text:
Is there a way to quickly replace left half of my sculpt with mirror image of right half?
My sculpt model has become a little unsymmetrical and I'd like to replace the left half with a mirror image of the right.  I know there's an option for this under Dyntopo, but that leaves artifacts.  My center line is still in tact - is there something that will simply delete the left half of my model and replace it with the right?

You can try going into edit mode, then under mesh options, symmetrize. On the popup option choose direction of the symmetry (ie. -x to x)


text:
In texture paint mode, is there a way for brush to be normal to surface instead of parallel with viewport?
By default when you draw a brush stroke in texture paint mode, the paint is applied as if you're spraying paint from the pixel you clicked on in the viewport to the model.  It would be useful if instead the brush was transformed so that it was spraying at the point on the model under your mouse cursor and normal to the surface.
Is there a way to do this?  I can't find anything obvious in the brush settings.

Well, looks like that didn't happen

Not yet, but the ability to do so is coming since Pablo Dobarro has coded it in development and it should be coming in official 2.82 later on. He made it consistent with the way the new 2.81 sculpt brush drawing works with the brush following the normal.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Having trouble creating an Addon with multiple modules
I'm trying to put together an add-on that contains two operators.  I've gotten each operator file to run properly independently, but I'm having trouble figuring out how to write an init.py file that would allow me to distribute them as a single add-on.
I've posted everything on Github.  The three files aren't too long:
https://github.com/blackears/blenderStairs/tree/master/src
I've read a few other threads, but nothing seems to work for me.  How can I get my init.py to register my operators properly?

The add-on registration can be simplified using a register() and unregister() function per file that can be called by the __init__.py. You've already implemented these to test your operators, but they can be used for the full add-on as well. Therefore all you have to do is import the kitfoxStairs.py and kitfoxStairsCurved.py and then call their register() function in the __init__.py.
# Copyright 2019 Mark McKay
#
# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
# You may obtain a copy of the License at
#
#    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
#
# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
# limitations under the License.

bl_info = {
    "name": "Curved Stairs Mesh Generator",
    "description": "Adds new mesh builders for quickly creating staircases.",
    "author": "Mark McKay",
    "version": (1, 0),
    "blender": (2, 80, 0),
    "location": "View3D > Add > Mesh",
    "wiki_url": "https://github.com/blackears/blenderStairs",
    "tracker_url": "https://github.com/blackears/blenderStairs",
    "support": "COMMUNITY",
    "category": "Add Mesh"
}

import bpy
from .operators import kitfoxStairs
from .operators import kitfoxStairsCurved

def register():
    kitfoxStairs.register()
    kitfoxStairsCurved.register()

def unregister():
    kitfoxStairs.unregister()
    kitfoxStairsCurved.unregister()

If you want to reload modifications of your scripts when they have been imported before, then you need to replace the import statements
import bpy
from .operators import kitfoxStairs
from .operators import kitfoxStairsCurved

with the following code:
if "bpy" in locals():
    import importlib
    if "kitfoxStairs" in locals():
        importlib.reload(kitfoxStairs)
    if "kitfoxStairsCurved" in locals():
        importlib.reload(kitfoxStairs)
else:
    from .operators import kitfoxStairs
    from .operators import kitfoxStairsCurved

import bpy

Scripts can be reloaded through F3 > Reload Scripts. Blender 2.8x doesn't have the F8 shortcut anymore, but you can add it to your keymap. Since Blender 2.83 this feature is available via the top bar menu Blender Icon > System > Reload Scripts.
Note: I've removed the if __name__ == "__main__": from the __init__.py since this doesn't work with relative imports.

There is an error in the menu_func of kitfoxStairsCurved.py. It should reference the AddStairsCurved class instead of AddStairs. The correct function is:
def menu_func(self, context):
    self.layout.operator(AddStairsCurved.bl_idname, icon='MESH_CUBE')

I've made the changes you suggested, but my module is still not loading.  Worse, it seems to be failing silently without any meaningful error messages.  I've pushed my updates to the repository.

@kitfox works fine for me. Have you installed the add-on by zipping the src folder and then installing it through Edit > Preferences > Add-ons?

I was trying to run it by trying to install the [code]init.py[/code] file as an addon.  Zipping it first seemed to work.  Is there a way to run it in an unzipped state?  Also, what the best directory structure within the zip?

If you don't want to .zip it, you could also create a new directory, e.g. kitfox, where Blender's add-ons are stored [blender version]/scripts/addons (replace the x with the actual version, e.g. 2.81) and copy the __init__.py and the modules into kitfox (or however you called the directory).

Basically for an addon, import as a module, call the modules register method to enable.
The folder your addon is in is the module name, eg mesh_stairs
The operators you have in the operators folder already have a register and unregister method. Can from ./operators import foo and in register call foo.register()  (as answered by @RJG while I was dawdling along)
Dynamically loading each module in operators folder.
mesh_stairs/
    __init__.py
    operators/
        __init__.py
        foo.py
        bar.py

Here is a method I played around with for bat_tools  to manage a number of  "addons" into one. Enabling / disabling addons for workspaces has prompted somewhat of a rethink.
Pretty generic. Using __all__ and globals. Could load any list or dict etc instead.
Script: mesh_stairs/operators/__init__.py
"""
BATTOOLS edit re stairs q.
"""

__all__ = []

def register_tools():
    """ """
    for name in __all__:
        register_tool(globals()[name])

def register_tool(tool):
    """

    :param tool:

    """
    print("REGTOOLS", tool)
    tool.register()

def unregister_tools():
    """ """
    for name in __all__:
        unregister_tool(globals()[name])

def unregister_tool(tool):
    """

    :param tool:

    """
    print("UNREGTOOLS", tool)
    tool.unregister()

def load_tools():
    """ """
    __all__.clear()
    import pkgutil

    for m in pkgutil.iter_modules(__path__):
        tool = __import__(m.name, globals(), level=1)
        __all__.append(m.name)

load_tools()

Print in system console after enabling addon.
REGTOOLS <module 'mesh_stairs.operators.kitfoxStairs' from '/home/batfinger/.config/blender/2.82/scripts/addons/mesh_stairs/operators/kitfoxStairs.py'>
REGTOOLS <module 'mesh_stairs.operators.kitfoxStairsCurved' from '/home/batfinger/.config/blender/2.82/scripts/addons/mesh_stairs/operators/kitfoxStairsCurved.py'>

Script: mesh_stairs/__init__.py
bl_info = {
    "name": "Curved Stairs Mesh Generator",
    "description": "Adds new mesh builders for quickly creating staircases.",
    "author": "Mark McKay",
    "version": (1, 0),
    "blender": (2, 80, 0),
    "location": "View3D > Add > Mesh",
#    "warning": "", # used for warning icon and text in addons panel
    "wiki_url": "https://github.com/blackears/blenderStairs",
    "tracker_url": "https://github.com/blackears/blenderStairs",
    "support": "COMMUNITY",
    "category": "Add Mesh"
}

from . import operators

def register():
    operators.register_tools()

def unregister():
    operators.unregister_tools()

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


text:
Why doesn't emmisive material render in my camera?
I'm trying to create a simple sky for a scene.  Right now I'm modelling it as a gradient texture applied to the inside of a sphere.  I made the shader emissive so that it does not cast a shadow and contributes ambient light to the scene.
Unfortunately, it does not show up when seen through the camera or in the final render.  How do I get my emissive shader to be seen?

First thing that comes to mind is that it might be camera clipping (basically that your 'render distance' is too short).

That was it.  Thanks.


text:
When modeling, is there a way to have light shine from behind viewport camera?
I'm modeling a simple environment and trying to get some sense of what it looks like with textures early on.  Whenever I switch the viewport to either texture or material mode, though, only the meshes that are lit by lights are visible.  This is slowing down my workflow because I have to keep stopping to add more lights to the scene to see what's happening.  All the lights are also cluttering things up and have to be repositioned every time I move meshes around.
(I've also found the Multitexture/Shadless option in the 'n' menu, but that turns off all lighting information.)
Maya has a nice feature where you can switch from viewing the scene with the placed lights to having the scene lit from a single point light positioned behind the viewport camera.  This lets you get a good sense of what things look like with textures and shading without having to place lights through your entire scene.  Does Blender have a similar feature?

Are you working in BI or Cycles?  You can adjust the OpenGL lights used in the viewport under User Preferences > System.

I mostly use Bl (although I'm starting to get into cycles).  But this is mostly about just modeling in the viewport.  When I'm creating a background, I find I have to create a dozen or so temporary lights just to see what I'm doing.

First of all, are you using Cycles or Blender Internal?
I'm not sure what you mean with this: "only the meshes that are lit by lights are visible". It sound like you don't want dark shadows, but you don't want materials to appear shadeless either.
Without seeing a screen shot of what this Maya feature looks like it's hard to know what advice to give, but I'll offer this:
Try parenting a Sun Lamp to your camera, shining in the direction your camera looks. You can then go to the Outliner window and disable this lamp for rendering (it will still show for viewport rendering).
Viewport rendering can be toggled using [Shift Z].
You'll need to be looking through Camera View, so press 0.
Enable "Lock Camera to View" in the Properties Panel, so that the camera follows your viewport.
Note that since lamps don't have any surface you won't see glossy reflections from them. You could use a mesh lamp instead (Cycles only), but that's another topic.
Also note that this method causes your camera to be used as a previewing tool, rather than a camera, so you may want to correct for that by adding a Copy Transforms constraint to your camera, targeted to an Empty that points as you want, and enable it only when you render.

You can put the scene lights on a separate layer, turn them of during viewport editing, and then parent a new lamp to the back of the camera. You can turn off the restrict rendering setting for the test lamp in the outliner.
This works in Blender Internal, but not in Cycles. You could test texture placment in BI, and then render from Cycles. It's possible to create shaders that work cross-engine, you just have to add the specific outputs. The BSDF nodes wouldn't work in BI, but the textures would.

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


text:
What's a good strategy for texturing large objects?
I'm wondering about the best way to go about setting up textures for a house meant for a game.
I've read some things that say I should create a single large texture (2056x2056), paint all my details into there and then shrink it down to a smaller size for use later (512x512).
Another option is to create several materials with tileable textures for the brick, wood, shingles etc. and apply them to the faces that need them.  This would allow me to save a lot of memory on textures since I could reuse them on other models.
If I go the one-big-texture route, would I run into problems if I try to make something really complicated like a castle?  A 2056 square image might be okay for a one room house, but I'm worried that a castle would require an image that would be to huge to handle.

Make all the textures individually to provide higher detail, then bake it down to one tex, for game friendliness.

and use 2048, not 2056 (or 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, ...)

(i)You can use multiple textures if you separate the object into pieces.  This should be possible with any game engine/export format.  (ii)Some game engines/exporters allow you to have multiple materials on a single object so you can use multiple textures with only one model.

You can have several UV Maps with different textures on the same mesh

Every texture creates a Draw call, but if you have multiple separate textures on your object that means you will get more then one draw call per object, and if its a castle for example that should definately create a lot of draw calls, so if you won't use the same textures anywhere else it would better be to make all the textures as one.

You should only use as little as possible textures (regarding the number) per object for games. Explanation below.
Textures should always be in a power-of-two square size: 512x512, 1024x1024, 2048x2048...
You should always aim for a texture resolution as high as possible, downscaling can be done within the game engine via quality settings or as a batch process, e.g. with a free software like Irfanview. Upscaling is hardly possible. On the other hand, the higher the resolution, the more human resource goes into the creation process.
Textures should not only include a diffuse channel, but also normal & bump as well as Ambient Occlusion. (Depending on the game engine even light/shadow maps, reflexion maps etc.) Most game engines will utilize the unused Alpha channel of a texture, so your put your diffuse channel into RGB and the bump map into the Alpha channel, for a smaller number of textures.
E.g.:

Diffuse+Bump.png
|_RGB = Diffuse
|_Alpha = Bump
A texture of 2048x2048 for a whole house may work for a game, where the camera is far away, e.g. Anno type games. If you have a first or 3rd-person camera this resolution will be very blurry when getting closer to the house.
If it's not possible to cover a large object like a castle with one texture you can use multiple textures. However this shouldn't change your strategy to use as little textures as possible over using small, recyclable textures for multiple objects.
Use single, per-object textures for the following reasons:

Project organization: Handling textures per object is much easier regarding changes, integration and management of your project
Game engine integration: Depending on the game engine you may have to assing textures manually to each object
Level design & workload: Handling many files is always slower than handling fewer, bigger files. Using multiple-object-textures over different game levels will nullify the advantage of less disc & memory space.

You can also create a free account on Turbosquid.com and look up their "Game Ready" specification, sadly this document seems not to be available ATM without login in:
http://support.turbosquid.com/entries/171903-Game-Ready-Certification-Specification
Here's an overview of texturing in Unreal Engine 4:
https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Content/Types/Textures/index.html
As well as materials in Unreal Engine 4:
https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Rendering/Materials/IntroductionToMaterials/index.html
Pay attention to the image under "Material Expression Nodes and Networks" to get an impression how UE4 handles UV's and textures.

i would like to give another point of view. as the texture memory is relevant in a game you will often use multiple textures which correspond to the distance of view, rather than an 8K 64MB texture , which could not even be enough for a house for the instance,you have to master the techniques which will allow you to break repeating patterns for instance you can have a global noise map which will drive a mixer between two similar textures for the same material or create color variations, add detail map which will only be activated if you are near enough of an object.I had to work on a 50x150m underground parking lot texture and it was challenging since i had to break the repetition pattern.  It would had been too obvious that there is an unnatural pattern repeating if i had just copied place 1A for all the parking places.The skill of being able to program particular pattern generator to mix texture smoothly which is a part of so called procedural texturing is the best way to do it and the best skill to acquire i think since whatever in blender or UE5 you can access variables of position in world space which can drive the generation of the pattern. The only issue is that you can not import a procedural texturing in unreal but with Houdini as far as i know .You have to build a smart texturing system with a minimum of procedural texturing by yourself if you care about memory and that you want a homogenous texturing quality viewed from a distance and nose on the material. To achieve this goal unreal as blender offer the possibility to use multiple UV maps because a general UV map is enough to place the general colors, you will create color variation procedurally then you can break down the parts or separate them in other  UV map for the normals and another one for additive normals because you need another level of detail, the grain of the material for instance.the goal is to bring all the complexity of the real life variations into a minimum of memory so use multiple small textures correctly managed is far more efficient than a big one.

Hi. Could you please add paragraphs to your post so it doesn't look like a daunting wall of text? Thanks

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


text:
Can Blender show edges of lo-res mesh on hi-res mesh when editing subdiv surface?
I'm wondering if Blender implements a feature that Maya has.  Mainly, if you're editing a mesh with a subdiv modifier, is there any way to have the lines of the lo-res mesh drawn directly on the model?
Here's a screen shot from Maya:

This is what I'm able to do in Blender.  The lo-res mesh is next to the model instead of projected onto it:

Press the fourth icon next to the subdivision surface name (Triangular Polygon).
The tooltip is Adjust edit cage to modifier result.

Note that while you will be seeing a displaced vertice, the editing operation still act on the original vertices with their respective locations.


text:
How to retime your Animation/Keys in Timeline?
I've been struggling with this one for quite some time now, is there a way to select some keys in Timeline and scale them?

How long have you been struggling...? Do you know Blender's shortcut for scaling, S? Have you thought about trying that? The question is: do you want to scale their distribution over the frame range, for example before scaling they are from 0 to 30 and you want them from 0 to 60? Or do you want to also (or only) scale the values they hold, i.e. when on frame 30 the X value is 5, you want to scale it to 10? Or to frame 60 and X = 10?

If you just want to scale your keyframes over the range of the Timeline (which is what retiming sounds to me like), then you can simply select all the keyframes you want to scale and hit S to scale them.
Scaling in the Timeline uses the 2D Cursor (the vertical blue line showing you which frame you are currently on) as pivot point, so you can for example scale from the starting frame everything further out, or from the first keyframe of the animation if it's not on frame 1 if you want to keep the beginning of the animation on a certain frame, you can scale from somewhere inbetween outwards or perhaps scale from the last keyframe of the animation if you want to make sure it ends on a certain frame:

In the Graph Editor you have a few more options for scaling the keyframes. First of all you can use different pivot points: Bounding Box Center, 2D Cursor and Individual Centers. In the following example I will use the 2D Cursor like in the Timeline.
You can either scale generally in 2 dimensions X and Y evenly by hitting S, this will change the positions of keyframes and their values.
Or just like scaling objects in the viewport you can limit it to either X or Y axis by pressing the letter afterwards, so S X to scale horizontally, which will only change the keyframe positions, or S Y to scale vertically, which will only change the keyframes' values, but not their positions.

Wow, Thanks Gordon you solved one of my blender mysteries which was really easy so sorry about that, but I've been searching for this piece of info on youtube and I even googled it so I think the word "retime" wasn't the best keyword to use.
Besides I tried using the scale tool by clicking on the scale tool from toolbox which didn't work so I think hitting S was the answer.
Thanks again Gordon and sorry for the bother :)

@AhmadMohsen I've added some more scaling at the end of the answer. The toolbox is in the viewport window, and as almost all tools and shortcuts in Blender they are "editor-window-sensitive", you can only use them where they are available or in case of shortcuts, they work in the editor window you are currently in with your mouse and nowhere else.

An cool tip also is to use ⇧ Shift + T and slide your keyframes. It can be useful on some situations.


text:
Basic Super Copy bones will not generate controls, only appear on generated rig hidden under ORG/DEF. (Rigify)

I am attempting to animate ears for my model via a basic super copy. I was able to create hair and tail bones using the tail samples provided, and they all connected find. However, when attempting to do the exact same thing to create these Super Copy Bones, they fail to generate anything except hidden bones on the final rig.
I created a sample basic super copy, moved it in to place, parented it to the same bone as the hair, spine.006, symmetrized it with its new name as Cat Ear.L, and double checked in pose mode that both bones had the appropriate rig type. I am unsure what I may have done wrong since everything else is generating as it should.

Can you share your Blender project file? Instructions for sharing.


text:
How to Move Face to be Coplanar with Another
How can I move the bottom face so that it is coplanar with the top face?
I tried doing "Selection to Cursor (Keep Offset)". That's almost right, but I only want the bottom face moving along the Y axis.
I could just move the bottom face along the Y axis and eyeball it, but there must be some way to make it exact.

Activate the snap to vertices option, move the face along Y and make it snap on a vertex of the top face?

@moonboots I was about to say the same but you got there first! :^)

@John Eason I'm not sure this is what he wants though   ;)

Enable Snap To Vertex:

Move the face along Y and snap to a vertex of the top face:

Oh my gosh yes, this works perfectly well. I was trying to snap to the cursor but obviously your solution works. Thank you!


text:
Texture painting
i am having some issues with texture painting.
I guess it's about the project, because when i open up a new project it's working, but when i try on my wip project there is no way that i can texture paint.
I tried 1000 ways, i watched every tutorials on youtube about this but still cannot find to figure out how to actually paint on a surface.
Is someone else having the same problem?
How could i solve this?
I tried to export a single element as a fbx. and put on a new project and still not working.

Hello please share your file, remove all the useless objects: https://blend-exchange.com/


text:
does any one know how to keep particles in volume from protruding from mesh in geometry nodes
I'm making a jello render similar to the vintage jello salads you see in those 1950s ads. I duplicated my main jello mesh, gave it a transparent material and also gave it a particle system with a collection (cherries and cucumbers) but I switched to geometry nodes because I didn't want the particles over lapping with each other. I'm trying to figure out how to keep the instanced objects inside the mesh and not protrude in the example photo. I'm still trying to understand geometry nodes. any help is appreciated, thank you!


text:
Texture Paint draw tool not working
I've been having trouble painting the texture on this character. I've tried with most of the things that I've seen on tutorials but none of them have worked so far.
On the image editor -> paint window when i use the fill tool i can see the changes on the texture of the model, but when i paint over it with the draw tool nothings happens. Neither the texture nor the texture map have a texture.
Here's the link to the project https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bnK13pPC6-_19_Ssu4F4hVYsFpeKkgkz/view?usp=sharing
Thanks in advance

Disable the Remesh modifier, it probably breaks the UVs and causes problem to display the texture. Also close the texture that you have loaded in the brush settings, as it is completely black it prevents to paint anything:

Thanks a bunch, that fixed it.


text:
What's a good strategy for designing a room with multiple objects in it?
I'm getting into blender and am at the point now where I can model simple objects and do some rigging without too much trouble.  Now I'm trying to figure out the best strategy to model an entire apartment, but am finding it much more difficult than just modeling a single object.
First of all, the walls and ceiling are making it very difficult for me to look into my apartment.  I can hide them, but it's hard arranging the furniture with them missing.
What's the best way to create the furniture?  I'm modeling the couch, chairs, potted plants and similar things in the same file so far, but having so many overlapping objects makes the editing difficult.  Should I put these in separate files and reference them in?  Should I move them to separate layers?
Any good general tips for modeling rooms?

Model assets in scale on a different layer, then add them in from top view in the viewport (ceiling hidden). Once it is arranged about how you want it, you can add a camera in the room, and un-hide the ceiling. After that it is minor changes to assets and location, so it shouldn't be too hard. Remember that rendering in the room should not be an issue with proper camera and lighting setups.

Room modeling tips

Transparent objects
It's often handy to make some objects such as the walls transparent for the viewport. For render they're still fully visible of course:

Furniture creation
It's good to keep the pivots of the furniture in the bottom, so that you can snap them to different surfaces with Face Snapping. You can easily rotate them around their local axis with R+ZZ (or XX or YY depending on the case):

Managing lots of objects
Sometimes it's good to make some objects non-selectable, like the walls. Layer Manager is a great addon for managing objects if you have them on different layers.
Alternatively, parenting them to an empty is an easy way to make them non-selectable. Use Ctrl+Left click to affect all the children of a parent in Outliner:

Rendering
Sometimes it's necessary to place the camera outside of the room and mark the front walls as invisible to camera. Hiding them is not encouraged, because the light that comes outside the room makes it look dull. The light needs to bounce from the insides of your front wall:

room.blend

To look in side your room to place your objects you can "cut" your room. In the view port press AltB or from the 3D view header View > Clipping Border to make a selection of what will be visible.
To use the clipping border go to side view and draw the box over you entire room, except for the front wall. Then when you look at your room from the front view you will be seeing in to your room.


text:
Can I use Nurbs curves as the bone display custom shape?
I have a rigged mesh and am at the point where I'm trying to pretty it up.  I've created a few controller bones that I use to drive the IK.  I'd like to change their appearance by setting their Display/Custom Shape property.  Coming from Maya, I'm used to using NURBS shapes to make easy to identify shapes.  However, when I create a NURBS curve and use it as my bone's custom shape, nothing is displayed in the viewport.  I can set it to meshes or empties and they display fine - but not NURBS paths.
Is there a way I can use NURBS paths as my custom display shape?

you can simply transform your curve into a mesh (alt C) and then use the mesh as custom shape. be prepared to adjust loc rot and scale of your mesh/curve (a problem also with simple meshes)


text:
Change particle system's physics with a keyframe (or other)
I'm on the path to becoming a particle system expert, and right now I'm doing a silly logo particle system. It basically forms my username out of particles, but I want the particles to stay in place until a desired time. E.g., I want to add a keyframe to switch the particle physics from no physics to newtonian (or other) physics.

You can't keyframe a switch value, you would need a numeric value to drive the effect you want so that you can animate that value.

thats actually not quite true. a switch has a numeric value. 0 off, 1 on.  the particle physics type is a enum, which is kind of like a list, and can be animated/keyframed. however, it is not possible to animate the particle physics type due to the limitations of the particle engine.

If that's impossible, then how can I just keep them from falling until I want them to fall?

You can animate the "Gravity" and "All" effectors under Field Weights of the particle system. Just keep them at 0 until you need them to affect your particles, then set them to the desired values to get the party going.
If your particles have an initial velocity you need to set keyframes for that as well.


text:
Applying camera track to external clips
I have two clips:

One is background footage (shaky cam) that I have tracked and solved, set up scene in Blender, etc.
The other is a .exr effect sequence rendered from Houdini

I would like to layer these on top of each other, but I want to use the camera track on the EXR sequence, so the Houdini effect follows the scene. I tried adding the sequence as a plane, but Blender rendered the EXR files with a black background, even though they showed up with alpha in the image viewer.
Any way to layer these two clips so that the effect follows the main shot using the camera track data?

If you simply want it to follow one of the tracks, what you're looking for is the 'Track Position' node (in the Input section of the compositor node list).  Just give it the video clip and a track that's the same depth as the effect you're adding.  Excuse the lack of actual files in this example, but in the compositor, create the following (vector blur is optional):

You may need to add another transform node to just the EXR sequence so it lines up correctly.
Just to cover my bases, if you need a more 3D layering, you'll add the sequence to the Blender scene projected onto a mesh, plane or otherwise.  To include alpha as part of the plane, you just need to use the alpha as a factor of a mix shader:


text:
How to cell fracture without internal volume, only on surface?
I'm trying to take a mesh like this:

And cell fracture it, but only to the surface of the mesh, so the pieces are planes instead of large fragments. My end goal is to produce an animation like this:

I managed to achieve this by splitting my mesh into separate planes. Then cell fracturing each plane individually. I'm wondering if there's a faster and less tedious way to do this. I got more complex models I want to apply this effect on and the way I'm doing this simply won't work on those models.
Anyone have any ideas? Thank you!

Hi! For complex fracturing use "Fracture modifier" branch of Blender. As for default tools - "Explode" modifier can do something similar.

Could you elaborate on that? I'm currently using Blender 2.79 with Cell Fracture add-on enabled, is the fracture modifier you're referring to different? If so how do I access it? As for explode, there doesn't seem to much parameters to play around with to get the results I want. Am I missing some obvious button to expose more options?

Branches are unofficial builds, get them here for example: https://blender.community/c/graphicall/Kbbbbc/. I'm no expert in fracturing, but this branch is more precise and tweakable than default "Cell Fracture" add-on, it also provides "shell only" fracture. "Explode" is mainly controled by particle system, better watch some tutorials about it.

Ah got the build thanks! Don't see an obviously labeled option for shell only fracture though.. Ah well, time to go through a bunch of tutorials again haha.

In algorithm settings there are couple of choices w/o "fill" in the name, but contain "bisect"

Omg that's it! Thank you so much for all your help! Muchas gracias!


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Blender 2.81 3D Corner Axis Gizmo thingy disappears when using shortcut move/scale/rotate

Hey guys! I'm used to using G/S/R to move/scale/rotate things. In previous versions the corner gizmo stayed visible at all times so I can further use X/Y/Z to precisely control which direction I want to to move at. Now the gizmo disappears. Any idea what to toggle to make it show?
Without it I'm just guessing which of the XYZ I have to press.


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BLAM Camera Calibration Wrong Z-Axis?
Happy New Year!
I want to rebuild a picture using the BLAM Addon for Camera Calibration, but using the two-vanishing-point method does not work properly for me.
Look at the Plane on the right side:

Alternatively i tried using the image midpoint,in which the plane looked good, but the pillar seems distorted:

Question:
Is my setup on the left side correct?
Did I forget something?
I already used Lens Correction in Photoshop for the Distorsion.
Thanks for your time!

Welcome user9768 :) What exacly is your issue? Camera's z-axis is flipped?

Depending on the setup, the plane or the pillar does not match the background picture. Check the Images

Ahem. have you tried moving them to make them match?

Yes, the X and Y Axis always match fine with the Image Midpoint, but the Z-Axis distorts to the side, it isnt straight vertical. See 2nd Image right

Wait a minute! I'm having the same problem. I'm trying to recreate the Parts & Services room from Five Nights at Freddy's 2 and it won't line up the image.


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How to make an object in blender game engine react with different collision differently
I used collision sensor which reacts to any kind of collision which takes place. So is there any other way to make an object react with different collision differently.

The cube is a ridged body and the plane is static

As the cube falls the plane detects the cube collision and acts as set.

These are the given settings for the above function.
As the cube falls the plane senses the cube collision and does the given function. But if there would be an extra object, for example a sphere, I want the plane object to react with the sphere collision differently. How is it possible in blender game engine?

You can filter the collision evaluation

by Property (M/P disabled Property: contains a property name)
by Material (M/P enabled Material: contains a material name)
no Filter at all (all other cases).

Be aware - the other participant of the collision needs to have the property/material.

I was going to do this in a long method. Thanks


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Is it possible to move vertex along the blender focal length
If i arrange vertices in a shape in front view and as I pull those vertices backward from the right view, the shape of the front view changes, it contracts as the vertices are pulled backward. So is their any feature to move vertex along the focal length so that the shape of the front view remains the same.

I want to model in perspective view using a perspective image    as a loose reference

Friend I need this feature because while modeling from my imagination, I arrange those vertices according to how it should look in the front view but as I move them back to manage the side view it shrinks in the front view. So is their any feature to enlarge a shape according to focal length as it moves back. By posting this question you should assume I know everything about focal length.

Related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/9187/599


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How to close the hole smoothly convex?
Good afternoon. Is it possible to close the hole with a quick click so that it is convex, as it were, an extension of the model? As in the red lines. Or is the only way out - Filling by F and pulling polygons manually?

Hello, I would boolean with an object that has the shape you want, then use a Smooth brush to hide the junction


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How do I remove parts of objects going through another object
So I'm building this ship and I want to know how I can remove the this part of the ladder and the sails from clipping through the floor

You can move the vertices, use the knife tool, or use boolean operations (I don't recommend). Did you try any of that ?


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How to Calculate the Shadow Area Cast by One Object on Another in Blender Using Sunlight?
I have a scene in Blender with two cube objects and a sunlight source. I would like to calculate the shadow area cast by the first cube (Object 1) onto a specific face of the second cube (Object 2), considering the sunlight direction. The cubes are positioned in such a way that Object 1 casts a shadow on Object 2.
Can anyone guide me on how to calculate the shadow area cast from Object 1 onto a specific face of Object 2 when lit by the Sunlight?
I’m open to any Python methods, tools, or ideas that can help achieve this.
Thank you!

Assuming manifold geometry, you can elongate the shadow caster(s), and find their boolean mesh intersection with shadow receivers. Then find the surface to the front of the Sun, which you can simply by comparing the dot product of sun direction and face normal. What I do is find the part cut through the receiver, delete it, then use blurred normal (I actually blur selection but I think I could blur the normal) select and remove the backside as well. Now use an Attribute Statistic on what's left.

Imgur mirror (SE image hosting has problems)


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Blender Network Proxy settings
Is there a way to configure Blender 4.3 to connect to the network via proxy? My Internet connection is implemented via proxy with authorization (login/password). Without the network, I can't download missing add-ons.

Hello and welcome! I don't think Blender natively has a built-in feature to configure proxy settings directly within its user interface, but you could try setting up your system-level proxy settings through Windows Settings > Network & Internet > Proxy, then Set up your proxy, and provide the necessary server details, including your login and password if required. Can you try this and let me know if this works?

Everything is already set up in the system, but to access the Internet, each program must specify the proxy server address, port, login and password in the settings.

Blender unfortunately does not currently provide a built-in option to input these details directly. It does support environment variables though. Can you try this? You can also pass them from the command line blender --proxy-server=http://username:password@proxy_address:port


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my model smooths out when exporting as stl
I like what I see (Middle and right images) when in blender. Everything has been triangulated and modifiers applied. What else can i do to make the image be the right two not the left one. (left one is the exported stl)
Thanks

Try increasing the resolution. Add more geometry subdivide it more.


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Remove Weird Shadows in Displacement Heightmaps
I have some shadow errors when creating a 3D maps in blender that I need some help fixing. While in the EEVEE engine, I have a heightmap generated using QGIS that is applied to the plane using the displacement method.  I use the subdivision surface and shade smooth to clean up the elevation profile, then use the world sky settings to add shadow effects, but I still have these weird half circle shadows that are generated.  Was wondering if anyone had some recommendations to clean these weird shadows from the displacement.

Can you provide a capture from up close, showing the wireframe overlay ? right now it's a bit hard to make out what is going on

Two suggestions: go to your plane in edit mode, select all (a) and merge by distance (m). And try more subdivisions. A third suggestion (but just a wild guess), adjust the middle level of the displacement.


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how can i turn off the node tabs in blender 4.3.0

that I'm used to blender 3.0 and older it slows me down with this?

Hello. I see three solutions. Go back to the previous Blender version, hack the source code to revert it back for yourself, or use a custom node group that will have these parameters exposed directly.

@Gorgious what??

@Dragonred don't expect someone will elaborate if you don't care to even write what part is confusing you.

oh sorry i didn't know what he means by hacked sorry

I meant forking Blender's source code to maintain your own which is a massive endeavour. I would suggest going for the 3rd option ;)

It doesn't answer your question but you can also reduce the node with H or Ctrl H

I checked if maybe Python API allows to move sockets to the top level of the tree, but couldn't find any option, and move function reports an error, saying it doesn't work for builtin nodes.

It doesn't seem possible, that said if you press H or CtrlH or H then CtrlH you'll have the following results:


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Blender render appears completely Gray
When I hit "render" nothing appears except one object I forgot to add a material to. I'm unfamiliar with most of Blender's rendering settings. I've done some internet research but turned up largely nothing useful. I still have this problem. I've tried cycle's and the blender rendering engine. In fact this problem occurred when I switched from cycle's to blender...
For the record I am not willing to put my hard work up on here, but if you need information I can definitely post a screenshot of whatever it is that you need.
Some screenshots:

Ecah render engine currently needs it's own material definitions. You can't switch from one to another easily (though there are some plug in that can help). See related question: Does Switching From Blender Render To Cycles Mess Things Up?

Go back into your material settings on the objects not being rendered and turn off Use Shader Nodes, if you are rendering in the Blender Internal render instead of Cycles.  This selection is next to the Material Text box just above the Surface / Wire /  Volume / Halo buttons and to the right. of the text box.

I'll try that, but I'm kinda busy at the moment with other things! Sorry I didn't get back sooner, this is just a personal project and takes a back seat to other thins especially right now!!! :)

I think I actually just ended up deleting all of the materials once back in Blender Render. I'm not entirely sure what I did though. That is good information to know though!


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I'm trying to add a script as an addon and it does not seem to work
I'm trying to use this script: http://sourceforge.net/p/ogreaddons/code/HEAD/tree/trunk/blenderimport/ogre_import.py
To import ogre .Mesh files into blender. However when I drop the script into my addons folder it does not show up on the addons list, nor does it's behavior show up in import. If I try and add addon from file, the same thing happens.
Whats going on here? How do I use this addon? If I can't, what other ways can I import an ogre .mesh file?

This looks like a Blender 2.49 script.
It will not work with 2.5+ as the python API changed significantly.

The script you link to is written for Blender 2.36, easily identified by looking for registration info.
#!BPY

""" Registration info for Blender menus:
Name: 'OGRE (.mesh.xml)...'
Blender: 236
Group: 'Import'
Tip: 'Import an Ogre-Mesh (.mesh.xml) file.'
"""

Blender versions above 2.5 won't be able to load this particular script, because internally and externally Blender has changed a lot in the years between Blender 2.36 and the present 2.7+ series.
Your options are:

Find an Ogre I/O addon compatible with Blender 2.5 onwards.
https://bitbucket.org/iboshkov/blender2ogre (compatible with 2.7! )
This addon seems to be in active development at the time of this writing, that's a good sign.
Use an old version of blender, available from here


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When emitting particles in a volume, how do I prevent particles from appearing inside other objects within that volume?
I have a scene where I emit particles as debris over a volume in the scene. Within that volume I have other objects with colliders. A few particles will appear inside the objects and fly off of them at high speed.
How do I prevent these particles from appearing inside these other objects?
My first thought was to have particles kill on collision during the first frame or two, however I am not sure how to have the setting change on a frame to frame basis.

I now this is a very old question, but I was wondering the same, found this unanswered and later figured out a solution (which probably wouldn't work 8 years ago) - You can built a low poly colliders around your objects and boolean difference the objects from the emitter.


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Can Cycles CUDA utilize more than 2GB of VRAM?
I'm trying to make a render with dual Titan X's, they have 12GB of VRAM each. If I ramp the tile size up it eventually slows down seemingly due to hitting a 2GB cap?
Is there a way to have the cycles renderer utilize more than 2GB of VRAM?

I have no problems utilizing all VRAM on 780gtx 6GB, The optimal tile size for me is 512x512.

Odd, whenever I try it maxes at 2GB. I get better performance at 256x256 than 512x512 I imagine due to limited memory resources.

I need to also add that it is on win7 platform with nvidia 350.12 drivers on cuda 3.5. You may want to file a report here: https://developer.blender.org/ or search for similar.

Are you on a 32bit or 64bit system?  With 32bit systems, programs are limited to 2gb of memory, or up to 4 if they are Large Address Aware.  This limit is normally with usage of system memory, but I imagine it may apply to video memory as well.

It's a 64 bit system.

You may want to file a bug report, just to get some feedback from the core devs. I doubt they have Titan's to test, but they might have more specific information regarding drivers, etc,  for you.

I'll go ahead and do that when I have access to the system again. It's a buddies hardware.


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Objects don't touch when they collide?
I'm trying to get a couple asteroids to collide, however they collide without touching each other. How do I go about getting them to collide when closer together, or actually touching?

Tried changing the collision margin to no effect.

Try to change shape from Convex Hull to Mesh

That did the trick thank you, you can make an answer if you want and I'll mark it.

To enable accurate object collision, in Physics tab change Collision Shape of the rigid body to Mesh instead of default Convex Hull.


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My particles are vanishing after 250 frames, not sure whats going on. (Lifetime is set to 350)
Not sure whats going on with my particles here, they are vanishing after 250 frames :
My particle settings:
Sadly google search results are a bit tough to filter through for anything blender. Hopefully one of you know what the deal is.

Did you modify any of the settings for the second time? Like did first you set lifetime to 250 and later to 350? It that's the case, you should set current frame to 0 and replay it with AltA
Another possibility is the clipping: set the End value of clipping to a higher value or start value to a lower value (you can tab the panel with shortcut N

You may need to rephrase this with proper terminology, (lifetime start and lifetime end) but you've got the right idea for an answer.

It's only 'start' and 'end', and only 'lifetime', according to the image, right? :)

That did the trick. Alt A. What exactly does that do?

Alt A will do the simulation again. Better results if done at frame 0


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How to add edge loops to a circle (triangle fan)
If I have triangle fan that makes a circle, for example what you get when you Add->Circle, with fill type Triangle Fan, and I want to add more edge loops radially, what's the best way to do that?
I can sort of do this if I extrude the outer edge, then scale down the 'old' outer edge. Once I do this I can do loop cut like normal between the two but this modifies the original edge. I'd like to figure out a way to do this that doesn't touch the outer edges.

Try to select the triangle fan and inset few times.

To add edge loops on a triangle fan, select all the faces of your circle, hit I button, adjust the distance of the loop with the mouse and repeat the operation with Shift+R until you have the number of loop cuts you want.

The easy way is use the cut faces addon from STANISLAV BLINOV:

general forum
how to use in circle:
video about how to use in circle
addon:
bl_info = {
    "name" : "Cut Faces",
    "author" : "Stanislav Blinov",
    "version" : (1, 0, 0),
    "blender" : (2, 72, 0),
    "description" : "Cut Faces and Deselect Boundary operators",
    "category" : "Mesh",}

import bpy
import bmesh

def bmesh_from_object(object):
    mesh = object.data
    if object.mode == 'EDIT':
        bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(mesh)
    else:
        bm = bmesh.new()
        bm.from_mesh(mesh)
    return bm

def bmesh_release(bm, object):
    mesh = object.data
    bm.select_flush_mode()
    if object.mode == 'EDIT':
        bmesh.update_edit_mesh(mesh, True)
    else:
        bm.to_mesh(mesh)
        bm.free()

def calc_face(face, keep_caps=True):

    assert face.tag

    def radial_loops(loop):
        next = loop.link_loop_radial_next
        while next != loop:
            result, next = next, next.link_loop_radial_next
            yield result

    result = []

    face.tag = False
    selected = []
    to_select = []
    for loop in face.loops:
        self_selected = False
        # Iterate over selected adjacent faces
        for radial_loop in filter(lambda l: l.face.select, radial_loops(loop)):
            # Tag the edge if no other face done so already
            if not loop.edge.tag:
                loop.edge.tag = True
                self_selected = True

            adjacent_face = radial_loop.face
            # Only walk adjacent face if current face tagged the edge
            if adjacent_face.tag and self_selected:
                result += calc_face(adjacent_face, keep_caps)

        if loop.edge.tag:
            (selected, to_select)[self_selected].append(loop)

    for loop in to_select:
        result.append(loop.edge)
        selected.append(loop)

    # Select opposite edge in quads
    if keep_caps and len(selected) == 1 and len(face.verts) == 4:
        result.append(selected[0].link_loop_next.link_loop_next.edge)

    return result

def get_edge_rings(bm, keep_caps=True):

    def tag_face(face):
        if face.select:
            face.tag = True
            for edge in face.edges: edge.tag = False
        return face.select

    # fetch selected faces while setting up tags
    selected_faces = [ f for f in bm.faces if tag_face(f) ]

    edges = []

    try:
        # generate a list of edges to select:
        # traversing only tagged faces, since calc_face can walk and untag islands
        for face in filter(lambda f: f.tag, selected_faces): edges += calc_face(face, keep_caps)
    finally:
        # housekeeping: clear tags
        for face in selected_faces:
            face.tag = False
            for edge in face.edges: edge.tag = False

    return edges

class MESH_xOT_deselect_boundary(bpy.types.Operator):
    """Deselect boundary edges of selected faces"""
    bl_idname = "mesh.ext_deselect_boundary"
    bl_label = "Deselect Boundary"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER', 'UNDO'}

    keep_cap_edges = bpy.props.BoolProperty(
        name        = "Keep Cap Edges",
        description = "Keep quad strip cap edges selected",
        default     = False)

    @classmethod
    def poll(cls, context):
        active_object = context.active_object
        return active_object and active_object.type == 'MESH' and active_object.mode == 'EDIT'

    def execute(self, context):
        object = context.active_object
        bm = bmesh_from_object(object)

        try:
            edges = get_edge_rings(bm, keep_caps = self.keep_cap_edges)
            if not edges:
                self.report({'WARNING'}, "No suitable selection found")
                return {'CANCELLED'}

            bpy.ops.mesh.select_all(action='DESELECT')
            bm.select_mode = {'EDGE'}

            for edge in edges:
                edge.select = True
            context.tool_settings.mesh_select_mode[:] = False, True, False

        finally:
            bmesh_release(bm, object)

        return {'FINISHED'}

class MESH_xOT_cut_faces(bpy.types.Operator):
    """Cut selected faces, connecting through their adjacent edges"""
    bl_idname = "mesh.ext_cut_faces"
    bl_label = "Cut Faces"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER', 'UNDO'}

    # from bmesh_operators.h
    SUBD_INNERVERT    = 0
    SUBD_PATH         = 1
    SUBD_FAN          = 2
    SUBD_STRAIGHT_CUT = 3

    num_cuts = bpy.props.IntProperty(
        name    = "Number of Cuts",
        default = 1,
        min     = 1,
        max     = 100,
        subtype = 'UNSIGNED')

    use_single_edge = bpy.props.BoolProperty(
        name        = "Quad/Tri Mode",
        description = "Cut boundary faces",
        default     = False)

    corner_type = bpy.props.EnumProperty(
        items = [('SUBD_INNERVERT', "Inner Vert", ""),
                 ('SUBD_PATH', "Path", ""),
                 ('SUBD_FAN', "Fan", ""),
                 ('SUBD_STRAIGHT_CUT', "Straight Cut", ""),],
        name = "Quad Corner Type",
        description = "How to subdivide quad corners",
        default = 'SUBD_STRAIGHT_CUT')

    use_grid_fill = bpy.props.BoolProperty(
        name        = "Use Grid Fill",
        description = "Fill fully enclosed faces with a grid",
        default     = True)

    @classmethod
    def poll(cls, context):
        active_object = context.active_object
        return active_object and active_object.type == 'MESH' and active_object.mode == 'EDIT'

    def cut_edges(self, context):
        object = context.active_object
        bm = bmesh_from_object(object)

        try:
            edges = get_edge_rings(bm, keep_caps = True)
            if not edges:
                self.report({'WARNING'}, "No suitable selection found")
                return False

            result = bmesh.ops.subdivide_edges(
                bm,
                edges = edges,
                cuts = int(self.num_cuts),
                use_grid_fill = bool(self.use_grid_fill),
                use_single_edge = bool(self.use_single_edge),
                quad_corner_type = eval("self."+self.corner_type))

            bpy.ops.mesh.select_all(action='DESELECT')
            bm.select_mode = {'EDGE'}

            inner = result['geom_inner']
            for edge in filter(lambda e: isinstance(e, bmesh.types.BMEdge), inner):
                edge.select = True

        finally:
            bmesh_release(bm, object)

        return True

    def execute(self, context):

        if not self.cut_edges(context):
            return {'CANCELLED'}

        context.tool_settings.mesh_select_mode[:] = False, True, False
        # Try to select all possible loops
        bpy.ops.mesh.loop_multi_select(ring=False)
        return {'FINISHED'}

def menu_deselect_boundary(self, context):
    self.layout.operator(MESH_xOT_deselect_boundary.bl_idname)

def menu_cut_faces(self, context):
    self.layout.operator(MESH_xOT_cut_faces.bl_idname)

def register():
    bpy.utils.register_class(MESH_xOT_deselect_boundary)
    bpy.utils.register_class(MESH_xOT_cut_faces)

    if __name__ != "__main__":
        bpy.types.VIEW3D_MT_select_edit_mesh.append(menu_deselect_boundary)
        bpy.types.VIEW3D_MT_edit_mesh_faces.append(menu_cut_faces)

def unregister():
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(MESH_xOT_deselect_boundary)
    bpy.utils.unregister_class(MESH_xOT_cut_faces)

    if __name__ != "__main__":
        bpy.types.VIEW3D_MT_select_edit_mesh.remove(menu_deselect_boundary)
        bpy.types.VIEW3D_MT_edit_mesh_faces.remove(menu_cut_faces)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

Thanks for posting this. For this specific case, I was looking for a way to do this without an add-on, but this looks like a very useful tool. I've installed it and it looks like it will be useful for a lot of things. thanks again!


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Scripting which image is active in Single Image Paint mode?
i'm doing some scripting with the texture paint mode, basically calling bpy.ops.paint.project_image on multiple layers. It's working fine, except I can't figure out how to switch the image that gets painted in Single Layer mode.

For example, here I want to apply paint to "Mask" and then switch it to a different image from script and apply paint to that.
How do I change what image this Texture Slot is set to from script?
Thank you!

Ok, I figured it out. It was image_paint.canvas, as in:
bpy.context.scene.tool_settings.image_paint.canvas = bpy.data.images["ImageName", None]


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How to access geonodes instance position/rotation from python script?

I'm trying to access a list of positions, rotations, and scale for instanced geometry (and ideally the name as well) instanced by geonodes for an export script. The instances are NOT realized, and  for this at least I just need the transform data.
But I can't find out how to access the instance data, such as what appears in the Spreadsheet windows, from Python.
Thanks!

Does this answer your question? Find object instances with python You can also add a temporary geonodes tree to output any data you want: Convert curve to mesh with specified resolution via API

Yes, thank you. This worked perfectly for me. I did search for other questions but didn't see the duplicates.


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Modify each instance according to previous
I have an object consisting of a simple edge.
The edge has the first vertex assigned to a vertex group named "first", similarly for the "last":

The object is distributed (using Instance on Points) on a curve points like this:

What I am trying to achieve is to align the "first" vertex of each instance with the "last" vertex of the previous instance, so the result should be like this:

I thought such task will be very simple, but I tried various approaches without any luck, so any suggestions are highly appreciated!

The key is to use Field at Index:

In this case, index is -3 because your lines are pointed backwards
But if you want to set data only by vertex group, and number of points in each line may be different, you can use setup like this:

Sorry about having that flipped. Could you please give me a hint how to use "last" attribute for getting the position instead of "substract 3" (after swapping first vs last to make it correct)? I am able to code addons in Python, but these GNodes are just complete scifi to me...

Already done in second example

Thank you @Crantisz, you have provided me the solution which I will utilize and extend in my project. I have marked your answer as Accepted :) Greetings

Maybe I'm oversimplifying, but if you're looking for separate edges threaded along a curve, you can do it directly this way:

Here I simply convert the curve into a mesh and split the edges.
(To make this more visible, I have scaled the individual edges here).

Thanks, but I really wanted to do exactly what I described - to "merge" those vertices of particular named attributes, always between 2 neighbor instances. Because later I want to extend this basic functionality to something more complex. But thank you!


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Using Vertex Paint to variate Linked Duplicates
Is there any way how to variate vertex colors on linked duplicates (sharing the same mesh data)? I am pretty sure it is not possible as vertex color is a part of the mesh so only some vertex paint modifier could do that (which does not exist)... but maybe anyone have an idea of a workaround?
My goal is to duplicate one model of a tree over a terrain and colorize it to make it look little different. But I still want to keep it linked so I can modify the source mesh easily.

Guessing cycles. You can add a noise node and use it to mix in some colour variation. By connecting the texture coordinate nodes object output to the noise vector and choosing a different object, say the ground plane, the noise stays stationary as you move the object, so the same tree in different locations will vary in different places.

No, the moddel is supposed to be exported to a game engine that supports Vertex Colors (Richard Burns Rally game). It looks like I will have to join all duplicates and colorize it afterwards :-/ But thanks for suggestions.


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How to texture-paint individual pixels
In 2.79 I can draw individual pixels by setting the brush size to 1px, like in this example (16x16px image):

Starting from 2.80 the drawing produces extra pixels:

As you can see the antialiasing is disabled, I also tried to tweak all the other settings, but wasn't able to achieve 2.79 behavior.

I'd recommend submitting a bug report on this - there is no place I can find that allows to adjust something to turn it on or off, and this behavior is not correct.

@CraigDJones OK, thanks... created https://developer.blender.org/T81693

So this turned out to be a known bug for almost a year now :/
https://developer.blender.org/T71403

Does that give you a solution in turning the Falloff to 'Constant'?

No, it doesn't work for me - did you try it?

Couldn't try til now - no, it solves only the problem of the semi transparent pixels, but still paints the extra pixels solid so you end up getting 2-3 pixels at a dab.

@CraigDJones OK, but I really need just 1 pixel drawing, like in 2.79. There is even a fix for that https://developer.blender.org/D6209, unfortunately developers didn't include it to the build, not sure why.

Starting from 2.80 to NOT produce extra pixels, you can change brush falloff graph in way shown on the gif above.
Make a sharp transition from brush center to it edges.
As you can see radius is setted to 1px, Anti-Aliasing is disabled, 4x4px texture size.


text:
Bend UVs to follow a non-quad mesh
How can I adjust the mapping so it follows this kind of topology?

do you need a curve to follow in UV_Editor or you want to make this flat in UV_Editor?

@MohammadHosseinJamshidi I need UVs to follow the curvature of the mesh, without using fiddly manual workflow like adjusting the UVs using proportional tool


text:
Addons: Only some .zips will install
Why is it that if I go to install an add-on from User Preferences > Add-ons > Install from File... and choose a *.ZIP, some add-ons will install, while others will return me to the User Preferences with nothing having happened (as far as I can tell)?
Is there a specific file structure required in the .ZIP? I get many add-ons from GitHub, using the Download Zip button, and even there installation of the actual Zip file only works some of the time.

You can install from zip directly if the zip is either:

a zipped single .py file
  addon_name.zip
       |
       addon_name.py

a zipped folder, important that it's not a zip that contains a folder first.

these will work because the folder structure is at the expected level. The __init__.py is directly inside the zip ("top level").

https://github.com/nortikin/sverchok
https://github.com/JacquesLucke/animation_nodes

  addon_name.zip
       |
       addon_foo.py
       __init__.py

this will also work
  addon_name.zip
       |
       addon_name_folder
              |
              addon_foo.py
              __init__.py

for instance: this zip will fail, because the add-on folder is nested too deep, there's another folder inside the zip:

https://github.com/zeffii/TubeTool  (this is a link to a branch that first has an extra level of folder nesting)
Github will generate a zip from that repo that looks like this:

  repository_name.zip
       |
       repository_name_folder
            |
            first_folder_in_repo
                    |
                    addon_foo.py
                    __init__.py

Zipped add-ons with a structure that doesn't work with the install-from-file feature may or may not have a good reason for being that way.

I wondered about this too, good to know

Can I get a fact check on this? The last one should not fail as the .zip file is extracted into the add-ons folder (as it does in the source code) and the __init__.py file will get picked up by Blender. The system has been this way since Blender 2.6 according to git blame. I structured my add-on like the last one and it works fine...

i'm going to agree, that last written zip structure should prove no problem to the installer. i'll edit my answer. (if you look at the zip of the github repo i linked to, you'll see I missed a nested folder in the example here)

i'll edit it further when at the desktop.

For Blender 2.9 though self installed addons will not always show up n the search bar. any ideas on how to solve that ?


text:
Screen Space Reflections in EEVEE
I am struggling with understanding screen space reflections in EEVEE.
I am aware of the excellent answer to this question, however, this only talks about when an object is off screen entirely.
Maybe it is the same point (if so, I apologise), but can someone confirm for me that this is actually the correct behavior? The partial reflection seems so odd that I am having trouble believing this is how it is supposed to work.
Is the entire bottom face of the cube really supposed to be missing?

I haven't dig into the theory of the implementation yet, but I have a feeling that Screen Space Reflection is just mirroring the already rendered pixel (aka what you actually see on the screen, the screen space data).
I think that's the intended behaviour. It's an heavy approximation that on the other hand gives nice and fast results, expecially for the objects that touch the ground.
You'll have to use a Reflection Plane to get the reflections of the occluded geometries.

Your feeling is correct, it works indeed like that.

@JaroslavJerrynoNovotny thanks fot the confirm. I tried to find some straight evidence/source to quote, but it's harder than I thought.

@Carlo Thanks. I'll do some more experimenting with light probes. I got them to work once, but for some reason now when I bake indirect lighting they don't work at all. Sure I'm missing a setting or something. Cheers.

@Carlo My issue was not realising that light probes don't work in LookDev, only in Rendered view.


text:
Geometry Nodes - How to randomise rotation around just one axis
When using geometry nodes to distribute points across an object, and then instance those points with another object (i.e. the Point Distribute and Point Instance nodes specifically), how can you rotate the instanced object around just one axis?
To put it another way - each instanced object appears (to me) to inherit its initial rotation from the normal of the source object over which the points are scattered (so instanced objects are always pointing Z up from the surface of the source object). I want to keep the X and Y rotation that the instanced object inherits, and just randomise the Z rotation.
This is the first thing I tried. This randomises the Z rotation, but sets X and Y to 0. I want to retain the current values of X and Y, and just randomise Z, but I don't see how to do that:

Then I thought I was very clever coming up with this. The problem here is that the output of the Random Float node always seems to be the same number, so the Z rotation is always the same for every particle instance. I want a random Z value for each instance:

Is there a way to actually do what I want at the moment?

I gave an answer here which might soon be outdated as I state there, since there seems to be a change in the coming Blender 2.93 version: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/213915/geometry-nodes-align/213924#213924

@GordonBrinkmann That's not quite the issue I had here, but is an interesting point in its own right. Thank you for the link as this is very good to know.

Using Attribute Randomize you are able to create a new attribute, instead rewriting the existing one. Then use attribute math to add a random vector to the existing rotation.
Another useful node is point rotate, it has the ability to rotate instances in local and global coordinates:

Thank you. That example works, but to get the result I wanted I had to change it from "Object" to "Point" on the Point Rotate node

Yep, this is exactly what I said, you can change orientation from local(point) to global(object)

Those nodes does not exists anymore in 3.1.

@gordie this answer is one year old.

@Crantisz I know - but the question is still valid and people like me are reading this topic and its answers today :)  It would be nice to edit the answer or to post a new one; if someone has one.

As at Blender v3.0, you can use the Random Value Node as a generator for the attribute that you want to randomize.

In this case I was using the Instance on Points Nodes Rotation attribute. Otherwise, you can utilize the Rotate Instances Node at any point of the flow. If you want to randomize along a specific axis, use the Combine XYZ Node to separate the axes as in the image. I guess repeating the node connections would provide a myriad of ways that the instances could be rotated.

Hi! I'm looking for a replacement of previous Attribute Randomize node. Unlike that one, your solution sets the same random value for each instance on points... Is it possible to make random value for each instance??


text:
shadows on faces with no source
I'm getting some weird shadows on my mesh that I can't figure out how to remove. It appears they don't have any natural reason for being there as they are along straight edges and on  faces.
I've checked normals and they are all pointing the right way. I've removed double/unnecessary vertices. The mesh has 1x mirror and 1x EdgeSplit modifiers on, but applying these doesn't fix the problem. Iv'e tried change clipping without any luck.
The edges have been marked sharp, but removing this doesn't change the shadows. (The red dots are holes I made in the mesh with Boolean modifiers (that have been applied) and the back of the mesh showing through) The shadow problem was there prior to the boolean operation.

If I extend out a face the shadows are visible along the side/connecting face as well.

Hopefully someone can help me with this as it it driving me a bit mad at the moment.
Thanks.
Possible solution: It might have something to do with UV unwrap. Working to confirm if this is the case or not.
Blender 2.82a (Mac Catalina OS) Cycles render engine.

Hello and welcome :). Just a wild guess, but did you check for double faces?

Figured out the problem (in this case) occurred due to UV unwrapping and an image texture that wasn't single colour. The UV unwrap crossed over parts of the image that was empty and created the black lines in seemingly random places. New UV unwrap and new image texture solved the problem.

good to hear you figured it out! you can mark the question as answered then :)


text:
Creating Tool Cut Animations
Is there a way to animate removal of material.  Let's say that I have a 'sheet' of material and I want to create an animation that would show an end result similar to this:

What I have tried is to take a Circle curve, add a geometry to it to get this:

However, when I use geometry nodes to animate this, the bevel disappears:

I assume this is because the Group Input is no longer connected, but I don't know what to do with that.
My questions for this are:

Am I on the right track?
Is there an easier way to do this if I am not
How do I animate a geometry node?

Thank you for any help you can provide.

I was trying something like @Jakemoyo in his answer as well, but there are several problems which occurred to me using the Arc node, so I decided on a mixed method, using a separate Bézier Circle object and the sheet object which holds a Geometry Nodes modifier.
So to get something that works like intended and still keep it editable, I added a Bézier Circle to the scene and a new Geometry Nodes nodetree to the sheet object.
In this nodetree I reference the Bézier Circle with an Object Info node set to Relative so that the location is taken into account. I convert it into a mesh with the Curve to Mesh node, as Profile Curve I choose the curve primitive Quadrilateral set to Rectangle. This way I have individual control over width of the cutout and the height if I want to make the sheet thicker and still be sure that the cutout goes through.
Before making a mesh from the curve, I plug the Object Info node into a Transform Geometry which I can use to change the scale of the circle so I do not have to do it on the original circle. By the way, instead of using Relative you could of course use the Transform Geometry to move the circle. This would be more convenient if you want to make several cutouts from just this one Bézier Circle.
To animate the cutting I use a Trim Curve node before the Curve to Mesh node. By animating the End value from 0 to 1 you get the animation. The resulting mesh will then be plugged into the second input of a Mesh Boolean node, with the sheet geometry from the Group Input in the first socket. So this would be the basic setup, I did not animate the End directly but with an extra Value which I explain afterwards why:

This is all quite nice as long as the circle is not closed, i.e. the End value does not reach 1. But as soon as it does, you'll see that there is something remaining at the end:

You can use a Merge by Distance node but it will only work correctly if the Fill Caps option on the Curves to Mesh node was disabled. However this is needed for the Boolean operation to work as long as the circle is not closed.
So that's why I used a separate animated Value node. Apart from using it to trim the end, I'm also plugging it into a Compare node set to Less Than with 1 as second value. The Result I plug into the Fill Caps input. As long as the trimming end value is less than 1, the result is True and therefore the caps are filled. When it reaches 1, the result is False and the caps are open and merge without problems. Here is the modified nodetree:

And here is the result, you can change the cutout anytime by changing the size of the circle with the Scale value on the Transform Geometry node, changing the width of the cutout with the Width value in the Quadrilateral node and if you change the thickness of the sheet you can also adjust the Height of the Quadrilateral if it is not thick enough to cut through. Of course you could add more complex stuff like automatically changing the hieght according to the thickness etc. and make everything more convenient. This is just a simple setup for tweaking those things manually.

Thanks, this is what I ended up doing and got a really good result for what I am trying to do.  Thanks a lot!

I want to make my life more difficult by not using Mesh Boolean! XD
Using Blender 4.1, here's a solution without using Mesh Boolean node:

Result:

I attached the complete setup to also cover the bottom of the object

That's a good way to do it as well.

I truly have a lot to learn about these geometry nodes...it's amazing what you can do with them.  Thanks for this!

I think you've got it alright, your problem is that you're kind of mixing techniques, GN/NonGN, Curve/NonCurve etc. Adding geometry via the Object Data panel to a curve essentially "converts" it to a mesh under the hood. So doing mesh type operations like Boolean etc can be a little problematic. If you just do all the operations via GN it's easier IMO.

End result:

Excellent, thanks for the help!


text:
How to get rid of this jagged edges in obstacle and fluid interaction?
This happened to me some times in the past. When a fluid interacts with an obstacle, it might appear some jagged pattern in the sides of fluid stream. As seen in the image below, increasing the fluid resolution doesn't fix the problem.

500 & 750 fluid resolution.
What is causing this behavior?
My setup is pretty default and I think this is a common issue. Anyway here is some data:
Domain:

The fluid uses the "Honey" preset.
Surface Smoothing is set to 0.5
Remove Air Bubbles is disabled.
Everythig else is Default.

Obstacle:

The Obstacle object is set to Shell.
Slip Type is Partial Slip with 0.2 Amount.

Did you find a solution?
I'm having a similar behavior when fluid drops on my object. I have enabled things like subdivision x2, generate particals x0.005
And export animated mesh. Cannot seem to rid the crazy jagged edges. Each recalculate of the fluid takes ages so quick fixing isn't going to be by changing values a heap of times til it's right

I don't quite remember, but I think I did not find a solution. You can use a Decimate an then a Subdivision Surface to soften the effect. But I think that we'll need to wait to Mantaflow or the FLIP addon to get decent edges.

I found a solution for my instance it appears to have been the export mesh option on the obstruction.
It was causing all those jagged edges and simply disabled that and choose partial slip and turned off subsurface on the domain.
I too am waiting for flips released next month but they want 76$ usd :(
Look up on Facebook flips fluid addon


text:
How to properly offset the beginning of a fluid simulation?
To offset the beginning of a fluid simulation you only have to set the Start of the fluid's domain to anything above 0 seconds. However, by doing so, the results differ from starting at time 0.
For example we can compare this two simulations with one inflow at 200 resolution in a scene with 1 second of duration (from 0 to 23 at 24 fps):

The first simulation's Start and End are set from 0 to 1

The second simulation's Start and End are set from 1 to 2

In this case the last frame of the first simulation may be the same as the first frame of the second simulation.
As you can see below, the result differ.

As this post says, this is the proper workflow when offsetting the beginning of a fluid simulation. However, in the offsetted simulation it appears that the inflow velocity is higher and thus there is more fluid.
This difference is more noticeable when you increase the resolution. I usually make a bake with Start 0 and then decide how many seconds of offsetting I'll put. Then when I bake again -with, say, 3.6 seconds as Start time- the result is a lot different from expected working at 650 resolution.
Then, the final question is, what's the proper workflow for offsetting the start of a simulation but maintain the result you might have when not doing so?


text:
Extrude Individual Faces function is not working
I want to use the extrude individual faces function to achieve the result shown in Image 1.
However, it keeps merging like in Image 2.
Please let me know how to solve this issue.
+I understand that there has been an update that allows using the Extrude Individual Faces function without needing to use the Inset tool first. Could you please explain how I can do this without using the Inset tool?

Works fine here! Selecting the three top faces and using Alt-E > Individual Faces or the Face > Extrude Individual Faces menu without any other action gives the result you have in your first image. Your second image looks as if you've just done a straight Extrusion with the three faces selected. That's the same for every version of Blender I have here back to 3.3LTS.

The tool to extrude individual faces without having to inset them first is not a new update, it has been around for a very very long time.
It seems you confuse the Extrude Region and Move (or Extrude Faces if complete faces are selected) tool which has the shortcut E with the general Extrude tool which has the shortcut Alt+E.
If you use Alt+E a context menu opens where you can choose between different options: what you want there is Extrude Individual Faces:

If you do that and the three top faces have their normals all pointing in the same direction, it does not look different from the regular Extrude Faces at first glance:

But if you grab one of the faces afterwards you will see that the top three are not connected:

It is more obvious if the three faces are pointing in different directions, here using Extrude Individual Faces with Alt+E:

And this would be the normal Extrude Faces with just E in comparison:


text:
Clipping constraints
I will be going ahead and adjusting my clip start and end values as I believe they are quite important to preserving RAM/CPU usage. One thing I am not sure of is if I was to export this project to Godot 4 will this clip start and end information be exported as well so the RAM/CPU usage preservation can persist in the game engine itself?


text:
New to Blender: Question about lighting
I'm quite new to Blender and was curious as to why on opening Blender for the first time it is presumed that the user will need a lighting object in the Scene hierarchy?
Is it possible to give meshes a set colour and have no lighting and shading effects being imposed over them by a lighting source? Is this a realistic way of making a scene for a game that is intended to be retro without fancy lighting and shadows?
Thanks.

Hello and welcome. Please use a title that matches the content of the post. It should read like a question, be descriptive but succinct, unique and identifying, summarizing the problem so that anyone searching for similar issues is likely to find this. Remove anything superfluous, avoid using words like "this", "help with", "issue" or "question about", instead describe what "it" is. Remember, your title is the first thing visitors see, answers you get depend heavily on it. See What is the problem of asking “How do I do this?"

You have a light, a camera and a cube in the default scene. If you hit F12 to render, it just works. It's just the most simple scene that works, that's all. It's in no way an attempt to imply that you need to have those objects in your scene and most users customize the scene and its settings and save whatever default scene that suits them and their needs for when starting a new project. You can and probably should do that as well:

You need light in your scene, because rendering is calculating light. The whole idea is about simulating light interactions in your scene in most cases. It's possible to make shaders that just emit light themselves and do not necessarily receive shadows or produce any realistic shading. One way to do that could be to use emission shaders and limit their effects only to the camera(as opposed to emitting light to the scene as well) by using Light Path node:

You can make all sorts of effects that way, however, as you can see the objects become completely flat, so it might be that you might want to just have primitive lighting and some more primitive shadows. There are may tools for achieving any look that you want, even ToonBSDF shader for Cycles and Shader to RGB node for EEVEE that let's you have lots of control over how shaders behave.

You can really do whatever you want and the default scene with a cube, a light and a camera should definitely not be viewed as intended to impose anything.

Thank you for your informative response.
I think the shader emitting light itself is what I may end up relying on. I'm basically in the early stages of developing a 2.5D RPG that will be similar in appearance to RuneScape Classic (picture of Classic here: https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/OulpO0UdztMk1vCdzi4AV7ql8H8=/0x0:512x343/1820x1213/filters:focal(176x92:256x172):format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/59824465/runescape_classic.0.jpg ).
I think Classic did not have world lighting which is why I was fore mostly questioning the default lighting source that appeared.

What I should also add is I'm putting a lot of emphasis on developing a game that does not use up too much computer resources. I'm guessing that 'simulating light interactions' is quite a constant drag on resources to some extent. I'm definitely looking to define where my light and shadows will appear much the same way an Artist would do with a static painting, rather than have the engine dynamically control these things.

I would advise to do some studying first. If you have a goal of making a game, you should at least be familiar with basic concepts in CG. Learning to use Blender might be very useful, but you should also have a look at tools specifically designed to make games - game engines. Look into actual game design as a subject as well.

Yes I've spent the last 6 months learning Godot 4 and Gdscript. Unfortunately, the tutorial didn't explain that you can import Blender projects into Godot 4; I thought the graphics were entirely managed inside Godot. So I'm now learning Blender as well as Laigter from scratch given their importance.


text:
How do I achieve a low poly effect on a flat plane?
I have recently got into Sculpting in Blender 4.1.0 which allows me to achieve a low poly effect where the draw sculpting tool applies contortions. However, I would like to know how I can achieve this effect on a flat plane that has not been influenced by any drawing in sculpting?
Below is an example of the low poly effect on the Sculptured segment with a smooth peripheral edge. It is the smooth peripheral edge that I would like to have a continuation of the low poly effect for the length of the face.

Please find an example of the general low poly effect I am looking to achieve:

You can either triangulate the subidivide plane (Ctrl F > Triangulate Faces), then sculpt, of sculpt with Dyntopo activated and a large Detail Size. As for the smooth transition, just use the Smooth brush? Not sure to completely understand...

if you are talking about the texture (each face seems to have a different color) I think you need to have an Image Texture that will have a kind of checker pattern, each square matching with each face of the mesh

You keep mentioning a flat plane… It’s hard to see with the camera angle, but the roof of the house in that image is not flat. It’s a trapezoid / dome kind of shape, very short but still 3-D. Anyways, if you really do want to just color a flat surface with your own shading, Gorgious is right: Use an emission shader in EEVEE with an image texture.
You might want to look into baking to help you sort of “build” the shadows you want to be applied. Baking sort of “freezes” or “saves” shading onto an image texture, see. So, you could make 3-D geometry and lighting in a such shape that has the shading you want, bake the shading to the 3-D mesh, then delete that mesh and use the texture result of the bake on the plane. Just make sure that the 3D structure you make has a UV map that has the same general shape as the 2D plane you’re going to apply the bake to afterwards, possibly matching it exactly (in the roof’s case, a square with a smaller square in the middle).

To get a floor like the one you show in the second picture, first thing right click > Shade Flat in Object mode so that you don't have any smooth shading.
For the colors, you need to use a map with a kind of checker texture and subdivide your plane as many times as necessary to match the squares, example, I have subdivided my plane 9 times to fit a 10 x 10 square texture map:

Then sculpt the plane if you want to give it bumps, and triangulate in Edit mode if you want a triangulation effect (CtrlT):

If you don't have any checker map, or don't want any, you could select the whole mesh, press U > Mark Seam, then in the UV Editor choose Pivot > Individual Origins and scale down the UV faces:

It gives this effect:


text:
How can I render a proper normal pass for smoke in cycles
I would like to render a normal pass for smoke in Cycles like this one:

I'm aware of this method mentioned in Blenderartists but the result is far from the result needed to relight in post (via Normal Node or After Effects' Normality plugin).


text:
Where are the opacity key frames for masks?
When animating a mask's opacity, you cannot find the keyframes in the dopesheet. Is in another place instead?
I've found this bug report but it's not clear if is there a solution or if it's even a bug.

That bug report is still open and it hasn't yet been fixed, which means it still needs to be looked at by a developer. I suggest creating an account on the developer.blender website and subscribing to the bug report so you will be notified when anyone new comments.

I do have an account, thanks for the tip Ray I'll do that.


text:
Is there a way to control particle acceleration when using a Curve Guide force?
I know it's possible to control the speed of a particle system affected by a Curve Guide force.
But, is it possible to control the acceleration? It appears that Curve Guide disable other forces but, is there any workaround for this?


text:
Mist Pass differences between Render Layer and Viewer
For some reason there's a difference between the render layer's Mist Pass itself and the pass seen through the Viewer Node at least in Cycles.

I need an explanation to this, because I've experienced this changing into an animation too.

Passing it through the viewer like that causes it to be treated an output color instead of a data pass, so Blender starts gamma correcting it. When you view a pass directly, it is not corrected and you just see the raw data. You can verify this by checking values in a particular region on the raw pass, and comparing them to linear values shown on the viewer (not the ones labeled "CM"). They'll be the same.


text:
export model from solidworks to blender with join point
i have models rendered in solidworks and i need to export them to blender(not a problem). but some models have "kinematics" that will need to be used for inverse kinematics. how can this information be exported to blender?

What export settings have you tried so far? Can you export from SolidWorks using multiple kinds of files?

Officially, FBX does support constraints, including IK. Concerning SolidWorks' ability to export constraints and Blender's ability to import them, I can't find much information about the former, and the latter is unheard of. To this day, exporting constraints is pretty much not even considered feasible outside the Autodesk ecosystem. If it's already animated, anyone would just bake the animation into keyframes and export that instead. If not animated, just build the IK systems in Blender.


text:
What is location of poseBone?
I'm writing a script to change the armature of some characters, and now I'm having a hard time with the attribute 'location' of the poseBone. In my observation, it's related to the offset with bone in rest pos. But in pose mode, when I drag the pose bone along the +x axis, the location.x decreases(I'm very confused). And when I drag the pose bone along the +y axis, the location.y increases and location.z decreases!
Did I miss something about it, like orientation or other parameters? I would appreciate it if you could provide any tips!

You are moving the bone on its local axes, yes?


text:
Blender python Material.diffuse_color ALWAYS returns default gray (r=0.8, g=0.8, b=0.8)
I am making a blender add-on that exports the current scene as a json file, it mostly works but material colors are broken because every polygon says it's color is the default gray, I checked everything, it is using the right material, the material index is correct, just the diffuse_color is broken. How do I fix this?
Code:
bl_info = {
    "name": "Export To JSON",
    "author": "FireDasher22",
    "version": (1, 0),
    "blender": (2, 80, 0),
    "location": "View3D > N",
    "description": "Exports the current blend as a JSON file",
    "warning": "",
    "doc_url": "",
    "category": "",
}

import bpy
from bpy_extras.io_utils import ExportHelper
import json

def download(text, filepath):
    f = open(filepath, 'w', encoding='utf-8')
    f.write(text)
    f.close()
    return {'FINISHED'}

def main(filepath):
    cam = bpy.context.scene.camera
    jobj = {"faces": [], "camera": cam.location[:] + cam.rotation_euler[:]}

    for obj in bpy.data.objects:
        if (obj.type != "MESH"):
            continue

        data = obj.data

        poly = data.polygons
        vert = data.vertices

        for f in poly:
            # color debuging stuff
            temp = [obj.material_slots[f.material_index].name]
            #temp.append(obj.material_slots[f.material_index].material.diffuse_color[:])
            for idx in f.vertices:
                temp.append((obj.matrix_world @ vert[idx].co)[:])
            jobj["faces"].append(temp)

    download(json.dumps(jobj), filepath)

class popupOpp(bpy.types.Operator, ExportHelper):
    # ejp stans for Export JSON Panel
    bl_idname = "ejp.a"
    bl_label = "Export JSON"

    filename_ext = ".json"

    def execute(self, context):
        main(self.filepath)
        return {'FINISHED'}

class buttonOpp(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = "export.1"
    bl_label = "Export"

    def execute(self, context):
        bpy.ops.ejp.a("INVOKE_DEFAULT")
        return {'FINISHED'}

class panelClass(bpy.types.Panel):
    bl_label = "JSON Export"
    bl_idname = "OBJECT_PT_exportasjson"
    bl_space_type = 'VIEW_3D'
    bl_region_type = 'UI'
    bl_category = "JSON Export"

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        obj = context.object
        row = layout.row()
        row.operator(buttonOpp.bl_idname, text="Export as JSON", icon='EXPORT')

from bpy.utils import register_class, unregister_class

_classes = [
    buttonOpp,
    panelClass,
    popupOpp
]

def register():
    for cls in _classes:
        register_class(cls)

def unregister():
    for cls in _classes:
        unregister_class(cls)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()
```

It's not broken, you haven't changed the diffuse_color value

Ohhh thank you I thought the diffuse_color was the same as the base color :/


text:
When trying to view shading on model, it goes black as well as rendering a shaded view, I see nothing. Any way to fix this?
I'm new to Blender and 3D modeling as a whole. When clicking on Viewport Shading, the model suddenly turns black. (I'm trying to follow that donut tutorial). Rendering that model also just gives me a blank screen. I've tried lowering my resolution, auto smooth does not show up in the data tab (these are some suggestions I've seen others give). I cannot figure out how to fix this, please help.

It's probably something simple but we can't see your settings so it would help if you could share your Blend file.  You can share it via https://blend-exchange.com/ following the instructions there to copy the full link on that page. Then edit your question here and paste the link into it.


text:
Can't change material for animation using Mix Shader

A title says, i've seen tutorials in order to change material for animation (i want the clothes to dissapear and the re-appear) but no matter what i do the i can't change between my material and a transparent bsdf. I also should note that i'm using vertex groups for the clothes, since i want to have one armature moving everything.
The photo shows the mix shader just changing the color of the original material and nothing else, no matter the factor it won't change to transparent or have the original color again.
Thanks in advance!

You're using a mix color node, that is warning you that's sometihing is wrong, while you should use a mix shader node.

thanks, it feels like a stupid question, but you really helped me

You are welcome, we all passed thorough this.


text:
How can rotate an object about a specific point that I know the coordinates of
I'm sure my problem is very simple, but I'm a newcomer to Blender.
I have an object, that I want to rotate using ROTATE or TRANSFORM, but I don't want the pivot point to be the Median.  I want the pivot point to be a point that has known coordinates.  How can I specify this pivot point to Blender?
I tried to set the pivot point with no avail.
Thank you very much.

Hit N to show the side panel then select the View tab. you'll see a 3D Cursor section on that tab and you can change its location there. Then set the Transform Pivot Point on the top toolbar to 3D Cursor and you're good to go.

When you're finished you can reset the cursor to the World Origin with Shift-C

And, if you want the object to always rotate about that point, you can use Object > Set Origin > Origin to 3D Cursor to set that location as its permanent rotation center, relative to the geometry.

There's also a whole range of options available via the Shift-S pie menu.

Thank you very much for your answer.


text:
Rendering really heavy meshes
I'm a beginner trying to create a render of a scene using about a dozen obj photogrammetry tiles that are extremely heavy. My blend file is about 7gb at the moment.
Every time I try to load them all Blender crashes. I was hoping someone might be able to provide advice on how to optimise the way they display (preferably non-destructively) in object mode so I can see them all and create my view. And is there some way I can then render and save an image without having to go to the review window first? I don't mind if it needs to run all night. But at the moment when I try to open the render window Blender crashes.
Thanks in advance.

First step would be to clean them up, either with manual retopo or decimation, then baking the HP to the LP to get the normal data, and then applying those as a material. Right now all the detail on your meshes is coming from the verts themselves, you gotta find a way to transfer that to texture/material first thing to optimize them. If all you're doing is just rendering them in Blender then you might just be able to decimate them with "Preserve UVs" enabled and it could work. Decimation just has potential to jack up shading or the UVs so it might not be as clean as HP > LP baking.

You can read more about the process here

Thank you @Jakemoyo! I'll give that a go