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Problem with armature when importing model - disconnected bones
I am working on an imported model I found (it's Machamp from Pokémon Sun and Moon). Of course, I am working on it for personal uses, nothing commercial. It's a .dae file, and it contains armature and references to materials and textures. Everything  seems right, except for the bones. These appear to be disconnected, all of them. This makes it impossible to even apply IKs AFAIK (but I am still an amateur in terms of time spent on Blender). I'll provide an example.

As you can see, this does not resemble a skeleton at all. Now, on to the question. Am I doing something wrong? Am I importing it in an incorrect way? Or is it possible that the bones were placed like this from the very beginning? Other models, like Eevee, have some disconnected bones, but the most of them are connected. Thanks in advance, if any additional info is needed, ask right away!

related to https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/128273/how-do-you-make-your-model-skeleton-to-look-like-this/128274#128274 and https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/144274/bones-are-not-right-when-importing-fbx?rq=1. Unfortunately this ai a quirk of file formats/importers. You can try using a different format if possible or playing with the settings.

Sazerac I would like to mark your answer as correct, but I don't think I can since it's a comment


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How to disconnect edges
How do I disconnect edges/vertices?
I would like to disconnect an edge loop, so can I move them individually. (Splitting the mesh into two is not an option.)

Dissolve Mesh > delete > dissolve will delete geometry and fill in the surrounding area in a non destructive way
Rip rips apart vertices or edges V

In Edit Mode, select the Edge Loop, press CtrlE to bring up Edge Specials menu and choose Edge Split operator, which allows to split the geometry along the loop:

You can get each part into selection by using Select linked menu (CtrlL).

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Weird deform Issue
When I try to rotate a bone on the arm the chest armor deforms as well. I looked around and couldn't find any answers, any help?
Also I did check weight paint and there is no reason the chest should be pulled.

Please upload the file.

sometimes the mesh appears blue but nevertheless there's an influence, you should select your chest armor and go in the Properties panel > Object Data > Vertex Group, then select the group that have the arm bone name and press Remove

I started deleting vertex groups and this started to work, i got some decent results. But when I delete the arm vertex group i can no longer deform it. I probably shouldn't have merged the armor into a single object..im gonna try seperating them out and see what i get

I found the solution thanks to moonboots, i had vertex groups linked to the wrong bones. Thanks!

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


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How to model a ridged cone (using modifiers)?
See the picture at the bottom for what I want to model.  I’m using Blender 2.8 Beta.
I was thinking an open cone (that is, bottom face removed) with some modifiers applied, and a creative texture, should do this.  But as a beginner I'm in over my head.
I was first inspired by something I had seen with the wireframe modifier, which can produce the nest-of-spikes effect on a cone.

But it doesn’t quite work right (I could cut off the bottom using a Boolean, though) and I don’t have any control:  Make the creases shallower but still broad enough to span to the next.  With “Relative thickness” it gives points that extend past the end, but they are far too long, and again, I can’t control that separately.
Meanwhile, I was thinking the top-to-bottom scale-like ridges could be done with a modifier, as I see there are some named “Wave” and “Displace” but I can’t figure those out when I just tried it to see what happens.
The final bumpiness could be done with a bump map procedural texture, I’m sure.  I’m familiar with the concepts from POV-Ray (years ago), but looking at the node editor I was again at a loss as to how to do that.
Any suggestions, or pointers to tutorials or .blend files that contain similar features that I can learn from?

why do you want to use modifiers and not simply start with a cone or a cylinder and scale down some of its edges?

Why?  I’m just not that familiar with the toolset yet.  I’m used to doing everything procedurally — POV uses solid geometry and not a mesh approximation, and is scripted not GUI.  I like the idea of nondestructive modifiers that let me rework the original object (e.g. make five slightly different cones) in a simple way, and the details carry over automatically.

ok, you could do it with Array modifier, I will try an answer

Here is a way to do it:

Create a plane, go in Edit mode, rotate on the X axis and scale it, move it a bit away from its origin on the Y axis.
Cut it in half with a vertical edge loop, give it a Mirror modifier, enable the Clipping option.
Create an empty on the same position as the plane origin.
Select the plane, give it an Array modifier, deactivate Relative Offset and activate  Object Offset, choose the empty as the Object. Choose a Count of, for example, 18. Activate the Merge and First Last options.
Rotate the empty 20° on the Z axis.
Select the plane, go in Edit mode and edit the plane mesh, move the vertices, add some vertical edge loops.
Give your plane a Subsurf modifier, add some horizontal edge loops.
When you'll be glad with the result, keep a copy, then apply all the modifiers except the Subsurf, remove the doubles, close the top with some altM > Merge.

When I try it, rather than a bunch of faces arranged in a cone, I get what looks like a strong wind over a pile of newspapers.  I was careful that the plane is +y from the empty, and the same in x and z.

you have to make sure that your object is shifted from its origin and that the rotation and scale are applied in object mode, maybe it will fix your problem

that would go between your first and second steps?

when you create a plane, it will be flat on the Z axis by default, if you rotate in on the X axis in Object mode you'll have to apply rotation, if you rotate in Edit mode, you won't need to, maybe you rotated in Object mode and didn't apply the rotation, if it's not the case the problem is somewhere else, hard to tell on a forum

@moonbots very interesting… I did not know there was a difference between moving/rotating in Edit mode (with the whole thing selected) vs Object mode.

yes, hard to understand at the beginning, I would say that you have your object, and inside your object you have your mesh, which is a different thing... modifying the object size (or rotation, or location) is not the same as modifying the mesh size (or rotation, or rotation). an object has its own scale/rotation/location values, you can verify it if you select your object and go in the Properties panel > Object > Transform, you'll have access to the Loc/Rot/Scale of the object. But if you go in Edit mode and modify the mesh, it won't affect the Loc/Rot/Scale of the object.


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Why does my mesh enlarge upon applying automatic weights?
New to Blender and trying to rerig the original player model from the Unreal Engine 4. I apply automatic weights while selecting both my rig and the mesh, and after it applies, it enlarges. Files will be in the link for the .FBX import on the original model, the Blender save before weights applied, and Blender save after weights applied. Any help, or even a fix and re-upload, would be great, thank you.
Blender and Model Files

Your model is not parented correctly to the rig. Also, the rig's size isn't applied.

There are several issues here.
Unapplied scales
When rigging, every object's scale should be applied. if you select your rig and check its scale, you can see it isn't even nor equal to 1:

To correct that, select the object, hit CtrlA and select Apply Scale.
Wrong Parenting
Rigged models should be parented to your Rig object and the Armature modifiers should target that same Rig object. You have parented you model to a wrong object. And that wrong object also happens to have transforms on it, which influences your model, so we'll have to take care of that too.

Remove the armature modifier of your model.
With your model selected, hit AltP → Clear Parent and Keep Transforms.
Apply your model's scale.
Select your rigged model, then your Rig object, and hit CtrlP → Set parent to Armature Deform with Automatic Weights.

Now everything should be fine. You'll just have to work out those weights.


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Animation Nodes - bake sound, bake spectrum, evaluate sound
I make this node tree using "bake sound" mainly.
I hope it helps, I have been investigating the possibilities offered by this node and some possibilities of use.
The first time we need to bake a sound, with these nodes it is possible to establish the number of frequency ranges, and the values that comprise them. In this case I choose 9 intervals, configured by default and bake the spectrum data. This may take several seconds

Later, insert evaluate. If we debug this node, we can view the array data of any of the frequency intervals:

To get all the frequency data, we will need to add a node (get list element) for each interval. In my case I used this node tree to move an icosphere around the blender space, this icosphere gets a paticle system who emits metaballs to shape this movement (and I modified the damping).

This gray node uses it as a converter, the float controls the proportion of the movement. Later, we combine the data in a vector.

To interact with the metaballs particle system (to add modifiers, etc etc.), we translate the mesh to another object.
To view the node tree results go to this video
https://youtu.be/q1z6DxcDDIk
thanks!! enjoy :)

Is this supposed the be a tutorial or a question? This site is focused on questions and answers, so a tutorial should be posted elsewhere. If it is a question can you make it clear what you are actually asking?

tutorial, i dont know how i may post it :_(

Recommend: Edit the question to make above the answer.


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Modal not running when painting
I'm working on a feature which needs to be a modal that runs when you're painting a stroke. It then needs to repeat that stroke again.
For this I'm trying to store the coordinates of the mouse when painting and drawing the strokes when the mouse is lifted up again.
My problem is that the modal function doesn't seem to run while the mouse is being held down.
Here's the code:
class LP_OT_RepeatStroke(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_idname = "layer_painter.repeat_stroke"
    bl_label = "Repeat Stroke"
    bl_description = "Repeats the last stroke for all channels that have a value set"
    bl_options = {"REGISTER", "UNDO_GROUPED"}

    drawing: bpy.props.BoolProperty(default=False)

    def __init__(self):
        self.coordinates = []

    def paint(self):
        for coordinate in self.coordinates:
            bpy.ops.paint.image_paint(
                stroke=[{"name":"",
                "pen_flip":False,
                "is_start":False,
                "location":(0,0,0),
                "mouse":coordinate,
                "pressure":1,
                "time": 0,
                "size":40
                }])
        print(self.coordinates)
        self.coordinates = []
        return {'FINISHED'}

    def modal(self, context, event):
        if event.type == 'LEFTMOUSE':
            if event.value == 'PRESS' and not self.drawing:
                self.drawing = True
        elif event.type == "MOUSEMOVE":
            if event.value == 'RELEASE' and self.drawing:
                self.drawing = False
                self.paint()
        elif event.type == "ESC":
            return {"FINISHED"}
        elif self.drawing:
            self.coordinates.append((event.mouse_x,event.mouse_y))
        return {'PASS_THROUGH'}

    def invoke(self, context, event):
        context.window_manager.modal_handler_add(self)
        return {'RUNNING_MODAL'}


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Find intersection between a line and a circle
I'm a beginner in using blender. I have a circular element on top of which is a vertex. I wish to get the location of the intersection of the normal from center of the circle till the vertex with the inner curve region. Is there a way to do this programmatically? Please help. Thank you.

It's a little difficult to know exactly what's going on with your set-up, but I tried to replicate it with a bezierCircle curve with a nurbs path bevel object for 2D thickness and a single vertex from extra mesh objects. I verify the position of intersection by mapping a tiny sphere's location to the intersection. To find the intersection, I found a displacement vector equal to the vert location minus the center of the curve. I used line parameterization to find where a line starting at the center with this displacement vector intersects the inner circle of the curve with a calculated radius.
import bpy
from math import sqrt

objs = bpy.context.scene.objects

vert = objs["Vert"]

curve = objs["BezierCircle"]

nurb = objs["NurbsPath"]

v = vert.location

c = curve.location

d = v - c

r = curve.scale.x - nurb.scale.x * 2

t =  r/sqrt(d.x**2 + d.y**2 + d.z**2)

v = c + t*d

sphere = objs["Sphere"]
sphere.location = v

Thank you very much! This definitely gave me a direction to take to solve my problem. :)

Glad I could help

I have a follow up question on this. I was able to solve the above problem. After that, I was trying to get the 2D location of the a 3D point in the image space. However I observed that whenever I shift to the camera view, the location of the point itself changes. I don't understand why it is happening. Like the point will change its location as soon as I shift to camera view. And my python script seems to be using this camera view location and that's messing up everything for me. Any comments please?


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How to create stitched material
I have to  create an object with this material (see image). Unfortunately, I cannot find anything similar on the material sites I normally use. it's very specific with these red and black lines. Seems to be sewed/stiched or so.
Just wanted to ask for your opinions, how you would create/replicate this. Thank you for your ideas. Christoph

Might be interested in this https://gumroad.com/l/Knittr

It looks like denim/jeans fabric to me. You can create it procedural with wave texture nodes https://youtu.be/Y9-B7H9z1TY

Maybe try something like this. It's really just a couple of Wave textures criss-crossed with each other (one at a slight angle). I perturbed the input vectors of the Wave textures slightly with a Noise Texture to better simulate "stray fibers" (similar effect to wave texture's "distortion" value but allows more control such as independently changeable scale to the noise). I used the mix as the basis for a Bump Map, the BaseColor mix factor, and some Ambient Occlusion that I ultimately mixed with the final color. Don't forget to enable Ambient Occlusion in the Render Properties settings. Lastly, I upped the roughness and lowered the specularity slightly.

Man, this is just incredible. Thank you so much! Do you know some ressources on how to learn reverse engineer such materials? On yt i just found videos showing how to create certain materials step by step. But that doesnt really help me understand it and getting better at this kind of problem solving. Cheers c

This dude helped me a bunch along the way (Default Cube) - This video is long (2 hours for part 1) but it explains pretty much everything in a way that you get a very good understanding of what the nodes do and how procedural generation works. Maybe save it for a rainy night - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3gLBhC353Y - After that, you just have to get creative and practice different ways of making a bunch of crap. Some tactics will work better than others - the only way to know is to mess with it for a while.

Oh, forgot to add, feel free to watch (but not get intimidated by) the flashy examples at the beginning, then skip to the 35min mark, which is where the real "lessons" begin.

@Christoph if you want to get a bit further into the maths, maybe worth stepping outside Blender.. Inigo Quilez is a great source, as is The Art of Code. That's GLSL, but the maths is the same. Check out what the shader-freaks get up to on ShaderToy.


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When I bake a Rigid Body sim. , no keyframes appear
I'm making a rigid body simulation of 150 separate pieces dropping onto a plane, lasting 250 frames.
It doesn't seem to matter what simulation I do. Even with just a single cube dropping, when I bake it, I get no keyframes, just a red line.

All I can see is a red line after I baked my animation. No matter which setting I adjust it is always the same. Adding a keyframe doesn't show either.

Hello, what kind of animation are you doing? Maybe share your file:https: //blend-exchange.com/

It's a rigid body simulation of 150 separate pieces dropping onto a plane, lasting 250 frames.
It doesn't seem to matter what simulation I do. Just a single cube dropping and when I bake it, I get no keyframes, just a red line.

My mistake. I didn't realise that you had to bake the animation twice. First in the scene settings and then under Object - Rigid Body - Bake to Keyframes.

You don't have to bake it twice - you can bake it to keyframes if you want a fixed animation. Your fundamental mistake here is, you are doing a simulation, baking it will pre-calculate the simulation and store the data for faster playback (and evenutally avoid issues upon rendering later). You do not get any keyframes there because a simulation is not a keyframed animation. If you however bake it to keyframes, then the rigid bodies are no longer simulated and you cannot simply change the simulation by changing the inital settings. The animation is now fixed by keyframes.


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material control issue on large objects (solved)
I recently prepared a car model and made its platform. I made the color between black and gray when I was making the platform, but unfortunately I cannot change that right now. actually I am changing it, but this is not quite right.

how can i solve this problem? thanks.

You're looking at two different materials in these screenshots.  Is that what you meant?
Tiles.002 and Tiles.001

sorry :) unfortunately i didn't realize but what you said is true. i realized it 2 minutes after i made this post. In fact, there are 5-10 platforms. that is why it is intertwined. and shade was in smooth mode. Turning it off fixed it. thank you...


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Smoother change between two materials using Mix Shader
It's not a problem to make a gradient changing, but I need a simple transition.
Let's say I want to mix two materials and change them one by one at some point in time.
If I just animate the factor from 0 to 1, materials change too sharply.

What should I connect to the factor to make the changing smoother?

Hello could you please show a screenshot of your object and Shader Editor?

Well, i made an easy example.
The problem it starts switching already close to 1 (from 0.9) and not gradually. So it's not a smooth changing.
https://i.postimg.cc/KY1Tyhfm/zzz.jpg

Your link doesn't work, maybe share a file? https://blend-exchange.com/

Hi. Please don't post essential information like links, file downloads or additional details in the comments section where it can be easily missed. Instead edit them into your original post with the [Edit] button above. Comments are transitory by nature, are hard to index or search for, and may be erased at any moment.

Sure. Yuo're right. The strength of emission really affects the transition. Thanks.
I knew the answer was simple and I just couldn't see it. )))

@GordonBrinkmann do you want to make a quick answer out of your fix? I've popped the image in, so it would be to the question actually asked.

@GordonBrinkmann It's only true if RusDark has changed the Color Managment to linear. But your point is correct, high emission reduces the transparent range.

@GordonBrinkmann It's wrong to say that Blender has a maximum color value (in rendered image) of 1. It's only true in Standard CM where values > 1 are displayed as 1 and clamped at 1 in rendered image. With it, any (10,0,10) color is rendered as (1,0,1) while loosing everything above 1. But for example with the default AgX CM, it maps any color (including (10,0,10)) to a suitable [0,1] range for displaying (while changing the saturation and brightness, photorealistically). So in AgX CM, emission (10,0,10) mixed at 90% transparency is actually (0.79, 0.46, 0.79) and not (1,0,1).

@GordonBrinkmann An emission of (1,0,1) at strength 1 does not reach any limit (expect for Standard CM), as shown in the gradients in my answer. So your math is only correct for the non-default Standard color managment. I just wanted people to know you can't do basic math like that outside of Standard CM.

Control [0,1] range with Power
Because we're interested in a [0,1] range (currently your Mix Shader factor), we can easily tweak the curve using exponents. Which means we know our initial 0 will still be 0, and our initial 1 will also still be 1.
So, by adding a Power node between your initial [0,1] range and your Mix Shader, we can tweak the factor with only one parameter. Here is my setup, followed by some notes :

In my example, the Exponent isn't meaned to be animated, more as a way of finding a [0,1] curve that matches your need. But of course it could be animated as well. A low exponent (between 0 and 1) will counterbalance your high emission strength. Try 1/2, 1/3, 1/4 or even lower values.
I've highlighted in red where would be the visual equivalent of magenta color (with an emission of 1). In your case, because of the emission strength of 10, you initially need to approach a high factor to feel the transparency.
As you see with a low exponent, you compress the left part of the gradient and expand the right part, moving the middle point.
Exponents are only one way of tweaking such curve. For example you could use a Float Curve node if you prefer a more graphical approach, or other mathematical functions.
You could Map Range any another range of values [A,B] to the [0,1] range, pass it through the Power node, then again Map Range from [0,1] to [A,B]. It can be powerful to quickly change a distribution of values.

In your case the setup would simply be :


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No matter where I move light, it only shines on center
Ive been using blender for a few years and have never had this problem before. No matter where I move the light, it only shines on the center of the image in render. I have an image with 4 spotlights that in the "viewport shading" view, the lights are fine and in the right spot.
But when I go to camera view or render the image, all the lights point at the center.

If I move the lights, they will move but only slightly. I have to move them multiple times farther to see any movement. Its like they are locked on the center.
I even tried opening up a new blender file and pasting the mesh to it and the same problem happens.
I have never had this happen before and Ive looked every where to find a solution. Can someone PLEASE tell me why its doing this?

Does the problem persist, if you use an orthographic camera to render?

can u pls provide a blend file? thx

here is the link to the file https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/zzz2vyn4ejhj229ui2a54/Leopard-Print.blend?rlkey=qg74v4tqxijtxy0bxhbjtrn46&dl=0

Your viewport is set to Orthographic, and your camera is Perspective.
Here, we're looking at a sample of the reflected light-rays, ones that happen to be straight up. But the principle applies to the cone of all the others.
In an orthographic view-space, these reflected rays aim directly at the view-plane:

In a perspective view-space, the central rays are still straight to the view-plane, but the rays towards the periphery are lost to it:

.. so the reflected light is more centrally concentrated.
Here's what happens, in a  track-and-zoom:

.. as we back off. and zoom in, (approaching an orthographic view), the light from the whole surface is reflected more directly into the camera.


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I want to Integrate Animations with my friend
Me and my friend want to work with the same rig(skeleton), integrating our own animations that were made in the same rig(skeleton) but in different workspaces. For example, my friend will animate the walk of the rig and I will animate the crouch of the rig.
How do we incorporate those animations together?

Once you have defined your rig, you can both save your animations as actions that can be re-used. You can the share the files back with each other and use the append option in the file menu to combine them into one scene if you need.
Actions are blender's way of storing animation sequences for re-use and combining with others, and if you intend to export this to another program like a game engine, are also very useful for managing this.
You may also find this related question helpful: Reusing Animations for another character?

Thanks, we are new to Blender, so this will be a great help for us.


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Blender attachment points for Trainz asset
It has taken me 12 months to learn basic blender, my first ever modelling experience, an engine shed for end user "Trainz TANE".
Basically model is near completion, and what I want is to attach an existing Trainz asset (a length of track) to my model, thus making a point for the end user to connect their incoming rail track to.
How can this be achieved?

If you want to get a mesh from Trainz you will need to figure out what format the game uses and if necessary convert it to a format that blender supports importing (OBJ or FBX are good ones). You may then need to set up textures again in Blender.
However attachment points are something specific to the game, and not something blender understands. To create attachment points you need to add an empty at the right location and prefix its name with "a." (e.g. a.attachment_1). It looks like the game will infer that it is an attachment point based on this convention.
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Trainz/Tutorial_for_Blender#Attachment_Points
http://online.ts2009.com/mediaWiki/index.php/Attachment_point
http://online.ts2009.com/mediaWiki/index.php/HowTo/Export_from_Blender_using_FBX


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how can i fix this : i can see through faces with no x ray or other see through settings enabled
I don't know what happened but whenever I'm outside of orthographic mode faces start to go crazy seeing through the mesh with no x-ray, no wireframe or no limit selection turned on.
It's both in edit and object mode. It looks like a shading problem. I don't know if it's something I did wrong or a bug.
I tried to see if it was overlapping but it isn't.
This is the second time I have had this problem.
In Blender 2.79:

That does look like all the right settings, so time for some more unorthodox suggestions. The Mesh looks quite big, have you applied Scaling. Can you try shrinking it? I have worked with some huge Meshes in Blender and never seen this issue. Create a new .blend and try importing the Object to see if you have the same issue.

Also, try adjusting the clipping range to the model.


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Can't find where to change add primitive operator properties
Though I am new to Blender, I am not new to modeling. Still there is one thing I am not finding in Blender 2.8 beta, and it's frustrating the hell out of me.
How the heck do I change the properties of a primitive during creation.
In Blender 2.79 I see the option to do this, during creation, in the bottom left corner of the screen, but I do not see it in 2.8.
For example, with the selector icon chosen, which seems to be the default upon opening, I go to Add > Mesh > Cylinder. The cylinder shows up on the screen, but I cannot find the properties to change the number of vertices/facets, the radius, the height, etc.
Am I doing something wrong?
Thank you,
Jim

Please see below. The properties you are looking for are under the drop-down menu in the bottom left corner of the viewport. In 2.79 the default shortcut was F6, but it does not work in 2.8.

Oh geez, it was collapsed, I didn't even see it. Thank you seetheshy.

One more related question, lets say I deselect the primitive before I am able to use these options, but I have NOT modified the prim yet. Is there a way to get back to this form, or another so I can change these properties?

@jlevine66 if you deselect the primitive, you cannot go back to the operator panel. You gonna have to edit manually or delete it and create a new one. Also, please kindly confirm my answer to your question above. Cheers

sorry seethesky, I just saw your reply... thank you. How do I confirm your answer, I must be blind... lol

@jlevine66 It is possible to get back to the options panel if one has just accidentally closed them by pressing f9. However once you've changed anything away from that object this is no longer an option.


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Any idea whats going on with these back legs?

I tried removing doubles and nothing happened. Not sure what else to try

Figured it out! normals were flipped!


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Converting Vertex color to Material with BDSF Shader
My initial question is that when I hit shift+a to add a node, shaders don't come up as an option.  How do I add a BSDF shader if none of them are appearing at all/am I in the wrong viewport?
Second, what alterations do I make to the node so that the vertex colors from my model will upload to unity?
Thanks!

It's hard to guess what is wrong with adding shader nodes in your example without any screenshots. Shader nodes can only be added in material nodes so maybe that's the problem. Vertex colors have nothing to do with materials and are added with mesh itself. Though it's a separate question and it's unclear what the desired output is

Please ask your second question about exporting to unity as a separate question.


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Darkening/Lightening camera change effect
How can I make the view darken to black before changing the camera and then fade back again after the view has changed - as in the linked video.
https://youtu.be/R70HeSY2q-U

It could surely also be done with a VSE setup to fade to/from black different scenes, or a scene with multiple cameras switching

Assuming Cycles renderer, the Film panel in the Render properties includes an Exposure setting. The Exposure effectively controls how much "light" is allowed into the camera.
Simply keyframe the Exposure from 1.0 to 0.0 in the few frames before your camera change and then keyframe back from 0.0 to 1.0 after, resulting in a fade to black on the 'old' view and fade from black for the 'new'.

As said above, you can achieve great level of control about your transitions using the VSE. You can create a transition (to/from black is just one particular case) in two ways, at least:

between two different scenes, each with a different camera animation,

between two different times of the same scene, assuming that you animated the first part of it with a camera, and the second with another one (see How can I make a camera the active one?).


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Can I get the object dimensions in Cycles?
Can I get these dimensions:

(bpy.data.objects['Cube'].dimensions)
in a Cycles node, as a vector?
I tried an Attribute node with dimensions[0] as the Name, but this didn't work. I also looked at the Geometry and Object Info nodes, but couldn't find anything that looked promising.
Preferably without Python due to the whole "trusted blendfile" feature.
This would open tons of possibilities for optimizations, such as automatically adjusting the scale of a procedurally generated material (here, the dots are non-square).

Well, I can answer part of the question. You can get the values of the dimensions into cycles by using drivers, driving 3 separate Value nodes and using the data path of dimensions[0] as the driving value:

Add a Value node: Add> Input> Value
Right click the value and choose 'Add Driver'.
Change to the graph editor and change to 'Drivers' mode from the header toolbar.
Use the following settings in the Property panel (N) after selecting the channel on the left:

As you already identified the data path you need is dimensions[0] (0, 1, or 2).
This will result in:

(6.399 simply being the X dimension value of my test cube)
Repeat this for the 2 other dimension values and 2 more value nodes.
However, as to how you would combine 3 value nodes into a vector is something I don't know. You could of course drive something other than a 'Value' node using this method if that is more useful.

Edit: As noted by Chebhou, in the comments, as of Blender 2.72 a "Combine XYZ" node exists:

Instead of driving 3 individual 'Value' nodes, you can now drive the x, y and z values of the 'Combine XYZ' node which will result in a vector.

Never thought of using drivers to get external data, nice! You might be able to make a vector by doing some fancy maths with the object coordinates, but it won't be too simple I think.

Pretty nice solution. You could eliminate the Python by changing Scripted Expression to Sum Values. However, this material would just be compatible with a single object, then, right? (by the way, I use the Combine RGB node to create a vector, even though I always feel terrible when I do so, simply because there's no better way)

@RayMairlot  you can add the combine XYZ node to your answer since it is available now

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


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Ctrl + B not working with vertex
I'm new to Blender and I ran into this problem, when I press the combination of keys "Ctrl + B", instead of the appearance of corner smoothing points, nothing happens. I cannot understand why, and when I smooth the corners in a cube, everything works great.Screenshot of the bevel setting is attached below.Thanks in advance.

Blender makes a distinction between CtrlB, Bevel Edges, and CtrlShiftB, Bevel Vertices.
So, use the other shortcut, or, having reached the Adjust Last Operation panel visible in your illustration, switch at the top from 'Edges' to 'Vertices'.
(In other panels, or the Bevel modifier, it might be a small checkbox - 'Only Vertices')
I didn't realize.. as @moonboots has pointed out - there is a hitch in some Blender 2.90.x's meaning the shortcut doesn't work: you have to go to the panel, and switch it there.

2.90.1 is buggy though, shift ctrl B doesn't work, you need to go in the Operator box and choose Vertices, it has been corrected in 2.91

@moonboots Ahhh! Thanks!

Alternatively, you can bevel a vertex with CtrlB and then V.


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Revolve Curve 360 degrees
how can I make this tree shape revolve 360 degrees around the curve object axis using bevel from bject data properties?

You could just take a straight curve, right up the middle of your tree, bevel it,  and AltS edit the radius of the curve up its length. Or use half of your profile as a 'Taper' curve for another curve's bevel. (Both handy for bendy trees)
But the easiest move from your profile to its surface of revolution is to take half of it, (with its origin on the axis of rotation,) and give it a Screw modifier:


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Opaque plastic in Blender

I have been trying to produce a polytunnel in Blender, without success. Can anyone please let me know how to make a tunnel covered in opaque plastic.

What us a "polytunnel", could you illustrate with some reference pictures?

Hi. Please read these tips on how to improve your questions

Hi Duarte and All, I have added an image of what I a model trying to build in Blender. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks. Brian

What part of the modelling process are you having trouble with? Can you be more specific?

Welcome to Blender Stack exchange. As wikipedia says

A polytunnel (also known as a polyhouse, hoop greenhouse or hoophouse, grow tunnel or high tunnel) is a tunnel typically made from steel and covered in polythene, usually semi-circular, square or elongated in shape.

I tried making a low-poly tunnel with least efforts quickly, it looks like this :

The way I achieved this is by

Modelling the polytunnel in the way I wanted.
Adding a transparent shader/glass shader as the material to make that plastic covering.

Here's the node setup for the material:

You can also use the glass shader, here's the usage: I can't make my material transparent in Blender 2.80

Ah, as I a man still quite new to Blender, your illustration of the nodes settings above has helped me to fulfil this task. Kindest regards to you Harshvardhan for your help.

Happy to help! :-)


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How to make a permanent spot of light in a characters eyes?
At the moment, my character's eyes look lifeless and for the way, I made them, a spot of light in the eye usually fixes it. I'm wondering if there is a way to permanently make a spot of light in the eye so it looks better and something more like this:

(This isn't mine obviously) If anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear it, thanks.

Hello :). In reality, you would put some bright tiny light in your scene. Eyes have an extremely wide 'field of view', so they pick up any bright area rather easily. You might want to experiment with the light's placement (near camera, up/down,...) for best results.

Alright, I'll have to try that. Thank you.

To find the right materials and light setup so you can replicate this look I recommend the following tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPK6JlWESM8
For Anime-Style Chractere it looks better to take a .png/.jpg file, split it into white/transparent and attach it to the armature of the iris. VRoid has some complete models ready for download free of charge.

This sounds awesome. Thanks sooooo much I'll have to try this.


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Shade Smooth Render Lines
I want to simply smooth out the circle faces on the object using the Shade Smooth render selection. However, all the faces are affected by the smooth render and I get a stretched lines look to the faces. I tried to select (in edit mode) the required faces I want smoothed out but with applying the Shade Smoother render (in object mode) the whole object is affected by the smooth render. Thanks in advance with any help to resolve this.

How do I do that ?

Of course you can smooth only some faces.
Manual way:
In Edit mode, select your faces and go to Mesh > Shading > Smooth faces.
this will only affect selected faces.

Automatic way:
Go to Object Data tab, and check Auto Smooth option.
You can set how sharp edges wil be affected.
Your object needs to be set to Smooth Shading for this to work.

You can still manually mark edges you want as sharp.
Just select your edges and go to Edge > Mark Sharp.

I tried the automatic way but it didn't work. Even when adjusting the Smooth Angle, there was no effect on the object. However, the manual method you posted worked. Thanks for helping me out. Cheers.

@Steb Hello :). You need to shade smooth your whole object first, for the Auto-smooth option to work. Without that, all faces stay flat.

ah yes, I see now that you mentioned that in your initial instructions. I guess I was rushing to get it fixed and wasn't paying enough attention. Thanks again.


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Piano notes in animation nodes not effect with Successive notes
I have piano visualizer with animation nodes in blender ... notes in works fine but my problem is successive notes is not work correct ... when two notes is successive the second note is not rotate and both notes
as you can see the notes in midi player is two notes but in blender just rotate 1 time

pls provide blend file, so we can check it out. It may have something to do with the speed/frame, if the "pause" is too short, but i don't know because you didn't provide that information

@Chris is right.. please share to help is debug for you, if we can, on https://blend-exchange.com/. (Not all of us are running AN, so make allowances)

@Chris sure ... you can download blend file here : filebin.net/ha95xhhscpnvatlr/blend.zip.zip

can u pls add a clickable link?

@Chris   sure: http://filebin.net/ha95xhhscpnvatlr/blend.zip.zip

i still cannot open that - why didn't you use blend-exchange?

@Chris blend-exchange doesn't allow to upload zip file for me ...  where can i upload that in blend-exchange ? .... I upload this file to another file sharing platform you can download :
1=> https://filebin.net/7xwd2x8dyszc5lss
2=> https://file.io/m3BhgVf4WPFl

great! thx, the 2nd works. Could you also provide the .mid file so that i can reproduce it? thx

@Chris   very thanks man ... this midi file is have 2 notes but in blender just rotate object " 1 " is one time :
https://filebin.net/nfb0haz6j8f9a6kt
the notes is work in object number 1 ... thanks

i just changed your mid file by a mid file i used some time ago - and it worked. So i can just assume that your midi-file has not the right or not enough information. Here the proof (other midi file, but your blend file): https://youtu.be/WMSol5yQEhc?si=8U7yjxtMCVQg3Lzg

@Chris very thanks for your help and record video and upload on youtube , great ... but my problem is not mid file not work in blender ... its works but 2 successive notes not work good ... for example see this online mid editor and download mid file .... this mid have 2 notes in F6 line but in my blender nodes not work exactly
https://onlinesequencer.net/3795420
you can download midi file by click on the near icon of the name of track "Acoustic Guitar (Steel)" and   " Enter the edit mod "

you can change the attack time e.g. to 0.2. Then you will at least see that the key will be hit 2 times.
So i think you have to play with these values a bit to get what you want.

Thats It ... Very thanks man ... I am beginner in animation nodes and confused when see nodes and connections between them :d  ...   I have another unanswered question in blender stackexchange ... thats simple question for you ... can you please answer that ?
https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/309748/add-two-midi-file-to-animation-nodes

i answered it - should work


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Geometry Nodes - Animating randomly positioned instances to a curve?
I currently have a simple geometry nodes setup where I have instances arranged in a spherical shape using Distribute Points on Faces.
What I'd like to do is tween these instances so their positions move to "assemble" along a curve I have in my scene over say 250 frames.. as shown:

I thought I could get the points of the curve then create a translation vector between each instance position and a corresponding curve point, but because the instance numbers are governed by Distribute Points on Faces's density parameter, I've been unable to get that to work.

sorry, but it is totally unclear how the animation should look like. like that? [1]: https://i.sstatic.net/oUzqU.gif or that? [1]: https://i.sstatic.net/HGJdR.gif please add a link to an animation or video how it should look like. thx

Hi, Mo, welcome.. Thanks for sharing your file. For future  reference, remember  the folks looking at it are complete strangers to your project, and need as much help as you can give them to orient themselves. Please strip shared .blend files down to the absolute minimum required to illustrate your problem, and name things  as descriptively as you can.

Thanks @RobinBetts, I'll make sure to do so

@Chris It's the second one. Apologies I'm new to this. Can I add your second gif to the post to improve it?

@Mo .. np. Good Idea, Done. (You can use the tools provided to do that) https://blender.meta.stackexchange.com/a/1083/35559  It tlooks as though Chris's answer will make mine redundant :)

@RobinBetts Yes, but your answer is still helpful and made me realize a few things!

@Mo don't forget to give Chris's answer a tick, if it worked for you .. :)

Basically this node setup does the animation:

you can reuse it and adapt the map range to let the points follow even more curves.
here is the whole overview for the animation:

result:

the "magic" does the mix vector nodes, which just mixes two vectors. By animating the factor, we can get this kind of animation.
Of course you could even tweak this better with e.g. a float curve to make it even more dynamic, but i wanted to keep it simple so that it is easily understandable.

The distributed points have generated unique ID 's, but their Indices (the leftmost column in the frame of the spreadsheet) are a serial set, 0 -> (number of particles-1).
So, (although you may want a more sophisticated transition than a simple mix,) there's no obstruction to sampling a 1-1 corresponding position on a curve for each particle:

Adjusting the factor in the Mix, here, gives a linear interpolation between indexed positions on a sphere, and corresponding indexed positions on a curve:


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how to do a vertex merge after a split
why is one of these vertices joined correctly and the other is not?
they are both in group B Is there another way I could do the same thing?

Vertex-groups are not inherently Boolean.. a weight has to be absolutely 0 or unassigned to be False .. I guess there's room for error here? Could you share your file on https://blend-exchange.com/ ...

Thanks! .. (edited in for you).

Let's simplify, looking only at the relevant area, outputting well before the final output of the GN, and applying the modifier so we can see what it did:

Tab into edit.  First, check out the marked vertex, and notice that it was merged properly, just like you told it to.  But now, look at the vertices that adjoin the B-marked vertex and move them.  We see that B doesn't connect two edges, but rather four:

Blender cannot support branching curves, so it cannot turn this into a single continuous curve (or spline, I always forget which terminology they use for which.)  It needs to divide it into at least two sections, and it's going to do so arbitrarily.  When it does so, it chooses to divide them like this:

Of course, this is with the vertices of those segments moved, so that we can see them.  In your file, those vertices are at the exact same location, so it just looks like two unconnected segments (even though each segment actually contains doubled geometry.)

Within geometry nodes, a curve and a spline are synonymous and they are used interchangeably. There is no node that would somehow discriminate objects based on their type (mesh / curve / light etc.), and so both a spline and a curve simply mean, what is a spline outside of geonodes (in Blender; because outside of Blender those terms are also used interchangeably…)

@MarkusvonBroady I thought one of them referred to particular "islands" in a potentially disconnected set?  Like "curve index" parameter in "sample curve", which I guess suggests that if curves had indices, that a spline is the overall set.  Although I guess "is spline cyclic" seems opposite, since this isn't a parameter of the entire set.  If they are used interchangeably, that's kind of irritating for search purposes, I always thought there was a reason.

one could think that maybe a curve is the entire string from the beginning to the end, an "island" as you put it, whereas a spline is a segment, especially making sense in case of beziers… But no, both terms "curve" and "spline" refer to those "islands".


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My object cannot move, but moving tool shows another position

I face some issues: my object cannot move from the location. Please help to solve this issue so I can continue my work.

We need more information. Please share your file on  https://blend-exchange.com/

This looks like a GPU problem, make sure your hardware is supported and the drivers up to date

how i can identified my hardware supported or not

how i can identified my hardware supported or not


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How Can I Recreate Steppenwolf's Armor Pattern?
How can I recreate Justice League: Snyder Cut's Steppenwolf armor pattern to wrap around any surface and animate contracting and pulsing? I imagine Geo-Nodes, but I'm not yet good enough to design my own systems. What kind of wonderful ideas do you guys have? Here's a model off of Sketchfab for reference:
https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/steppenwolf-bust-9eb2f6d1b03c43558fd1148dcf7be053
.. and a picture:

Geometry nodes is indeed a good way to do things like this. You can for example instance a piece along a curve. That way you can access all the curve informations and translate them on the instances which allows you to do quite a lot of operations.
Here is an example of what I did :

As you can see, I am instancing this simple mesh along a bezier curve. I am then using the index of each point of the curve to offset the rotation of each instances and give it a "pulstating" effect (if that's what you were refering to)

Wow! That is so sick and exactly as effective as I wanted. Thank you!


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How to create a moving texture effect?
I would like to create something like the red electric board in the video using blender, but I don't know how to do it.
I would like to know if there are any experts who can help me.
Thank you in advance.

The English text was generated from the Japanese text below.
動画にある赤い電光掲示板のようなものをblenderで作成したいのですが、やり方がわかりません。
有識者の方がいましたらご教授いただきたいです。
よろしくお願い致します。

Mr A, thank you for your prompt response!
But I am sorry, there is one more problem.
I'm using blender 4.0 and I can't find the "Add" part.
I went to the shading tab, "Add" and checked everything, but there was no "Add".
If you could please tell me how to add this "Add".
Mr A様、早急に対応していただきありがとうございます！
ですが申し訳ございません、もう一つ問題点がございまして
今blender4.0というバージョンを使っているのですが「Add」の部分が見つかりません。
シェーディングタブから「追加」して、すべて確認をしてみたのですが「Add」はありませんでした。
もしよろしければ、この「Add」を追加する方法のご教授をお願いいたします。

The node labelled "Add" is a "vector math" node.  Its name changes depending on which mode you set it to.

You're welcome! As @Nathan said, it is the Vector Math node. If you have a question on one of the answers, please post it as a comment on that answer. This will notify the person who contributed that answer.

This effect is typically done through shaders by displacing the UVs of the plane with time (frame number/frame rate). You can achieve this using a shader node setup like the following.

Please note that the purple field is one controlled with a driver. You add a driver by typing #frame/24/2. frame is the current frame number. I divide it by 24, because that's the current frame rate of the file. I divide it by 2 afterwards, because the texture was sliding too fast. Feel free to adjust the driver to get the look you want.


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Black hair material instead of selected material
To make this quick, when I go in render view, or actually render the scene, the hair particles appear black instead of purple. So I end up with this abomination. I am using Cycles btw.

Here are the nodes of the material used on the mesh:

And a proof that I'm not completely stupid. I am using the same material:

Can someone help me fix this please?
Link to download the .blend: https://drive.google.com/open?id=11a65XueeeWegHhS8QU3Kjq7_wf-Sz9Rs
The model is nsfw, so I only put the head, sorry.

@Sachichi You forgot to pack your textures.

I did some poking around and it turns out you can't use subsurface shading or normal mapping for hair particles. So I added a new texture called "Shantae_Particle", deleted the Fresnel subsurface input, and used tangent mapping instead of normal mapping and it works now.
Also note that the Principled BSDF has Fresnel built in so there is usually no need to add it in other ways.
Here is the screenshot and below it is the fixed blend file.


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Blender does not start
Installed Blender on a machine with Core i7 CPU, 16GBs of RAM and an NVIDIA GeForce 650. I managed to run Blender twice. On the third time nothing was shown and Blender didn't load properly, even though the active icon is in the tray and the program is in the running application list of task manager. Why is this happening?

Welcome, Lee. What is the Blender version you installed?

A good troubleshooting step is to download the standalone version of Blender, select other versions and the .ZIP option. This does not need to be installed and once unpacked can be run directly, even from a USB drive.

Do you usually work on two screens? (Two monitors or a monitor and a laptop). I have found that if I use Blender on the second monitor and then unplug it, Blender will not automatically come over onto the primary screen.
You might need to plug in your second monitor, (if you have one) and see if it is there.


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CUDA, 3D Hardware & Nvidia driver, my Blender goes crazy
First I want to say that yesterday everything worked fine for me.
Let's start.
When I launched the blender this morning, I saw this:

I very quickly found a solution to this problem (Blender Can't detect 3D hardware accelerated Driver), did everything as written, but now the program has begun to slow down very much. It is impossible to work.

I reinstalled blender. Did not help.
I downloaded a new driver for the video card - and oh, a miracle! - It worked! But not for long. After a couple of minutes, everything hung and again does not work.

So, right now I have 3 condition of Blender 2.79b:

do nothing = "Can't detect 3D hardware...."
download opengl32.dll = slow down, no CUDA

installed a new NVIDIA driver = everything is fine, but only the first couple of minutes, then closes and error again (about 3d) or freezing if opengl32.dll in folder .

Disconnected Intel(R) HD Graphics - did not help. What else can I do?
System Info: Windows 10 Home, x64, Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700HQ CPU @ 2.80GHz, 16 GB, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti, Driver 411.70

I don't know the solution to your problem. But in your situation. I would maybe start looking at the option of having a dual boot machine (no cynicism intended). My own experience is blender and similar software work much better on Linux.

Hi I reworked a bit your question text source: you don't need to insert HTML tags like , just separate sentences with a blank line and it will have the same effect. Also space images in the same way.

Downloading opengl32.dll into Blender folder is avoiding any GPU usage (and it's meant for that so don't use it if you want to use your GPU). Check if Windows 10 in faith belief it helps didn't updated your Nvidia drivers to something graphic apps don't support (like e.g. here https://blender.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2261/blender-is-currently-unusable-on-nvidia-gpus-m-mx-family). Fact that everything is fine with new driver for little time is quite weird, it's like driver is rolled back by something automatically.

So, the problem was in NVIDIA driver. I downloaded an earlier version of the driver(391.25 instead 411.70). I think I will not update them for a long time.

It happens. There is no need not to update. The best thing to do is to be aware that once in while a driver update has a bug. The proceedure is quite simple and do not take a lot of time even though it is unpleasant and a bit frustrating. Now that you are aware of it, solving a similar problem will not take much time in the future, but with driver updates you might get performace and stability gains as well. There is no need not to carry on updates after a few months once this is likely to be fixed.


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Substance Designer Questions
Substance Designer I have heard about because of blender guru, I am a new blender user, I have quit before, but now I am more interested into blender. Substance Designer I heard was a bit popular the only problem is pricing it is a bit too expensive and I was hoping I could start somewhere that is free. If you could tell me anything related to Substance Designer that is free that would be highly appreciated.

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it has nothing to do with Blender whatsoever.

If you are trying to learn Blender, then watch some tutorials about texture painting. Its very similar to Substance and its FREE.

Substance Designer is a primarily procedural texture generation program. It allows you to build all sorts of textures out of node graphs (and some image inputs if you want).
Guess what other program allows you to do this? Blender!
Blender doesn't have all the features and complex nodes that Substance has, but it is still very capable.
You could start by looking at stuff like:

How to create our own procedural texture like the default ones in blender
https://cgmasters.net/free-tutorials/blender-cycles-tutorial-stonemarble-how-to-make-any-texture/


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Vertex group from texture
If I have a model, for instance UV unwrapped, how can I from a texture assign a vertex group. White = assign vertex, black = don't assign vertex, values in between = halfway assigned vertex based on color intensity. A grayscale image would probably be used.

possible duplicate of Remove vertices based on texture

It is a dubplicate, however the titles are so different I think this one deserves to be here, or does it? Thanks for pointing it out.

@Gunslinger dups aren't necessarily bad, see http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/11/dr-strangedupe-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-duplication/ and http://blender.stackexchange.com/help/duplicates, it will still "be here", just with a link to another post that answers the same question.

You can try the Vertex Weight Edit modifier. For example, I can input the following texture as a Texture Mask to the modifier:

... that will then use its value, to control how the modifier assigns weight to each vertex. Tweak at least the Default Weight, threshold settings and fallof type to get the result you need:

Though not instantly updated if we edit the image, the result shows up immediately, and is usable by modifiers further down the stack:

Default Weight and Add Threshold should be of that weight which you'd like to have as the end result, Add Threshold should be slightly less.

If you wonder why I hesitate to accept this answer, I can't get it to work for me. Will try more later.

Check it through weight paint mode, maybe the modifier settings, or its position within the modifier stack (should be above whatever other modifier is using it).

@Gunslinger , did this ever work for you?  Thanks.

No, I think I did it another way. I don't remember anymore.

@Adhi Could you please upload a .blend file with your solution. I can't reproduce it.

I have a solution that works but is annoying:

Create a new vertex group, and in Edit Mode assign all vertices to the group.
Back in Object Mode add a VertexWeightEdit Modifier
In the Falloff Tab create a custom curve and move the right point to 0.
In the Influence Tab add the texture you've already created.

What this does is subtract the texture from the 100% weight of the original group. This means the final selection is the inverse of what you want: lighter parts of the texture are the least selected. So any time you use the Vertex Group you have to enable the invert button (Looks like this: <-> ) to get the result you expect.

Wow, almost 10 years ago. Time flies. Thanks for the answer, will check it out.

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


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Nothing happens when using 3DPrint
I have selected my mesh (repetier says it is not manifold) and try to active the 3Dprint analysis.
I tap space and type 3DPrint. I have tried using Check all, Check solid and Info area. Nothing happens. I'm not sure what should happen.

-1, The addon's Location: specifies the 3D View > Toolbar.

Probably most questions here can be answered by finding the correct documentation elsewhere. :)

When you use the Check All button (or any other test) in the Print3D panel of the toolbar (visible by pressing T) you will see a list at the bottom of the panel listing the number of affected parts for each test.
While in edit mode this list becomes buttons for any items that exist. Clicking a button will select the particular areas.

The coloured areas you see in the above image are from another related feature called Mesh Analysis, this feature highlights the affected areas and can be activated in edit mode from the properties panel (visible by pressing N).

Thanks, now that I know how it works it works well. But I still think the GUI need polishing. :)

Still a rather new feature so I would expect improvements to keep happening for some time yet.


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Where to find docs for TRANSFORM_OT_shrink_fatten?
I have a python script I made two years ago. It doesn't work anymore. So I thought I would upgrade it to work with the latest version of Blender.
The failing line is:
bpy.ops.mesh.extrude_region_move(MESH_OT_extrude_region={...}, TRANSFORM_OT_translate={...})

And I went and looked it up in the docs:
https://docs.blender.org/api/current/bpy.ops.mesh.html#bpy.ops.mesh.extrude_faces_move
bpy.ops.mesh.extrude_region_shrink_fatten(MESH_OT_extrude_region=None, TRANSFORM_OT_shrink_fatten=None)

But where do I find what goes into the TRANSFORM_OT_shrink_fatten dictionary?
I have tried to google it. Nothing current comes up (that I can find).
If I search for it in the docs, only the page above comes up.
Or am I approaching this the wrong way? If I do the extrude command and copy the code from the scripting tab, it isn't doing the right thing.

TRANSFORM_OT_shrink_fatten is the class name of the operator bpy.ops.transform.shrink_fatten, which you can find the documentation for by following the link :
https://docs.blender.org/api/current/bpy.ops.transform.html#bpy.ops.transform.shrink_fatten
Here's a list of the arguments :

value (float in [-inf, inf], (optional)) – Offset

use_even_offset (boolean, (optional)) – Offset Even, Scale the offset to give more even thickness

mirror (boolean, (optional)) – Mirror Editing

use_proportional_edit (boolean, (optional)) – Proportional Editing

proportional_edit_falloff (enum in Proportional Falloff Items, (optional)) – Proportional Falloff, Falloff type for proportional editing mode

proportional_size (float in [1e-06, inf], (optional)) – Proportional Size

use_proportional_connected (boolean, (optional)) – Connected

use_proportional_projected (boolean, (optional)) – Projected (2D)

snap (boolean, (optional)) – Use Snapping Options

release_confirm (boolean, (optional)) – Confirm on Release, Always confirm operation when releasing button

use_accurate (boolean, (optional)) – Accurate, Use accurate transformation

alt_navigation (boolean, (optional)) – Transform Navigation with Alt

Thank you. This helped. It's strange however. When I lookup the extrude_and_move command in the docs. It says the second parameter is TRANSFORM_OT_shrink_fatten. But when I copy the command from blender it says TRANSFORM_OT_translate. Bug?


text:
With python align text to camera
I want to add a text to an object, soft of like a label.
The thing is, when I do it with python, view_align=True doesn't work. The text keeps it's original orientation.
I'm not writing a plugin or anything, I have the script in a text file in blender and just run it.
I'm thinking that the view isn't active when I run the script and because of that the text doesn't know what view to orient towards.
Maybe I could find the rotation of the camera and use that to set the rotation of the text object.

consider using a track to constraint on the text to the camera.

I got the idea while writing my question. I'm not very good at 3D math with matrices etc but it worked.
Maybe someone will be helped by this.
cam_rot = scene.camera.rotation_euler
bpy.ops.object.text_add(location=(x,y,z))
textobject=bpy.context.object
textobject.rotation_euler = cam_rot


text:
Mirror modifier issue after applied
I am new to blender and I am currently working on a fun project. I used the mirror modifier here and I didn't notice the issue days after applying it when I was weight painting. I noticed that there are two shades of the mesh and its probably because of the mirror modifier. I have seen many talk about this but the thing is my modifier have already been applied days before so I cant control Z. Does anyone know what I can do to remove this? :)
Edit, Here is the picture: https://i.imgur.com/3KMsMvx.jpg

Hello, what do you mean by "there are two shades of the mesh"? Maybe share your object: https://blend-exchange.com/

I think we'll need to see your Blend file. You can share it via https://blend-exchange.com/ following the instructions there to copy the link on that page. Then edit your question here and paste the link into it.

It could be double faces (if you mirrored whole character) or flipped normals. Can you show us normals orientation?

Hello and welcome. Instead of having users go through links and external sites please use the builtin tools to embed images in your post. See How to upload an image to a post? or GIF

Please use a title that matches the content of the question. It should be descriptive but succinct, unique and identifying, summarizing the issue so that anyone searching for a similar problem is likely to find it. 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 potential visitors see, answers you get depend heavily on how insightful it is. See What is the problem of asking “How do I do this?"

make sure that you don't have inner faces, if it's not the problem please share your file

Also select all in Edit mode and press M > Merge by Distance in order to merge overlapping vertices

Thank you for the comments! I needed to use M for merge. Thx for the help!


text:
Mirroring armature bones
So recently I started making blender models for smash bros mods, right now I am facing an issue with one of the models and is that I want it to be symmetric so I took the right arm, flipped it and put it where the left should be, however I am now seeing that the bones on the left arm are still attached to the right arm, is it possible for me to make the bones of the left arm work on the flipped right arm I made?

Go to vertex groups properties, search for all vertex groups that have something like a .L or _left suffix, and rename it as .R or _right.
The renaming operation has to be performed with the mesh unparented (Alt P) and without any armature modifier, for preventing any change to the names of the bones.
At the end you can re-parent the mesh to the armature using Ctrl P > "Armature deform" option.

You could mirror your arm with the Mesh > Symmetrize operation (don't forget to merge the vertices by distance so that the new arm sticks to the shoulder):

Select all the vertices of the new arm and remove from all groups:

Select an existing vertex group (let's say arm1_R) and duplicate:

Then mirror the new group and rename it (arm1_L):


text:
Why didn't the full logo appear?
I'm trying to add a logo to an object. The tutorials I watched instructed to export an Illustrator file as SVG. Then import it into Blender and shrink-wrap it to an object. I followed instructions (I think) but the white and grey parts of the logo aren't showing up even though the vectors for those objects are accessible in Blender. What did I do wrong? Is there a better way to do this?

Hello, maybe the faces are overlapping which creates Z-Fighting and black faces, but maybe share your file? Also if you plan to project a logo onto a surface, you could do it with a simple Image Texture node in your material?

You perhaps should consider masking the logo in as an inage-texture, rather than shrink-wrapping geometry?  eg https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/46447/35559

(Using Blender 3.6.8)
Two corrections are required from the original settings:
1. All three curves making the logo are using the same material (black, named "SVGMat.001"). A new material must be defined for the grey and the white parts.
2. As written by moonboots, all three filled curves are overlapping. The grey part must be shifted in X direction by a small amount (e.g. 0.001) while the white part must be shifted in X direction by a larger amount (e.g. 0.002).

Resources:


text:
How do I get rid of these small black areas in my PCB routing
I make my PCB using a 3D printer. When I expose my PCB and finally develop it, I notice certain areas in my routing that disappear.
I then looked at my routing in Blender, and there are certain areas in the routing where there are small black areas (these are the areas where when my PCB is developed the routing is part gone.
I tried all the things that I know (not much) and the black areas are still there in Blender. Take a look at the picture and maybe you could steer me in the right direction to get rid of these black areas
.
Steps are as follows:

I use Inkscape or FlatCam to make a .svg of my black and white picture (jpg...in the Paint program in Windows 10.
In blender ... Delete the box, light and camera
Import the .svg file.
highlight all the parts 1 thru 28
Then I go to objects and scroll down till I get to the middle mesh. Then I join them all
Add a Solidfy modifier
Use tool "3dprint"; choose my folder and click on STL

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

@Patrick OK, Posted.

Here's a clean-up in 2 moves, making your mesh fit for extrusion / Solidify
First, get rid of excessive triangulation by using X > Limited Dissolve, restricting to a low angle to preserve the sampled curvatures:

But that still leaves co-linear edges without coincident vertices, so merging or welding won't join them:

There are 2 ways I've found of merging those.
Either create a fresh plane encompassing the mesh, below it, and from an orthographic view down Z, Knife Project the mesh down on to the plane. The Mesh-faces should remain selected, you can  CtrlI select inverse, and delete unwanted faces.
But it's easier, in the header, to switch on Auto-merge, with 'Split Edges and Faces' checked. Just hit G with all selected, and that seems to do the trick:

Here are the interfaces to the tools:

and the result, after extrusion.

The export and re-import to .stl seems OK, but I am disappointed not to have found a more automated route, exclusively via modifiers or the like, to save work, if this needs repeating often.


text:
Proximity based merging and smart array
I'm an architect and archviz-guy (archicad+twinmotion+photoshop). recently i got into blender to extend on my knowledge and realize more complex structures. unfortunately even after searching the net and forums i hit a brick wall.

what i want to do:

starting with primitives like cylinders or cubes or a combination of both that serve as a building mockup for a possible architectural draft, i want to distribute cubes (read: planks) along their "facades", meaning their sides without the caps. now for the difficult part: those planks should change rotation and length along with the changes i make to let's say the cylinder. example: i rotate the upper cap of the cylinder and scale it along one axis, making it an ellipse. so now i have a geometry with a circle at the bottom and an angled ellipse at the top. the planks should have followed the changes. i know, nice project for a beginner.

what i have tried so far:

a)
boy, oh boy. i started with a geometry node on the cylinder, making a dummy cube the instance and putting it on the faces of the cylinder with its normal controlling the cube's alignment in their local z-direction. somehow the planks (cube instances) never have the right alignment. also the deformation of the cylinder doesn't affect the instances the way i would like them to. i fiddled around for days but to no avail - the nodes functions still elude me for the most part. also aligning instances on faces seems to be the wrong approach since they always "start" in the middle of a face, leaving their top and bottom part with a pre-defined, static length. making a vertex group and doing it from vertices still doesn't solve the length issue. ideally i would want to tell the program "take the upper and lower vertex/edge of this geometry and connect them with a line that "somehow becomes" a cube lol.
b)
next i tried my luck with curves, parenting the cube to a plane that follows an array along a curve. so far so good. but there would be an upper and a lower curve (bottom and top of the house) that need to be connected by the array-ed cubes.
c)
my thoughts on how to do this would be that i have two (completely arbitrary) curves with ready made cube-children on plane-parents. those two independent groups of chilren must somehow face each other and -by proximity- merge with each other like a metaball. geometry nodes come to mind: if i could just make two cubes "extend/extrude" themselves when reaching a certain proximity OR always extend until they touch, then maybe i could pull this off?
You see, i have a long road ahead of me but i would be grateful for some hints. maybe i'm doing everything backwards or in a complicated, stupid way. maybe there's the perfect addon i have overseen?
thanks for reading this novel. have a potato.
Here is what i want to do:

tbh...i didn't even read your question till the end. Why? because also a 20000 word description of an image/render wouldn't describe it as good as one good pic/image/sketch would do. So please (!) add some images what you try to do so we can follow easily your thoughts.

You can have this kind of things using geometry nodes.

This is not proximity based (as proximity is not the good criteria for all cases), but index based between two curves.
The node tree takes three parameters: two curves (from "Curve 1" and to "Curve 2") and a resolution.

On the top left part of the node tree, the curves are resampled at the resolution and the positions of their points are sampled based on the final geometry indices (that why "Curve 2" indices are the final indices minus the resolution).
On the bottom part, it creates a line with as much points the resolution is. Then removes edges, keeping only vertices and extrudes them.
Finally, the points positions are set accordingly with the input curves positions. All is then changed to curves with some bevel.

i am speechless. thank you very much for the detailed answer and the blend file. i would NEVER have figured that out. much to learn for me...

This is less potentially general than @lemon's answer.. but if restricted to the cases you illustrate, you can warp a cylinder to a loft of your 2 cyclic splines:

 (Blender 3.41)

Robin, yes... but mentioned in the question: "without upper and lower rings"... but ok, upvoted

@lemon Oops.. I just went by the pictures :)  I don't think I can fix that without losing this round of Node Golf...  I'll leave it up. OP should accept yours..


text:
Import from Archicad model fragmentation problem
I'm having a problem importing a model (Collada file) from Archicad to Blender (3.5). In the Object Mode the model looks fine but then when I switch to Edit Mode the geometry of the model gets fragmented into triangles... meaning that every plain object as wall is now fragmented. That makes adding textures to the model a nightmare. Is there any solution to fix it or is it easier just to create a new model in Blender?

I have tried to add the texture to the fragments but it makes it very difficult or impossible to work with it...

Hello, would you mind adding a screenshot of your 3D viewport ? At first glance you should try Face > Tris to quads or ALT J with everything selected in edit mode

Hey! Yes I tried with Alt J command and it helped close to nothing...


text:
Why can't I draw on my mesh but I can fill?
Trying to paint my mesh, but for some reason the paintbrush doesn't work, and the fill does. How do I fix that?

You're going to have to give us a clue. Please show  screen-grab(s) showing  any  settings that might help.

@RobinBetts could I just send you the file? it might be easier

For sure. To share, we use https://blend-exchange.com/ . Follow the instructions there, and paste the link into your question with an edit.

@RobinBetts here ya go
https://blend-exchange.com/b/eeQvKeQ9

Have you checked for inverted normals ?

You have an all-black Texture Mask set on your brush, so the paint ain't getting through:

Hit the '×' to lose it, or replace the texture, if you want a textured brush.

Okay, I know this got answered already, but I'm having that issue again with the can't paint and this time it's not the black texture. Could you help me with this again?

Here's a new one

@Zumi  I'm sorry, can't reproduce this problem. It's working OK for me, which suggests tool settings are good. All I had to do was create an image to paint into ..(Naturally, your image isn't packed in the file,) and it worked straight away.


text:
Why won't the shadow cast upon the cube, yet casts upon the driveway?
I've set up a light, and it does cast a shadow, but not upon the green cube. Does anyone have a fix?
Here is a screen shot:

i added a screen shot, but it's not showing up here. lol...

There is no screenshot in your post. Be sure to add it along with additional information thoroughly explaining the issue and steps you took to arrive where you are, otherwise this question is unanswerable. See How to upload an image to a post? or GIF

It looks like the "green" texture is connected directly to the material output with no shader (BSDF) in between - this would make it "unshaded" and therefore would not receive any shadows. Go to the shading tab and connect your texture through a shader.

that's it, thanks. I figured it out... but sheesh. blender. 1 step forward, 2 steps back.

Hi. I edited your screenshot into the question. I hope you don't mind. Please observe the rules of this platform. It's a question and answer site and there are question and answer post types. You should not post parts of your question as an answer, but instead edit your question and add information to it if needed.


text:
Simplify topology
Can everybody tell me how to simplify topology of my model only with standard modifiers (without paid add-ons as Quadremesher or Jremesher)?

Link with my model:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fTsBXHDBQWi9WimTtvVgovRPfuMES29x/view?usp=drivesdk
Thanks.

Hi, Andrii, welcome... please give folks a chance to assess your problem before committing to a download, by illustrating. (Done for you, here).

Pardon. Thanks.

That's fine, no apology needed.. in general, catering for laziness will help you to attract answers :)

The best is probably to CtrlE > Un-Subdivide, then choose 2 or 4 in the Operator Box. You'll still need to bring some corrections to some parts of the topology:

You can also do it manually:

Switch to Edge Select mode, select an edge ring with CtrlAlt right click, then Select > Checker Deselect in order to unselect one edge out of 2 (or less):

Then Select > Select Loops > Edge Loops to extend the selections:

And at last CtrlX to dissolve the edges, here is the result (next, do the same for the horizontal edges):

Thanks. How about Limited Dissolve, Remesher and Decimate? Is it possible to retopology my model with those add-ons?

Decimate > Un-Subdivide is actually the same as Ctrl E > Un-Subdivide. As for the other options I doubt they will give anything correct for this topology

Thanks. What about paid add-ons? which add-on is best for editing this kind of topology?

You have a free app like Instant Remesh or a paid app like Quad Remesher, see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CviZw41IbMg but for a manufactured, non-organical object, I'm not sure that it will be better than a simple Un-Subdivide operation (maybe Quad Remesher can do it, I've never tried it)

You can also do it with the Checker Deselect function, I'll edit my answer

I remeshed my model by your recommendations. Thanks a lot.

you are welcome, please don't use the Your Answer field to comment, it is made for answers   ;)

Ok, I didn't know, it's my firs experience on this public)


text:
Parallax Mapping holes in texture
Hello i made a simple parallax set up that works but for some reason there is this problem.
As you can see the more steep the angle of view the more texture turns black and I don't know what's the reason for this

My shader set up

blend file here

Hello, could you please pack your image and share your file?

"Regular" Parallax mapping does not handle steep angles pretty well. You can look at Parallax Occlusion instead, as it's designed to tackle that issue.

@Venay do you know how to do it in blender ?

I've only worked with regular Parallax mapping before, but I'll try to figure out how to do it in Blender later after work. As far as I can recall, it involves implementing Parallax mapping with different samples and somehow interpolating between them.


text:
Is there any way to remove all textures that are connected to "Base color" at the same time?
Let me elaborate, so, there's over 200-500 textures and I need to make it so that the texture that is connected to "Base Color" is removed from all of them, would there be any way to do it?

Adding onto this, all of the textures have different names.

of course - with python it should be very easy. But what do you want to remove? the whole material? or just the image texture? Please describe as detailed as possible. thx.

import bpy

for material in bpy.data.materials:
    if not material.use_nodes:
        continue
    for node in material.node_tree.nodes:
        if node.type == 'BSDF_PRINCIPLED':
            if node.inputs['Base Color'].is_linked:

                # remove
                material.node_tree.nodes.remove(node.inputs['Base Color'].links[0].from_node)

                # disconnect
                # material.node_tree.links.remove(node.inputs['Base Color'].links[0])

Note this will remove ALL nodes that are linked to BSDF color input


text:
Problem animating chameleon-like eyes
I'm relatively new to everything involved with 3D modeling and I'm having some issues with animation in particular.

I'm attempting to have these "Eyes" animate, looking in all different directions; kinda like how a chameleon's eyes work. Problem is that I want them to all move at the same exact time and loop. I also want room for other animations in the future.
I've only been able to get one eye at a time to animate in the action editor, and I've tried an armature but I keep messing up somewhere down the line.
Right now I have all the eyes separated from the main mesh and from each other, I don't know if its easier or harder to animate them that way.
I've been at this for about two hours now and still no luck. I'm going to sleep on it and fiddle with it more in the morning. I'm sure its probably just something simple that I'm messing up but its late and I figured I'd ask here just in case someone was willing to help.
Ty for the help!
EDIT: Right, it was late last night so I didn't clarify actually what I wanted (Although the comments did help me discover something that'd be useful in the future):
https://i.sstatic.net/lmWm2.jpg
This is about what I want to happen, to have the "eyes" move erratically to sort of scan the scene. I can have them all animated separately, but I'd rather it'd be all done in one action. Is that possible?

How are you trying to animate the eyes and what challenges did you encounter?

If you want all eyes to move ate the same time and look at the same target, create an empty to use as the target and use a constraint (a "look at" constraint, I believe it's called), so you just have to animate the "target" (the empty) and all the eyes will follow.

If you don't want them to look to the same target, I would do the same as I said before but with a different target for each eye.

You must be talking about Track To or Damped Track constraint. I think the question is a bit too vague, Insomnia should show what he wants with just 3 or 4 eyes and jst several pictures

You're right, it's "track to" in blender. "Look at" is the name of the constraint in 3ds Max.


text:
Odd Light Defects on Material
I am brand new to Blender (2.93) and I was exporting my first render and I noticed these weird light defects on my wood material, but could not pinpoint a cause.
(Look at the area on the floor to the left of the light ray)

(Frame right after the previous image, notice that the defects changed)
The Blend file
Any help would be appreciated!

@vklidu but why does it only do that in specific parts of the scene?

I guess pixel differences comes from several facts

animation (movement changes)
Cycles with quite low samples and most of that
Denoising ...

Dark place with low samples generates more noise (more than in other places like completely black or lighted areas). Too much noisy area that runs trough denoiser will produce more visible distortion in reconstruction.
BTW that is not only one place in your image that differs (it is just more visible).
When you mix these two images with difference type you can see that more pixels are not matching (when it matchs it would be completely black).

If you disable Denoiser you would see what denoiser is dealing with :) You can also test it ... do a Border render of that area with 2000 Samples (without denoiser) and check the result (do not save as JPEG).
If that wouldn't be satisfying you play with Light Paths > Clamping setting under Render Properties.

Thanks! I noticed that dark wood boards had more defects. Also, how did you get this view and what clamping settings would you recommend?

You can use any image editor that supports mixing image layers - second layer is mixed with first layer by Difference type. YOu can use blender's Compositor or Photoshop, Krita or what ever it is basic operation, just in this case (as I wrote) there is many pixel because of camera movement, jpg compression, denoiser so it is a bit useless. About Clamping - by default there is already value that should work in most cases to eliminate strong white pixels ... so you have to experiment. But main issue in your case is low samples and denoiser together, not clamp.


text:
Blender Edge Loop Select Not Working
Machine Specs:
Version:   Blender 4.2.0
OS:        Linux Mint 21 Cinnamon
Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 5600H with Radeon Graphics × 6
GPU:       Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Cezanne
Using trackpad.
Issue:
I cannot get Edge Loop Select to work at all.  I've tried multiple combinations of Alt/Ctrl/Shift + Left Mouse Button/Right Mouse Button/Middle Mouse Button, and nothing works.
I do not have Emulate 3 Button Mouse selected.  My trackpad has 3 buttons and has worked fine so far.
But, when I press Alt + Left Mouse Button a 4-pointed arrow icon appears (similar to a compass showing the 4 directions). If I move with this icon displayed, it will un-maximize the program, (i.e., it does not minimize it to the taskbar, but makes it a smaller size on the screen). This behavior occurs with all programs, so there may be some systems app interfering with Blender?

If you wind up answering your own question you're allowed to post your own discovery as the official answer. We're all just trying to get each question to be answered, one way or another. Doesn't matter who answers ultimately. You might have to get a bit more rep to answer question since you're new but whenever you can just do that.

Thank you  @Jakemoyo

The process of writing out the problem led me to the answer: the window manager was interfering with Blender. Since I've spent about 2 hours trying to fix this problem, I'll post this in case someone else has the same problem. Here are the steps to solve it:
(Note: I'm using Linux Mint.  An MS Widows machine will be a little different.)
App menu button (same as the Windows Start button),> System Settings > Windows, (there are 3 tabs at the top: Titlebar, Behavior, Alt-Tab) > Behavior (at the bottom) Special Key to move and resize windows, change to Disabled (or something other than Alt).

You do not have to write "SOLVED" on top of your answer. If it would not (supposedly) solve the problem there would be no point in posting it in the first place, right?  ;)

I guess this is related to Blender, though kind of niche. I'd call it more general computer usage problems, but I'll leave it open. Also, "The process of writing out the problem led me to the answer," has happened to me many times, lol. There's even a name for it in software development; rubber-duck programming. Just the mental gear switch of explaining something helps you get it way better, problem or no problem.

It is related to Blender.  Though the solution was in my machine's general setup, it was preventing Blender from functioning.  It took me hours to find a solution because none of the other posts with similar problems had this issue.


text:
Why does this script crash the latest version of Blender?
I run this code in Scripting, making sure that no meshes are selected. Blender freezes and hangs before any error messages are generated.
What is going wrong with the script?
import bpy

# Ask the user for text
text = input("Enter text: ")

# Set the text and font
bpy.ops.object.text_add(location=(0, 0, 0))
text_object = bpy.context.active_object
text_object.data.body = text
text_object.data.font = bpy.data.fonts["Arial"]

# Set the dimensions of the text
bpy.context.object.dimensions = (text_object.dimensions[0], 10, 0.2)

# Set the material of the text to metallic
text_object.active_material = bpy.data.materials.new("Metallic Material")
text_object.active_material.use_nodes = True
node_tree = text_object.active_material.node_tree
node_tree.nodes.clear()

# Add a principled BSDF node
principled_bsdf = node_tree.nodes.new("ShaderNodeBsdfPrincipled")
principled_bsdf.inputs['Roughness'].default_value = 0.1
principled_bsdf.inputs['Metallic'].default_value = 1
node_tree.links.new(principled_bsdf.outputs['BSDF'], node_tree.nodes['Material Output'].inputs['Surface'])

# Add a light source
bpy.ops.object.lamp_add(type='POINT', location=(-1, 1, 1))
bpy.ops.object.lamp_add(type='POINT', location=(1, 1, 1))
bpy.ops.object.lamp_add(type='POINT', location=(0, 0, 1))

did you get a *crash.txt file in C:\Users[login]\AppData\Local\Temp?  You may want to paste a few lines near the top into your post.  If a crash file, consider submitting a Bug Report via the Help >> BugReport menu item.

Your script freezes Blender because you ask the user to enter a value in the System Console window. This is not a good idea because this window can be hidden (File > Window > Toggle System Console) and Mac users don't have this menu entry at all. If the System Console window is hidden you can't enter a value and because the script blocks the UI you cannot make the window visible. Deadlock.
Better use Blender's user interface (UI) to get values from the user. Here is a similar question with an example: How to access the User input from a dialog box and also how to change it from String to Float? I am new to Python Blender
Furthermore, your script has a few flaws and issues.

'Arial' is a font on Windows systems, but actually, it's four fonts: normal (regular), bold, italic, bold & italic. So you need to choose one of these not just 'Arial'.

the font must be loaded first before you can use it. I don't know how you can script this. But once you have selected a font and it is loaded you can use it in the script.

the Material Output node is missing

the shader nodes are created overlapping

there is no bpy.ops.object.lamp_add() but bpy.ops.object.light_add()

Putting it all together, you can create an operator from your script that allows the user to enter the text.
Once you run the script, you can search for the operator with F3 or main menu Edit > Menu Search.... Search for object.simple_text_operator ▶Simple Text Operator (screenshot is not up to date).

On the first run, you will get a 'Hello World!' text and you can change the text in the Adjust Last Operation popup that appears in the bottom left corner. Press F9 to bring it back if you dismissed it and have not done another operation yet.

import bpy
from bpy.props import StringProperty

def main(context, text):

    # use default text if no text is entered
    if len(text) == 0:
        text = 'Hello World!'

    # Set the text and font
    bpy.ops.object.text_add(location=(0, 0, 0))
    text_object = bpy.context.active_object
    text_object.data.body = text
    text_object.data.font = bpy.data.fonts["Arial Black"]    #  font must be loaded

    # Set the dimensions of the text
    bpy.context.object.dimensions = (text_object.dimensions[0], 10, 0.2)

    # Set the material of the text to metallic
    text_object.active_material = bpy.data.materials.new("Metallic Material")
    text_object.active_material.use_nodes = True
    node_tree = text_object.active_material.node_tree
    node_tree.nodes.clear()

    # Add Material Output
    material_output_node = node_tree.nodes.new("ShaderNodeOutputMaterial")

    # Add a principled BSDF node
    principled_bsdf = node_tree.nodes.new("ShaderNodeBsdfPrincipled")
    principled_bsdf.inputs['Roughness'].default_value = 0.1
    principled_bsdf.inputs['Metallic'].default_value = 1
    node_tree.links.new(principled_bsdf.outputs['BSDF'], node_tree.nodes['Material Output'].inputs['Surface'])

    # move the BSDF node so it doesn't hide the material output node
    principled_bsdf.location.x -= 300

    # Add a light source
    bpy.ops.object.light_add(type='POINT', location=(-1, 1, 1))
    bpy.ops.object.light_add(type='POINT', location=(1, 1, 1))
    bpy.ops.object.light_add(type='POINT', location=(0, 0, 1))

class SimpleOperator(bpy.types.Operator):
    """Tooltip"""
    bl_idname = "object.simple_text_operator"
    bl_label = "Simple Text Operator"
    bl_options = {'REGISTER', 'UNDO'}
    mytext : StringProperty(name="Text")

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

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

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

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()


text:
Is this possible to see seams from Collada imported object?
Newbie to blender here, I'm trying to replicate an object I downloaded, I now need to unwrap it but I'm not familiar with this method and I'm lost.
I was wondering if it's possible to see seams from an imported Collada (.dae) file, I try to figure it out by myself but I didn't manage to find out.
Here's the file if you need :

Please use https://blend-exchange.com/ to share .blend files, following the instructions there. Better for the archive, and we don't have to wait for bogus delay-mechanisms.

Thanks for telling I didn't knew, I edited my post and added the link.

Thanks for that !

Than you import collada file:

Select all points and press M -> By distance. It will merdge together all hard edges.

then open up uv editor, select all points and click UV -> Seams from islands.

This will redo all seams from UV map

Thanks a lot, it works


text:
How can I make the lines thicker?
Came up with this and wanted to see if I could make the halos thicker and more substanced. I'm using a material to get this effect.

Do you mean wider radially, or thicker up-down?

I mean thicker in all directions

Without going into volumetric shaders, which could  be fuzzy/expensive, it might be better to create geometry to do that? It depends on your desired overall effect.


text:
Can this Houdini curl noise flow effect be done in Blender?
Can we make the particles flow across the surface of a sphere like this? Maybe using forces? I tried using a negative force field to attract the particles to the surface and tried using the vertex force to make them move in a circular way but the particles seem to move circular in a plane and not the sphere. Here's the original animation.

Midge Sinnaeve might give you a kick-off. Belnder texture influence does actually have a 'curl' setting.

I don't understand why this question got so many upvotes. Is it just because of the tweet? Sorry to say but this is a poorly worded question. The title is not meaningful at all and the question relies on an external link. Good luck imagining "this Houdini effect" (quote from the title) when the link is broken. The tag "blender-internal-render-engine" is for the old Blender 2.79 version from 2017. Do you really use this old version?

@Blunder: you are totally right, the question is poorly worded, but the effect looks really cool ;) so one upvote came from me - and he is a SE beginner...so don't be too hard ;)

Entagma covers an approximation of curl noise in Blender very nicely here. Edited your title for searchability. Hope that's OK.