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How to create poly cylinders on all edges easily?
I have a low poly model that I am trying to modify to have a constructed look to it.

The look I am going for is similar to this where all edges are cylinders connecting the spherical vertices: (With the faces filled)

I have managed to get the spheres at all vertices of my low poly model using duplicate but I need to get the cylindrical parts on all edges between the spheres to complete the look.
Is there a way to make this happen programatically/using functionality? I really don't want to have to do this manually.
This will be used in a game engine so needs to be geometry that can be imported so no magic rendering tricks unfortunately.

Why not just add a "Wireframe" Modifier to it without "Replace original" being checked?

It is much more controllable via the animation nodes Add-on or via Sverchok.

Related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/2838/599

Youd could clone your mesh with Alt + D and add a wireframe modifier to it, that way the meshed are kept linked and in sync so modifications propagate.
Or as suggested by Samoth add the wireframe modifier without the option Replace Original so the underlaying mesh is kept visible
The Wireframe modifier does add a flat shaded grid with square section, so you may want to add a bevel modifier on top of it to make it smooth and cylindrical

Spot on. I am really new to this so that is magic thanks.

http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/questions/436/what-to-do-with-questions-which-have-been-answered-in-comments ;-)

Don't worry, I appreciate your answer as well and UVed it. It adds some valuable information I didn't mention.

Just add a Wireframe Modifier to it with Replace Original unchecked.


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Any idea when GPU volumetric rendering will be added?
Smoke and fire renders with cycles take forever with my CPU, but would be much quicker with GPU... Anyone know when this feature will be added?

It is already there for CUDA GPU's in 2.77 and 2.77a. The other kind of GPU is not yet supported. Read the blender.org page for more on 2.77 and enhanced GPU capabilities.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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object exported as .obj is a solid cube instead of rendered volume when imported to MSblend
I am using Blender to create a 3D volume of brain using this tutorial:
Mri to blender.
I am importing my model in WPF project based on this tutorial: Inserting 3D Models in Expression Blend.
When I export the created file in .obj file from Blender and import in MSblend, see a solid cube instead of the rendered volume.
Thanks.
My setup is Windows7 x64, Microsoft Blend 2012, Blender 2.77

The OBJ file format is mainly a geometry only shape based file format, made for the purpose of transferring basic 3D model data between applications
It is not a full featured save file format nor is it suited for transferring complex shaders or materials between applications, only basic material data is saved along with UV coordinates for texturing.
The tutorial you show seems to be using using image sequences as volumetric data to simulate volume density, which in itself is already an "exotic" type of material, and is very specific to the way Blender works internally. Your actual geometry is just a cube, that is why when you import you only get the cube.
You will have a hard time exporting it out of Blender in any way or shape, even less so using OBJ file format.
Now I have never used Expression Blend and I have no idea how it works, or what are it's rendering capabilities.
If it has volumetric rendering functionality you could try and recreate the volumetric setup in there using it's native material creation workflow.
Otherwise only solution I could image in Blender is possibly modeling a tight sequence of small planes so they form a roughly cubic volume. UV Unwrap the planes so they can use your image sequence as textures.
For performance and workflow reasons you may want to create a "texture atlas" from your image sequence, that means joining all you MRI sequence into one big tiled image, so you don't have to manually set up hundreds of materials/textures one by one, and so they don't ruing your performance loading hundreds of independent files.

authors: Дмитрий Постников

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


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How to fix 3D view cutoff
my 3d view window seems to cut off the view

is there a way to fix this

Related - http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/4946/where-can-the-viewport-clipping-parameters-be-changed and http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/8553/why-does-part-of-my-model-disappear-when-i-zoom-in-on-it-in-the-3d-viewport

Clipping options for the 3D view are here :

These values are different from the camera options (you may need it also) :

Key N to open the 3D Viewport's Properties panel. Go to View dropdown > Clip: and increase the End: value.
Picture from cetagon's answer here:


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wireframe while everything else is solid
hey I'm new to the site but I am making a game in blender. there is this problem where everything is solid but this one object is stuck in wireframe while the rest is solid. I have checked the maximum draw type it is set to textured. please help.

Hard to say without the file, but my first guess would be that you have the faces pointing wrong way. To fix this, in edit mode hit A to select all, then hit Ctrl+F and select Flip Normals.

Check in edit mode if your object actually has faces. Otherwise go to the the material tab and see if you have invisible (next to backfacing) checked, as it makes the objects look like wireframe. I added some images to show. Hope I was helpful.


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how to render without displaying the rendering process
Im starting with Blender and I would like to know if its possible to render an animation without Blender showing each frame while rendering as I think this could slow down the process a bit. Am I right?
Thanks in advance

Welcome horacius :) You are right, for a complete solution see this answer: http://blender.stackexchange.com/a/16261/3710

Is Alt+A what you are looking for? If you want to lock the view to camera while playing, you can use Numpad 0.


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How to mask triangle out of the video strip in VSE?
Im struggling with masking portions out of my video in VSE. I need to mask two triangles at each side of the video, because when positioned next to each other in 90 degrees angle (via transform layers), the corners will overlay each other and ulimately obstruct the view of the other video.
So in another words I need to have 4 same videos but cut the corners of each. I think this can be solved by some masking but I did not find the answer yet.
Thanks, Mike
I need to mask red parts, but how?

Use create a Mask (in an UV/Image Editor set to Mask Mode) covering the content you want to keep. You can Ctrl+Click to add Points to create a Mask and Alt+C to Toggle Cyclic so that the first and last point are connected. Use V to Set Handle Types if needed.
Set your Transform Effect Strips Blend type Properties (N) each to Alpha Over. Oh and you'd better mute (H) your underlying Video Strips when you use an Effect Strip on top to reduce unwanted side effects.
Use that Mask going to the Modifiers Properties of your Video Strip in the VSE, click Add Strip Modifier, set it to Mask instead of Strip (Type of input data) and select your Mask created in Step 1.

Hello Samoth, thank you for your great answer. I have managed to apply mask on my strip. However one thing is still not clear. Do you have to create 4 masks or you are using the same one?

You can select the same mask many times... no problem. As your Video Strip is just a duplicate you can use the same mask again and again. There's even a Copy to Selected Strips Button to help you copy your complete Mask Modifier around. Just select the one to be copied from last.

You can see in my example image that in the UV/Image Editor there is a "6" next to "MyMask". This means, it's currently being used 6 times. So no need to create the same mask more than once.

mhmm, but when I apply the mask onto the next strip the same area is displayed. So how do you managed to "rotate" also the mask together with the strip?

As you should be able to see, and as I wrote, I added the Mask Modifier to the Video Strip, not to the Transform Effect Strip.

you are a star, thank you. I got it now. I was applying the mask to transform layer only. Now when applied onto the video strip it has worked.

Let us continue this discussion in chat.


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4 way video for pyramidal hologram
I struggle with one thing. I need to create a 4 way video for a pyramidal hologram. How can I do it using blender? I have tried to search everywhere but seems that Im not hitting the correct keywords.
Please see example of such video here
Thank you Mike

Have you considered using third party video editing software?

Sure I did, thats why I came across blender :-) I assume that there must be a function within the which will copy and rotate the clip.

can you append your model/scene you want to render "pyramid style"

Transform Effect
Transform strip effect is the way to manipulate input strips around the "canvas". As stated by the Blender Manual page:

Transform is a swiss-army knife of image manipulation. It scales, shifts, and rotates the images within a strip.

Select the given video strip and add several Tranform effect strips to it (the must all be referred to the input, the one in blue, so always pick it before adding each effect).

You'll not need to duplicate the strip several times, as the effect strip is already a copy of the input video itself, but with custom parameters.
Make sure to assign a Over drop blending mode to each tranform strip and mute the input one.

If you are planning to use multiple views (as shown in this video), just assing a transform strip to each input video:

The 4 input videos were made by rendering the same animation from 4 different cameras:

You can find several templates for Blender at: DIY hologram using a 4-sided pyramid

Thank you Carlo! You are a star! You have resolved my problem.


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Adding Shaders To Mapped Texture
So I used Agisoft Photoscan to render a model
it output a texture that is mapped to different sections of my model
My example:
I have a bunny's head and body
Texture1 is mapped to the bunnies eyes, head, and ears
I want it so that the bunny's eyes have a glossy shader applied to them WHILE maintaining the original mapped texture (kinda combining the mapped portion of the texture with a glossy shader) while avoiding making the rest of the head and ears glossy as well?

Put an alpha channel on the texture where you want it to be glossy, then use a color ramp node to mix between your original shader and a glossy shader.


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AMD GPU Rendering R7 Series
I have an AMD Radeon R7 200 series in my desktop, and was wondering if it was compatible for OpenCL GPU rendering in Blender? I have researched and researched but have been unable to have my question answered. Thanks!

My previous card was a R7 200 series, my actual card is a R9 200 series. While both cards actually seem to work with Blender, there are two major drawbacks.

The actual driver is faulty and renders "TV stripes" into your image (see https://community.amd.com/thread/198677)
Blender's development team (like many others) sadly seems to focus on NVIDIA, thus AMD GPU (OpenCL) rendering is not that optimized than NVIDIA's (CUDA) (see https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Blender-Slow-OpenCL-AMDGPU)

Even with the "good" drivers I haven't experienced much faster rendering.
Update: I just tested the current driver hotfix 16.8.1 under Windows 7. They seem to work significantly faster and also the "TV stripes" seem to be gone. Linux test might follow by the end of the week.

Any update on this? AMD worked on Cycles together with Blender devs. So does it work on Linux now?

Yes.
According to the Blender wiki, OpenCL is in fact supported for all six Radeon R7 200-series card models that appear on the Radeon Rx 200 series Wikipedia page.
You will need to make sure you have up to date drivers installed and the GPU selected as the compute device in the settings of Blender, system tab.

Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: yes, but from personal experience, OpenCL integration in Blender is slow and lacking. Primary focus is on CUDA(Nvidia), so OpenCL is lacking key features(SSS, Branched Path, Volume, etc.) Last time I used it(R5 card here), it had no support for HDR textures, but that's probably fixed now. See the Blender manual for more details.

Under the "System" tab in Blender Preferences, check the compute device setting. If OpenCL is listed, change the option from none to that, and select the GPU you would like to render with.

If no device is listed, your GPU may not be compatible, or is disabled.

authors: щекытьчщлаотиплвжщчтижщдвыч

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


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when you first import a character, are the materials still there even when in cycle render?

I just want to know, because I'm still getting use to this, but when you import a new character with eyes,hair etc. are the material still there in cycles render mode? or do I have to use node and set them up again?
This is how he is Blender render mode, but in cycles render, i only got the skin to show while the eyes and hairs where white. so do you have to find each png or file for those part or can I enable them someway on again?

Cycles an Blender internal work with different material system,means your material in cycles wont work in internal.
There have been some Idea about converting the materials from and to the render engines,like:

Cycles material converter
Convert materials to Cycles

so if I switch between blender and cycles? they will show still?

@Ashton if you used one of these addons it will (in most of the cases).

i can't find materials_cycles_converter? what should i do

@Ashton you can find it in the material panel.


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why is the foot skin still kinda sticking on the ground?

is this happening because of the rig or something else? and how can i fix

It's your Weight Painting.
Select the mesh, key Ctrl + Tab to enter Weight Painting mode, and key T to toggle open/close the Toolshelf. Go to the 3D Viewport > Toolshelf > Brush > Weight: value and enter 1. Drag the brush over the problem spots. They should change from blue to red and rejoin (jump to) the rest of the mesh (foot).

ok i will try and let you know

so should the whole mesh be red?

No. You can try entering pose mode on the rig, then selecting the mesh, entering weight painting mode on it, and selecting a foot bone. With a foot bone selected, only the foot vertex group should be visible, and then you can paint. Also, if my answer helped, please consider accepting it.

does weight paint fix problems with the head as well? because i can get my head to move, but the neck moves tho and im still messing with the foot so i'll accept if it works full for me.

Yes, it does all rigging stuff.

i cover the toe nail parts,but no luck. should make bones for all toes?

Probably. Also, please consider accepting my answer by clicking the check mark at the top left. It will help me greatly:)


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Normalized z-depth shader (based on the cycles camera data node)
I'm trying to create a shader that displays the normalized (0 to 1) camera Z-dpeth on top of the viewed object.
Yeah, I know I can easily do this in post with the normalize node if I render out the z depth pass, but I prefer to have this in a shader.
I tried to do this with an OSL script using the clamp function but it didn't really do what I wanted. See image below for clarification:

You can see the desired result on the right (achieved with compositor nodes), and the existing result on the left (with shader nodes).
This is the OSL script that didn't quite get me where I wanted, but might be a good start (I intended to use it between the camera data and emission nodes, the same way I use the normalize node in the compositor):
shader normalize_value(
    float inputValue = 0.0,
    output float normalizedValue = 0.0
){
    normalizedValue = clamp(inputValue, 0, 1);
}

I'm of course open to any other method, for instance involving other shader nodes (I couldn't find a way to get the same result but hey who knows!).

Normalize and Clamp are different meanings to me. Have you tried to scale/multiple by a float number such as (.5)? When you examine the failed image (RGB Values) do you see subtle color variation or a single color? If you see variation then you can perform math ops to transform those values to be more detectable by humans. If you see no variation then may the clamped values come into the function at one extreme of the clamped range. Are you sure your clamp result is a floating point value?

OSL has normalize function, that either gets and returns vector, but it won't provide you with the same result as to what I tried (it'll be the same, without changes). So maybe there lacks something besides Normalize in this case

I couldn't seem to get anywhere with OSL, even when I used a normalization algorithm of my own that takes the min and max values into account. Not sure why, but since the script above is my first OSL script, I probably just don't know what I'm doing... If only the normalize node from the compositor was ported into the shader nodes, that would have been really nice...

Are you open to a GN-based solution?  We can instance all geo onto camera space and measure the min/max Z, which we can use to make marker points to measure the Z bounds in the shader.

You could use two empties to define the normalization limits. Could this suit you?

(Limitiations: Normalize is done per-object.
I believe there is no way in native shader nodes to fix this.)

By using the generated coordinates, we can access the bounding box for the object.
Using this, we could estimate the depth the object occupies, and set min and max for the clamping operation.

However a much more elegant solution arises:

By dot-producting with the camera vector, we can sample the texel's position within its own space, along the camera's (local Z) vector.
Using a bit of additionnal math, we ajust the generated to operate on [1:-1], then bring the result back to [0:1]

Note: because the "incoming" vector describes not the camera's Z vector, but the vector from the texel to thec camera origin.
It's not ''flat'' raster distance that is calculated but the arguably more correct stereographic distance, of camera X + camera Y + camera Z local distances. This can be if needed, by deriving the camera vector from a different source or correcting it before the dot-product operation

Oho, this doesn't exactly answer the question but it's still interesting. It works pretty well for viewing an object from outside its bounding box, but if you have a room, say, and enter it and walk straight ahead to the far wall, the depth of the far wall won't change at all even when you're right in front of it.

For camera within the bounding box, it may be possible to perform a minimum between the camera position and the bounding box. I'll look into it and update this answer if I find something

If it's ok to put in some values manually, you can use a Cycles shader like this. You have to know the distance of your scene from the camera and the scene size along camera z. In this example the object starts 3 units away from the camera and has a size along camera z of 2 units.
Input the values into the two red value nodes.

That's an interesting solution, I'll check it out and update here, thanks! I don't mind using "manual" values because I generate this shader dynamically in a script for every object, so it can use the correct values for the scene and object ever time.

By the way there's an invert node under Color --> Invert :)

But that's for a color triple. I prefer to use this math node for single values, as it directly maps [0...1] to [1...0]. Feels somehow cleaner to me :)

OK that's close, but not quite it... I still need to tweak the values arbitrarily to get a result that better resembles the normalized image...

It does map the z depth to [1...0] correctly though, but maybe that's not exactly what you want. You can test by checking the values in the Render Result image from the image editor by clicking on the image and displaying the RGB values. Are you sure the normalize node from the compositor does what you need? Usually it is used for setting a vector to length 1. I don't know what it does to the z depth. From the manual:
"Normalize
Normalizing a vector scales its magnitude, or length, to a value of 1, but keeps its direction intact."

Regarding your question, the normalize node in the compositor produces the result I need. I assume that with a 1D array it will simply map all the values to 0-1 according to the array's min and max. Regarding the specific method: I used drivers eventually to get the correct values (d = distance from camera, s = object dimensions in the camera axis) but the image is way too bright, not really normalized. Something odd with my setup? http://www.pasteall.org/pic/show.php?id=92924

Setup looks ok, depends on the values of course. If you post the blend, I could have a look if you want. Nice blendfile host for SE: http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ - edit: I'll have a look at your pasteall blend.

Better still, here's a blend file with Suzanne, similar to your original example (still gives a really different result from normalized render): http://www.pasteall.org/blend/37935

I see the difference. Your setup is not entirely correct, though. The distance from the camera to the start of the model is about 6.72 instead of 7.27. The driver calculates the distance to Suzanne's object center, which is a bit behind the start of the geometry. But even with 6.72 as distance there's still a little difference to the compositor output. Why that is I don't know. Maybe somehow related to color space (linear vs sRGB). Just an idea, though.

If you don't want to hardcode the near/far planes distances, you can use two empties for that.
Both are aligned to the camera axis and rotated as the camera is (looking at minus Z). They are also parented to the camera.

From that, you can take the object coordinates of the three objects (the camera, the near empty called 'min' below and the far empty called 'max').
Now, we keep only the Z part of their coordinates and map range the view Z depth from a min value that is the Z distance between the camera and "min" empty and a max value that is the Z distance between the camera and "max" empty.
Once done, invert the resulting color.
(unlinked below, Z of the camera that can be used in place of the "min" empty if you want to get ride of it).

Note: inverting the color is useless, as you can also map range to min = 1 and max = 0.

To move the empties, use GZZ to grab them along their own Z axis.

This just hardcodes it in the position of the empties though; the extra indirection doesn't really change anything. I want it to always just work for whatever the current camera is.

@scurest, in this case, I think its not possible.

Yeah, seems like it.

Try to scale (multiply) the values first followed by other math operations.
(original - min)/(max - min)
I am investigating clamping numbers to the same type ... float values
clamp(inputValue, 0.0, 1.0);

Guessing example.
For example ... (original * (.5))  + offset .....
Then clamp.

Thanks. I did try various math operations, but I actually do want to normalize the output. I.e. map each value in the original z depth image (which is a low contrast image but not a single value) into a float between 0-1,  depending on its relative value to the min and max values of the original image.

Do you know the min and max values?  Does some mechanism provide them?

do you think you could add more detail, maybe a few screenshots to this post? thanks-

Might be math operations that get them from the image, will check when I get home.


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Blender Mesh is deforming when imported into Unity3D
So I have a small but rather annoying problem.
In Blender, I've created a very simple rigged mesh so that I can create animations.
In Blender, everything works perfectly. For example I will show a frame from one of my animations where my character puts her hands on her hips.

When I bring this model into Unity3D however, the elbows, knees and chin/head slightly deform into a curve, which is my problem.

Please let me know what you think! Thank you, very much for your time.
Additional information that may help:
I am running Blender 2.76b and Unity 5.3.4f1.
Also, my model has 3 modifiers (Skin, Armature, and Subsurf)

The modifiers are not exported with the model unless you apply them.

Awesome, thank you Denis, you were right on! I actually didn't get it right away because after I applied, then, exported, the mesh looked correct but actually wouldn't move. Some more fiddling around got me to what I was hoping for. Thanks again!

Your model has subsurface modifier applied after the animation deformation which didn't get applied when you exported your model.
So you should apply your subsurface modifier before you export your model.
But,Your subsurface modifier should be at the top of the modifier stack in order to work correctly in Unity as you see it in blender.
So move your subsurface modifier at the top after the skin modifier and apply it.

Awesome, thank you for the help Omar! I know it was simple however this is my first Blender project and I was very lost as to what to try next!
For other users with this same problem, I would just note that you may need to play around with the order in which you apply modifiers. I believe Omar is 100% correct in the proper ordering of modifiers...however as I probably did something else incorrectly, the order "Skin, Subsurf, then Armature" caused additional issues for my model in particular.
Thanks again Omar!


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Blender compositor canvas
This time my question is quite straight forward. How can I set up a canvas in Blender compositor. I explain better. I have an image that's too big and need to be resized. The edges of the image are all the same color and I wish to resize it on an other monocrome image. Is it possible to create using the nodes a black [or white or any other color] filled image defining also the sizes?
Thank you for your answer
Have a nice day!

You may use a Scale node (Add-->Distort-->Scale).

Go into the compositor, and add an Add > Distort > Scale node.


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Turning off dashed lines on object imported from sketchup
I've begun importing from sketchup and my model groups have wire ( dashed line ) going back to the datum origin. They don't show in final renders  but is there any way I can turn off their displaying as they get in the way?

this is the same no matter if I use Blendup, but its the same via Collada, and 3DS.

Related http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/23422/lines-while-importing-dae-files and http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/27143/removing-dotted-assist-lines-problem-only-occurs-when-appending

also https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/33242/what-are-these-block-dotted-lines/33243#33243

thanks guys, don't know enough to use the right search terms


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Blender 2.90.1|Where's the UV Layout Export function?
I'm using Blender 2.90.1 and I can't see the UV Layout Export
In older versions, it has located on UV Editor > UV > Export UV Layout
It's gone?
Regards,

Make sure "Import-Export: UV Layout" is enabled in the addons section of user preferences:

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


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Problem to render sterescopic anaglyph
So, I have rendered anaglyphic images before but now when I try to do it the final image will not be cyan and red combined, it will just be two images from different angles, no cyan or red at all. I have it set to Stereo 3D, Anaglyph, red-cyan under Output and views format. I also have it set to Stereo 3D in "Views". I render the image and in the render view I see an image with red and cyan, but once I go F3 and save it as an image, then the final version, in the selected folder is two images with the R and L suffix (completely without red or cyan).
Anybody what this is all about?

When you are saving the image, in the save dialogue options, do you have by accident "Individual" checked instead of "Stereo 3D"?

Yes, man! That's it! Haha! Always the small things you miss while staring yourself blind at other things! :) Thanks a lot! :)

@RickardAlexanderNilsson if this is a valid answer to your question, please mark it as answered here on StackExchange. You can also upvote it if you think it is helpful for others too. This will pay back some reputation points to AdamTM as a reward.


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How do I fix the paths for packed images?
I downloaded a shared .blend file.  I changed a few things and tried to pack the external data .blend file.  It complained about textures and it looks like Blender was looking for the textures on the author's computer?  How do I fix that?  It's not working in the user preferences settings in my Blender.
Thanks

Can you add more information to your question about what  "it looks like Blender was looking for the textures on the author's computer" means? What screen were you seeing? Including screenshots can be helpful to illustrate your question.

You can try to Unpack all into files, make paths relative, then repack

Hi   I can't put up a screen shot here.  But it essentially says "Report: Error Unable to pack source path"  and it list 4 times a path to images that do not exist on my computer.  I am guessing the paths are on the persons computer that made the.blend file

Why can't you upload a screenshot here? If Blender searches for the files from another computer you need to get them from another computer.

I think blickfang means he is working on someone else's file sent or downloaded from the internet or something and Blender is trying to find texture files with absolute paths in their original location from the author computer.

Duarte that is what I am saying.


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I can't keep my armature in pose mode when selecting another object
I have set my armature to pose mode, and now want to select the rigged mesh so that I can weight paint it. The only way I can select the mesh as the active object is to set the armature back to object mode, which I don't want.
Using blender 2.8

Created and self answered since I had to hunt a bit to figure this out last night, and I suspect many others will benefit as people start using 2.8 more.

Nope, at least not in v2.93.9. Even though Lock Object Modes is unchecked, the armature switches to Object mode when we switch the mesh to Object mode. Horrible for us weight painters.

This has to do with how editors/modes have changed in 2.8 (presumably related to multi object editing?)
There is an option in the edit menu called Lock Object Modes which forces the mode to be consistent across all objects. If an object doesn't support the current mode then it cannot be selected. Disabling this mode allows leaving the armature in pose mode and then selecting the mesh:


text:
how do I copy fluid physics from one object to several
How do I copy fluid obstacle properties to other objects.  I see that we can copy from active with ridgid body tools but this does not exist for fluid.
Right ?

An option that is available for many settings, not just fluid settings, is to right click  on the value and choose Copy To Selected. This will copy the value from the active object to all selected objects.

Also one can copy them with Ctrl+L menu or Copy Attributes menu addon as these are settings of the Fluid modifier.

In 2.8 this it seems to not be part of that addon anymore though.

@copypaste Which part can't you find? The copy to selected is still part of blender 2.80. The Copy attributes addon is also still available - with Ctrl-C. In the make links or copy attributes you want to copy modifiers and then you can use copy to selected on individual settings.

It works with cmd+L and then modifiers. I did not find another way to copy fluid physics.


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Materials, textures and how they relate to models before/after render
I am brand new to Blender and just want to confirm that I understand the difference between models, textures and materials (particularly the last two).
My understanding (please correct me if I'm wrong!) is:

A model is the mesh of the 3D object (contains 3D coordinates of each vertex, and all the edge information between connected vertices). There are multiple file formats for models (PLY, OBJ, etc.) and Blender supports most of them.
A texture is a file that contains 1+ 2D images representing the surface of the model. Textures get mapped to the outermost vertices of the model and provide (primarily) sub-polygon color details, giving the models (essentially) their outward look-and-feel. There are also multiple file formats that can store textures since they are essentially containers of 1+ images (but what file formats are there?)
A material is a collection of light properties on each pixel or polygon (which one?) on the model. Materials determine what happens when light (and only light - nothing else) strikes the pixel/polygon at a specific angle, with a specific intensity, etc. Materials can either be baked (pre-rendered) into a texture, and subsequently exported/saved as a texture file. Or, materials can be exported/saved as a separate/third file type; I believe MTL files are material files.
Rendering is the process of baking materials into textures, and then applying/mapping the baked textures onto the surface of models, and producing a 2D image from a specific camera position/orientation.

How'd I do?

You got most everything right but there are a few misconceptions there.
Model
A model is the geometry giving shape to a 3D object, it is often of Mesh type but may be also composed of other geometry types, like Curves, Text Objects, or less commonly in Blender NURBS. It may also comprehend other animation related data like rigging, shape keys, and armatures.
The formats you speak of have nothing to do with models themselves, though they serve as way to export them. They are mostly interface file formats useful for transferring data between different applications, Blender does import and export most of them, but to faithfully save your data you must exclusively save in the native .blend file.
Texture
Textures are for the most part regular 2D images as in jpeg, png, tiff, tga, EXR image files. They are just a name for an image that will be controlling a property of a material, it is not a file format that contains "1+" images, it is an image. They simply describe color information, they hold no information regarding surface properties of an object themselves, and can't be used alone for the most part, but can however through a material serve various purposes like provide actual diffuse (visible) color of a material, or other surface properties like roughness (bump or displacement maps), shininess (glossiness or reflectivity), emission, and many other properties.
There are two main types of textures, actual image textures, as described above, using an image file, or procedural ones, generated by the rendering engine (generally can't be exported or used elsewhere outside the source program).
Material
A material is the collection of image textures, procedural textures, shaders, and surface/volume properties that describes the final appearance of the surface. It may include reflectivity, lighting, color and/or volume information. Materials can under certain circumstances be baked into a "static representation" of the surface for export, but are otherwise for the most part not exportable
A material can use any number of textures or none at all, and an object can have any number of materials (except for certain game engines). Materials are assigend to objects using Material Slots but only one can be assigned per face at each time. Of course using too many textures and/or materials may have a negative impact over performance of a scene or rendering.
Rendering
Rendering Is generally used to refer to the process of transforming a Scene (composed of 3D models with Materials) into a 2D image (like taking a picture with a camera). The process of transforming materials into textures, although also achieved through the same rendering process, is generally referred to specifically as Baking. Just to be clear, baking obligatorily involves rendering, but rendering doesn't necessarily require baking.

Specifically, the purpose of baking is to take things like non-exportable procedural textures or high-poly geometry (in the case of normal maps) and render it into a simple image that other software could use. You can also use baked textures to speed up rendering in blender, particularly animation -- cgi films sometimes do this -- but usually the consumer of baked textures is a game or other realtime renderer.

One thing I would add to you answer is to confirm for them that textures do not contain "1+" (ie. more than one) image, but that a texture is just another name for an image.

@raymairlot agree, didn't really understand what the user actually meant with that. Feel free to edit my question and add any additional information you feel is missing.

Might want to change "rugositiy ". While I understand the meaning (after looking it up), it's not a word I've heard in the context of materials or textures before.

True, fixed. Always have a hard time translating that while avoiding the "bumpiness bump" redundancy ;)


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How to install/enable Level Editor in 2.78
I'm looking for this Level Editor addon but the Google Gods aren't turning up any links/docs.
What's the name of this addon? Does it ship with (even as disabled) 2.78 or do I have to download something (plugin?) to activate it inside of Blender?

I haven't come across it and yes you would need to download and install the addon if you can find out where to get it. I expect the video is showing an early work in progress of an addon that hasn't been finished or released. As there is no response to requests for a link I wouldn't expect to find it.


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Importing MakeHuman assets into Blender
I created a character (human model) in MakeHuman and would like to import it into Blender, make some additional modifications to it, and then save it as a blend (.blend file).
I would think that a super popular open source character editor like MakeHuman would make it really easy to accomplish this. But they don't have any documentation on their site for how to do this, and after searching online all I could find was this YouTube video which makes the process seem super complicated, unsupported and failure prone:

Download an old (2014) plugin for MakeHuman and install it (its no longer supported and may very well not work with modern versions of Blender)
Download BlenderTools from MakeHuman and install them in Blender's scripts/ directory
Restart Blender, then activate the MakeHuman Add-Ons from inside Blender

This seems really brittle and wonky to me. Has anybody ever got this working before? Is there a better/easier way to import MakeHuman assets into Blender?

Export the model as an .obj and rig with rigify if you don't want to mess with mhx2. Textures chosen in MH will be in makehuman exports directory.

Awesome, thanks @Timaroberts (+1) - when I go to Export and select "Wavefront obj" as the Mesh format, the only option for Rig format is "Biovision Hierarchy BVH". Is that OK to use or am I looking in the wrong place?!? Thanks again!!

^^^And for what its worth I had gone to Skeleton >> Game Engine (rig preset), which I believe "rigs" the model, but am fine if I have to lose MakeHuman's rig data and rig it inside of Blender instead. But of course, if I can keep this rig data in MakeHuman and export it into Blender, that saves me the trouble of rigging in Blender.

Exporting as .obj will not get you a rigged mesh as far as I know, so it doesn't matter.

As of 2022 there seems to be a better way:
In order to do direct imports from MakeHuman, you must enable the “socket server” inside MakeHuman. This is disabled per default.
In MakeHuman, load your model and find the Community > Socket tab. Check the Accept connections checkbox. The center column should indicate that the server socket is started.

in Blender 3.0.0 or newer, download and install the MPFB2 plugin for Blender
once installed you can use the tab "MPFB" in the N side shelf. There are many options, you can use the Import human button to import with default settings or customise it.

You can even create a new human from scratch inside Blender, there are more instructions in the MakeHuman Community guide.

To expand on the answer by @Luciano... If you have MakeHuman and blender with MPFB2 on the same machine, you should be able to simply open the MHM file (ie the save file from MakeHuman) directly from MPFB:

For more information on MPFB2, see http://static.makehumancommunity.org/mpfb.html


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OBJ model barely rendering in Blender 2.78
I just made the following model in MakeHuman:

I export him as an OBJ file (which produces both an OBJ and an MTL file on my file system), then I open Blender and import the OBJ. I see:

When I click SHIFT+Z to render him (and apply textures, etc.), I see:

If you look close, you can kinda/sorta make out his eyes and a few other white blurbs. What's going on here?!? Is this a bug in MakeHuman, Blender, or me just not using the UI correctly? Why is this rendering so weird?!

Thanks @cegaton (+1) - nope, Intel (Macbook Pro). Any ideas?

Thanks, will do - but how do I do that?!

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

Are you using cycles or internal?


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Simple modeling tools that integrate with Blender
I'm a developer looking to make some simple games using an open source game engine, but I'm brand-spanking-new to both Blender and 3D modeling in general. I am fervently reading books and following YouTube tutorials to learn as much as I can.
But since I'm so new, and seeing that I'm excited to get some custom models loaded into my game so I can toy around with them, I'm looking for a model pipeline where:

A WYSIWYG-style 3D modeling tool helps me create pseudo-custom textured models, and export them as OBJ/MTL files
Then I import these in Blender and do some minor editing on them, then either leave the edits as saved OBJ/MTL files or convert them to .blend files
Then I load these files into my game

I'm doing this because there's a few dozen different models I'd like to use in my game, and it is going to take me a long time to get good enough with Blender so that I can create decent-looking models from scratch.
For human/humanoid models, I see that I can use tools like MakeHuman or Adobe Fuse.
But what about everything else?!? What if I want to make a dog, or a table, or a tree, etc.? Are there open source/free tools out there that will help me create "custom" textured models simply/easily, and that can then be exported and loaded into Blender?

for interior design items, you can try http://www.sweethome3d.com, which can fit your workflow for 1 (see http://www.sweethome3d.com/userGuide.jsp#otherFeatures)

Thanks @m.ardito (+1) - but is their website down?

? I just browsed, using the link I posted... it's up. But I forgot to suggest also some blender addon that could help you (like https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/Curve/Sapling_Tree)... there are so many addons...

Thanks, yeah it looks like their site is currenty down. I'll try later tonight

...it's up, you may be facing other issues...

check this http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/sweethome3d.com

Super weird, it is just me. But definitely nothing on my end (I have a good, solid network connection. Maybe something with my ISP. I'll try again tomorrow, and if that fails, I'll call TimeWarner Cable this weekend). Thanks for the suggestion, as soon as I can check it out, I will!

Don't forget blendswap.com, countless blender ready models.


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Understanding the nature of a Blender render
New to Blender, and reading the docs, I can't seem to get a good "real world" explanation of what a 'render' actually is:

Is a render a 2D image (sort of like snapping a photo of a 3D scene from a specific viewpoint/orientation/position), or is a render a full-bore 3D model?
Is the render an actual file (if so, what is its file extension, as opposed to the *.blend unrendered model file), or is it something that only lives in memory?
If Blender is used to create assets/models for use in games, I've heard of several game engines that have rendering capabilities. So, in the context of games, what's the typical flow: are assets rendered in Blender, and then saved & used by the game engines (already pre-rendered)? Or are the assets left as unrendered *.blend files, which then get used by the game engine, leaving the engine responsible for performing the render?

Some etymology might help, render comes form old  french and means "to make", in the case of making images it means to shade the final image. So when a artist produces the final painted image he is rendering or making the image. So too in 3D graphics rendering is that act of shading (making) the image to screen/file. Wether its done in memory only or to a file deoends on the purpose your 3D graphics card does that all the time. All images are snapshots.

A render is exactly as you say in your first bullet point; a render is a snapshot (or series of snapshots for animations) of the scene taken by the scene's camera, saved as either an image, a sequence of images or a video. The file format will be whichever format you save it in e.g. JPG or PNGs etc. for images or MP4 or MOV etc. for videos.
The process of creating this render is rendering, which is where the renderer - Blender Render, Cycles or an external render engine - calculates what colour each pixel should be based on how light is travelling through the 3D scene and interacting with the surfaces, materials and textures on the objects. This can be an intensive process, particularly for animations where a render has to be done for each frame of animation.
For a 3D game, game engines will need the 3D models and textures in a format it can read. Commonly, you would export your models from blender as 'FBX' or 'OBJ'. These files store the 3D models as a series of points (along with other data like bones, UV maps etc.). Textures would have to be provided separately and materials would have to be created using the game engine's own material editor as they are not compatible with Blender's own materials.
To get around this you might create materials in Blender and Bake them to a texture, which is a way of rendering a material into a texture so that you can use it in the game engine (though baking has many restrictions which may mean that using the game engine's materials and lighting is preferable).
Game engines perform a 'live' rendering where for each frame (update) of the game engine the materials and lighting have to be re-calculated. Depending on the complexity of the materials and models this can be an intensive process which is why high end hardware may be needed for this 'live' rendering.

Thanks @Ray (+1) - awesome answer! Everything makes perfect sense, except for one item, due to my rookie stupidity: what's the difference between a material and a texture?! I thought they were one in the same! Thanks again!

Also, if rendering a single frame can take 30 - 60 seconds in Blender (even using Cycles), then how are game engines able to render insanely complex 3D worlds, chock full of amazing graphics, all in real-time with (virtually) no lag?

A material is every property of a surface which effects the render, reflectivity, specularity, bump etc. A texture is an image which can influence any of these properties. The most common type of texture is a texture which influences the diffuse (colour) of the material. Game engines tend to fake a lot of effects whereas render engines tend to aim for more physical correctness. However, there are probably people on a game stack exchange able to answer this better.

As Ray said, game engines fake a lot of things.  Many 3D rendering packages are physically-based, and aim to accurately recreate real-world effects by using complicated physics equations to model them.  Game engines usually target something that "looks good" even though it may not be completely (or even remotely) accurate.  Game engines also take advantage of techniques like pre-computation where possible, like the texture baking that @RayMairlot mentioned above.

@smeeb For the rendering times: there are different ways of rendering. Google "rasterisation" (what games use) vs. "ray tracing", "radiosity", or "global illumination."

The term "a render" is usually used to refer to an image produced by a "render engine" such as blender internal or cycles.
In the context of Blender, this is usually an image taken by a "virtual camera" of a virtual scene, from a specific vantage point and orientation etc.
However, one can also "render" other kinds of images, for example as in "baking" textures. Baked textures are image textures mapped to the surface of a 3D model containing stuff like lighting information, computed by the render engine.
Most game engines which display imagery on screen have rendering capabilities (generating images to display in real-time is "rendering" just as much as generating images in not-so-real time).
However tricks such as baking textures can be used to precompute some of the more complicated rendering with non-realtime render engines like cycles etc.

A render is a 2D image of a 3D scene from a specific point with a specific lens and sensor. Like a photo. The world is 3D but the photo is 2D. It can also be an animation (a video or a set of frames).
The render is an image or video file, so it can be JPG, PNG, AVI, etc...
A game can be partially rendered (you render some features of the materials, like reflection, etc...) or rendered in real time (the first is better because it takes time when you create the pre-rendering but then is faster.


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Understanding how the Modifiers Panel's Convert button affects particle systems
I recently went to http://www.blendswap.com/ and downloaded this blend of a mushroom patch. I opened it in Blender and started playing around with it:

One of the first things I wanted to do was to edit an individual mushroom by selecting it, moving it around, transforming it in a number of ways (rotating it, scaling it), etc. Whereas I expected to see each individual mushroom show up in the Outliner tool (which would then allow me to select a mushroom from the Outliner and see it highlighted in the viewport), I only saw a single "Plane" object in the Outliner. Furthermore, I wasn't able to grab individual mushrooms and do anything with them. They all appeared "locked" into the plane and/or greater model at large.
I asked a question on this site and was told that these mushrooms were part of a particle system (which, as a total newbie, I had never heard of before). To make the individual mushrooms editable objects, I needed to go to the Modifiers Panel and click the Convert button. I did this, and sure enough, I am now able to edit each individual mushroom. Thank you Blender SE!
However, I was curious to find out more about particle systems and how they were related to my mushroom patch. I have now watched several video tutorials on Blender particle systems and emitters, and I'm now totally & utterly confused!

How are the individual mushrooms connected to a particle system in the original (on blendswap.com) file? Did the author somehow configure a super customized particle system that "emitted" random mushrooms at random locations?
What does Modifiers >> Convert actually do to a particle system (or anything else)? How did it break out all of the mushrooms into separate editable objects? How does it know that the entire mushroom should be the "atomic" editable object, and not allow you to decompose a mushroom into smaller parts (the umbrella, parts of the stem, etc.)?
Why were the mushrooms not editable before I clicked this Convert button? How would I convert everything back into a single object (perhaps after editing a few mushrooms), and what would that "single object" be referred to as?

Thanks in advance!

I have not downloaded the blendswap file.
Creating a particle system with objects as particles

For this example, I created three different mushrooms.
Select ⇧ Shift RMB and group the mushrooms ⎈ CtrlG.
Move the mushrooms to a unused layer.
Add a plane Ground and add a particle system to it. Set the Start to 0 and End to 1 and the Lifetime the scenes length. Set Physics to No. Starting from frame 1 the particles should not move.
Set the initial Velocity to (0, 1, 0) (because my mushrooms face up in direction of Y). Set the Render Type to Group under the Render section. There are more group settings you can use.

You now have a particle system which emits mushrooms.

You can choose the number of particles (mushrooms) in the Emission tab.
Setting the physics to No makes the particles static (not move).
Setting the Start and End between 0 and 1 ensures that all particles are emitted before frame 1.
Setting Render type to Group shows the group objects instead of other particle display objects. Don't forget to select the correct group. You can also choose object, if you only want to create multiples of a single object.
Creating a particle system in the particle tab automatically creates the particle system modifier.

You can convert Particle Systems successfully, if their render type is an object or group. The convert button of the particle modifier creates a duplicate object of the object associated with each particle. While there was a shroom1 object at particle X, converting it creates an actual duplicate object linked to shroom1 at the position, rotation, scale of particle X.
Particles are defined by the settings in the particle system. (Emitter) Particles can not be edited manually, otherwise the particle settings in the particle system couldn't be executed.
Since you can't edit (emitter) particles, there is no way to convert the array of objects back to a particle system after you converted them to individual object.

How would I convert everything back into a single object (perhaps
after editing a few mushrooms), and what would that "single object" be
referred to as?

You can't convert the individual objects to a particle system. You can convert them into one mesh, by selecting all and pressing ⎈ CtrlJ. It may be easier to handle a single object (mesh), rather than many different objects (meshes). This would just be practical for editing purposes like selecting all mushrooms when there are many more scene elements.

[...] For exporting into a game perhaps as a single file?
For game export it usualy shouldn't matter if it is a single object or multiple.

The downside of joining (⎈ CtrlJ) all mushrooms objects is that you loose the editing of multiple objects. You can no longer edit a single mushroom and all other similiar mushrooms with the same meshdata change accordingly.
See Group Instancing as a further example of combining multiple objects into a "single" group object while maintaining editability.

Thanks @Leander (+1) - awesome, awesome answer! And I understood everything, so thanks for being thorough! Just curious though about your very last sentence ("You can convert them into one mesh, by selecting..."). Just curious: when/why would you want to convert a particle system into a single mesh? For exporting into a game perhaps as a single file? Or something else entirely?! Thanks again!

@smeeb I extended my answer and tried to include the context of my explanation. Does this help?


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Where is BLENDER_HOME on Macs?
Version 2.78 here. I have created a human model in MakeHuman and would like to export it into Blender, and then subsequently save the model (after doing some further editing) into a .blend file.
According to this YouTube video, I have to download "BlenderTools" from MakeHuman and then copy three directories (makeclothes, maketarget and makewalk) containing scripts into my $BLENDER_HOME/2.78/scripts directory.
My question is: I'm on a Mac, so I just have a Blender.app that I open from the Spotlight Search. I have no idea where Blender is actually installed on my machine. I tried which blender but got nothing.
Any ideas where I can find $BLENDER_HOME on my machine?
Thanks!

Right click on "Blender.app" and select "Show Package Contents". From there, navigate to the "Contents/Resources" folder and that is $BLENDER_HOME.
[EDIT] Actually, what jtheninja said in the comments is probably the more correct way to address the problem. Install in the "~/Library/Application Support/Blender" folder.

You can also install things for your user at ~/Library/Application Support/Blender (folders here are by version number)

Don't modify the application folder if you can help it! It shouldn't hurt anything, but it's bad form—and people might assume it's deletable, as you can (normally) always download it again. (:


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How to simulate a dented surface for metal
I'm trying to model a conquistador helmet for a game. But I ran into a problem since I am quite new to blender. My model is too smooth, I would like it to have a dented surface (see picture below).

(My render on the left, wanted effect on the right)
I have tried to mess around with displacement and a image texture, but I could not find a imagine with the wanted effect. Is there another type of texture I could use or perhaps another method?

(My attempt to add displacement marked in red)
Any help would be greatly appreciated

have you tried switching the surface material from diffuse to glossy?

First of all you should mime the glossiness of the two helmets. By examining the spreading of light near the highlites you can notice how the object on the right has sharper reflections.

Build a simple material based on a glossy shader with low roughness lit by a nice HDRI iage.

In order to get make the object less smooth we should deform its surfaces. This can be done "physically" by sculpting ridge and vallys or "faked" by altering the normal vector of the faces for example by plugging a noise texture with appropriate scale in a bump node and then in the normal socket of the shader (or wih the displace method as you already introduced).

Each face reflects light toward the camera based on its orientation. If you bend the face's normals, they will start to reflect light the way it would look if the surface was truly deformed. By examining the edges, a viewerwill probably be able to discover the trick, but at a first glance should look good enough amd will help to kee your polycount low.

A second thing to notice is that the object on the right has some little scratches that yours is missing. One of the possible way to reproduce a similar effect could be to use a texture to drive the roughness of the smooth shader.
You could have used the displace/normal method also in this case: they are some kind of surface deformations too, but as the effects has a very small scale I find taking advantage of roughness variation more appropriate.

Final step is to balance the two effect in order to get the wanted result.

Wow this looks very promising, will definitely try it out. thanks

To be honest is more or less what you already did; I just tried to breakdown the main aspects of the problem, what affect what, hoping to make easier the tweaking of the parameters.


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Imported fbx camera from NUKE is rotated the wrong way
I tracked a scene in nuke and created geo for particles to interact with in blender. But when i import the .fbx generated from the write geo node into blender, the camera is rotated the wrong way. The translation of the camera is correct, but the direction it is facing is completley wrong. How can i fig this?

You can try to export as alembic (ogawa) instead. I can't test it at the moment, however I'm sure there is an fbx import setting that works (perhaps -z y-up)...

Can anyone test out any of the tracks and see if they work in your blender? https://www.dropbox.com/sh/e6sashji7njtd69/AABl79mKcv3etkyMdR61HfJna?dl=0 I imported the pftrack into maya and it works flawlessly. So i tried exporting the track from maya and it still doesn't work in blender...

I wonder, if it's just a matter of wrong rotation why not use camera delta transforms to compensate, or maybe parent a second camera to that one and make it active

best way is to use a script after import to scale (100x) and rotate all the cameras 90 degrees on local y axis (individual origins)

SOLUTION: Import fbx into maya and export that scene using the DAE_fbx export. And then just import into blender using the .dae import option.

I think the best way to do so is to change the camera's delta scale:
Import FBX (from Nuke)

Set Camera's Delta Scale and Rotation Mode

and here you may find my original post in blender artists:

Welcome to the site! We try to keep all necessary details within the answers so that if a link breaks in the future the answer is still valid. Could you edit your question and add some details to it?

yes you are right, I think it is better now with more info and details even than the original post. :)


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Volume is rendering through objects in foreground
I'm trying to recreate the planet with the asteroid belt from the force awakens,

but my renders come up like this.

Atmosphere and without respectively. You can see the asteroid belt that is behind the planet, and the asteroid belt messes with the atmosphere. does anyone know how to fix this?
Here's the blend

The belt geometry is criss-crossing itself (exaggerated here for demonstration purposes):

To fix, delete and one side and re-extrude, this time being sure that it does not self-intersect.

↹ Tab into edit mode, ⌦ Delete
E to extrude, then drag the mouse around. If the extrusion does not already appear to be locked along the object's local Z axis (there should be a line indicating this), press Z twice. Then press 1 to extrude exactly one blender unit (or whatever value you desire), precisely along the blue line.

Another alternative is to use the solidify modifier.

Also note that your clipping settings are causing lots of artifacts in the viewport. Generally you want to keep the clipping range as small as you can. I found .1 . . . 1000 to work fairly well in this scene.

I fully replaced the circle with a torus and gave it a volume scatter/absorbtion shader and the volume still goes through the foreground. I don't know what to do now. I just gave the torus a transparent shader and it does the strange shadow thing over the top of the planet seen in my second image

@elmo274 Make sure the normals are facing in the right direction. Apply the scale (Ctrl A), then switch to edit mode, select all, and press Ctrl N.

That did help with the strange shadow thing seen in pic 2. But you can still see the ring through the planet. I fixed it since I just deleted the geometry behind the planet and aligned the edges with the edges of the planet.

@elmo274 Hm.. I uploaded a version of .blend where the ring is occluded correctly, at least for me. Does it work on your end?


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How to paint through all mesh during vertex painting?
Tell please how to paint all vertices, not just visible, in vertex paint mode?

You should be able to do this in wireframe mode. Shortcut: Z

Thanks for answer, but doesnt work. What I need is functionality of "limit selection to visible" toggle in weight paint mode for vertex paint. But I cant find this button in vertex paint mode, cant believe such simple thing is not available by default...

Set Vertex Colors (ShiftK) would do the trick.
Painting whole model in one color
In Vertex paint mode select a color and press ShiftK
Painting a part of a model in one color
In Edit mode select what needs to be painted with Limit selection to visible button unchecked.

In Vertex Paint mode press Face selection masking for painting button, select color and use ShiftK to paint only selected vertices.

The only workaround I found is to use the Weights to Vertex Colors addon . It's not a real solution, just a workaround, but since you can paint through the mesh in weight paint mode by unchecking "Limit Selection to Visible" , you can paint there and then convert your weights into vertex colors. But of course it converts it in greyscale (although there's an option to use the rainbow ramp from the weight painting but that's not usable for most textures).
But I think a "Limit to Visible" option in Vertex Paint should definitely be added in Blender.


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video quality loss after exporting blender vse
I use this ffmpeg function to record an area of my screen for upload to youtube.
    function req()
    {
      ffmpeg -an -f "x11grab" -framerate "120" -video_size "2594"x"1458" -i :0.0+5,+257 -c:v "libx264" -crf "16" -bf "2" -flags "+cgop" -movflags "faststart" -pix_fmt "yuv420p" -preset "ultrafast" "$1".mkv
    }

I get the output video and directly upload it to youtube, it processes and I have access to 1440p resolution.
The problem is the video needs some editing, mainly removing some junk clips at the beginning and the end.
After I edit the video in blender vse and upload it to youtube, the highest resolution is 1080p.
here's the export settings

I've even tried to export it at h.264 lossless but I still have the video only exported as 1080p.
here's the raw video uploaded: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NzSlo3knbk
    going through blender vse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYUTu6UV5ug
This is probably user error but why can't I get 1440p again after exporting the video from blender vse?

The original has options to 1440p, the blender edited version has settings up to 1440p 60fps. Possibly youtube did some serverside conversion, which took time.

I have noticed that sometimes youtube get finicky about its actual resolutions it uploads and can be inconsistant if you dont fit to their resolution standards (sometimes it works, sometimes it doesnt).
As in, resize to 2560 x 1440 and try uploading then... List of supported resolutions is here -- https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6375112

I read that before and tried it but it doesn't make a difference. I will have to try to export images and use ffmpeg to encode it with the settings in the code sample in my original question.


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Can an object have multiple rigid body constraints?
I want to simulate the motion of an artist's brush. A spine of pivot-constrained spheres will collide with a z-plane, which represents the canvas. To mimic the elastic properties of a bristle I need to constrain alternate spheres with rigid-body generic springs. It appears Blender will only allow one rigid-body constraint per object. Using various combinations of non-physics constraints and parenting causes erratic motion in the simulation.


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Can a python script open a blank image, draw with opengl commands and then save file to disc?
I want to use object vertex position data to draw 2D images using python

do you want to use the uv/editor?  please add some aditional information and search results

We can create and edit images, we can use bgl to draw in the 3d view, I'm not sure if you can use bgl on an image.

I have built a rigid body brush with bristle spreading. I have stored locations of bristles that touch the paper plane in arrays. I want to simply plot and connect with lines using a python script to a blank image. Maybe grease pencil rendered could work.


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How to Translate All These Objects At Once?
I am new to Blender so this question is probably a very easy one to answer.
I have this minecart obstacle I made with 17 different objects that can be seen in the "Layers" Tab. I would just like to know how to select all the objects at once in the "Layers" Tab and translate them to the origin so the minecart as a whole is at origin. Is that possible? Right now the minecart is to the left of the origin.
Thank you! :)

Given that your tags include unity, I assume you wish to export this. If it is intended to be a single model you may wish to join each mesh into one by selecting them all and using ctrl-j

Okay I will. Thank you for your wisdom and for correcting me before I went any further. @cegaton


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Blender stopped responding
I was modeling a planet and I went to physics option after that I clicked on soft body option and blender stopped responding. Please help

how much ram do you have? have you needed to force quit blender before?

Welcome to Blender.SE!! Tech support and/or bug reports are beyond the scope of this site. You'll have much better luck in a BlenderArtists forum

This rarely works as expected, but you can try to recover work by going to File> Recover Last Session.

You can also try File>Recover Auto Save. This works best if you have set Blender to auto save every minute, or it won't do much...


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Problem with adding mesh
whenever i add a mesh on another object,
the object is always linked :
when i add a cylinder on a cube and whenever i scale or transform the cylinder also the cube will scale or move, but just in the current project, maybe i changed somethings but i dont know what.

Means by which this could happen:
Object added in 'edit' mode then scale/move/rotate in 'object' mode
Is the object 'parented' to it?
Constraints or drivers can also affect loc/rot/scale.

They are not parented just new objects ,yes i applied  parent and constraints on previus objects but now seems affecting new too

Solved ! i had activated the proportional editing


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2.8 How to lasso select in edit mode?
little help needed here if you don't mind?
So, in 2.79 I was very used to lasso selecting in edit mode - select, move, select, move etc.
But in 2.8 we now have a 'select' button and a 'move' button and I really haven't found a way to do both things at once in the seamless way I was able to in 2.79?
Do I really have to go all the way up to the top left corner of the screen and PRESS the select button, then go all the way back to the model (which is where I'd rather stay) to select it, then go all the way back to the top left corner of the screen again and PRESS the move button, then go all the....you get the idea?
In 2.79 I would hold ALT to drag a lasso around a bunch of verts then be straight back to moving those verts around, but in 2.8 I'm trecking all over the screen?
I know that personal work flows are very different and always hard to explain, but is anyone else feeling that the flow here isn't quite as fluid as in 2.79?
Cheers
Wayne

"is anyone else feeling that the flow here isn't quite as fluid as in 2.79?" Yes, it's called "Beta" and it is not finished yet

Yeah, but I think that the ui methods that they have put in place are intentional (ie not bugs) unless they get some push back from users?

If anyone come seeking the REAL answer, here it is: by default in edit mode, blender leave you at box selection mode where you CAN NOT perform lasso select. You need to click and hold the select BUTTON from T menu, and in the drop down menu CLICK on the TWEAK button. Now you should be good to go.

Yeah, I think things have changed subtilely backwards and forwards over recent months and it now seems that you can get it to behave whichever way you want now if you ask it nicely enough :]

The workflows can in fact be even more seamless in 2.80 if you dedicate some time to learning the new functionality
No, you do not have to drag the mouse to the corner of the screen every time you want to perform some operation.
There is a whole lot of ways to do it now. I am not even sure I will be able to list them all, but:

You can have move tool active and Ctrl + right-click to use lasso select.
You can have any tool active and Ctrl + right-click to use lasso select and transform stuff with regular transform hotkeys G,R,S.
You can select Select Lasso tool from the toolbar and then use it without the move gizmo visible and transform stuff with the regular transform hotkeys G,R,S.
You can switch between tools using keyboard shortcuts: Shift+Space->2 for Select Lasso, Shift+Space->T, or G,R,S for transforms.
You can right-click on the Select Lasso and Move tools on the toolbar and choose Add To Quick Favorites and then access them from Quick favorites menu with Q.
You can assign any shortcuts you desire to them.

Thanks Martin, yeah I think it was simple in the end - I needed to leave Move tool active while having Select tool set to Lasso, then I could stay in Move but use Ctrl to make a Lasso selection without going anywhere!

As much as I use lasso select, ctrl+right-click is too cumbersome. I love B for box select. Ctrl + left click for box select seems pointless to me.

To be honest with you I think 'ctrl+right-click is too cumbersome' is not a valid argument or even a statement. I fail to see any logic behind it. It's no different than any other keys we use to interact with software. I think it would be best not to think too much about some buttons you need to press for stuff to happen. It's there. You can press it. It works. If you can't do the job with it, somebody else will. That's all there is to it.

This problem simply stem from the weird fact that blender by default lock users at box select mode. Lasso select itself never changed, we just have to manually switch to this "tweak" mode to get the full functionality back.

It's hard to see this as a problem for me. If basic functionality seems locking or limiting in some way, maybe it's time to consider just learning to use it... It's not a problem at all after the 10 minutes you dedicate to learning. There are more options now, not less.


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What is the easiest way to animate beams of light in blender?
I am having trouble doing stuff like this with light. I am trying to make stuff like this.
I can make a white Cylnder and model it into a beam shape, but i have no idea how to animate it. Any ideas or videos that could help me? Ive already tried how to animate abstract waves, but that didn't get me what i wanted.

Related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/1875/how-to-create-an-animated-electric-arc-or-lightning

If you just need a single beam you could use a simple curve object. Make sure to set the spline type to poly if you want all the corners to be sharp and jagged.
Then add a little bevel for thickness (this can be controlled per control point with the radius value), and then add a white emission material.

After rendering, you'll need to add some blur and glare effects in the compositor. Should get you closer to what you are looking for.

Bonus Round
If you want to animate the light beam, you need to add hooks to your curve control points. Go into edit mode on the curve select one control point, then type CTRL H and select Add Hook to New object. You'll see a small empty add to the position of the control point. Do this for all the control points. Then back into Object mode, you can now animate the empties to move the curve.
I found it easier to use Proportional editing mode set to Random with a large influence to move one empty and then have the other ones affected slightly as well. I did this on each frame for 5- frames then duplicated them in the Dope sheet a number of times.


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Why can't I delete the vertices and faces in the legs?
I wanna redo the legs of my mesh. I extruded them too early. Does anyone know why I can't delete them? I tried using alt+H to make sure everything was unhiden.

Blend file:

What do you mean you can't delete them?  Just select the vertices and press Delete>>Vertices.  It might help to switch to Wireframe in order to select them all.

You have to switch to vertex select mode:

Thanks for the responses guys. I actually tried those things too. I think I just had a lot of extra layers for some reason. I should have just used remove doubles, but it was late and I was tired I guess.


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How do you visualize changes animations in the graph editor?
This might sound stupid but I think I've looked everywhere for a good tutorial and explanation on the graph editor, but I still don't fully understand. I know that generally, it's the main animation and it is manipulated using F-Curves. I've seen videos on how to manipulate them, but I can't find anything that explains how to know which way everything should be changed. How do you visualize the edited change to the mesh's animation by just looking at the graph?

The graph editor displays what a keyframed value is set to at every frame. Left to right represents the frame of the animation while up and down represents the animated value.
An fcurve can be directly compared to a bezier curve, in fact that is what it is. The position of the curve as it is drawn at a certain point represents the frame and value that will be used.
Here we see the x location of a cube. On frame one it is 0.0 and at frame six it is 5.0. As the curve is set to linear interpolation we see that it will be an even movement every frame from start to the end.

Now if we change the interpolation to bezier and adjust the handles we can get a different curve. Here the cube stays close to the start position until frame four and very quickly moves to the final position only in the last couple of frames.

Now looking at this curve, you can see the x location goes past and then back to the final position.

And here is the curve with a noise modifier added, can you "see" where the cube will be on each frame?

So you don't really "see" the movement, what you get is an understanding of how it moves in between two values. So you watch the animation changing in the viewport, then when something looks odd you can often see and remove the glitch in the curve that is making it move the wrong way. With enough experience you may even be able to pick out a bad fcurve without watching the animation.

Here is just a little hint:
You can visualize the Motion Path in the 3D View
That may help to see or understand the movement of your animated object.
Note: This is only helpful if the location is animated.
In the Property Panel > Object > Dropdown menu Motion Path
you can set the desired Display Range you want to visualize and click on the Calculate button.
If you make changes in Graph Editor just click on Update Paths button
Example:


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What's going on with my UV Map
This is a Cheetah mesh. I double checked that the seams were marked correctly and I don't think I'm missing anything. Should the seams be blue? Aren't they usually red?

Then when I unwrap, my UV map turns out like this.

It's as if the whole mesh is stretched out for some reason. Any ideas what's going on?

yep seams should be red. Looks like you Marked Sharp not Mark Seam.

Solved. I accidentally marked sharp instead of seams.


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Copying Textures to other Objects; Ctrl+L not working
I have two objects. One I have applied a texture to. I want to copy that texture to another object.
Here is what I have tried:
Select the object I want to copy the texture to.
Shift+Select the object I want to copy the texture from.
Ctrl+L ---> Materials
I got these instructions straight from Blender Stack. Is there something I'm missing?

Is the texture applied in the material or in UV Editor?

The texture is applied in the UV editor to the the first object only. I also tried marking the seams and unwrapping the second object which let me apply the texture. But still won't let me copy.

Ctrl+L will not copy textures from UV editor, you will have to link it from the image browser in UV editor in edit mode


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Change axis of Fork Extrude
I'm sure there is a simple solution to this but I'm not finding it anywhere. I want to create symmetrical shoulder bones for my armature. So I want to use a fork extrude. As you can see in the image below the fork is on the wrong axis. I know I cannot change the orientation of the axis so I tried changing the orientation of the mesh and armature but no luck there. I have x-axis mirror in tools and axes in armature setting selected. Does anyone know how to re-orientate how these are extruding?

FILE LINK:

Rigging is admittedly not my expertise, but if I understand correctly, this has to do with unapplied transforms, and the direction the model is facing. You have x axis mirror enabled, but are parallel to the x axis (model facing left ortho view) so are unable to properly mirror to get the expected results.
I would first rotate your model 90 degrees on the Z axis to face front ortho view, and apply transforms with Ctrl+A and you should be able to proceed as desired. See .gif below for the steps:

Your welcome, glad I could help.


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Why won't eyes move with the rest of my mesh?
Why won't the eyes on my elephant move with the rest of my mesh. I created them in edit mode, parented them to the body and reapplied automatic weights.

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/14631/one-eye-of-model-doesnt-follow-head or https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/32033/multiple-objects-dont-move-correctly-in-same-armature and https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/109654/eyes-jaw-lagging-behind-head

In short, make sure that other bones aren't also affecting the mesh where the eyes are sitting.
More specifically, you should parent the eyes to whatever you have set as the head's bone as well. Ensure that other bones aren't affecting the mesh of the head. Visually, you would want the area around the eyes paint weighted red, and the eyes as well. When reviewing the other vertex groups, the area around the eyes should be blue, with 0 weights set to that location. This will ensure nothing else is affecting that area.


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Any way I can remove everything except the outline?
Exactly like the question says. I'm using the freestyle tool. Is there any way to remove all the faces in this image and just keep the outline. Either in edit mode or rendering? Or do I need to learn how to use Photoshop or some kind of image editor?
I tried marking freestyle edge like it says here, but that didn't give me the affect I wanted.
How to get more control over Freestyle external contour lines
I also tried deleting just the faces and keeping the edges, but then nothing displays when the image is rendered.

a simple solution would be: go into edit mode, press a to select all faces. then press i twice to inset individual faces. delete the selcted faces. or use a wire modifier to get the frame of a object.

Consider a transparent material with no specular shine.

The compositor can also make areas transparent.  I have not tested the idea with Freestyle.

One of the answers to this question may do it for you.


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Mirror applied to object with displacement does not mesh
I have a plane with displacement to make waves. It has particles for grass. I added it to a collection instance. I mirrored it. After mirroring, the grass only show on the original. If I apply the mirror the grass shows on the other as well.
If I create a new collection instance the displacement meshes with the rest fo the model, but once the mirror is applied, the displacement on all the planes don't match up anymore. There's gaps between the planes.
I thought using collection instances might be more efficient, but maybe I should just make mirrors and duplicate?

The order of the modifiers on the stack matters, mirror should be over the particle modifiers. Read: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/88395/particle-effect-showing-only-on-one-side-of-mirrored-object

Omg yes. That along with the use modifier stack setting did it. Thank you!

Please write a full answer that describes how you solved your issue. Other users with a similar problem will appreciate it.

I put the mirror modifier over the particle modifier and checked off use modifier stack in the emissions tab of the particle system

Please write the answer on the answers section (not as a comment) and accept your own answer. Read: can I answer my own question Other users with a similar question can learn from your experience.


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Blend Mode Alpha Clip Doesn't Show in Eevee Render
I'm following a Ducky3D tutorial
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlizedfuIN4&list=PL70822sOht70HP8t3TPBeHy1jny9nuFrr&index=65&t=342s
The alpha clip in the material settings is supposed to show an array of see through planes. Without the alpha clip, it's not see through. How do I get the alpha clip to render?
No matter what the alpha clip won't show in an Eevee render. I don't want to use Cycles because it looks weird.
Viewport display Vs Eevee below
Viewport Display:

Eevee Render:

Cycles Render:

Those black lines in cycles are probably caused by not having enough transparent bounces. https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/27718/black-artifacts-when-looking-through-many-transparent-objects/27719#27719 Or it could also be Z-fighting. https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/71025/intersecting-transparent-object-causing-artifacts-in-cycles

So the answer was actually a lot less complicated than I thought. I had an overlapping plane in my scene. Your 2nd link mentioned that overlapping planes will cause this. Thank you!


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Is it possible to have a camera track a new empty in the middle of an animation?
I don't think it's possible, but I'd like to have one camera filming a single scene instead of binding different cameras to markers.
Is it possible to have a camera track an empty and then part way through an animation, move to a new empty and track that?

You can have several "track to" constraints, and animate (keyframe) their respective influences:


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Do collection instances use less memory than duplicates?
I can't find a straightforward answer to this anywhere. I just wanna know what the fastest way to view multiple objects is.

Hello :). The difference in render speed is negligible, the memory usage is the same for both. Keep in mind that memory usage and render speed are not directly related.

Thank you! Here is some filler text to post a comment


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Random times unable to rotate
At random times rotating around an object with the mouse wheel will not work. Sometimes it randomly works again.
I've tried enabling/disabling three-button mouse, recentering the cursor, resetting the origin to 3D-Cursor/geometry, changing the pivot point. It somehow worked for a bit at some point, but then went back to not working again.
Anyone else experience this?

I'm not sure what the issue is, exactly. When you say "rotating around an object" do you mean orbiting the camera with the object at its center of rotation? Or do you mean rotating the object itself directly, around its own origin?

AS R-800 says, what you ask is not clear, if you want to orbit around selection, you need to activate Preferences > Navigation > Orbit & Pan > Orbit Around Selection

I am not trying to rotate the object. I am trying to rotate my camera around the object. Anyway I just tried another mouse and my scroll button actually might be not working right now. It wasn't a problem with Blender.


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Blender Won't Stop Rendering Sequencer
What the title says
I tried unchecking compositing and sequencer in Output Properties --> Post Processing. I removed all clips from the sequence editor. I removed all sequence editor windows. But it keeps rendering the video sequencer. I'm just trying to render PNG's

I'm using 2.92
What else can I try?

What makes you think it’s rendering the sequencer?

Because it's rendering an animation from an old video that was in the sequencer. What I have in the viewport is different now.

if you removed all clips from the sequencer, that is crazy. The contrapositive is true as well.

Maybe, you can try to clear the cache. Or, you can add a new movie strip to the sequencer and see if it is rendering this one (or still the old one). If the new one, then try to delete this strip and see what's happening

sounds weird...can you upload your blend file so we can check it out?

Oh...My...God. Storytime. I wanted to upload the file. It was toio big. I tried seeing if deleting some assets could make it smaller. It didn't. I realized that rendering the new image wouldn't show the deleted assets. Only the new modifier on my main object wasn't showing in the render view...BECAUSE I ACCIDENTALLY CLICKED OFF THE RENDER BUTTON ON THE MODIFIER.


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Find Media with 'Find Missing Files'
I'm backing up some Blender projects. In one project, it's an assortment of renders in the video editor. If I download the file to check how it's working, half the media in the video editor is missing. The Find External Files option doesn't seem to find any of them. If I did want to download this for some reason later, is the media lost? Is there a better way to store it?

Usually the way to go would be packing external files into the blend file, which is achieved through File > External Data > Pack Resources. However, especially since you mention media in the Video Editor, you have to know that not all media files can or will be packed into the blend, like this warning in the Blender Manual explains:

Typically single image textures that are used in materials etc. will be packed into the file.
When you say the Find Missing Files option (I guess that's what you refer to with "Find External Files") doesn't seem to find any of them, it might also depend on where you search.
If you don't specify the exact folder, Blender might find other files with the same name instead of the correct files (for example image sequences simply named 0001.png, 0002.png etc.) because they are maybe found earlier. Also just giving the top level drive letter to search when the files are buried somewhere deep in subfolders might take quite a while.
The helpful thing about Find Missing Files is not that it helps you find files wherever they might be even if you have no idea, but if you have them all in one folder (or subfolders) you don't have to find each material's texture etc. on its own, just specify the folder and Blender will automatically link all textures to this new location.

This was a good idea, but it didn't work. Tried packing and auto packing. After upload and download, a lot of media was still missing. I also tried Find External Files where the media was located in conjunction with this. I'd give a sample file, but not sure if I want to share this project right now. I might try recreating the scenario in a new project and sharing later.

@MartinMarino What kind of media was missing? As I said in the answer, some media files cannot be packed. Oh, and for image sequences it can sometimes happen that you specify the folder where to find them and they still don't show up in the editor - but they will be rendered. And to show them in the editor the media data maybe needs to be refreshed with Alt + R.

They are mkv video files. Previously rendered through Blender.

@MartinMarino Well, there you have it... the warning I quoted from the Blender Manual clearly says, movie clips cannot be packed in a blend file. If they are not found afterwards by Find Missing Files, the solution lies in the information where the files are and how you use the tool, which is sonething I don't know from your question.

Oh ok I see. So I would need to render in a different format if I wanted it to work?


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Why are my hair particles being pulled to the origin?
After baking and adding a material to the mesh, the hair stretches and gets pulled to the origin point. If I delete the bake and remove the particle system from view by hitting the little monitor button and then bring it back by hitting it again, it goes back to normal. How do I fix this so that I can add materials? I've tried turning the use modifier stack button on and off.
Imgur Video: https://i.sstatic.net/w0bJk.jpg
Blend File: https://blend-exchange.com/b/kYdR07ka

I did exactly what you did in the video and it works completely fine to me... https://imgur.com/a/s68O1TZ

Weird... I guess I'll start over

@MikoCG can you tell me what version of Blender you're using? I think this might be a bug
https://developer.blender.org/T91887

I am using 3.0.0. right now, maybe it was a bug, if it was non replicable on my system it may have been related to combination of your system and blender


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First material applies but second does not
The first pin material I created is able to get assigned to the whole pin. The second stripe material I can't get assigned to anything.
Blend file:

I've switched to Edit mode, selected the whole mesh, selected the Stripes Material in the material list and clicked Assign, and the object changed its color... perhaps I'm missing something in your question, though

In the edit mode select the mesh with Ctrl+B Box select and then select the material (red) and click on assign material.

I tried this. Thank you though. I was selecting vertices when I should have been selecting faces.


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Why are my seams becoming separate pieces in my UV editor?
Pretty much what the title says. My seams are definately all closed and connected. Why are they separate in the UV editor? Also, is there a way for me to select faces on an area where seams are marked, and save that as some kind of section, so that I can just click and apply the texture without having to select each individual face later on?

Please use the terminology correctly. There are no separate seams in your UV editor. These are called UV islands. Also you do not apply a texture to faces, you can assign a material to faces and that material may use various textures for various properties of it. You can hover your mouse over some face, edge or vertex and press l to select linked elements limited by seams(ctrl+l to select linked with something already selected), you will need to make sure that Seam is selected under Delimt in the F6 panel or at the bottom of the t panel just after you press l same way as you can set properties for any other operation in Blender just after it is performed.

You did not describe what steps you take before the problem appears so it is hard to tell where you are making the mistake, but the process of UV mapping in Blender is quite simple, so if you follow it right, you should avoid any issues like this.

In edit mode select edges that you want as seams for the UV islands make sure they will be possible to unwrap to 2D islands and mark them as seams(ctrl+e -> a), there is also a clear seam option in the ctrl+e menu.
Select all the geometry you wish to unwrap in edit mode(could be only some faces but in your case it is all the geometry so hit a to deselect whatever you have selected and then a again to select all) and unwrap the UVs(u -> u in 3d viewport). I think here is where you made the mistake - I am guessing you only selected some faces when unwrapping instead of all you wanted.

That's it. Now if you are happy with the UVs you would assign a material to your mesh and then paint the textures for it. You can also pin UVs(p to pin alt+p to unpin) in the UV editor and then re-unwrap so Blender will keep the pinned UVs in place and will recalculate other UVs so they spread uniformly keeping the pinned UV in the same place. You will have to play around with it to see where this is useful.

Martin, you say "you can hover your mouse over some face, edge or vertex and press l to select linked elements limited by seams", but actually it's only limited by seams if you use the face selection mode, l will select the whole mesh if you are in edge or vertice mode... or maybe I misunderstood what you meant?

It does indeed work as I described earlier. You can definitely use it no matter what components you use it on.

oh ok sorry I didn't know the options of the L key on the bottom of the T menu

It's t panel, not t menu. There is nothing called t menu in Blender. Terminology is important. Please use it correctly. Words that can be synonyms in natural language may mean completely different things in 3d context. You have to use the right ones if you want people to understand you.

Sorry about the terminology. Still figuring it out. My steps are marking my seams, and doing a smart uv project, which works better than the other unwrap methods but still disconnects some faces in the UV grid. Pretty much exactily as you've explained in option 2. I didn't know that I could select the uv islands with L though. So that's useful and by selecting UV's, I can at least see which face is being disconnected which is helpful as well.

Unwrap is meant to be used with marked seams. Smart UV project will ignore seams.


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Viewport Texture Different from Rendered Texture
This is a two part question
My texture in viewport mode looks very different from my texture in rendered mode. I used the color picker to select my texture and used that color for materials in the face. Now they just don't gel together when rendered.
My mesh with texture in viewport

My mesh with texture in rendered view

So first question is why is my texture showing up so different when rendered?
Second questions is, is there a way to view both the texture and the material at the same time through the viewport?

Blender Internal or Cycles?

Blender internal is blender render?!?! I've tried both render and cycles. These pictures are in blender render

Yes, we tend to call it that in an attempt mitigate confusion.. In BI (Blender Internal, Blender Render) the process for assigning a texture to a material is separate from assigning a texture to a face (that is, what textured view shows). This might help: https://blender.stackexchange.com/q/1750/599. Also try switching to "Material View" via the dropdown with the sphere icon in the 3D view header (the bar along the bottom).

I tried what it said in the link you posted. I switched from generated to UV and selected the auto generated UV map. But I think I'm having a different issue now that I look at it again. In texture mode I'm getting the top texture. In render mode it's rendering a different texture in my list for some reason.

I think you must have checked 'Simplify' option. It can be found under Properties ->Scene -> Simplify.


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Applying Solidfy Modifier throws a "Hide, mask and optimized display disabled" error
I'm on the latest version of Blender 2.8. I'm following a tutorial where you make a donut. When I apply the solidfy modifier on my icing mesh, I get a "Hide, mask and optimized display disabled" error on my subdivision modifier and most of my icing mesh disapears. I have copies of my meshes in case I need to go back after applying and each time I copy it over and apply the modifier, it errors out.
Can anyone tell me what is going on?
Blend files in the comments

Before modifier applied:

After modifier applied:


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Hide part of mesh in sculpt mode

I have this block model with a hood. I didn't think of this ahead of time. but I want to be sculpt the ears and back of the head. I can't do that with the hood in the way. I have a vertex group set up for the hood. I can hide it in edit mode fine, but it won't hide in sculpt mode. I'm aware of I can hide part of the sculpt with alt+B, but I can only do this one time. I could also separate by selection, but other than reconnecting each vertice one at a time, I'm not sure how to get it back to it's original form.
Can anyone offer any ideas?

I might just try to change the tranform of the hood and pull it way back