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Marking Seams with Mirror Modifier?

As you can see the mirrored part has solidified, and when I press z the geometry is lighter and not selectable. Is it possible to mark seams? :/

unclear...what you mean by "solified"? you can't select a mesh part created my the mirror, you can only select the original part which has modifier applied. Unless you apply the modifier...

In the modifiers tab, any modifier that's in use has 4 buttons: Visible in Render, Visible in Object, Visible in Edit, and Vertex selectable in Edit mode. Press the last one, the one with the form of an inverted triangle. That should make the mirrored part be selectable in edit mode. Anyways, whatever you select there will also automatically be selected on the other part of the mesh that's the original mirrored and vice versa, because they are mirrored. Making seams on whichever of them will make the seam on the other, even if you did not select the mirrored vertex to be visible in edit mode.


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Enable OpenCL GPU Rendering on Ubuntu 16.04 with Intel Skylake GT2?
I know this is experimental technology and I shouldn't get my hopes up; I installed both the proprietary Intel OpenCL SDK (2016) and open-source Beignet (they don't seem to be interfering with one another) and devices appear under the OpenCL category when I run Blender 2.78 with
CYCLES_OPENCL_SPLIT_KERNEL_TEST=1 blender

The Beignet drivers are giving me compilation errors, but the Intel render kernels work for CPU rendering only.  When I attempt GPU rendering ("Intel HD Graphics" option), the render will stop on the first tile and will not progress further. I get no errors; with the Supported feature set I only get the message "Device init success" and with the Experimental feature set, I get the list of successfully compiled kernels.  I have tried running as root with the same results.  After several minutes, I get the errors:
OpenCL error (Intel(R) HD Graphics): Hardware running slow or hung.
OpenCL error (Intel(R) HD Graphics): Out of resources.
OpenCL error (Intel(R) HD Graphics): Out of resources.

I have an Intel® HD Graphics 530 (Skylake GT2) graphics chip alongside a quad-core Intel® Core™ i5-6300HQ CPU.
Perhaps it's time to get a dedicated GPU, but I'm wondering -- has anyone had success with this setup?

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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AMD FirePro GPU W5170M
Blender does not recognize this graphics adapter. I guess that means it is not compatible yet. Any recommendations on how to get this GPU to show up?

Did you try going to system preferences and then activate opencl?

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


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Blender facial / mouth rig by seperate bones, not shapes?
Thanks for stopping by.
So I'm trying to rig my characters mouth now, and I'm aiming for more emoji style mouth expressions, so I would like to use bones, and not different shapes. The mouth is a flattened sphere. I've weight painted it appropriately, with the left, right, top and bottom each having a share on disconnected bones.
I'm not sure whats wrong, but whenever I move the four bones that are weighted nothing happens. the mouth does move when I rotate the head, but in a kind of deformed messed up way. I think something isn't parented right?
If anyone has any input I would appreciate it! I'll try to attach a picture to show what I mean...
Thank you!

The bones controlling the mouth would normally be placed on the surface of the mesh and would be parented to the head bone so that they move with the head.

sidenote just to help you. If you want to control the mouth expressions from a offset control rig you would need shapekeys with drivers. shapekeys are probably the best anyways for emoji expressions

It would help, if you'd upload the .blend file. It's hard to guess, what is the cause just by description, but in general HenrikD is right. Shapekeys in this case are better option, much less work, more control over the mouth shape.


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Duplification preview with mirror modifier and subdivision surfaces
I'm trying to make an object where sides of it interact, when the subdivision surfaces modifier is added. I need all 6 sides of a cube to be edited from a single plane being edited. I want to be able to apply the mirror modifier to the plane to make it symmetrical and the result be duplicated across the sides of the cube. I tried duplication faces, but when I applied the modifier, the cube stopped updating in edit mode and only updated when I entered object mode and when it did update, the mirror modifier wasn't working on the duplicate planes. I also need it to merge close edges and to put the subdivision surfaces modifier on the resulting cube. I basically need a real time preview of what editing the plane, applying the mirror modifier to it, duplicating it to make the faces of a cube, removing doubles and applying a subsurface modifier to it would look like. This is so that I can see how the edges of the cube and the subdivision surfaces modifier interact. Thank you for any help :)

To avoid having a duplicate, you have to delete the side in which will be mirrored before using the mirror modifier. For example, if you want to have a mirrored cube, cut the cube into half first, delete one side of vertices before adding the mirror. That is one way you can avoid duplicates.
After you've got that settled, then add in the subdivision surface modifier as you wish.


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How do I mirror the faces of a cube (edit all of them when I edit one)?
I'm trying to create a design for a retro-futuristic computer and I need the faces of a cube to look the same and see the results as I edit them, to see how the edges of the cube interact. Furthermore, if I want to one day be a professional at Blender, it will be a good skill to have. How do I do this? Thank you for any help. :)

Use one or more mirror modifiers with a mirror object.
Use the array modifier with an object offset.
Use duplifaces displaying another object.

The third option suits your problem best, here is a step by step solution.

Add a plane ad duplicate it Shift + D.

Make sure both planes point to the same mesh datablock. If necessary, set the duplicated datablock to the same mesh. The mesh
datablock in the object properties panel should display a 2 at the
end.

Editing one plane now affects both, because they point to the same datablock.

Parent a plane to the cube Ctrl + P, both should have the same location.

Set the duplication property of the cube to Faces (in the object properties panel).

Editing one of the planes will now affects all faces of the cube. The plane parented to the cube will not be rendered. I duplicated the plane to make the edits to it easier, since the other plane is hidden in the cube.

In Blender 2.8, the "duplication property" is now in "object properties">"instancing".  Reference: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/scene_layout/object/properties/instancing/index.html

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


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How do I remove imperfections caused by the subdivision surfaces modifier?
I have run into imperfections with the mesh using the subdivision surfaces modifier before, but they were usually caused by either doubles or edges that penetrate the mesh. I tried removing doubles at a merge distance of 0.010, I tried degenerate dissolve and limited dissolve ruined my mesh. I also tried the recalculate outside method. I've looked around online, but other people's imperfections were caused by things I had already tried to solve, which weren't the causes of my mesh's imperfections.
How do I remove the imperfections near the eyes, including the creases and darker areas?

So everyone can try things out and see if their solution solves the problem, here is a link to the file I'm using:
http://www.filedropper.com/ambiguoussave11
Thank you very much for any help. :)
Knowing your problems may one day be resolved, it fills you with determination.

To correctly remove them search the topic "face topology" and adjust your mesh accordingly.

The imperfections in your model are mostly caused by faces with more than 4 sides (n-gons).
For an optimal subdivision surface calulation, you should try to use only 4-sided faces (quads). Triangles may look strange in some situations, but n-gons are smoothed pretty unpredictable.
You can find all n-gons in your mesh by selecting a quad, pressing Shift+G, choosing Polygon Sides and changing the Compare setting to Greater. Keep in mind that the first quad is still selected.

You can see that these are exactly in the most problematic areas.
In order to create quads from n-gons, split them using the knife tool (K). You can combine triangles by pressing X and coosing Dissolve Edges.
I also added a few edge loops to get this result:

before the "subdivision" modifier, try a "remesh" modifier (mode: smooth; octree: maybe 8; unselect remove disconnected faces). Then do a "decimate" modifier to a better/smaller poly count. Then do the "subdivision".


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Clear transform of control armature bones does not reset deform armature bones
I have a deform armature, with another separate control armature for the rigging and posing.
The control armature has IKs, Spline IK etc., and it does work to control the deform armature.
For the neck and base of the tail (the model is of a large felid), I have bones in the control armature that match the position of the deform bones, and I have a "Copy transform" bone constraint set up so that the deform bones follow the motions of the control bones.
This does work - but when I want to reset the positions of those bones, when I select the control bones for the neck and tail base, and choose "clear pose transform", the control bones are re-set to the default position, but the corresponding/matching deform bones ARE NOT and remain in the transformed position.
Does anyone know a way to fix this, and to reset both sets of bones?
I could reset the bones in the control armature then go in separately and reset the bones in the deform armature, but this would be more slow and not very pleasant as workflow.
Does anyone have any tips for this?

Could you add some images, or upload a blend file? http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/

It's ok actually, I changed the constraint from "copy transform" to IK control instead, and this seemed to resolve the problem. I'm not entirely sure what caused the issue the first time around, but switching this to IK and "use tail" ticked seemed to fix it.

Ah, thank you for this - I will fix that now. (still new to how this site works)

EDIT:
I changed the control set up so that the deform armature bone constraints were changed to "inverse kinematics" rather than "copy transform" - I do not understand how exactly, but this appeared to resolve the issue.


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Unwanted bone rotation around cursor
I have an rig set up with a control armature, and a deform armature.
I have some control bones that I use for IK constraints.
When I try to rotate some of these control bones, instead of rotating around the head of the bone as the pivot point, they rotate around the cursor - changing not just the angle of the bone, but also the position - which I DO NOT want.
I have made more than one version of my rig, saved as I went along. In an older version the rig has several problems, but at least there, when I rotate the bones, they rotate around their own heads as the pivot points, not around the cursor.
I want to be able to rotate the bones to change their angles, but not their positions.
Does anyone know what setting I may have unintentionally altered that has lead to the bones rotating around the cursor instead of their positions?
(the bones are parented to other bones in both versions, with "keep offset" - I do not understand why in one file, they keep their position as parented to the parent bone, and rotate around the head, whilst in the other, they rotate around the cursor and change the distance from the parent bone.)

EDIT:
I found a solution to this myself when I compared my older file with my newer file.
I unchecked the "manipulate around centre points only" box (the one with the three small dots and the arrows in the image below), then clicked on the menu to the left of that, and changed the pivot point from "3d cursor" to "median point". This worked perfectly to solve this problem!


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Path Curve Deform creates unprintable non-manifold geometry
I created an SVG vector mesh in illustrator, imported it to Blender and used it as a path to deform a triangle along. It makes a design that I rather like. Unfortunately when I convert that path to mesh, it is unprintable due to the ways the geometry doubles over itself at each vertice. Blender's 3D printing tools delete or destroy the mesh when I try to fix it. What are the keys to using path deform without creating overlapping or self-intersecting geometry? The finished form is meant to be 3D printed. Thanks for any help you might have. I have tried other mesh-fixers to fix the non-manifold issues and none of them work. I have also tried using path deform with dozens of different checked boxes and still no luck.

Welcome to Blender.SE! Is it possible for you to upload your file with your object before it is converted to mesh? The problem could be easier to solve before conversion. Also see http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/47217/extrude-and-bevel-an-imported-svg-curve


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Disable Functions Of 3D Cursor
The 3D cursor is a real pain for me. Is there any way to make it so whenever I select an object, the 3D cursor moves onto it? I hate having a model in one place and having to move the cursor all over to be able to move the model large distances.
I think I recall Blender not relying on the 3D cursor as much in previous versions.

It's possible to snap cursor to selection using Shift+S menu. It's strange that you need to move cursor in order to move models, could it be that you activated 3D Cursor as Pivot Point ?

No, this is not supported (although its possible to do this using Python, it would be quite a hack).


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exporting video with transparent background
I have searched but not found an answer that exactly answers or works.
I have a rotating rendered head animation that I want to export with a transparent background so I can import into final cut pro x and lay over video footage or still imagery. I have tried saving as a blender render as quicktime .mov with alpha as transparent and as RGBA but doesnt work, a black BG. I have also tried as a cycles render but still black BG. Is there any particular file format that is better for this? H.264, MPEG, .mov? or something I am missing? thanks

this has been asked countless of times! http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/14546/transparent-background-for-animation

Related - http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/2050/any-video-formats-that-render-with-alpha-channel. Older thread from SO - http://stackoverflow.com/questions/644684/turn-image-sequence-into-video-with-transparency

That was the 1st post I went to, followed what it said and its not working.

Had to export as series of transparent pngs, then import them iinto final cut pro as images and merge together. Odd that so difficult for Blender to export a video with transparent BG?

Alpha and codecs don't behave terribly well. At last check, only the horrific QuickTime encoder on OSX permitted an alpha channel.
As with all good work practices, it is much more prudent to encode to a still format where plausible, and deal with encoding at the very tail end of a pipeline.

Same problem for me.
The only solution now found, a series of PNG export, import this series in Compressor and export compatible format for Final Cut Pro.
3 manipulations instead of one.

ok, thanks.  Is there another software besides apple final cut pro that can do the Job? This is only for apple Mac and I dont't have an apple Mac.


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exported .obj files have now 3 seperate parts
I have an object with 3 separate layers/meshes. I need it to be only 1 layer to import and attached various scripts in unity.
I have brought it into blender and joined the separate meshes so now only one mesh and also one UV layer.
But when I export it out again as a.obj file and then import the .obj file to unity it separate it again into 3 separate layers. am I exporting it incorrectly?

I'm sorry, I'm not allowed to comment questions, so I have to answer:
I was not able to replicate the problem with different export settings, so I'm guessing it's how you join the meshes.
Did you combine them by pressing 'ctrl+j'?
What are your export settings?

Hi Yes, I used ctrl + j to combine the meshes  and I can see there is now one layer instead of three previously. The export settings I use are export > wavefront (.obj) and then ticked are ‘apply modifiers’, ‘include edges’, ‘write normals’, ‘include UVs’, ‘write materials’ and ‘objects as OBJ objects’. I exported as a .fbx file also, but the same problem .i.e. when I import into unity the 3 original meshes are on 3 separate layers.

Could you provide the .blend and/or .fbx? I'm guessing your problem is on the Unity-side of things and would like to test it.

sure, do you have an email I can get u on? Yes, I think the problem is Maybe with the unity import. thanks

Hi, I used the Decimater object modifer at 0.1 and this has solved the problem. Many thanks for your help. P


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Large scale volume lights
I'm setting up a large scale space scene, and trying to get some volumetric lights - like god rays. However when scaling up the volume cube, to sizes like 10,000 units the god rays disapear. I can only see either black volume, completely opaque or nothing, depending on the density. My light strength is already set to infinity.
I have a setup, with a spotlight, which works fine with cube of around 100 units size, but it's not working when scaled up ever 10x.
Any ideas ?
Thanks,
Lukas

Which render are you using? Please add the correspodnding tag, e.g. 'Luxcore' 'Cycles' 'Eevee'

An enlarged object set with volume scatter will seem denser, as the camera rays will need to traverse a larger space.
Make the lights brighter or bring down the density of the volume scatter and/or volume absorption.
As alternative use the world volume as domain instead of large volumes.
Another think to keep in mind is the camera clipping distance.  It is possible that if your lights fall outside the camera's clip distance they might have no effect at all.

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


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Making vertices follow mocap tracks
I've tracked a video of my arm, and created a model arm that I want to perfectly follow the tracks.
I tried applying an object solver, but as my wrist rotates the mesh doesn't follow properly. I mitigated this by using AnimAll to animate the vertices on top of the object solver, but it's proving very (very) difficult to use accurately in conjunction with the solver.
So I tried a new approach - hooking verts to empties, and applying Follow Track to these empties.
This would work great, except with my arm rotating, all of the tracks get hidden at some point, meaning the empties and therefore the verts just stop moving until they get picked up again by the tracks.
My question is, how can I either momentarily disable the Follow Track modifier on the empties, or is there a much easier way to make verts/vert groups follow tracks?
Many thanks in advance
Ian


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How to do curves in a mesh
I am trying to achieve a curve on my mesh. Mainly I am trying to make a dog bowl. I can't seem to understand how to do the curve for the bowl for both the inside and the odd lip thing on the outside ends.
It should be noted that I am a newbie to Blender, I have taken the fundamentals course here: CG Cookie Mesh Fundamentals but didn't see anything on curving a mesh. Unless its a mixture of extruding, subdividing etc that I am missing.
My current attempts have been using insets and transforming downward. But this gives a cone shape instead. Any pointers?
This is my template of what I am trying to replicate in blender.

You can do this with a screw modifier

elaborated... Have fun!

this should be easily accomplished with a screw modifier.
all you need to do is create the profile of the dog bowl.

Once you do, it will be imperative to put the vertex that marks the center of the bowl on the origin of the object. you can do this by selecting this vertex and Shift+S>Cursor to selected Shift+Ctrl+Alt+C>origin to 3D cursor
Now add the screw modifier. you can set the amount of turn it goes for higher detail.


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BGE: Orbit script seems to work, but motion is not applied
I want to orbit the camera using a script without centering the cursor. So I wrote this script:
import bge

# get this controller script
cont = bge.logic.getCurrentController()
# get sensor named MouseLook
mouse = cont.sensors['MouseLook']
mousePosX = mouse.position[0]
mousePosY = mouse.position[1]
# get old mouse coords
obj = cont.owner
if not 'mousePosOldX' in obj:
    obj['mousePosOldX'] = 0
    obj['mousePosOldY'] = 0

# velocity
velX = mousePosX-obj['mousePosOldX']
velY = mousePosY-obj['mousePosOldY']
# get the actuators
moveH = cont.actuators['MoveH']
moveV = cont.actuators['MoveV']
# apply movement
moveH.dRot = [0, 0, velX*10]
moveV.dRot = [velY*10, 0, 0]
print('velX: {0}, velY: {1}' .format(velX, velY))

# save old pos in obj properties
obj['mousePosOldX'] = mousePosX
obj['mousePosOldY'] = mousePosY

Using this setup:
-OrbitH
    -OrbitV
        +Camera

And this game logic:

Unfortunately, nothing moves! The script seems to work, because I get valid values in the console from the print.
When I directly connect the Sensor to the actuator without the script, the movement is applied (of course just with these constant values, which I don't want).
So script alone works, and the movement along works too, where is the bug?

Ah, found it. Apparently, one have to add:
cont.activate(moveH)
cont.activate(moveV)

to actually apply the motion

Please accept your own answer..


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How to select objects without UV maps
I am using Blender 2.80. I exported selected meshes to Substance Painter and got a warning that some objects has no UV maps.
Is there any quick way to see what objects have missing UV maps?

I don't think there is a build in way, but you can run this script to select meshes with no UN layers:
import bpy

for obj in (o for o in bpy.data.objects if o.type == 'MESH'):
    obj.select_set( len(obj.data.uv_layers) == 0 )


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Is there a way to animate a spot light's SIZE and BLEND?
I want to change a spot light's attributes over time: I want to change its "Spot Shape": including both Size and Blend. Is this possible? If so, HOW?

There certainly is, it can be animated as pretty much any other regular blender property.
Just place your cursor over the slider value for the Size or Blend factor properties, and press I to add a key frame.
Move the current frame to the desired point in time, then change value of the Size or Blend factor for that frame and with cursor hovering the slider value press I again to add a new keyframe.
Repeat for as many steps necessary to accomplish all your animation. Press play to verify your animation.

You can keyframe just about any property by hovering over it with your cursor and pressing I.
Just go to the frame where you want the animation to start, set the value you want it to start at, and hit I with your mouse over the property.  Then go the the frame where you want it to end and repeat the process with the ending value.


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Turn off “parent in place”?
Right now, when I parent an object to another object, the child remains in its original place. Is there a way to “turn this off” and have the child instantly snap to the position and rotation of its parent?

You can use the "(Object) Keep Transform" variant of parenting when you hit Ctrl+P.  Then just zero the locations/rotations of the child object.

A variant to this, would be to Select the Parent Object, and set your cursor there (Shift+S >> Cursor to Active). Then select your Child Object (Shift+S >> Selection to Cursor). Then Parent the Child normally.  This would be a similar approach to this answer, but it would not require the user to track X,Y,Z as the selections and cursor would accomplish this purpose, but effectively does the same thing.

authors: Екатерина Быстрова


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"Extrude poly ribbon" (ctrl+click) not working for me
So I've been following this blender tutorial and have just created a head using Dyntopo.  I am now learning how to finish it with retopo.  I started out by turning on snap during transform (snap element: edges, snap target: active), and positioned a small plane the head.  The tutorial then went on to explain how to "extrude a poly ribbon" by selecting an edge of the plane and extruding it by pressing control and clicking, as shown below:

When I try to do this, however, it does not seem to work.  It just outlines the head in orange, as shown:

What should I try doing differently to make this work for me? If it matters, I am using a mac.

The another object might be outlined if you pressed Ctrl with right click.. while for extruding should be Ctrl + left click (or E as usual).

@MrZak Sorry for the late response, but thanks! This worked for me--I was just clicking with the wrong mouse button.  Silly me.

Mac: If the answers above don't work for you, try: ⎈ Ctrl⌘ Cmd LMB
In order for ⎈ Ctrl⌘ Cmd LMB to work, you must have "Emulate 3 Button Mouse" checked.
To do this: File > User Preferences > Input tab > check Emulate 3 Button Mouse box

@22melloja (For the edit) Shortcut command should only have the first letter capitalized and don't need a "+" symbol. Let's keep it conform with the Blender user Preferences. Click is also not as accurate as LMB (left mouse button) or RMB. See this post for a useful script to insert keyboad tags.


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Why is my mesh so much less smooth than the one in the tutorial I'm following?
I'm following a Blender tutorial and I've noticed that the mesh in the tutorial is significantly smoother than mine.
I was wondering if I just haven't moved things around and smoothed out my mesh manually enough (maybe I need more polygons?), or if the one in the tutorial is being displayed/shaded differently in the view.
Mine:

The tutorial's:

Credits: Tutorial is by Christian Bradley and is posted on Lynda.com

Two possibilities: or the tutorial uses 'smooth shading' and not your model (smooth shading can be set in the toolshelf in object mode in the shading section), or the tutorial uses a subdivision surface modifier.. or both of them

@Lemon Smooth shading was the answer! Thanks a lot for the simple solution, I appreciate it.


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Problems creating new mesh- not showing up/invisible?
So when I try to add a sphere, it doesn't work properly; instead of a sphere, nothing shows up except the point with the circle around it as you can see to the right of the model I'm working on.
I can't for the life of me figure out why this is happening.  Does anyone have any ideas? I'm using cycles.

I think it is adding a sphere, its just so BIG that its bigger than your scene. You need to scale it down. Also your model seems very small, you may want to scale your model up some. OR it may be the exact opposite (hard to tell) Your model may be so big it makes the sphere so small you cant see it. One or the other.

That was it! Thanks haha I just recently started working using the metric system rather than the default so I guess I'm just not used to it! Thanks so much, that was easy.


text:
One arm rotating strangely in rig
I have a video of the problem here.
I am unsure why this is; the rigging is identical to the left side, which does not have this problem.  Both the left and right upper arms are parented to the upper spine.  I checked the weights and that is not the problem.  As shown in the video, when I move the hand and forearm, the bones react normally, but when I move the upper arm or any other part of the body the arm rotates strangely.  Please help me fix this problem!

It looks like right arm is influenced by IK (as well as both legs), not the left arm. Maybe something wrong in your IK of left arm ?

Ah yes, the IK does seem to be part of the problem, thank you!  I realized that the chain lengths in each were different (2 on the right arm, 0 on the left).  I'll play around with this and see if I can figure it out.  Thank you for this!


text:
Is it possible to give keyframes an offset of value - not time - in Graph Editor?
I am not talking about shifting keyframes in time, I am talking about selecting a bunch of keyframes and move them in value.
Suppose I have 3 rotation Z keyframes like this:
t = 0   ... rotation Z = 100
t = 1   ... rotation Z = 120
t = 2   ... rotation Z = 130

Then I apply an offset of 32 to all three and they become
t = 0   ... rotation Z = 132
t = 1   ... rotation Z = 152
t = 2   ... rotation Z = 162

So they change in value not time.
Is that possible on Blender?
I have hundreds of keyframes to change like that. I would be fine to have some automated/easy way to do that. Maya can do that easy but because I am new to Blender I am not sure if it can be done on it.
Moving the keyframes with the mouse will not do the trick. I need the operation to be precise.
Thanks

Select the keyframes you want to translate.  Then press gy32  g is translate, y is move along y axis and 32 is the amount.  This is consistent across blender.

Brilliant! Please convert this comment to an answer so I can accept.


text:
How To Get 360 Panorama Equirectangular In Blender Internal Render?
I wanted to know, how to render 360 panorama equirectangular like in cycles render... to post it on Facebook and get 360 image feature, but I want to render it on internal render this time
360 Panorama Equirectangular:


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Why My Hair Strand Render Doesn't Reflect On The Water? [Internal Render]
I'm trying to make a model of the pond terrain with hair particle as a grass, and I enabled the strand render setting... But when I render it, the hair particle (Grass) doesn't reflect on the water
Does anybody have a solution for this? Or is it a bug from Blender?
With Strand Render:

Without Strand Render:

More limitation than bug. The strand primitive in Blender Internal does not support raytracing, thus doesn't show up in reflections. If you need that, it's best to just not use the strand option, or use Cycles.

Hm.. what a dissapointment =w= thanks for answering my question anyway


text:
How to deactivate User Persp (Local) view?
I am accidentally going to User Persp (Local) view, and I don't know how to get back to a normal Perspective view..
When I'm in the User Persp (Local), I can see the objects on the viewport, but when I render it.. I got nothing in the render result

The point is, how to get back to normal perspective view?

To go back to Global perspective view, go to View -> "View Global/Local". The hotkey is Numpad /. You probably pressed this when you accidentally switched to local view. This also works for otho view as well, from global to local and back. (Just to add it in, here's a YouTube video explaining how it can be used to un-clutter your scene for easier editing.)

Edit: For Blender 3.0 to 4.0 (so far) it looks like this:
View Menu > Local View > Toggle Local View

Problem is solved. I had to press "\".

this is not the right answer. The only \ shortcut in blender is for the node editor, and is added by the node wrangler  addon.

authors: ДМИТРИЙ ДОРОНИН


text:
How to install Sensei theme
I've only just discovered Blender and after a few hours I can do far more of my simple project than I managed with FreeCAD after hours of struggle.
However I have found the scaling and units a bit confusing and read that Sensei deals with this more simply. I downloaded the zip file and tried running it from the Linux terminal and in the Blender Python console but it errors.
Blender 2.76 on Linux Mint Cinnamon 18.1

https://blendersensei.com/theme-update/

when you are confuse with scaling and units why you install sensei addon and why you need theme. And after you download the zip file unzip or extract and then install

atek: Your first sentence does not make sense - perhaps try Google Translate? Second sentence: I did unzip it, although I didn't say so in my post.

DFJ: I didn't realise you had posted a message, because it was all in blue I assumed it was just a username associated with Atek's. Now I can see that you are giving me a link. I followed the instructions on the page and it worked. My first attempt hadn't worked because the downloaded file had something wrong with it - the extract resulted in directories and a Python script instead of an XML file

Thanks to Duarte Farrahota Ramos for the answer.
Instructions and file to download are here: Sensei

Download the file sensei_theme_update_10_21_2013.zip
Extract the zip file.
Open Blender and go to “File” at the top choose “User Preferences” and then choose the tab “Themes”
At the bottom of that screen choose “Install Theme” and select the file you just downloaded on your computer.
If you’re happy with the theme changes then go to “File” at the top and select “Save Startup File” and you’re done.

Notes:
(2) Make sure the extract results in an .XML file.
(5) This doesn't appear to be necessary.

The (5) will appear to be necessary if you wish to open Blender with theme already enabled and not re-enable it every time on startup.

Mr Zak: I think I did "Save User Settings" in the "User Preferences" which may be why (5) didn't appear to be necessary.


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In Scripting mode,how do I select multiple bones?
I've been stuck for a few hours on this problem and I can't seem to find any solution.

I want to select those two bones(abs bone is named "Bone.005" and leg bone is named "Bone") in Scripting mode,but when I do it with RMB + SHIFT RMB to select those two with the mouse I can't get any code line.
If someone can help me out,I would really appreciate !

Answer provided, I hope it helps. Don't forget to accept it if it solved your problem.

This is a script which selects Bone and Bone.005 from Armature.003
import bpy

arm = bpy.data.objects['Armature.003']
bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='EDIT')
bpy.ops.armature.select_all(action='DESELECT')

bones_to_select = ['Bone','Bone.005']
for bone in arm.data.edit_bones:
    if bone.name in bones_to_select:
        bone.select = True

Do you have a way to select the whole bone ( i mean its head and tail included ) ?
Because the script just selects the body of the bone.

@holl0w the script selects the whole bone including its head and tail, there is nothing called body of bone. So run the script then hit G to grab them and you will find the whole bones moving.

use this in you need context:
bpy.context.object.data.edit_bones['pelvis'].select = True


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Removing eyesores near eyes
Removing ngons didn't help and I couldn't remove both triangles and ngons. How can I remove the eyesores near the eyes of my model?

Thank you.

Use proper topology while modelling, blindly removing ngons and triangles will do you no good alone, you need proper edge flow. That model has terrible topology see http://topologyguides.com/ for good practices.

Yes, the topology is terrible. That's because I made the head first and the eyelids separately, to use minimal geometry to be time-efficient. I will retopologise the head model later and see if that helps.


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Removing triangles and ngons
Apparently -- amazingly -- no other question seems to have a similar title to this one.
I will retopologise later, so please don't think this is the final topology.

I'm trying to remove triangles and ngons in my mesh, but when I remove ngons, it creates a triangle.

When I remove triangles, by turning them into ngons, it turns any neighboring quads into ngons.

Using this method doesn't remove triangles and ngons.
How can I do what I'm trying to do?
Thank you.

If you are going to retopologize later why do you change that geometry now? Generally that's the same process

To rule out bad geometry being the cause of unwanted creases in the subdivided mesh.

Just for consideration, you have many T-splines around your hole which automatically makes neighboring geometry N-gons (N-gon is every face consisting of 5 or more vertices)

If you want less messy geometry you should get rid of T-splines. You can do this by dissolving unnecessary edges (some of them are marked in orange on the image below (x -> dissolve edges)). Dissolving edges (also dissolving vertices or faces) is really handy in cases when you are cleaning your own geometry. Also, you should merge some vertices.

And, most important. Next time you are doing something like this just do this:

Make sure that the shape in the middle has same edge count (number of vertices) as a hole that the hole that you are trying to connect it to. If not, fix it by dissolving verticies.

Select both and connect them via bridge edge loops (Ctrl+E -> Bridge edge loops).

Then if you want more geometry just add subdivision surface (you probably don't have that tight poly budget).

And one last thing. Don't be so afraid of triangles. It s true that quads are usually better, but sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.

"sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do" - unless you're using MakeClothes for MakeHuman - then "you gotta do as the title says" remove all tris....


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Bevel modifier artifacts when designing house
I'm using the bevel modifier -- in conjunction with the subdivision surfaces modifier -- to make a house, but it's resulting in artifacts; namely, unsightly creases/dents at the edges of walls.
I tried removing the lines selected, but that didn't fix it and resulted in bad geometry.

How can I fix this?
Thank you. :)

Don't use the two modifiers together, instead increase the amount of segments in the Bevel modifier.

Yep, bevel over bevel will do somenasties. Also check for duplicate geometry, overlapping faces and incoherent normals


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Snap and shrinkwrap won't keep above surface
I've been doing some retopology, but snap and shrinkwrap won't keep the retopologised mesh above the surface of the original mesh. Why is this and how can I fix it?

This is the topology of the mesh.

Also, consider "accepting" the answer below

Would you be able to upload your blend file here, there may have been something I overlooked: https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/

The Shrinkwrap Modifier can only move vertices to match the target object. If there aren't many vertices in a particular area, that area will not match the target object as well as places where there are more vertices.
A simple surface will require less vertices as there are less details to match, whereas a more detailed surface (or areas of higher detail) will need more vertices.
Patches of the original object showing through are indicative of not having enough geometry, or not having placed geometry where it's needed.
By overlaying your images we can see that the places that are showing through are where some of the larger faces are. You need to either add more geometry into these areas (a guide of where you might add an edge loop is marked in red) or move edge loops that are near those areas, closer together so faces are smaller:

Another way is to let faces be a bit inside and once retopology is done add a Subsurf modifier with maybe another Shrinkwrap to catch more details. Editing work is being done on less faces then.

@MrZak True, but it's going to make the whole model far more detailed than needed vs just adding in a few extra loops, which will have an effect on viewport performance, particularly if you are then using other modifiers (like an armature) for animation.

Yes, I guess these are 2 different ways which depend on situation


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Merge overlapping, differently sized faces in large model
I have a code-generated model that has a lot of very regular but overlapping geometry. I am looking for a method to automate merging faces that share so much geometry, and overlap. In some cases there are 5-6 faces that pass through the same edge intersections. Everything in this model is at right angles, and it all points in the right direction. (Essentially a huge collection of rectangles, some nested in others creating this face/edge overlap)
I've tried tools in blender (self-intersect knife cut, merge by distance etc.) and out (Meshlab)
But there seems to be no good way to achieve this?
The red highlights below are not vertices, just edges on different planes.

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/108691/create-vertex-at-intersecting-edges

If you are referring to the tinycad suggestion, I have already tried that. There are roughly 40 thousand faces, most of them have more than one interaction like above. Tiny cad only allows this to be edited one edge/edge intersection at a time.

Not particularly. I was referring to a possible solution here is adding verts at edge intersections and remove doubles. The link posted is a dupe, the dupe has 7 answers. There are also links mentioned in comments.  If you have tried something and it doesn't work please edit relevant info into question.

I listed the promising methods I tried in the initial post. The problem with adding verts at intersections is that there doesn't seem to be an automated way of doing that?


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Setting up Tracking Stabilization via Python API
I have a project that uses the (Intel) RealSense camera and I am capturing a short set of frames that feature a single face. The camera SDK provides me with a good way to do landmark recognition in image space. So I can tell where the nose/mouth and other features are located.
I have some strict constraints on what I want the final set of frames to be stabilized like. And have been able to meet those constraints by using the video stabilization system manually in Blender. Unfortunately I need to process quite a few of these, and manual editing is out of the question.
My question is: Is there a  way for me to programmatically supply the initial tracking points for the stabilization system, and have it process the whole video using those initial points.
For example: I provide ears and nose (x & y image space coordinates), as the points to track in the first frame. And Blender uses them to track + stabilize the rest of the frames.
Thanks for any advice, and please tell me if you need more detail for this question.

You could provide a sample scene with two "dummy" markers and then just use python to place them at the correct locations and start the tracking process. Maybe some of my automation of the VSE helps for some points regarding Blenders python automation...


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Unlinking animation data from objects
Say you create two cubes (in edit mode as the same object) and animate them, then separate the two cubes into separate objects, they both now have the same animation data.
Moving the animation markers in the dope sheet on either object changes the markers for the other object. Is there a way to unlink these objects so they can now be animated separately?

You can select the objects that share the same animation and press U> Object Animation.
Alternatively, you can open the Dope Sheet Editor, change to the Action Editor view and press the number next to the action name (which represents how many objects are using the action) to make the Action a single user:

Awesome, spent ages trying to figure that out :D

If this has answered your question you can accept it by clicking the checkmark next to the question.

Done, say you also have shape key data for those objects, is there a way to unlink that data also?

http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/1898/how-to-unlink-a-linked-duplicate/1900#1900

Previous answer does not seem to be available in blender 3.2.2
Here is my workaround :
In object mode, select your object you want to separate the linked animation data, open Object menu -> Relations -> Make Single User -> Object Animation or Object Data Animation
(I don't know the difference between those two)
Feel free to edit my answer or comment below if you have more info.

Thank you for this. I thought at the very least that instances were linked by their keyframes.


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Painting with weird noise
I'm new regarding painting a model in Blender, I had some difficult with making a texture to paint, but when I did that, while painting this weird noise appears and I can't seem to find the solution.
What can I do?

Do you have the Jitter value set to 0.000 in a Stroke panel? I guess it may solve the problem.

Yes it's set to 0, should I change it? It seems to do nothing.
I noticed now, that beneath the bottom lip he paints it well, but the rest of the model it gets all "bananas".
Could it possibly be something involved with smoothing the model?

Are you using a texture or a brush mask texture? That could be what is happening, but can't see the rest of your settings for the brush.


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How can I export the motion tracking markers to csv?
The blender motion tracking markers are very convenient to use but it seems there is no direct way to export the path of the markers themselves.
Is there a way to export the paths of multiple motion tracking markers to a csv or other text file?
(I found this script but it seems to only work if the marker is set at frame 0, my markers are added at various frames)
Thanks

The script on this github page can export the data of each motion tracking marker.


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How can correctly scale a rigged model along with its armature?
I downloaded this rigged model (from this 3D artist). How can I scale the model? When I shrink the model in pose mode the ears and face deformation goes weird. When I scale as an object, the eyes don't scale with the body.
Is there a way to scale the model properly?

Try scaling the armature object to desired size and apply scale to that first, then mesh.

@batFINGER, I figured it out I think. The model/rig had an unselectable parent object that the eyes weren't parented to. Parenting the eyes to this master parent fixed the problems when scaling and applying scale.

Probably,your entire mesh is parented to the main armature.
Scaling the armature deforms the object.
The best solution I found in that case is by creating a new empty and parenting the main armature to the empty. Now,scaling the empty scales the model without deformation.
Otherwise,try parenting every single mesh to that empty and scale the empty.


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Is there a way to move the sculpt tools (grab tool for example) away or towards the user?
I am sculpting some features and I want to make some precise sculpting moves. With the grab tool, I would like to grab a part of the mesh and move it "away" from me, without any lateral movement of mesh. Is there a way to do this?

You could activate Symmetry/Lock panel to lock brush effect by any of those axes, if by Y then locking X and Z. Though this won't really work if object / surface is not oriented along global axes.

Consider

Quad View so you are seeing both front and side views.  Or you can open 2 edit windows to get the exact views you need by rotation of view.
Sculpt Draw Brush with Add selected as depicted in the image above.
Click in the same place on mesh.  No lateral movement is needed.
To emphasize you are only clicking an area with no movement of cursor.  The area grows toward you the viewer, which is difficult to see.  You see the growth in the profile view. You are creating a protrusion directly growing towards you.  You may click in Top Ortho and see growth in Right Ortho.  Create change in one view and see it in another view.

That doesn't quite work for my situation. The main challenge is that the surface I want to sculpt is flat, so I can't grab the correct location in side view, and in an angled view I don't have precise control over what direction I am pulling/pusing in.

Please read above the added information.  It is useful for me.  I think when you experiment it will be useful for you.

The flatness of view presents no problem for the discussion above.

Ok, I think I understand what you mean. I'm not sure how it behaves for you, but when you use the grab tool in quad view, do all the views update in real time? Because they don't for me, only when I finish my action in one of the views.

I clicked with no motion. On release the other views updated.  I just peeked in.  I wont see any messages for 12 hours.


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How can you offset animations within a particle system?
I am making a flock of birds using the particle system (with Boids). My base object is a single bird with a flapping animation using an armature.
When I create the particles, each bird particle is flapping in unison. Is there a way to randomly offset the pose animation so that the flock of birds is less in sync and looks more natural?

Don't think so, maybe duplicate and group a few birds.

so you can use group in render section in particle setting. you should Duplicate your object and animate them separately and group them . then in render section in particle options use group instead of object. you can add more object with more animation to the group anytime you want.

you can add rules in boid brain section. with combining rules and their evolution you can create more natural boid system

I think the void behaviour is fine. It’s the animation of the individual objects that I want to modify

@user668074 To offset the animation of each object, that is not possible with current blender particles because particles are not independent (mesh data) objects. However, you can easily achieve this with animation nodes and you can offset the animation of individual objects.


text:
Is there a way to see the lumens (or watt) emission value from a surface?
I would like to know some precise illumination values from a combination of light sources, so I am looking for a way to view the lumens values from a surface (for example a flat plane). Is there a way to do this?
Best I can do so far is:

Using the Raw View Transform in Color Management, using Right Click in the render window, I get values of HSL Luminance that might correspond to lumens (?)
Using the False Color View Transform in Color Management I can see the exposure as a heat map. Ideally I would be able to get the underlying numerical values.

Hello :). Interesting thread on Blenderartists.org: Cycles, unit of light energy ATTN: Brecht

And a related Q&A here: Simulating a 40W Light Bulb


text:
How to align local coordinate with object?
I created hundreds of cylinders, joined them into a single object, then splitted back by mesh -> separate -> by loose parts in Edit mode. The splitted-back objects' local coordinates are not on their direction before join, especially they do not have an axis pointing to the cap. As a result I cannot move the cylinders easily in their local coordinates.
So is there any automatic way to rotate each coordinate (not rotate the object) to make them align with each cylinders' caps?

You can switch your Transform Orientation to Normal, but that may not pick a predictable axis.

It's probably not a good idea to join and separate objects as a way to group and ungroup them. Especially if the objects to be joined have unique properties that you wish them to keep. The reason is that the final object in the selection sequence will become the active object before joining, and all the other objects will inherit all manner of properties from the active object after the join. Consider parenting instead. If you absolutely must rotate true coordinates without visually rotating the geometry, consider rotating in Object Mode, and then counter-rotating in Edit Mode.

I would upvote this as an answer @R-800


text:
Where do I find the latest Blender release?
Where do I find the latest Blender release to install and what version should I use?
I'm not sure what OS I have and don't know what 32bit or 64bit is.

The latest production-ready version can be found on
  www.blender.org in the downloade page. (Direct link - blender.org/download)

 Finding the right version
If you are unsure of what version you should use, try the one that the page suggest with a big button. If you are denied to install or start it, go to the list of other versions and see if an archive (.zip / .rar / .7zip example given) version that matches what was recommended from the page. Open the archive and copy the folder that is in it to the desktop or where you like to keep your files. You start blender by launching the executable (same thing as a program) blender and not BlenderPlayer. (if the page recommended a 32bit version a 64bit is unlikely to work)

If you have come this far. If someone does call you on the phone from a number you don't recognize and offer you support, say that you will call them back and only do that if the number belongs to someone you can trust.

If neither the recommended version or the archive work ask your support for help or computer administrator if needed. (The administrator will probably appreciate that you asked the support first)
If you don't have any support you can try this steps to find what OS you have and try the version for that instead.

If you have an interface that is based on typing on your keyboard to enter commands only. Ask the person that installed it or gave it to you for help, otherwise, go to your local computer store and ask for help.
Enter mmc.exe in the search bar and if you can launch the program you have windows. Try the different 32bit versions or if it complains and wants a 64bit, try them instead, otherwise test the next step.
If you have a  <- Apple Inc. logo in the corner, press it and go to about this mac. If you can do this you have OS X, otherwise, test the next step.
Contact the person that did give you your computer and ask for help or go to your local computer store and ask for help, otherwise test the next step.
Se if you can find the answer on these pages:

support.microsoft.com
support.apple.com

 Wher to find the latest features/experimental builds
The newest features and build can be found on builder.blender.org and should be considered unstable. Don't save anything with the realizes that you need later because the versions might corrupt the files.
If the version does cause the computer to freeze or crash repeatedly under normal use, go to the builder page and enter the requested information and force a new build for that version if no new have been realized.
If you want one of the current development versions read the wiki.blender.org on how to compile blender from the current code.
!!Do not forget to do the checkout or it will not work!!

A 64bit system can run both 32 and 64bit programs. A 32bit system can only run 32bit apps. If your machine has more than 4GB of ram then you wil most likely be running a 64bit system. Another source of experimental builds is graphicall.org

Go to Blender website
Click on downloand and a new page opens, as seen below

Before you click on the download button. Click the small arrow button pointing downwards (macOS, linux, other version) as marked in red. You can find various Operating systems. Select the correct Operating system and click on it.


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Join subdivide and un-subdivide objects
I have a problem about joining 2 objects. One of them is subdivided, the other is not... I have to join them together, so I'm able to 3D-print them both in one object, but when I join them together, the ''un-subdivide'' objects turns subdivided, and it's impossible to get the object back in the right shape, so I wanna know if it's possible to join two objects whitout changing their separate ''subdivide-value''?

It is possible by applying subdivision surface modifier on subdivided object. Then the one you're joining to it, won't be subdivided.


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IK rig handle stretch
So I followed a Youtube guide and I learned how to apply IK constraints and pole targets. After correctly setting it up, I tried posing it. Overall it works fine but whenever I move the bone out it's reach, the bone disconnects from the forearm and the mesh stretches like so:
How do I make the IK rig handle bone separate from the model and not stretch the mesh, like auto IK?

The easiest way to fix it would be to copy IK target, that you already have (It's R.Hand I presume), call it R.Hand_IK or something of that meaning. From what I see on the image it has no parent already - good.Disable Deform option for this bone (showed on the image below). Parent old R.Hand bone to arm bone (don't know how you called it, but it's the yellow one on the image). Remove IK constraint from the arm bone and add it to R.Hand bone. Then make R.Hand_IK target of this constraint.

I appreciate your initiative, Mzidare, however your suggestion did not solve my problem. You said this was the easiest way, do you have any more solutions?

It should work. What is your outcome?

The hand disappears into the forearm mesh. Perhaps we could consult to a Google Hangout to solve this problem?

send me a link to your file, I'll fix one hand and you will do the same with the other.

I posted a comment earlier this week but it didn't go through, sorry. I fixed the problem by parenting the foot bone to the shin and turning off location, rotation, etc.


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Very dark materials Cycles Render
So I finally gave this model textures and materials and it looks fine in material view but in render view the whole model is just pitch black. Strangely enough, the render looks fine in Blender Render mode. Here is my nodes setup/material view:

Here is download link for mesh with materials and image textures with UV's :
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/mfyoougy6qflmdz/AABd0cniihD1OHWT77W00HN3a?dl=0

You have to disable the alpha channel for the normal maps by unchecking the "Use Alpha" boxes.

I don't know why this solution was downvoted, it nailed it.
The problem is indeed the alpha channel in the normal map. A normal map shouldn't have an alpha channel as it's information not intended to be composited.
Turning off the use alpha checkbox in the image viewer for each texture will solve the problem, but in order to avoid it in the future make sure that your normal maps don't have alpha channels. If you created them yourself using a painting program, make sure you're not using transparency.If you created them in a specialized program and it exported them that way, consider reporting

Also notice that your model is huge (i think it was like 78 meters high). Keep in mind that in a physically based renderer light intensity falls off with distance (inverse quadratic proportion), so size and distance matter.
Scale your models and position lights using real world sizes and distances, and lighting will behave more realistically.

Regarding alpha channels in normal maps, I just checked it looks like some engines used it for layering different maps together. Personally I think it's a bad idea but that would explain why there are nmaps with alpha around. Blender doesn't support this, so always turn alpha off for those maps

I don't know who downvoted the solutuon, but it wasn't me. Regardless thanks Matt Ferndz and Gez, you guys really saved my day. Thanks!


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Blender 2.78 doesn't render png textures
Since I installed 2.78 image textures from png are no longer rendered. Jpg is working but can't be made transparant. It looks like there's a bug here.

PNGs works fine in 2.78 here. Is it all PNGs? Have you verified the path is correct, and these PNGs can be opened in other software? What do you mean by 'not rendered'? Black? Pink (error color)?

Same problem here. Alpha is on but still its pink. JPG works well. Also in the preview window is rendered correctly, but in the main renderview is pink.

Some screen shots of your material/texture settings would be hugely helpful

You have to select Image texture node and in settings on the right (those which are apearing when press N ) and enable Use Alpha. For some reason it's off by default in 2.78.

This assumes cycles, which was not specified by the answer. Either clarify with the OP about which engine, or update the answer for both cycles and internal.

There is another option, which you didn't mention. I just leave it like it is. Cheers.

....and get a downvote ;)

@Mzidare Thanks for helping others, but please take downvotes for what they are, not what they are not. You are free to write your answer how you see fit, but don't be too surprised if such a short answer gets some downvotes.

My answer turned out to be helpful for someone, cause was upvoted. The problem is not very popular, cause most of Blender users easily manage to solve it themselves. It's very easy, so the answer is short ans simple. I don't believe, that this forum is red by idiots and walking people step by step through such straight forward situation is not necessary. If you are concerned @gandalf3 about users well being, then edit my answer, and if it will be legit, I'll accept this change. This are my arguments, what are yours?

@Mzidare I would, but to be honest, without more info I don't know what could be causing the problem the OP is experiencing. If I was sure I understood the question, then I would've likely written an answer already ;)

@gandalf3 Well, I wrote the answer cause I know what's wrong in this case. I had the same situation and was able to correctly guestimate it. It considers only Cycles, so It's pointless to mention BI in this particular case and that's why I didn't apply GiantCowFilms request and answered him in the way I did.

@Mzidare Okay, and that's quite fine. My response was to the seemingly heated nature of your reply to GiantCowFilms. I wish to make it clear that downvoting in and of itself shouldn't be taken as a personal attack.


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How to tidy messy corners generated by solidify modifier?
I use a mesh with cross section like 1 as input to solidify modifier, and I expect to have a result like 2. However, it gave me messy results in corner parts like 3. How can I tidy the messy corner in some simple way? Currently I made a self-crossover cut and manually remove the messy faces, which is pretty much work.

And this is the snapshot of actual result. I hide the outer shell and most flat parts of the inner shell, only showing the corner part to ease the editing procedure.

With this kind of topology you are lucky if you got the issue only in corner part ...

There is not any magic way to avoid the overlapping, even with a new complex Solidify Modifier (if I'm not mistaken).

When Solidify modifier was set to Complex mode with Thickness mode Fixed, you can try ...
Weld Modifier
It worked with small distances, but already here it started to change outer topology.

With higher value of Thickness ...

... you would have to apply Solidify modifier, select inner vertex and press L to select Linked and assign those to Vertex Group under Data Properties.

Than use this vertex group as a limit for modifier.

Remesh Modifier
But ... this Weld works only because of the big flat faces inside. Probably useless in your situation. You will probably more lucky with Remesh modifier > Voxel type.


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How can I get these mesh information for exporting?
I'm trying to write a mesh exporter, which would export vertex position, normal, tangent and texture coords. These would be used in my own engine. But I'm not fully understood the data organization in Blender's mesh.
In a GPU pipeline, primitives are usually limited to triangle lists/fans/stripes. However, it seems Blender meshes are organized in individual polygons, which don't have by-material large-sized triangle stripes? Is there any way to get the polygons by material?
I made a simple test geometry by subdividing twice on one surface of a cube, so this cube has 16 polygons on one face, and each one polygon on remaining 5 faces. When Auto Smooth is selected, vertex on different polygons should have different normals. However, the number of vertices is still 29 (by print C.object.data.vertices), which is not increased. So where are the polygon-specific vertices being stored?

Vertices are shared, no matter what material etc. the using polygons have.
Per-face vertex data is stored in loops (C.object.data.loops).
The elements of C.object.data.uv_layers[#].data[#] correspond to loop indexes. The first UV coordinate of the active UV map can be retrieved like .uv_layers.active.data[0].uv.
I'm not sure if triangle stripes and fans are still used nowadays. If a game-engine handles vertices like Blender and shares them among faces, there's no real difference in memory consumption...
You may wanna use the Separate P operator and split a mesh by material. Or create a lookup dictionary from material assignments to efficiently retrieve the right polygons.
Elements in C.object.data.uv_textures[#].data[#] correspond to face indexes, e.g. .uv_textures.active.data[0].image for polygons[0]. Note that the image attribute is set via UV / Image Editor, but that there's a second type of material assignment - the one from Material tab in Properties Editor, which sets polygons[#].material_index (just an interger, which is the index of the material in C.object.data.materials[#].

I'm writing my own engine using GLES, and I want to use Blender as content creator. OpenGL ES only have triangles, triangle fans and triangle strips.

Okay, then why not use triangles only? You can use the tessface data, or triangulate using bmesh module. Fans and stripes would make it unnecessarily complex. If needed, split edges to put different textures on adjacent faces.


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How can I customize normal in this way?
I want to have my beveled object to have fake-rounded edges:

The vertex normals should be vertical with the main surfaces, so that the original surfaces are rendered plain, and the beveled edge is rendered fine round.
However, if set to smooth, the auto-generated normals are like this:

The original large surface become not plain.
In addition, auto smooth option also won't give me the expected result. I also tried Normal Edit modifier, but seems it don't allow manual control on each individual vertices. So how can I get the effect I want?

A simpler alternative to Elbrujodelatribu's answer is to use the Data Transfer modifier to transfer the custom normals from a beveled copy as explained in this tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAGEGBulzSU

Edinting normals will be implemented in the future, according to Blender Wiki.
You can try to use the split normals modifier on this way:
1) Create Empty Objects in the direction of your vertex normals.

2) Create a Group Vertex for those vertices which you want to have a perpendicular normal in the same face. For a cube you should create six groups, one per each main square face.

3) Create a Split Normals Modifier per each Group Vertex. Set mode to Directional , check Parallel Normals and select appropiate empty object for target and group vertex.

You will get an effect similar to rounded edges:

Finally you can apply all modifiers and your object will keep these normals.

Save yourself the headache and use Blend4Web normal tool. Still not ideal for more complicated objects (notedly where hard and soft edges come together), and some edge splitting might still be necessary, but for this simple example it saves a lot of busy work.

you can achieve a similar effect with some clever loop cuts


text:
Is there any way to plotting in 3D viewer without using object and mesh?
I'm trying to use Blender as assets creation tool for my own stuff. I added width and height custom properties on objects, and I want the bounding box to be shown in the 3D view.
Currently, I achieved this by adding non-selectable objects and meshes, but they would be still on the Outliner view, which may confuse my users. So is there any way to draw lines in the 3D view without using meshes?

I assume you refer to axis-aligned bounding boxes (AABB), because regular bounding boxes are a built-in feature.
You can use draw handlers to draw in supported spaces with OpenGL (bgl module). draw_handler_add() is not documented, but you can find examples in Text Editor, Templates menu.
Here's a modified version of my bound box draw handler:
import bpy
import bgl
from mathutils import Vector

def draw_poll(ob):
    return ob is not None and ob.type in ('MESH', 'CURVE', 'SURFACE', 'META', 'FONT')

def draw_callback_view(self, context):

    for ob in context.selected_objects:
        if not draw_poll(ob):
            return

        mat = ob.matrix_world

        # 50% alpha, 2 pixel width line
        bgl.glEnable(bgl.GL_BLEND)
        bgl.glColor4f(1.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.5)
        bgl.glLineWidth(2)

        bbox = [mat * Vector(b) for b in ob.bound_box]

        min_x = min(b.x for b in bbox)
        max_x = max(b.x for b in bbox)
        min_y = min(b.y for b in bbox)
        max_y = max(b.y for b in bbox)
        min_z = min(b.z for b in bbox)
        max_z = max(b.z for b in bbox)

        if ob == context.object:
            bgl.glColor4f(*self._color1)
        else:
            bgl.glColor4f(*self._color2)

        bgl.glBegin(bgl.GL_LINE_STRIP)
        bgl.glVertex3f(min_x, min_y, min_z)
        bgl.glVertex3f(min_x, max_y, min_z)
        bgl.glVertex3f(max_x, max_y, min_z)
        bgl.glVertex3f(max_x, min_y, min_z)
        bgl.glVertex3f(min_x, min_y, min_z)
        bgl.glVertex3f(min_x, min_y, max_z)
        bgl.glVertex3f(min_x, max_y, max_z)
        bgl.glVertex3f(max_x, max_y, max_z)
        bgl.glVertex3f(max_x, min_y, max_z)
        bgl.glVertex3f(min_x, min_y, max_z)
        bgl.glEnd()

        bgl.glBegin(bgl.GL_LINES)
        bgl.glVertex3f(max_x, min_y, min_z)
        bgl.glVertex3f(max_x, min_y, max_z)
        bgl.glVertex3f(min_x, max_y, min_z)
        bgl.glVertex3f(min_x, max_y, max_z)
        bgl.glVertex3f(max_x, max_y, min_z)
        bgl.glVertex3f(max_x, max_y, max_z)
        bgl.glEnd()

    # restore opengl defaults
    bgl.glLineWidth(1)
    bgl.glDisable(bgl.GL_BLEND)
    bgl.glColor4f(0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0)

class ModalDrawOperator(bpy.types.Operator):
    """Draw a line with the mouse"""
    bl_idname = "view3d.modal_operator"
    bl_label = "Simple Modal View3D Operator"

    def modal(self, context, event):
        context.area.tag_redraw()

        if event.type in {'ESC'}:
            bpy.types.SpaceView3D.draw_handler_remove(self._handle, 'WINDOW')
            self._handle = None
            return {'CANCELLED'}

        return {'PASS_THROUGH'}

    def invoke(self, context, event):
        if context.area.type == 'VIEW_3D':
            # the arguments we pass the the callback
            args = (self, context)
            # Add the region OpenGL drawing callback
            # draw in view space with 'POST_VIEW' and 'PRE_VIEW'
            theme = context.user_preferences.themes[0]
            self._handle = bpy.types.SpaceView3D.draw_handler_add(draw_callback_view, args, 'WINDOW', 'POST_VIEW')
            self._color1 = theme.view_3d.object_active[:] + (0.5,)
            self._color2 = theme.view_3d.object_selected[:] + (0.5,)

            context.window_manager.modal_handler_add(self)
            return {'RUNNING_MODAL'}
        else:
            self.report({'WARNING'}, "View3D not found, cannot run operator")
            return {'CANCELLED'}

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(ModalDrawOperator)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(ModalDrawOperator)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

    for area in bpy.context.screen.areas:
        if area.type == 'VIEW_3D':
            context = bpy.context.copy()
            context['area'] = area
            bpy.ops.view3d.modal_operator(context, 'INVOKE_DEFAULT')
            break

Cool! I'll try it!

I have a try and it works. Thanks for a lot! But currently I don't know where to store the handler returned by draw_handler_add().

My drawing is not invoked by an operator, but it is rendered according to a BoolProperty in each Object.

The handle is stored in the operator itself, but you could also use a global I guess (a None check should be added though). A property callback (update parameter) could invoke the operator, I'm not sure if this is a good idea though. You could start it once, not terminate it on left / right mouse click (possible not escape either) and add an additional condition to the draw poll function, to not draw anything if your custom property is set to not draw AABBs (the operator would still run in the background, which isn't that great...)


text:
Fixing Ambient Occlusion?
I'm having a weird problem with my Ambient Occlusion map. For some reason some bits are completely black (in places where shading wouldn't make any sense). Every other place I check says that I have to recalculate normals, but that doesn't have any effect. How can I fix this?

In edit mode hit N button in 3D view window to open properties panel, scroll down to Mesh Display section and enable normals on faces. Check if they are not facing inwards, if they do, select the faces and hit Ctrl+N, recalculating normals on whole mesh doesnt work properly some times when there are disconnected parts of the mesh present

As well as Recalculate, there's the "Flip Direction" tool in the Shading/UVs tab of the tool panel, you can try using that on the specific selection where there's a problem.


text:
Mesh darkens after mirroring
So, I finally got my model's foot paw look good and decided to duplicate it for the other leg. When I mirror the foot paw, it darkens out (see picture below). Is this something I need to be concerned about? If yes, how do I avoid this from happening?

Reversed normals. Recalculate with Ctrl+N (edit mode)

This happens when you mirror manually instead of using the Mirror Modifier. There may be times when you want to mirror manually, but just be aware that this will happen and recalculate your normals afterward (by pressing CtrlN in Edit Mode with geometry selected).
The reason this occurs is that each point is being moved to its mirror-opposite location and as it moves the outermost points actually cross over the innermost ones.
Let's take one step back. First you must understand what normal vectors, or "normals" are. They are the outward-facing directional vector that each face in your mesh has. If you want to see which way your normals are facing, you can enable this in your Mesh Display options.

Consider the analogy of a sock being turned inside-out. Here is our modeled sock, and as the duplicated sock is scaled on the X axis about the 3D Cursor, the vertices on the tips of the toes cross over the vertices on the rim of the sock, thus turning it inside-out.

And with face normals made visible you can see exactly what's happening. The brightly-colored prongs poking out from each face are a visual representation of your normals.

Vertices (and edges, sort of) have normals too, and you can display those also if you want, but they don't play a role in your shading the way face normals do.
Should you be concerned about inverted normals? Yes. While they may not cause you trouble in all situations, there are plenty of situations in which they will - for example, they may cause your materials or textures to look wrong, cause texture baking to go wrong, cause your booleans to fail, cause 3D-printing to fail, and more.
The dark shading is Blender's viewport telling you: "I think this is the interior of your object", so if you see dark shading on the exterior you should examine your normals.
In short, you can prevent inverted normals by using a Mirror Modifier instead of manually mirroring, or simply recalculate normals afterward.


text:
How do I force objects to follow another object?
I'm trying to add a ring of diamonds to a character's wristwatch in a game, and it all works well until I get to testing it in-game, where the diamonds don't really follow the path of the watch at all. I've tried various forms of placement and functions I thought would solve my problem, but nothing has worked so far. Is there a specific blender function that let's me pin and object to another object so that it moves in tandem with it?

Please post some screenshots.

Do you use an armature at your character? Is the watch a separate object, or a skin object on the armature (it has an armature modifier)? Is the watch bone-parented to an arm bone? How did you connect the watch and the ring? Why do you need such tiny object (the ring) to be separate?

The character is already in the game, and I'm trying to apply a mod to it. I'm limited by the game's structure, which makes this particularly difficult. I don't have access to armature and the watch is parented to the character's arm bone, but I can't edit the character itself, only the watch. This is why I want the ring of diamonds to follow the watch (because I can't get it to follow the character's arm itself, so I figured making it follow the watch would be easier).

Tried "make vertex parent" yet?

The watch is parented to the bone. The ring is parented to the watch. It should work. But this sometimes does not work if one or more parents have an in-homogene scaling (not all axes have the same scale). I wonder why you do not have access to the character. Is it an instance of a group?

Hmmmmmm. Can't manipulate the model at. Try making a base mesh that fits the models shape, parent THAT to the model, add the watch and ring to that base mesh.  Delete the mesh but keep the accessories. This should. .."SHOULD" fix the axis problem as if the base is positioned properly, the watch and ring should inherit is rotation, scale and all that jazz from the mesh when you delete it but keep the watch and ring "IN" the initial mesh object.


text:
How do place an image to the side of a cube using the Python API
I am trying to map an image to the side of a cube (just one side) and I'm having trouble figuring out how to do this with the PythonAPI.
I tried something similar to this: tutorial but it warps the image so that it covers the whole cube.
The reason I'd like to use the python api is that I'm going to be doing this for thousands of images. It would be nice not to do it by hand :)
Any help/tips/pointers would be greatly appreciated!

Maybe you could use the "import images as planes" addon, and then just extrude them as cubes. If this would work for you and you need a Howto, let me know

Can you UV unwrap the cube by hand before using python?

Here is python code which might serve as a start: http://web.purplefrog.com/~thoth/blender/python-cookbook/texture-one-cube-face.html
import bpy

def apply_image_to_face(template, fname):
    imgs = [ img for img in bpy.data.images if img.type=='IMAGE' and img.filepath==fname]
    if len(imgs)<1:
        img = bpy.data.images.load(fname)
        print(img.name)
    else:
        img = imgs[0]

    tex = bpy.data.textures.new(fname, 'IMAGE')
    tex.image = img

    obj = bpy.data.objects.new("capybara", template.data)

    mat = template.data.materials[1].copy()

    tslot = mat.texture_slots[0]
    if tslot is None:
        tslot = mat.texture_slots.add()
    tslot.texture = tex
    tslot.texture_coords = 'UV'

    obj.material_slots[1].link = 'OBJECT'
    print(obj.material_slots[1].link)
    obj.material_slots[1].material = mat
    print("argh "+obj.material_slots[1].link)

    return obj

# this needs to be the template object.
# It needs to already have a UV map.
# The first texture slot is for most of the cube.
# The second texture slot must exist and we will fill it with a newly-created material for the image
# one of the faces must already be assigned this second material.
template = bpy.data.objects["template"]
# template = bpy.context.active_object

obj = apply_image_to_face(template, "/home/thoth/art/drawing-practice/totoro.png")
obj.location= (0,1,0)
bpy.context.scene.objects.link(obj)

You have to have a template object named 'template'.  That object has to already have a UV map.  It has to have two materials.  The second material will be cloned to make the per-image materials.  At least one of the faces on the template object must use that second material (otherwise it never gets used to paint anything)
Blender 2.75a has a bug where when I set the material_slot[1].link = 'OBJECT' it does not stick.  It reverts to 'DATA' right after I assign material_slot1.material .  A fix for this is already in the tracker and will probably be in the next release of blender.
The code above would have to be adapted if you have your own RGB pixel data instead of a file in the filesystem.   Change out the part that does bpy.data.images.load(fname) with something like getGradientImage() from this bathymetry script:
def getGradientImage():
    """rainbow gradient image"""
    rval = bpy.data.images.get("gradient")
#    print(rval)
    if rval is None:
        rval = bpy.data.images.new("gradient", 1, 6)

        rval.pixels = [
            #R,G,B,A,
            1,0,1,1, # magenta
            0,0,1,1, # blue
            0,1,1,1, # cyan
            0,1,0,1, # green
            1,1,0,1, # yellow
            1,0,0,1, # red
        ]
        # if we don't pack the image into the .blend, it will be lost when you re-load the project
        rval.pack(True)
    return rval

Of course, you'll want to give each data set its own image name instead of "gradient".

And https://developer.blender.org/T45695 will track the bug.

Nice starter code! Are aware of any way to directly do this if I have a numpy array representing the image? I'd rather avoid saving the numpy image as a png everything I want to use this.

The easiest way to do this is to UV unwrap the cube first, and then create 2 materials for the cube. Apply 1 material to the single face that you want the texture on, and the second material to the other 5 faces. Once that is set up, it should be trivial to update the image texture on the 1 face via python.

This sounds like a super reasonable approach... I will give it a try!

Ok, let me know how it goes!

I got this to work roughly, using a bit of the code from above. Thanks!


text:
Material not assigning in cycles render, works in blender renderer
I am trying to assign a material to a mesh I have. Whenever I assign a material to my mesh in blender render, and then change the diffuse colour, it works, though when I try the same thing in cycles render, nothing happens. I have to change the viewport colour in order for me to see an effect. How do I get the materials to work in cycles render? What are the exact steps?

In the 3D view you can change the viewport shading to rendered SHIFT + Z then you can see the changes you make in your material.
But if you want to see the different colors in the 3D viewport under the solid viewport shading then you have to change the viewport color in the material settings as you did.

haha Thanks gladys, I'll remember that for next time!


text:
Overlay problem
Well, I'm totally new user of this program, and I decided to use it only because I need to make an intro for my youtube videos.
I don't make it on my own, I downloaded template and replaced text only, but there is one problem.
The template has got overlay as a backround which doesn't show on my rendered video.
I got that overlay in my folder anyway.
Why is that so?
Please help.
How video should look like: http://tinypic.com/player.php?v=2zrgked%3E&s=8#.Vb4VuvmqpAE
My video: http://tinypic.com/player.php?v=2hztk4k%3E&s=8#.Vb4UKfmqpAE

Could you post a .blend file via pasteall.org ? We may see what's wrong.

you probably have to change the blendtype to alpha over. You can find it in the video sequence editor in the properties panel N, under the tab Edit strip.

@lazarus, if that doesn't work maybe you could upload your blendfile

Thanks!
Can you please help me to save it?Do I need to render it again? @gladys

@Lazarus, Upload your blendfile to some hosting service (e.g. pasteall or blendexchange) and put the link here. Then I can take a look. But i think you can just save it. Rendering is done in the render properties panel. Under the output tab, you choose a location were to save it, and you can choose the fileformat, for example H.264. And render the animation (in the render tab).


text:
text and texture not visible in output video
I have created an animated text intro from a blender tutorial but when I try to export it to a video, it only exports the effects I created in "compositing" and not the entire animation with the text and textures added. I have tried everything save it all together so it will export together but nothing is working. I know there has to be a simple fix. Any help would be high appreciated!

Welcome to the site. You will make it easier for others on the site to help you if you: 1) edit your question to give more detail, of what your project is not doing that you want it to, and 2) upload a copy of your ~.blend file to Blend-exchange or another, similar site of you own choosing, and link to the file in your question.

If you only get your compositing effects then you may not have the original render result mixed into the final image. Add a screenshot of your compositing nodes.

I figured it out. my initial node was still in alpha and not image. I've been trying to figure this out for 2 day. simple  mistakes smh. thank you for responding.

You should "answer" your question with the solution ;-)


text:
Vertex group and curve modifier
I've created a vertex group that I want to reshape to more or less how this curve looks in the first image looks like. I'm trying to achieve this using curve modifier. Unfortunately the middle of the vertex group is moved to the edge of the curve, as seen in the other image.
Can this be fixed? Perhaps I'm trying to use wrong tool for the job? It's only my 3rd day with Blender so maybe I'm missing something obvious.

Just select the whole vertex group and grab the x axis arrow and move it toward the other end of the curve, to the right.


text:
Color palette as a replacement for the default color picker
Is there a way around the default color picker (RGB, HSL etc.) with a list of colors aka a color palette with predefined colors - like Pantone in the desktop publishing field or RAL in the industrial designing field?
Say you would realize a more or less photo realistic exhibition stand from CAD files in blender, then you normally are bound to a limited list of RAL colors (or other - more international - color systems) for finish paintings on custom made furnitures and accessories like lamps, product displays and machine housings using complex shaders or in simple cases with a PxrDiffuse shader for wall paints with a RAL color.
Currently I'm evaluating a way through the renderman pipeline and clicking on any color field in the UI of the renderman shader nodes just brings up the default color widget.
What I'm doing now, is select the HEX panel on the color widget, then switch to an text file with a list of RAL colors in HEX format (which is also a little bit inaccurate, depending on the byte range of rgb values), select and copy the needed color to the clipbaord, switch back to blender and paste the corresponding color in the widget field. Doing this a lot in a day is a little bit boring and I'm wondering if there's a simpler way. (As a side note, blender says, that the HEX value is "gamma corrected" and as far as I know, isn't it better using deep colors with floats in such a high dynamic pipeline like renderman? But that seems like an other question.)
A quick research only pops up some add-ons with color palettes for painting modes in the 3D view or something similar.
Any hint is really welcome.
Thanks,
Timm
Ps: this renderman thingy in blender is an awesome piece of work!

I think this problem should be solved in another way. You shouldn't try to substitute Blender's color picker; you should find a way to represent color inside of Blender in desired color space (in your case RAL) so to make color picker to show actual RAL color. And I'm not aware neither if this was implemented nor any ways to do that.

Palettes are a rather nightmarish landscape because frankly, most folks don't understand what an encoded value represents.
That is, in software, an RGB triplet is an encoded representation of exactly two facets, both of which must be communicated via ancillary metadata beyond the three values themselves:

A value representing some degree of visual energy according to some typically unnamed and arbitrary scale. “What visual energy curve is applied to these values?”
Referencing typically unnamed and arbitrary coloured lights. “What colour of light do the three channels reference?”

That is, given an RGB triplet alone, you are missing the aforementioned two critical bits of metadata to decode an RGB triplet into meaningful data. Further, to close the loop, you would need the metadata of your existing context.
As you may have guessed, many palette formats store the arbitrary series of three values as their format, making the erroneous conclusion that such values have any meaning at all.
So the idea of a palette of swatches that has some meaning when used with some other arbitrary list of values is sadly delusional; in order to achieve this you must have an iron fisted controlled colour managed pipeline.
Pantone too suffers from this. Pantone is useful in so far that it references a series of spot printing inks. But how to communicate how a particular Pantone ink appears on a given paper under a given illuminant? A proper colour managed pipeline can accommodate this, but a random triplet of RGB values from some table or horrible website is woefully inadequate. It is a fool's errand and those that frequently seek such solutions by meticulously copying and pasting those RGB encoded values eventually wake up from the chemically induced haze and realize the complexity of any such endeavour.
In the end, there are tremendously complex transforms from a display referred subtractive system such as Pantone to a scene referred additive system such as the reference space that Cycles uses. Could you foreseeable bridge the two? Plausibly, but it would require quite a grasp on colour management and an application thereof.
TL;DR: Find precise chromaticity values for any given series of swatches in xyY and identify the illuminant / white point for the values. Transform the values to your working reference space, whatever it happens to be within your renderer. In Cycles default for example, this is assumed to be REC.709 lights with a D65 white point. Another option is to use an “All in one” RGB image (such as those used for 3D LUT generation), transform it carefully from the colourspace required to the destination, and then sample from that image.

Your answer is very interesting thanks! I would love if it contained some reference images/online references to back up what you say, or allow readers to expand their knowledge of this particular point on online articles.

Glad you found it useful. It is challenging as frequently tools and software only go as far as the culture takes it. In this case, colour is very simple at the lower levels, but compounds in complexity as you multiply those layers of simplicity. I find answering individual questions far superior to linking articles. I have included more than a few references in other answers, such as http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/46825/render-with-a-wider-dynamic-range-in-cycles-to-produce-photorealistic-looking-im/46940#46940.

Wow, I'm back from a mission and learned a little bit more about colors and color spaces - only to find out that there is more in your last comment. I just want to say thank you, that is really a lot of good and vibrant information. I was always wondering how they create such brilliant pictures. I slowly get answers, but deep ones! Thank you.

@Adminradio Feel free to drop by http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/34814/the-rabbit-hole if you have questions. There are quite a few great folks that might be able to help there.


text:
Is there a way to automatically add a photo texture to materials of the same name?
When using the smd import plugin, http://steamreview.org/BlenderSourceTools/, I am able to import the 3d model with the correct materials, but the materials are all blank. It is tedious to select the texture file in the same folder as the model, assign it to the correct materials, turn on specular color, then repeat for the normal maps, turning off the color and turning off  show alpha and selecting normal map for hundreds of textures.Is there a way to import the files so that the material is assigned the correct textures or a plugin to assign textures to materials en masse?

Welcome MikeLitorus :) Since this Addon is open source, might be better reporting the issue or submit a feature request on github: https://github.com/Artfunkel/BlenderSourceTools. Anyway, enjoy blender.se!


text:
Is it possible to unwrap materials made in Vertex Paint?
I painted an group of objects in Blender using the Vertex Paint and was wondering if it would be possible to unwrap the mutliple materials(when the objects are joined together using Ctrl+J)? Do I have to paint it all over again?

Vertex paint is not using UVs, its assigning color values to each vertex, if you join objects vertex paint will remain the same. You can bake vertex colors to a texture when your objects are unwrapped.

You can bake Vertex colors to a texure.
Starting from a vertex color layer as in the picture below

you must unwrap your model (which may consist of one or multiple meshes) and create a new image to bake onto ("untitled" in my case)

Than go in the Bake panel of the Render tab and set Bake mode to Vertex color.

When the process is completed you should see something like the picture above.

Thank you! Exactly what I am looking for. Glad I don't have to repaint everything. :D

This Baking option only works in Blender Render. But you can easily change to it and get back to Cycles after. :)


text:
How can I import and play a video in Blender using a python script?
I want to import a video of any format into the scene and want to play it either from the start or some specific time using a python script.
Any suggestions? Thanks!

Play it where? In the video sequence editor? On an object in the scene?

Do you mean you want to create a VSE strip of the video at a specified time?

Play it as an object in the scene.

@ Mutant Bob yes something similar to that.


text:
How to play any specific 'take' of the FBX animation in Blender using python script?
I am trying to play an animation from a fbx file. I want to choose between default or other 'take' of the animation. How can I do the same?

Even on the blender GUI while hovering over the "take" option on the right side menu ( under scene ), I cant see any api name. Please suggest.

If possible, please provide a test fbx to play with...


text:
How to use FBX file into Blender using python script?
I need to import FBX file to blender using a python script. Does anyone know how we can do that?
Thanks

If you are referring to a particular existing script, you should post a link where one can examine it. Or you want to create a custum python script?

I am just trying a simple python script in which I have to import some images, and FBX files. I was able to import images, however, no clue how to do the same for FBX file. I have recently started exploring blender python APIs, thus my knowledge is quite limited :)

Welcome blackbug :) You have to call the operator: bpy.ops.import_scene.fbx() Do you want to import single or multiple files? How many objects contains your fbx? In order to get a solid answer, please add more context to the question. Anyway, enjoy blender.se!

Thanks alot :) It really helped) Does same exists for importing videos as well?

Also, when I tried to import images to blender,I was able to do so, however, those images are just grey planes, I can't really see the image itself. I used "        bpy.ops.import_image.to_plane" method to do that. Any suggestions? Thanks again)

Consider that this is not a forum, asking multiple questions is not allowed here. Maybe boring, but please start with the tour, edit this question, and ask a new one for importing a video via python. Thanks.


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Warp/Bend Objects?
I have made these steps and I'd like to fit them better to the curved shape of the structure they are attached to by bending them to a curve. Is there a tool that would allow me to do this in one go? How would one go about doing this?

If you already know the way by using curve, you may also consider using Lattice + Proportional Editing.

I would Select the Edge I want the stairs to be,

Then I would duplicate the edge and convert it into a curve by pressing AltC - 'Curve from Mesh/Text',

and Finally I would give the stairs Curve Modifier, and as an object to deform with I would select my Curve.
don't forget to subdivide the stairs

Thanks for this, but it doesn't work for me. Perhaps I am missing something you didn't mention.  Even when I create a new mesh plane and attempt to do this, the curve modifier doesn't do anything except move my object to a point a mile away from where it was. What am I missing here?

Select the object and move it where you want it to be, it will adjust by itself


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Undesired Gradient Shading
I am getting this undesired style of shading which gives a high contrast gradient across panels on a mesh object and even shows up in solid viewpoint mode:

What I'd like is a much flatter shading style, like it is on other objects in the same project, like this:

Not sure what is happening to create the undesired shading, because the object appears to be setup and lit exactly the same as other objects within the project. Help Appreciated.

This is happenning because you have smooth shading applied, to solve that you have to give your model 'Edge Split' Modifier.


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How can I apply a basic material to an object using python in cycles render?
I would like to be able to apply and edit a material to objects I have create using python script. I am using the cycles render engine but can't find a way to get this to work.
I've tried a bunch of the answers already given in other threads but none of them seem to work.
I would like to: create and apply a new material for each object and adjust the colours using rgb, using nodes or otherwise.
Sorry if this is a stupid question, I'm very new to blender scripting!

Please add details as to what you have tried and at what point it doesn't work.

The super-simple example is
import bpy

def mission1(obj):
    mat = bpy.data.materials.new("bacon")
    mat.diffuse_color=(0.8,0,1)

    obj.data.materials[0] = mat

obj = bpy.context.active_object
mission1(obj)

If you need to actually create and rig nodes, update your question with a screenshot of nodes you have manually created and if I have time I'll cobble together some code to build a matching node tree using python.