer would be more on topic for somewhere like https://math.stackexchange.com/ (but you would have to check what is on-topic for their site). Thanks.

I’m voting to close this question because it is not about using Blender.

Related? https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/133870/how-can-i-create-a-mathematically-correct-arc-circular-segment

@batFINGER .. definitely. The circumcircle of a triangle. My turn to dodge a bullet.

@RayMairlot If the solution is scripted, or uses a Blender tool, is that Blenderish enough?

@RobinBetts Not entirely sure. The question seems like a general maths problem, which isn't on-topic. If the solution is related to blender that seems separate to whether the question is related, which tends to be the important part that determines if the question is on or off-topic. Maybe it's a border case. But I definitely think you could have a question on a separate StackExchange site that uses Blender as a solution, but that doesn't mean the question itself would be on topic here.

FWIW: I flip flopped on the fence n fell off, ie voted to close then retracted.  Question could be edited to "What is the (quickest or easiest or best or ... ) way to do this in blender"  which often get thru.

@batFINGER's or something like it, is clearly the most accurate way, but if eyeballing is enough, you can use the Spin tool to create an arc between 3 points.
If the 2 end vertices are not aligned to a convenient set of axes, you may have to make a Custom Orientation from them.
Select the 2 end vertices, and ShiftS Cursor to selected.
ShiftD duplicate one of the end vertices, and call up the Spin tool. Adjust the spin center in the perpendicular to the two ends to pass the arc of the spun vertex through the third point, and its angle to span the end points.

I think all answers helped and allowed me to work out using planes, circles  and vertices to work it out. Cheers


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NOOB - confused by plane coordinates
I am using Blender in conjunction with a Sweet Home project that was well on the way. I am learning how to create models in Blender but have only just begun. However, my other project requires ceiling light models with light source coordinates where bulbs would be. I have a free source model for my light fitting and imported into Blender. I clicked on the faces within each light bulb holder (3 in total at 120 degrees to each other) and, although these are in different spatial positions, I was confused by the XYZ coordinates for each of these being in the same position. I had made sure it was these 3 separate faces clicked each time. Why would XYZ coordinates (in metres to to 5 decimal places) show as the same XYZ values?
I realise this will just be my misunderstanding but any help gratefully accepted.

Did you select the faces or the objects which are at the same location?

The XYZ coordinates, depending on where you're looking, are dependent on the origin of the object, not the individual faces. Better viewed in Object mode than Edit mode. It may be that you have 3 different lights, but only one object, or the origin of all of the lights is at the same location. Sometimes when objects are created in another program an array or copy is used in creating the multiple objects, and the origin remains the same.
Here are two objects with the same origin location (denoted by the orange dot between them), and thus the same XYZ coordinates, even though the objects are in different locations:


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Animation that produces object change eg curtain drawstring torus
I am making my first delicate steps into animation by creating a pair of curtains, via a plane, and using animation of a torus scaling down to move the cloth via the Collision property.
I wanted to do a pair and to try and make the pair look natural in that they might be slightly different with different torus size and positioning.
So I did 50 frames of a left and right curtain with their own toruses applied.
the animation only worked correctly for one of these. The second one scaled down at a much higher rate than the 50 frames suggested and created one pair of very distorted curtains and a very small torus, way smaller than the torus size I had saved at 50 frames.
I have 2 questions and would like help with both:

Is there any reason why 2 animations would create an anomaly in one of them?
In this instance, I only want to use the result of the animation ie the affected curtain and torus. Can I save these as objects that are fixed with the folds as result of the animation? I guess this is a simple "how do I save and use the animation result".

Unfortunately there isn’t enough information to be able to say why your two animations are behaving differently - most likely there is a significant difference such as additional keyframes or differences in geometry (such as negative scale - try ‘Apply Scale’ or check the direction of your normals).
However, to ‘fix’ the state of the cloth simulation into your mesh (so it becomes a static mesh again) you simply play the simulation to the point you want and then in the Modifiers panel click ‘Apply’ on the Cloth modifier. This will apply the current state of the simulation to the mesh and it will no longer be simulated.


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Add node into multiple materials
I have seen that a Python script can update several materials, that contain basically the same nodes, with simple value changes (Change multiple specific nodes in multiple materials (with python?))
I need to do something like this to affect over 2400 almost identical materials.
I have used a map globe downloaded from 3d Warehouse. This globe is black and white, and has been created by the designer using over 2400 jpegs of map squares and identical materials with unique jpeg names in the initial Base Colour node (see picture below).
The Material names are GLOBE_0 through to GLOBE_2448. If a node group had been used with the unique jpeg as input, I could change the node group to affect all. However, that was not the case.
I want to change the colour from black and white to gold and cream. I believe this update of the image could be created as a node group, with an input/output of Color, and slotted in between the Base Colour and Principled BSDF nodes. Although I am still a Blender novice, I will work out what this node group should contain (probably nick similar transformations in Blender STackExchange if I'm honest!). However, I don't know how the slotting in of a new node group would be scripted in Python.
The commonalities in all these materials are:

Material names - GLOBE_0 through to GLOBE_2448
A new node group - call it ColorGold
Link between Base Colour and Principled BSDF nodes

Thanks in advance.

Try this
import bpy

group_name = "ColorGold"

for mat in bpy.data.materials:
    if not mat.name.startswith("GLOBE_"): continue

    # Find Principled node
    for n in mat.node_tree.nodes:
        if n.type == 'BSDF_PRINCIPLED': break
    else: continue

    # Find Base Color texture node
    soc = n.inputs["Base Color"]
    if not soc.links: continue
    if soc.links[0].from_socket.name != "Color": continue
    tex = soc.links[0].from_node
    if tex.type != 'TEX_IMAGE': continue

    # Insert group node
    g = mat.node_tree.nodes.new("ShaderNodeGroup")
    g.node_tree = bpy.data.node_groups[group_name]
    g.location = tex.location[0] + 100, tex.location[1]
    tex.location = tex.location[0] - 250, tex.location[1]
    mat.node_tree.links.new(g.outputs[0], n.inputs["Base Color"])
    mat.node_tree.links.new(tex.outputs["Color"], g.inputs[0])

That is perfect. Thank you so much.


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3D Cursor appears to be invisible while 2D animation mode / 2.82
I recently started using Blender for creating 2D animation scenes. Unluckily, I faced an issue of inability to track the 3D cursor as it is  invisible. I was amused that still I felt free to set its position manually or back it center by Shift + C. This means the 3D cursor isn't disabled, but hidden instantly in this mode. There's no related label in Settings and there's no search bar in the Settings menu idk where it is supposed to be. Oh plz help me to fix this.

You mean the window on the left? You need to turn on overlays first, the cursor should be enabled by default, but check the box if it isn't. This works the same in other viewports as well, but overlays are usually enabled by default.


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How to randomize bevel weight modifier through geometry nodes
I am trying to randomize the width of the bevel modifier by creating random values through geometry nodes. I managed to create attributes and create a vertex group that the bevel node takes in, which seemed to work. However, it doesnt seem like it looks at the values each of the vertices have. I looked around and i believe that this is either broken or simply not supported. Should this attribute be created for vertex or edges? Ultimately i think it would need to take in a combination of a selection of vertices to bevel, and the weight values.

Part of the confusion is that if i created an attribute on the mesh itself it should be able to read it? Even the manual says that the Bevel Modifier is expecting an attribute called "bevel_weight" however no matter what i do, the modifier simply does not read it.

Hello. You need to use "Vertex Group" option instead of "Weight". Bevel weight are a special data type that is not stored in the same place as vertex group (AFAIK)

The attribute "bevel_weight" is actually a built-in attribute that cannot be influenced with Geometry Nodes, but can only be applied to parts of the mesh in Edit Mode. The only possibility you have, and @Gorgious already mentioned this correctly, is that you control it via vertex groups. But you have no possibility to define the intensity of the bevel there.

Oh, right the vertex group option is an on / off type of thing, so you can't vary the bevel amount unfortunately. I'm sure down the line they'll implement a way to do it, or even implement the bevel node, but at the moment you can't.

If anyone's interested, here's a video showcasing progress and problems with this feature https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16dpUQ57Xv8&t=1s

Thank you everyone for answering my question. It's a shame that this isn't supported yet. I'm looking forward to this new bevel node.

this isn't posted just yet. I believe the blender devs are planing on making more attributes generic and able to be influenced by geometry node. however, it isn't possible now, and I'm not sure if this speed attribute is on their plans for anytime soon

Update: 09/09/2024
now they added more functionality. you could now use any attribute to set the bevel weight in the modifier.
see here: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/117366
https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/commit/cc5ed48cd34d89522e885bec0adb91623053e5e8

they just added the functionality now, so you can use the attributes bevel_weight_vert and bevel_weight_edge to set the weight for the bevel modifier from GN.
See here:
https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/108023
here is an image example (it forsure works in 4.0.

What version of Blender has this update? This is very exciting news!

Sadly it doesnt look like it works unless im doing something wrong. Downloaded version 3.6 to text. In the link you provided, it looks like they are adding the weight by hand, and making sure the weight is retained when instanced and or "joined". Or at least that is what it looks like to me.

@Raul Note: Unfortunately, this technique is currently only available from version 4.0 (as of July 9, 2023) ...and this is only downloadable in an early alpha version: https://builder.blender.org/download/daily/archive/

My apologies, i got excited and didnt see that it was for Blender 4. Thank you so much for letting me know!


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How to set snapping hotkeys in blender 2.8
I am trying to set up a few custom hotkeys for ease of access. I want to set up v to be point snap and x to be grid snap. So far if I hover to the snapping menu and try to bind the hotkey there it hotkeys the menu. I did a bit of digging around and found out that I can use the following way. Except when I try it in this new version of blender I get some errors. Just wondering if anyone can tell me the proper way to access these commands without having to make an operator for it.


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Accessing uv attributes with python
ive found scattered information on how to access the uv attributes of a mesh. I cant quiet understand the procedure here. All i want to do is get the position of the uvs for the selected vertices in the viewport. But i keep running into all the errors. Any help or suggestions are welcomed.
import bpy
obj = bpy.context.active_object
#first lets make sure this is a mesh
if obj.type == 'MESH' and obj.data.uv_layers:
    print("this is a mesh and has uvs")

    mesh = obj.data # Get the attributes of the mesh
    cur_uv_layer = mesh.uv_layers.active.data
    obj.update_from_editmode() #Loads edit mode tata into object data.

    sel_verts = [v for v in mesh.vertices if v.select]

    if len(sel_verts)>0:

        for uvs in sel_verts:
            uv_data = cur_uv_layer[uvs.index].uv
            print("UV:", uv_data[0], uv_data[1] )

else:
    print("This mesh does not have uvs!")

Please provide the error message, reproduction steps etc, next time. "But i keep running into all the errors" is really not helpful.

That was part of my issue, there were no errors. My script wouldnt find anything therefore it printed "This mesh does not have uvs". Sorry for the lack of info

For the way you wrote the script (update_from_editmode), you just need to add this line
bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode="OBJECT")  # here
obj = bpy.context.active_object

to make sure you are in object mode before.

But i keep running into all the errors

You run into one type of error when you are in edit mode in this line uv_data = cur_uv_layer[uvs.index].uv:
IndexError: bpy_prop_collection[index]: index 2 out of range, size 0

because the selected vertices (i selected one with index 2) in edit mode have not been loaded into the object data.
Side note:
for uvs in sel_verts:
    uv_data = cur_uv_layer[uvs.index].uv

is meh. Better is something like:
for vert in sel_verts:
    uv_data = cur_uv_layer[vert.index].uv # this makes sense


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Baking light into material not working
I'm trying to bake several light points into my texture to export to unity, but it's not working and I have no idea what could the problem be. It's a model of a hand that it's supposed to be looked at from the inside of the model. Whenever I try to bake the lighting into the texture it comes out as completely black. I'm really lost on this one, I would really appreciate some help (I can also share my file with anyone). This is the lighting I'm trying to bake:


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Randomize material on procedural cubes in new "Fields" Geo nodes in 3.0 alpha
Below is an example setup of my geo nodes.
How can add a random material to faces of each cube with latest geo nodes fields update?

3.0 Is still under development, try with a stable version

Using instance collection worked

How does the node tree add a random material for each face ?

Added image showing instance collection


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How do you create a hole in an object that is material based?
So I'm working on an object and I want to create holes in it that are material based.
Take a look at the example:

This example is from Cyanide227 and I'm referring to the rectangular holes seen on the part of the tire that touches the road.
As you can see, there are no holes in the mesh, it is material driven.
I've been experimenting with baking normals as well as using bump, but I haven't been able to achieve the correct result:

The plane on the right has a rectangle cut through the mesh, the plane on the left has the baked normal from the other plane. It cannot achieve the depth regardless of the strength you set the normal map to.
I would greatly appreciate any help!

"As you can see, there are no holes in the mesh, it is material driven." Pretty sure those are modeled, you can see the thickness and inner faces. No amount of normal based trickery will add thickness

Your tire is very high poly, you can just extrud inwards where you are supposed to have a hole?

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos Thank you both for the replies! Yes I agree. After doing more research into this, I think it must have been modeled. The image Cyanide227 provided of his mesh led me to believe that the holes were material driven and so I wanted to find out if that was possible. Though, it still confuses me why the image he provided of his mesh didn't have the holes haha. Thanks for your time yall!


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Forces from Force-Field Settings inside of Particle System do not work past Frame 100
I am having trouble with force-fields (in the particle system itself) in that the function entirely as expected until frame 100, where they stop all force entirely and the particles go Limp. I have a cache that goes to 300 frames, and a rigid body world is also set up to 300 frames though I am sure this had no effect. I am unable to find any value for duration of force, and would assume that it is supposed to function indefinitely. How do I make this so?

please provide blend file


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How do you get to see UV mapping for a texture applied to a side of a human body made of hundreds of faces?
I have a human body and I want to add a texture to a side of it. The body is separated in hundreds of faces, vertexs, etc. When I select hundreds of faces in one side of the body (the back of the human body to start) and apply a texture to it, it works, but not in the proportions and mappings I want at all. So I would like to see that in the UV editor, but I see nothing, I suppose because I'm selecting hundreds of faces at the same time which are in one side of the human body (the back of the human body) . This is different than when you assign a texture to a side of a cube because you are selecting only one face so you automatically see the mapping in the UV editor.
How do you deal with these situations?
How do you get to see UV mapping for a texture applied to a side of a human body made of hundreds of faces?

The difficulty you're having is one of the reasons that sculpted (or otherwise high-poly) objects are retopologized before UV mapping, animation, or other tasks that high-poly load can make difficult.  Although you can search the Blender Stack Exchange or look through its retopology tag, if you're unfamiliar with it you should probably look for some Blender retopology beginner tutorials on YouTube or forums like Blender Artists.

Although @KickAir8p has a point here, it's not that you "see nothing" in the UV editor because you're "selecting hundreds of faces". The UV editor can show hundreds of selected faces, the questions are: is your object UV unwrapped correctly or does it even have a UV map?


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Blender wont import fbx animations correctly (Mixamo)
Made a character and threw it into Mixamo for some basic animations. Trying to edit/add to those animations now before importing into UE4. When I import the fbx to blender, it imports a tpose which is the root position of the armature. No keyframes. I can import the animation into UE4 and see that keyframes do exist and that it is an actual animation, just blender isnt importing properly. Tried in 2.8 and 2.79.

Someone managed to make it work from "skinless" ?

I found that importing the FBX with skin fixes the problem. I hope this helps.
If you export a binary FBX from Blender to Mixamo and get the expected results next thing is to download the FBX with animation and skin. What is usually done is to import all other animations without any skin. There is where I found the problem if The animation is downloaded without skin It wont re-target correctly.

Can you add a bit more detail, such as a screenshot of your import settings and a bit more explanation of why you think this will work?

Sure, If you export a binary fbx from Blender to Mixamo and get the expected results next thing is to download the FBX with animation and skin. What is usually done is to import all other animations without any skin. There is where I found the problem if The animation is downloaded without skin It wont re target correctly.


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Value node keyframe missing in graph editor
I am trying to bake a sound to an F-curve as input to a value node in the Shader editor. I follow the suggestions here and here. I can add a keyframe to a value node, open the Graph Editor, and I cannot see any keyframe similar to the second thread. This is what I see:

You can see a screencast of my steps here and here is an animated GIF from it:

I am new to Blender, so I think I'm doing something wrong.  The same thing happens whether I have selected the object to which the Shader node applies, or I haven't selected it. I have Blender 3.2.2.
Am I doing something wrong? Do I need to update to Blender 4?

Have you also selected the node? If it still doesn't work please share your file (with the useful object only)

Possible duplicate of https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/291261/bake-sound-to-f-curve-greyed-out

You need to select both the object in the 3D View and the node in the Graph Editor, or disable the Only Show Selected option:


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Value nodes and Node editor in 2D animation
I want to implement value nodes and baked F-curves that trigger object visibility following How to make baked sound f-curve trigger a layer's visibility? using 2D animation but, being new to Blender, I cannot find Value Nodes. I found Geometry Nodes in Modifiers following this short video and I can add a Geometry Node, but I don't see a menu item to edit that node. This is what I see:

If I start a 3D animation (File > New > General), then I can see the Geometry Nodes menu on the top bar. I have Blender 3.2.2.
Are geometry nodes and the nodes editor reserved for 3D animation? If not, how can I access them in 2D animation?
Are nodes specific to 3D

I think you're confusing a few things, so let me explain them before answering your questions.
Blender comes with pre-built setups (App Templates) focused on specific types of work. They can be accessed from the splash screen shown below. It seems that you're using the 2D Animation App Template.

The 2D Animation App Template includes four pre-built Workspaces which are the tabs you see at the top. Each Workspace is just an arrangement of Editors. The Workspace tabs are marked red in the screenshot below, while the Editors are indicated by blue borders.

You can customize any of these. You can customize an App Template by adding other pre-built Workspaces to it by clicking the + tab. You can also customize a Workspace by switching the Editor types it includes. The + tab is marked red, and the Editor type button is marked blue in the screenshot below. Clicking the Editor button for any of the Editors allows you to select a different Editor to switch to.

With the UI concepts out of the way, I want you to know that the 2D Animation App Template is intended for 2D animation by drawing with Grease Pencil. I don't think that's what you're doing, since your puppet is a mesh. I suggest to start with the General App Template. Just because you're working in 3D doesn't mean you have to output a 3D animation. In fact, the 2D Animation App Template is still in 3D, but it is set up in such a way that the 3rd dimension is ignored.
The answer you received on the question you linked to is not using Geometry Nodes. It is using Shader Nodes. Please note that Nodes are used in a number of Editors in Blender.

Are geometry nodes and the nodes editor reserved for 3D animation? If not, how can I access them in 2D animation?

No, they are not. You can access them by clicking the Editor type icon. You can also add the Geometry Nodes Workspace as shown below. I don't think that's what you need to do, though. I explained above.

Are nodes specific to 3D

No. There are different node systems in Blender (Shader nodes, Geometry nodes, and Texture nodes). They can be used for 3D or 2D. I suggest to stick with the Shader nodes for now, as the answer your received is using it.
If you want to continue following the answer you received. Switch one of the Editors to the Shader Editor or add the Shading Workspace. The Value node can be found in the add menu as shown.

If something is not clear, please feel free to comment below.

All is clear, thanks MrA! Side question: my object looks like a mesh but is actually a raster serving as texture on a plane object. I want to animate a series of raster images, similar to what Adobe Character Animator does with photo-realistic puppets, and I don't need the 3rd dimension, moving images left and right, swapping images, etc. Do you still suggest using the General 3D template instead of the 2D animation template?

@miguelmorin I think you're already familiar enough with the Blender UI that you can start with any template. I think the 2D Animation template may be easier, since you already have the camera set up to render 2D. If you start with the General template, you'll have to manually do that. Based on the answer for your other question, you will only need one plane mesh that will show one of the images you have based on how loud the sound is. All of this can be done in either templates.

I found it by chance: in the bottom window segment, left of "Grease Pencil", I have an icon. Clicking on it shows several menus, such as Graph Editor and including Geometry Node Editor.


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How to make baked sound f-curve trigger a layer's visibility?
I want to animate a picture of a puppet with two images, one with a closed mouth and one with an open mouth. I want to trigger the open mouth when an audio track goes above a certain volume.
This thread shows how to bake an audio track to an f-curve that controls the opening of two lips. I searched how to do the same to trigger an object's visibility, with words such as blender bake sound f-curve dopesheet show|hide|visibility layer|object and couldn't find a solution.
How can I trigger a layer's visibility from the volume of an audio track?

I have no idea if you can change the baked F-curve, but if not, you can still use a driver to control the visibility of an object or control a shader to display different images. Actually, the property for the object's visibility is the opposite "disabled in render/viewport" so you need to flip the control value. For images you can use a Mapping node or a UV Wrap modifier or even a Mix node.

@Blunder Thanks for the tip: I was able to setup a driver and control the visibility of an image (following https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwcMyAf3MCk ). The driver can take a Python expression; how can I connect it to a threshold volume in the audio track or to the baked f-curve?

Here is an example where I do it with three images of a closed, slightly open and more open mouth and two different thresholds, don't know if this is what you are looking for:
I take a Value node and give it a keyframe so that I can bake a sound to the curve in the Graph Editor (under Channel > Bake Sound to F-Curves).
Then I have the three Image Texture nodes and two Color Mix nodes. First I'm mixing the closed and slightly open mouth. The mix factor is a threshold I've set with a Math node set to Greater Than and some value which I want to be the one where the mouth switches from closed to open.
In the next Color Mix node I plug the result of the first, and the other input is the fully open mouth. The mix factor is another threshold that's higher than the first.

These mouth images do not move realistically to look like they were actually saying the words since they do not adjust the shape to vowels etc., but for a simply two-image version just mouth close/open this should work fine. Only the threshold value is something you might find out with try and error when it looks best or at least good enough.
Since we can only upload GIFs here and they have no sound, below the mute animation there is a link to a video with sound. This is far from perfect, just a quick test.

Video: mouth with sound

just one addition: the "Bake Sound to F-Curves ..." menu entry is in the "Channel" menu of the Graph Editor (Blender 3.x). It's no longer in the "Key" menu as mentioned in the question linked above.

@Blender Of course you're right. I disregarded explaining more in detail how to bake sound to F-curves as this did not seem to be the problem and already been done. But good additional information.

Perhaps I should have posted it as a comment under the answer, right? Just saying this because I couldn't find it right away when I followed the instructions.

@Blunder You posted it as comment under the answer, didn't you? I can see it there ;)

Thanks! This is exactly what I want indeed, but being new to Blender and nodes I cannot replicate it. I can't find the Nodes editor when using 2D animation, only in a 3D animation in Geometry Nodes on the top bar. The docs and YouTube have been of little help. Do nodes come out-of-the-box for 2D animation or do I need to install an add-on?

@miguelmorin You said you wanted to switch between two images, so I assumed you were doing this in the material for an object. What you see in the screenshot is the Shader Editor, in which you can edit materials. If you  do not know what this is, I would highly recommend to watch Youtube tutorials on material setup and texturing to learn the basics of this.

After some trial-and-error and more help from StackExchange, I finally got this to work! Thanks for your help!


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Rigging a model from Kaedim/Midjourney
I am new to Blender and used Kaedim/Midjourney to create a 3D model from pictures. I have a puppet that I want to turn into a rigged 3D model to create poses and animations. I give the meshes a color, create a bone structure, select all meshes, select the armature, and hit Ctl-P, then With automatic weights. I get the error Bone Heat Weighting: Failed to find solution for one or more bones.
I found this thread that suggests joining all meshes and removing duplicate vertices. I join all meshes and the process fails. I select only the central mesh, and the process also fails. I select an object and merge vertices by distance, but above 0.002m I delete some faces, and below it I remove no vertices.
You can check the .obj model from Kaedim and the .blend model colored and with bones. (Note: the puppet is proprietary and I have a license for its use.)
How else can I fix the topology and rig this puppet? If that's impossible, what makes models from Kaedim impossible to rig?

Hello, you have overlapping vertices, select all in Edit mode and press M > Merge by Distance and parent again

Thank you moonboots. I just tried again, and now it worked. I don't understand what I did wrong the first time, but you saved me a lot of work. Can you please write an answer?

This is how I could rig your model with automatic weights:
Starting from your file, select the body, go to edit mode, select all, press Ctrl E > Clear Sharp.
Then press M (merge by distance 0.0001)
Then press Aly J (Tris to Quads).
Now in object mode you can parent the body to the armature with Ctrl P > Automatic weights.
For the others spare parts you can simply select one of them, shift select the armature, go to pose mode, select the relevant bone and press Ctrl P > Bone. Repeat for all.
You will need some manual weight paint tweaks, anyway.

Thank you for the quick solution. I tried the comment from moonbots and that did it. I don't understand why it didn't work the first time; probably because I'm new to Blender.

I edited the meshes to remove some kinks (Biset tool + fill), removing vertices by distance, and the rigging failed with the same message. I then tried your method and it worked, so I'm accepting it.

Can you explain the advantage of triangles to quads for rigging?


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ManuelBastioni addon
I recently got a new computer, and all my Blender addons are gone. One addon I can't get it is ManuelBastioni lab, because the site is under construction.
So does anyone have the .zip file of the addon, I would be really happy if you could share it.

This site is not for this, but here you are https://github.com/animate1978/MB-Lab

It seems that the original add-on has been discontinued. However, there's a community supported branch of the add-on available at https://github.com/animate1978/MB-Lab/wiki

I have this problem https://i.imgur.com/pYzJ3KP.png

The latest version of MB supports Blender 2.8 but 2.8 includes some changes that mean add-ons aren’t compatible with versions of Blender prior to 2.8. I think to use it on 2.79 you’ll need an earlier version downloadable from here : https://github.com/animate1978/MB-Lab/releases/tag/1.6.5b


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How to run a script just before freestyle is invoked?
Is it possible to automatically run script before freestyle is invoked?
I know there are handlers, but it looks like there is no "before_freestyle" handler.


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node help: how to make a curve with linear and module
How do I do it node in curve?
image 2: curve but i used modifier

You mean warp a texture in shader nodes?

You can do this with a Vector Math node.
Start with the horizontal band texture that you want to warp (I used a wave texture cut with a ColorRamp as an example).

Pick another texture to use as a "warp factor". I used a wave texture set on the Y axis. I didn't use a ColorRamp, because the natural gradient of the texture will help make the wave "curve" smoothly.

Then, use a Vector Math node to add the Color output of the "warp factor" texture to the original input vector. Use the result as a vector for your initial horizontal band texture. I added a MixRGB Node between the warp factor texture and the Vector Math node, because it lets you control the strength (and therefore the warp factor) of the texture output by changing the mix factor.

thanks helped much


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Is it possible to make VDB like the Bunny Cloud VDB example all in Blender 2.8?
Is it possible to make VDB volumes such as in this Redshift tutorial in Blender 2.8 ?
https://vimeo.com/201028766

I tried the principled volume shader from this tutorial : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPAYX8z9i8M
It works ok using primitives & even Suzanne,
but it doesn't takes the general shape of the mesh and turns it into a cloud / smoke : it just make the clouds "contained" in it, with boundaries clearly visible.
And strangely, on others meshes, the clouds aren't even displayed at all. I tried messing with applying all transforms, scaling the textures on the material, with no luck.
I'd like to play with this type of render on complex meshes.
I guess this can be done in Redshift and exported as this particular bunny model is available on Openvdb's site and opens up fine in Blender 2.83 but i'd like to do it in Blender.

Make a colision object that looks like the bunny, then make an emitter inside of the bunny


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Grey screen while rendering
(First Post Here so sorry if I did something wrong while posting) I recently decided to render a car, but when I pressed the render button I was greeted with a Grey Screen. I've been to many other forums and tried their solutions but none of them worked. So I thought maybe I did something wrong and I decided to render the default cube in a new project and nope the same thing happened again.
I tried reinstalling blender and even updating it from 2.82 to 2.83 but nothing worked. And before you ask, Yes the camera button in the layers menu has been selected. After a bit more digging around I found out that a project I made a few months ago might've been the cause for it because every other project before that one renders perfectly. But every project after that one gives me the grey screen.
Link to the project I want to render:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/1mjexg43uugbla3/Honda_Civic_2003AT.blend/file
Link to the project which I think might've caused a problem:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/u4rfu8i8hesxv2n/ElonHuman.blend/file
Thank you

In the Output settings > Post Processing, you've enabled the Compositor option. If I take a look I see an Image node plugged into the Composite node. Plug an Input > Render Layers node instead and it works.


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How do I fix teeth error bottom and fix the eye rigs?
I'm try to fixing the rig correct. I try to figure out how to fix the teeth inside the mouth and I want eyes to follow it well and smooth. I have not much learn about about rigging or weight paint. I'm a beginner.

In Rigify rigs eyes are supposed to be a separate mesh (if not, select an eye in edit mode and press P to separate it from the rest). Then select the eye, shift select the armature, activate the 30th bone layer, select the MCH-eye bone (the only one which has a little target bone on its tip) and press Ctrl p > Bone.

The same applies to teeth, in this case you can directly parent them to the teeth control bones which are in the layer number 0 (Face bone layer).


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Is Blender the "right" program for modelling 3D puzzles?
My end goal is to make a 3D wooden "puzzle" model of a car for my nephew. The wooden car would be made up of Tetras-shaped blocks that can be dismantled and resembled assemble.
My plan is to import the drawings of my chosen car and 3D model it (should be straight forward. Next, I would split the model into different shaped blocks and then print these individual blocks out on paper to use as a template. I would then use these paper templates to make a working prototype out of foam.
As the only blender experience I have had is playing along with The Blender Guru's Donut tutorial, I would like to know if blender is the right program to do this? I have seen that you can brake models down into cubes in Blender but it doesn't seem to keep the overall shape.

Blender can make almost any shape you want. Does it require that you learn how to use it? Yes. There are some answers here that you might find useful. https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/92440/workflow-to-model-and-texture-a-jigsaw-puzzle? and https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/75733/how-can-i-uv-unwrap-a-mesh-based-on-its-3d-perspective-in-the-viewport? and https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/92622/how-do-you-texture-multiple-objects-with-a-single-image?

Awesome, thanks I'll have a look at the links. Yeah there is a fair bit of learning ahead  and possibly a new gpu .


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How to change Viewport background color
I would like to draw on a dark gray or black background, but I do not yet know how to change the background color of the 3D viewport in Grease Pencil mode.

Go to Shading and change the color
Hope that helps.

Good Luck

Very helpful. Suppose you want a transparent background afterwards, before exporting to image sequence. What do you do?

Go to Render >> Film >> Transparent

Thank you very much. That helps.

You can control this also in the World Properties section.

It hasn't really changed, in the shading you can control the background for the viewport as well as the world.  Additionally you can do this in the world settings.

@susu That might be true, but it's definitely moved from where the other clip showed it was located at and that is confusing. Which is why I think forums like these shouldn't necessarily post clips/videos/images about it - as they get outdated really quickly. It's my honest opinion that answers like these should reference to the manual page upstream when referencing a solution, so that users can follow the changes. Dead links is an issue, but that's more for blog posts etc. Product manuals should be alive during the lifetime of the product at least.


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Fire overlaying smoke bug
i’m having a really bad time trying to follow one of Blender Guru’s tutorials. in his fire and smoke cycles tutorial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-zK7Bu8cAI) his smoke particles appear realistically in front of the fire when played in the viewport. Mine however always has the fire rendered completely in front of the smoke, no smoke can be seen in front of the flames, this is especially apparent when viewed from the top down.
Does anybody know what could be causing this? He is using blender 2.73 whereas I am using 2.79, could something have changed there?
Here is his fire

and here is mine

What do you have the smoke set to?  It could be that his is set to smoke+fire when yours is set only to fire.  This setting is under the domain settings, the first setting on the right


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Blender 4.1 how to correctly use "#Frame"?
How to correctly use #Frame to rotate camera around object?

Parent camera to empty.
select Empty.
Rotation Z: #Frame/30

Syntax tried: Rotation Z: #Frame/30 #frame/30
example tutorial

Works fine here. Are you sure you're using the Z rotation of the Empty rather than the Camera? You also need to start the animation of course (Ctrl-Space)!

The variable frame should be all lowercase.
Preceded with # to generate the driver with the simple expression frame/30. If you already wrote the expression, the driver with the expression is already made, as shown by the purple color of your input, so you shouldn't include the # again when you edit it. In fact, if you click the driven value, you should see the expression written already, but without #.

So in your case, when you first create the driver: #frame/30
If the driver already exists: frame/30.


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Animating animated 2D Sprites
I'm pretty new to Blender but wish to use it for an animated project. Now, the animation itself will be pretty simple after I figure out how to pull off this one effect, but first I need to see if it can pan out.
What I want basically is to animate with Animated 2D Sprites that swerve about in a 3D setting, akin to something like the Nintendo video game Paper Mario or the YouTube series Petscop.
Here is an example of an animated sprite:

I would want to be able to alternate between sprites for a few characters, but really, that is the length of what I need to know. Any way to pull this off that isn't excruciating? Thanks a lot.

do you wanna mix 2d with 3d? what did you try? did you check "grease pencil"?

Not even sure what grease pencil is. Basically what I want is to be able to have objects that are merely sprite textures, like planes to move about but with an animated texture on top.

does this help?https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/18363/animating-eye-texture-in-a-head-mesh

Would that work with image transparency? Again, I'm very new.

yep: check this https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/6416/transparent-image-textures-in-cycles/6423#6423

Thanks so much for all the references. It seems like a LOT of work with a sprite with this many frames, but if it's the only way...

Try the grease pencil (use google or your favorite search engine). It will give you the flexibility you are after.

Hmm I'll look into it.. this functions with imported images such as .gifs?


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obj to glTF batch exporter
I have a set of obj exports comprising of a million files(each file between 100-200kb). Is there are a way to pick up files from a folder and export them to glTF? What I am talking about is batch importing obj files to batch export to glTF. I am new to blender and would really appreciate if anybody can guide me on this.

related: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/168140/batch-exporting-scene-collections-or-selected-objects-using-gltf-blender-io/175968#175968

You can do batch export from Blender in the same way as described in Export multiple objects to .obj, but with the glTF export API. That said, I think a standalone CLI converter might be easier to use in this case, like obj2gltf.

I have been referring to this link and trying to get the import>export and later delete it running it on loop https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/10709/re-import-obj-and-replace-existing?noredirect=1&lq=1


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Is it possible to save a preference for not showing the Menus in the Startup file?
I work on a small laptop and find the Menu Tabs (File, Edit, Render, Etc) prevent some of the Workspace Tabs from showing.  I've found the Headers>Show Menu check box, but its annoying having to click click it every time I open the program.  Saving a new Startup File with the checkbox cleared doesn't preserve this particular preference.  Is there a way to hide the Menu Tabs by default?

Related  https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/146815/get-topbar-area-instance

@Leander IMO your suggestion in comment to link above would make good answer here.

@Leander, your suggested change to show_menus at line 209 results in ALL menus at top not displaying.  Same result if "if" clause of block directly below is deleted.  Further suggestions?


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Is it possible to Generate a Master Shape Key from different objects?
I have Two objects in the scene, Each One Of Them has a shape key, is there a way to generate a master shape key to Control Both of the shape keys in those Objects at the same time.

If you select one of the shape key value you just need to right click on this one > Copy as new driver, then go to the other object> shape key value > Right click Paste driver


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How To Create The Loop Cut Effect on Triangles and Other Non-quadrilateral Faces
I have this image below of a model with a Selected triangle face, I want to create a vertical cut that will allow me to move the UV for the left side of the face.

I know you can only loop-cut on quadrilateral shapes only. So how would I cut this shape in half? Can I do something like this in the UV editor?
I tried using the knife tool but the line I created kept disappearing every time I picked both my edges.

You have to press enter when the knifetool selection is done

@WhatAMesh The line disappears after I select the top point of triangle and the bottom middle. The line only stays if I make cutting points inside the face.

Select the "bottom" edge, right click and select "subdivide" to put a vertex in the center of it. Then select that vertex, as well as vertex at the "top" of the triangle. and press J (join).

That did it, cheers


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How to edit UVs for a mirrored effect on textures
I have a hut model, here in blender from a game. I would like to export it to source engine.

It uses this texture below.

When I imported the model into blender, the textures didn't mirror like they do in the game I exported it from. They should look like this:

But when I export it, It actually looks like this in my editor:

It tried mirroring the texture itself in paint.net but that made it off center and look even worse.

My Only Option I guess is to manually edit the UVs So that it only covers the skull half of the texture. The other half is used for some other object in the level.
Can anyone show me how to do this? My UV editor looks like this below, when I select all the faces with that specific texture on.

For this, I dissolved the diagonal line going through the middle of my face. I then created a vertical loop cut down the centre of it, like so.

I then Went in the UV editor, selected all the edges of the left side of the face, and moved to be on the skull side of the texture.
All that's needed now is to download the UV: Magic UV Plugin, available in edit/preferences/add-ons, right click UV Unwrap Faces/Flip Rotate UV.
Done

That texture and UV map look like they were designed for a "mirror border" texture lookup: when the texture lookup uses UV outside of 0,1, it mirrors the image over the nearest border.  This is a good way to save texture space that is often used in game engines, but Blender doesn't have built-in functionality for it.  It's similar to "extend", "tile", "clip" options in an image texture node.
Even though Blender doesn't have built-in support for this border mode, it can be emulated in nodes:

Of course, that can all be combined into a node group for easy re-use.
However, when emulating border modes, there is a risk of getting texture filtering errors.  In your case, you'd see these filtering errors as a vertical line through the middles of your skulls.  This can be "fixed" by disabling texture filtering (by changing the image texture node's filtering method from the default "linear" to "closest"), or can be minimized by using "extend" border mode on the image texture node (although there may be some poor interactions with the occasional UV map in conjunction with the nodes I've demonstrated), but you can't really get proper texture filtering with a mirrored border until Blender supports it directly.


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Installing OpenSAGE.BlenderPlugin addon does nothing
I'm trying to install OpenSAGE.BlenderPlugin addon. I'm using Blender 2.93.4 , supposedly it works from version 2.81 on. I go to Blender Preferences, click on install and select OpenSAGE.BlenderPlugin-master.zip but nothing happens. The installing the plugin section of the plugin says to select io_mesh_w3d-X.X.zip to install it, but I dont see that file anywhere, only a io_mesh_w3d folder.
Anyone used this plugin and knows how to install it?

The instructions from their repository state that you need to download the zip file from the release page and not to download a copy of the repository's master branch.

Next you need to download the latest plugin version from the releases page: https://github.com/OpenSAGE/OpenSAGE.BlenderPlugin/releases
NOTE: Do NOT use the 'Clone or download' option since this downloaded .zip file will not install properly in Blender due to an invalid folder structure and naming!

Therefore, you need to download the io_mesh_w3d.zip as shown in the screenshot below.

I didnt understand what they meant, but now I see there are 2 links with files to download. Thanks.


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How do I change the position of the moving cursor for it to be over the object after importing that object to another blend file?
This is the upper part of the arm of a robot. In its original blend file the moving cursor is over the object.

After exporting that object as obj, and importing that obj to another Blender File, the moving cursor is far away from the object.

When I zoom in, the moving cursor not only isnt above the object, but it's out of the screen.

How do I change the position of the moving cursor for it to be over the object after importing that object to another blend file?

You can use this way:

Select your object
⇧ Shift +  S, and choose Selection to Cursor or you can choose Cursor to Selection.


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Exporting to mov file for transparency turn the smoke of a fire pixelated, how to avoid it?
I'm using Blender 2.93.4. I created a fire with a smoke using this tutorial,
Blender Tutorial - Low Poly Fire Animation (2.91)
Then, I exported a file to mov extension for having a transparent background using this tutorial,
Export Video with Transparent Background in Blender 2.9/2.8
using the options File Format FFmpeg video, container Quicktime, videocodec QT rle/QT animation.
I'm having the problem that exporting it like this turn the smoke of the fire to be pixelated. I thought that may be some of the options below the codec are the problem, but I dont know how to set them if that's the case.
How do I do to avoid the smoke of my fire to be pixelated when I export to mov format for having a transparent background?

First things first: Bad tutorial!
Why, you ask? because that dude directly exported as video. That is a Nono, my guy.
What you want to do first is: Export your animation as individual frames.
Why, you ask?
Because you can render as png with transparency in high quality. If your render crashes you still have the progress you have made with the finished images, so no need to start over, just start where Blender left off.
Then you can use this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bgab9VC_laQ
To get the image sequence into a video within Blender and try to use AVI instead of Quicktime, as that also supports transparency.
OR:
Go ahead and download davinci resolve. It is free and you will definitely be able to export high quality video out of it with transparency.
Hope this helps!


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How can I apply a seam position?
Whenever I import an Image texture for this toothpaste tube, the seam appears on the top of the tube, not the side. In Edit Mode I have tried 'Marking a seam' and it shows as a red line, but the image won't rotate to align with it. What am I doing wrong? Thanks

You just have to properly UV unwrap the model.
Here's a tutorial introduction to UV unwrapping in Blender.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7M-B6xnaEM&ab_channel=Blender

maybe check if you haven't created another UV Map, if not please share your file: pasteall.org/blend

Thanks Alexandre, of the dozens of UV videos I've watched, your recommendation was one of the best ;-)

The image won't move itself depending on where you put seams, it is you who have to edit the 2D unwrapping of your 3D model onto your picture.

Thanks, your answer got me thinking about the issue in a different way. However, when I define the Seam position and Unwrap, the seam still isn't to left or right of the 2D map, but in the middle, so I still have to cut the map up and move it around before importing my Image texture. I'm sure this is not how it's supposed to work!

Editing the UVs isn't just setting up seams on your mesh and hitting the unwrap button. You need to go in the UV editor, select your UVs and manually move, rotate and scale bits around so that they do what you need.


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Is it possible to add an HDR to the default 9 that blender comes with
I want to add it into the default library (drop down window headed Viewport Shading),NOT just create one using an environment texture node within the Shading setup.

You can find the respective menu in the settings under Lights.
Any HDRI can be used here, but i'd recommend scaling it down for its use as a preview first

Thank you, just the job, perfect ;-)


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How do you get PBR materials in menu?
Mine has IFC Material immediately under settings in Materials instead. Is this an add-on? (Didn't see it there either.) From this video: https://youtu.be/9zkJC1LJycc?t=548 Thanks!

Thanks for the response! I still don't have PBR materials even after clicking "Use Nodes" though?

Sorry, I should have looked more closely.  He doesn't seem to say so, but he's using the pbr materials add-on that you can download and install from the mentioned URL.

Go to 3d Wolf and click download.  That will download the file PBR Materials.zip
Open Blender and use the Edit Menu to Edit preferences
Go to the Add-Ons Tab and click install
Use the file browser that pops up to find PBR Materials.zip in your downloads and install it.
After a minute it will appear in add-ons.  Click the box to select it:

Once you've done that, the PBR Materials panel should show up in materials properties in your Blender when you have an object selected:


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Why do is there a gaping hole in camera view but not in viewport shading?
viewport:

camera view:

The shape is just a plane with two edges raised up to form a semi-room. Beveled the corners. Classic. I added a solidify modifier to see if being thicker would fix the hole but it didn't. The hole happens in rendering too.
shape of the background without object:

Your clipping distance is too high. Select your camera, press the little camera icon in the bottom right of your screen. Then, reduce Clip start to the lowest value. Right now it is too high in the picture, make it lower than that


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Using 'Bake Sound to F-Curve' to Drive Animation -- Invalid Python Expression
I am trying to use sound to drive my animation like in the second section of this tutorial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAes-ITNaGA&ab_channel=quollism)
I have created a utility bone with 'bake sound into f curve' and I am trying to paste the property to my right arm bone. The utility bone moves as I would like but when I try to link it to the right arm bone, it does not work.
I have tried pasting the absolute path of the custom property while it is in Pose Mode, which is bpy.data.armatures["Armature.006"]["sound final"] but I am getting an ERROR: Invalid Python expression and my curve is still the default one as opposed to changing into the sound curve. I notice in the tutorial, it looks like the path is something like pose.bone["name"] but I am unable to get a path like that despite it being a single bone and in pose mode.
Is there something wrong with the Expression being var or my path?
Thanks so much!

driver path of arm bone:

what I want the driver path to look like:

Drive the pose bone custom property.
Please note, didn't see the image correctly, it appears you have baked sound onto armature bone (the structure). In most cases recommend using the pose bones, which belong to the rig object, not the rig. If you really want to use the armature bones, go to second part of answer
Check out examples here https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/animation/drivers/workflow_examples.html#workflow-examples
Without checking the tute, you are going down the garden path.  Am assuming this custom property is on a pose bone of the object (pose mode), not a bone of the objects armature data (edit mode).
In example below have a property "prop" on a pose bone named "Bone".  This was set in pose mode, with bone selected in the Custom Properties Panel with Bone tab selected.  Consider this the prop I have baked sound on. Change names to suit your case

The object of interest is
bpy.data.objects["Armature"]

not
bpy.data.armatures["Armature"]

which btw is
bpy.data.objects["Armature"].data

In driver variables we do not use this as the data path instead choose the ID object, be it an Object or an Armature, a Mesh etc etc.. It is an Object type in this case.

For a single property type driver variable the path is relative to object selected as the driver variable target.  Hence in case above this is
bpy.data.objects["Armature"]

and the path to the custom property from here is
pose.bones["Bone"]["prop"]

This can be copied from the UI by right clicking over property and choosing "Copy Data Path" and pasting into path field of driver.  Result of paste.
pose.bones["Bone"]["prop"]

Using the Armature bone
On closer inspection it appears you have driven the armature bone. Would suggest changing this to the pose bone for most use cases.
If it is the case, then select the armature from Armatures when creating driver variable and use

bones["Bone"]["prop"]

as the path. As can be copied from

in object mode.


text:
Going from plane with texture to cylinder
I am wondering how to go from a plane with some depth/texture to a cylinder. It is easier for me to design on a flat plane but the eventual shape I want is a cylinder.

I saw the answer going from a flat plane to a cylinder, however it does not work for me because my plane has depth and texture.

Thank you!

Have you tried the Simple Deform modifier (Bend mode)?

Having Depth and Texture won't prevent the method you tried from working. It's just a matter of setup:

Make sure all your object scales are applied using Ctrl A before doing anything;
Make sure your meshes have enough geometry to deform appropriately to a
cylinder;
Make sure to place the empty either at the very top or at the very bottom of you plane shape, it will make it easier to deform from there rather than the middle;
Make sure to copy the modifiers on all the objects you need to deform;
Make sure the meshes all end at the same place, so that they meet at the same place once folded. If you have an object slightly shorter but you don't want to move anything visual, you can duplicate single vertices and use those as invisible endpoint markers.