text:
Vertex Weight modifiers to adjust softbody/cloth simulation?
I want to use vertex weight mix/edit modifiers to adjust weights of a complex mesh for a softbody/cloth simulation. I'm able to use the modifiers to successfully adjust the vertex weights, but it seems like the only way to get them in the simulation is to apply them.
Apparently cloth and soft body simulations do not allow vertex weight modifiers to precede them in the modifier stack. I get an warning message saying Cannot move above a modifier requiring original data.  This means that the changes to the weights are not seen by the simulation, since it "requires original data" and only looks at the original vertex groups.
Normally, I'd weight paint by hand, but I'm using internal structure for these simulations, and there is no way to paint vertices inside of a mesh. Is there any way to be able to use these modifier stacks without having to apply them every time I change something?

Soft body does not allow modifiers above the soft body.  But cloth physics (which is a form of soft body physics) does:

If you're having trouble painting internal geometry (that has faces), you can do so by switching to vertex masking mode in weight paint mode, tabbing to edit mode to hide vertices, and then tabbing back to weight paint mode.  The faces that are hidden in edit mode will remain hidden in weight paint mode.
You might still have trouble weight painting vertices that are not part of faces, and those kinds of vertices are relatively common when working with physics.  However, you can still use the properties/vertex groups panel to assign or remove these vertices, and you can still use weight paint operations like "normalize all" on these vertices; you can also use a data transfer modifier to copy weights painted on some other mesh, to these unfaced vertices.  In the worst case scenario, where you absolutely need to paint them, you can make faces for these vertices, paint, then delete those faces.

Inner geometry has no faces :(
I used your advice and swapped to cloth simulation and used Geometry nodes to generate the internal structure. Luckily, attributes can be used to change the weights of the internal vertices, and the data spreadsheet can be used to check their values.
I had no idea cloth could be used like this. Thanks for the tip. My project would have been impossible if you didn't inform me of this.


text:
Material does not show when I try to display my x model in a Directx9 program. Can someone help me out?
first question here. Can someone tell me that why my .x model export from Blender won't show the materials in my program coded in DirectX. There's nothing complex about the materials just two solid colors as shown in the picture. Is there a setting that I'm missing from blender? It just looks grey in the actual program. Any help is appreciated.

Did you check the export materials checkbox in the exporter?
You may also want to try with BI materials, the .x exporter is pretty old, and cycles material support may not have been added.

Also can you check the model in a separate viewer like http://assimp.sourceforge.net/main_viewer.html to see if it is your program or not?

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Drivers not working properly
Basically, i made a scene in blender 2.79a, with a node group containing two dilate/erode nodes, and I want them to be relative to the percentage of the resolution. My solution was to use drivers, but there seems to be a bug and the drivers don't work, I don't know any python and I have no idea how to solve it.
Any help is very appreciated :)
screenshots:

hey! this appears to be a bug...i recreated your setup and it works fine for me on v2.78.5.

I tried downloading blender 2.78.5, but it still seems to not work, this is obviously a bug, since it works if the node is outside of the node group.

Check header of window - if you have alert "Auto-run disabled", press reload trusted.

no, I already reported this as a bug

I'm also getting this in 2.79 test builds but not in 2.78b. Drivers based on node fields don't work if the node is within a group.

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


text:
How to convert a mesh model to a curve/surface?
So, I am modeling on a ship, and I wanted to know if there is a way, like I "think" I saw in Rhinoceros 3D. I basically want to convert my model from a mesh to a curve/surface/NURBS model or whatever it is called.
Is this possible in Blender? Without having to re-model the entire thing?
Kind Regards
Skull Kid

i'm not sure what you want to do, but maybe with wireframe modifier is what you need?
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/modeling/modifiers/generate/wireframe.html

I may not be very good at explaining either. But, I would basically want to turn my model into a NURBS model, from my current mesh model. In other words, convert to a NURBS (or, curve as it says in Blender) But when I try that, Blender crashes.

There is no way to currently do this in Blender, actually conversion from mesh to NURBS is actually quite complex to achieve and  not very common even in specialized software. On top of that add the fact that Blender's NURBS engine is quite rudimentary and lacking in features.

In Blender 2.79 you may consider 'shrink wrapping' a NURBs surface to your mesh.
Add a NURBS Surface into your scene above or beside a meshed object of interest (your ship hull) when in object mode. Select the NURB surface and go into Edit Mode, then subdivide as needed to get a suitable resolution for your needs, and perhaps scaling so that the NURBs surface would fully cover your mesh when shrink wrapped. Return to object mode and apply an object modifier in the deform category called Shrinkwrap. Choose the project option with a suitable direction until you get the NURBs surface to fully project on your mesh.
You could apply the result if needed so that the NURB surface retains the ship hull shape for export by pressing the Apply button in the object modifier interface. You could safely delete the ship mesh and the NURB would retain the hull shape.
- Ed -

This was a brilliant solution! I'm sorry for not answering sooner, as I now realize I am three years late.

Yes it is theoretically possible.
With selected mesh hit ALT+C then select Curve from Mesh/Text.

Practically thou it's unusable with meshes. Suzanne looks  like this after conversion:

You can't convert Cube, Torus, Sphere etc.
I was searching a while ago why is that but only thing in general is that in Blender modeling with NURBS is... Just is. It's not such advanced or convenient as in other 3D software and it's not recommended as main modeling method.

I see. Well, it seemed to me like Rhino could do it. So, I will have to re-model the entire ship? Is there really no way I can convert to a curve from a mesh? If no, are there any other programs that can accomplish this task? Thanks in advance!

@SkullKid First of all, may I ask why you want to convert it to curves/NURBS? Modeling with NURBS in Blender is really painful, that's why I'm asking.
I don't know any other software to do it, I'm purely Blender user. I've found only this: http://www.resurf3d.com/products.htm
Could you upload image of this mesh? Maybe I can help in another way.

I'm sorry if my question seems weird. I was just curious if it was possible. As I haven't found any answer elsewhere, I was looking to see if I could find one here. But my mesh will probably be payware, and it's far from finished. Anyway, I think you've answered my question. Thank you very much! :)

A screenshot of the mesh: https://1drv.ms/i/s!Aor67FEekLdyhJIe3TGKayyFNzvLxw And a "wireframe" one: https://1drv.ms/i/s!Aor67FEekLdyhJIfPdSDTG-zjMMmNA

I've got one final question: Can I, from scratch, model in curves? I mean, to achieve the result seen in my images?

If you want to convert body of the ship to NURBS it's really not a good idea in Blender. Just take NURBS surface for a spin trying to create anything and you will know what I'm talking about. You can model it that way but it will be simply harder. Look at this: http://imgur.com/a/0pdGD It's really fast try (I don't know how sharp creases should be) with such simple topology with SubSurf, Mirror modifier and Mean Creases.

And lastly, If you want to sell it later, proper topology would be very important factor. Clean, quad topology is considered by many as the best (smoothing options, modifications, animations etc.).

Thanks Luke. I do appreciate your input on this subject! As I am certainly not a veteran in Blender (started using it more heavily 2016...) but I have been using 3ds Max since 2006, until 2016, when I switched over to Blender. :)

you can do a wireframe modifier. Then convert the wireframe to curves, as explained in LukeD's answer, or just leave as a wireframe...

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


text:
Bending a chain without deforming the links?
So, I've done the anchors on my ship, but the chains needs to be bent around the winch at the bow. How would I accomplish this without actually bending the links?
Kind Regards
Skull Kid

Related: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/5910/how-do-i-prevent-object-distortion-when-applying-a-curve-modifier

Solved! I used DupliFrames. By selecting the chain links, I used parenting (selecting by Right click on the chain links, then selecting the curve and parenting it to the chain links with Ctrl+P and choosing Follow path). Then you can go to the Object tab. under Object, find the Duplication tab, open it and choose "Frames". Then play with the settings to get the best result. To get it to follow for example, a Bezier curve. Select the object you want to follow the curve and go to Object in the 3D view panel. Then in that menu, choose Clear > Origin (or simply select the object you want to follow the curve, and choose Alt+O).


text:
Changing amount of decimal digits in dimensions, without source code?
I had a short, but quick question. I was posting this as a bug by going to "Report a Bug" within Blender. It's version 2.79. But when something exceeds 100m or 100', it won't show any decimal digits at all.
So, I was wondering, is it possible to get the decimals back by simply using the Python Console within Blender?

When you set blender to show units, it doesn't display zero only fractional values. Values that have a fractional component will display as you expect.

You can get the values via python, see the object api reference for property names.
>>> bpy.context.object.location
Vector((1.2345000505447388, 0.0, 0.0))

>>> bpy.context.object.dimensions
Vector((100.12300109863281, 2.0, 2.0))

As you can see, you also get floating point binary storage issues.

That's a good solution. Actually, it was just what I was looking for. I know 3ds Max had this feature, in Maxscript, so I thought Python must be having something similar. But I found out that, by reporting this issue, they will be reverting back to more decimal digits. Say, 102m will be 102.06m again.

Also, what version of Blender did you use in that screenshot?

A daily build from a few weeks ago. Just looking through versions, 2.77 shows more places, 2.79 shows less. Seems it is something that keeps getting messed with.


text:
How to measure total size of selected objects?
In Blender I have never, except when joining multiple objects together been able to see the total size of objects in the scene.
Is there any way to achieve this, without joining multiple objects?

It seems like this quesiton addresses the same thing. My bad for not seeing it in the first place.

One solution I've found is to duplicate the objects, convert all to mesh if they've got any modifiers added, and join all together. Still, a tool or function for this would be handy though...

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


text:
Limit rotation to 180+ in X axis?
Here is my problem. I'm trying to limit the X axis to the local space, at 185 degrees, but as I rotate, it snaps at 0 as expeced. But when rotating as so, it snaps back to 0 from 180 degrees. I believe this is a bug, but I would just want to check with anybody with more knowledge about this than me. I have seen other threads around about this, but I saw the date and not a complete answer, so that's why I made a new one.

it looks like it can't go beyond 180°: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/16055/bones-constraint-limit-x-axis-rotation-more-than-180-doesnt-work

As posted on BlenderArtists, here's the solution as provided below:
I simply added a limit rotation constraint to a duplicate of the main object, which I shrunk down (not necessary) and added a "limit rotation constraint" which I set to limit the X axis rotation to -30 degrees.
Then, I added a driver (right-click the desired value in the sidebar to the right in the 3D view and select "Add Driver") to the X axis for the "Axe_motor" (the main object) and set the driver's expression be "var * 6.26" in my case.
So, I multiplied -30 degrees by 6.26 times. this resulted in a perfect arc from the axe's resting position (0 degrees) to -188 degrees in X.


text:
Learning Blender
Hello I recently have been having trouble learning to model in blender.
I know how to use the program and understand its interface but have trouble putting those skills together to create the desired effect.
Do you guys have any suggestions on the best way to learn this.
Thank you.

For me it was helpful to start from following beginners modelling tutorials to catch a workflow, then increase difficulty, till I managed to figure out what works for me and what tools and workflows suits me the best.

The best way to learn to use the skills you have is to try to use them. Try to find a few time laps on youtube.com and try to remake what they did, and if you get stuck you do have the time laps that you can go back to and see what they did.
It will probebly be a god ide to learn art basic just fore the part that is "Have a vision on what to do and know how to do it"


text:
is there a way to symmetrize The UV map in the UV Editor?
i have a Problem with the UV Editor. I don't know how to get rid of the unwrapping of the Model, so i could unwrap anew. I somehow messed up one half of the UV MAp and can't get rid of this. So i would like to know, if there is a way to symmetrize the messed up side to the good half. I use Blender 2.75 at the current Moment.

Try unwrapping from top/side/front orthogonal view, it might be symmetrical then.

I got rid of the Problem, before i got the answer. I separated the halfs, (selected faces + y) mirrored the good one, shove it over and dragged aaaall the verts in it's proper place. Mirrored the good one again and moved it over. Thank you anyways :)

You could add your own answer to help future visitors find solution for this case as I'm not sure what was your way (e.g. what is "shove the good part of model over"). It seems though that you could achieve the result with deleting bad part and mirroring good one with Mirror modifier.


text:
Is render time, openGL, or memory affected whether a modifier is applied or not?
If I have an object looking exactly like I want it to using modifiers, is there any reason why I should "apply" the modifiers before rendering, or any other considerations? More specifically, is viewport speed, render time and/or memory affected by whether modifiers are applied or not?
My educated guess is that it takes less processing power to calculate and display an object with Array and Sub-D-Surf modifiers than it takes to display the same object with those modifiers applied because each individual face would have to be calculated as opposed to a lesser number of instances of the already calculated less complicated object as a whole. (Sorry, that's a mouthful of a sentence.)
I am making tires using various modifiers on just a sliver of the actual tire. Now that I am ready to duplicate it to four tires, I am wondering if I should duplicate the entire tire rig/hierarchy, including "emptys" for rotation objects, (or add another couple of array modifiers), or if I should "apply" it all, then duplicate the finished tire to four.
Thanks for your help!
-Ben

Viewport speed: The final displayed mesh is the same regardless of if you apply the modifier or not. Applying it will cost you the ability to have different settings for viewport and render for modifiers that do that, such as on the subsurf modifier.
Scene update (opening file, changing frames, etc): Applying bakes in the modifier, so it doesn't need to be calculated on updates anymore. So that's faster.
Render: modifiers "apply" on the fly when exporting meshes for render, so no  difference. Same output mesh is rendered either way. The modifiers have to all be updated during this process though, so applying will speed render startup a bit.
So generally, not much performance reason to apply a modifier. The two main situations where you'd apply it are when you need to do something on the modifier output directly (like applying mirror modifier before rigging), or when a modifier is taking a long time to calculate and losing non-destructive editing of the modifier is preferable to waiting that out.


text:
How do you lock the rotation of a bone in an IK chain?
How can you make an IK chain of bones where one of the bones does not rotate relative to it's parent bone but is still part of the IK chain?
Specific example: I have this simple arm rig with IK that I want to split the forearm so the wrist can rotate properly...

I tried putting the IK constraint on the 2nd forearm bone and making the IK chain 3, but the two forearm bones bend. How do I make them not bend while still having the arm move normally?

How do you keep those locked? Again, this is a pretty simple IK setup otherwise, until I wanted to split the wrist/forearm. Thanks for any help!

You need to use the IK Limit rotation found as shown below:

hey I know this is an old question but I was wondering if you could do the same thing with having a pole in an IK? for some reason it doesn't work when you have a pole target


text:
Can't render an inside-out cube?
I have "double-sided" unchecked/disabled, but the backs of my faces still render anyway. I should be able to create a cube, flip normals, and render an inside out cube but it doesn't. How can I make it so faces do not show up in neither the viewport nor the render?

I've found that in 2.4 I could do this with an option called "No v.normal flip" which supposedly prevented the render from automatically flipping normals to face the camera. It would seem now blender still does that but there's nothing I can do about it.

Which render engine are you using?

I believe what you're talking about with "No v.normal flip" is now done using the "Backface Culling" option. This is found in the Properties Panel under Shading > Backface Culling. Any faces with inverted normals will then show as transparent. But this is only for the Viewport. If you want to render this way I think you'll need to make a custom material in Cycles. (This assumes you're using Cycles) I can post this as an answer with more details, but first of all I'd like to know: is this the kind of effect you're going for? I wasn't totally sure what you meant by "inside-out cube".

I've decided to go ahead and post an answer for now, and I will add more to it later. I wanted to show you some images first of all to explain what I meant.

Hi! I am using the Cycles render, but I would expect to be able to do this with any render engine. I feel this is a huge short-coming of Blender to not be able to simply render only faces facing the camera. What I mean by "inside-out cube" is that no matter what angle you view it, you always see the inside of the walls furthest from you.

The specific application I am going for is making photo-real glass. You can't just make a glass surface. Light needs to refract when going into the object AND when going out, BUT going out has to be a different IOR than when it went in. (Through glass, and then through air.) What I do is duplicate the object, invert the faces, and give the duplicate an "Air" material/shader. Since Blender renders both sides of a face, this can't be done. That said, I will try your solution and let you know if that does what I need. Thank you so much for your help and comments! :)

How to make backfaces transparent
For the Viewport
Enable the "Backface Culling" option. This is found in the Properties Panel under Shading > Backface Culling. The backfaces will then show as transparent in the viewport.

For Cycles Materials
Connect the Geometry node's "Backfacing" output to the "Fac" input of a Mix Shader. Then plug a Transparency Shader to the bottom input of the Mix Shader and your visible shader(s) into the top one. In this way you can factor between your visible material and transparency, or any other type of material for that matter.

With newer versions
Today you'll want to multiply the Backfacing output of the Geometry node with the Is Camera Ray output of the Light Path node. This effectively creates a conjunctive relationship between the two properties, i.e. IF Backfacing AND Is Camera Ray THEN render solidly. Otherwise the cube will appear black.
This is because when a light ray tries to bounce back into the camera from the inside of the cube, it will have to pass another back facing face, which will then of course be treated as solid material. Adding an extra condition of having the ray originate from the camera makes backfaces transparent if they don't come from the camera, allowing rays to pass through the object when bouncing back

@Keheck Good thoughts, nicely explained. Thanks :)

My apologies for accepting this answer nearly a decade later! Thank you!

@BenMora No worries - better late than never. Thanks for accepting! :-)


text:
Bone selection hidden in side view
I am using Rigify and created an armature. If I select anything on the left side of the body (arm or leg bones) thee selection is not visible in the side/right view. What could cause this? I tried selecting all, hiding and then unhiding all.

Strange.  Would expect to see Thigh.L in right ortho, but not Thigh.R as it is perfectly obscured by Thigh.L.

And curiously, the bone is not visible in both left and right views (@batFINGER)

It is the same in front/back... I guess (just a guess), there is no z for bones drawing in wireframe mode...? The behavior seems to be: the last created is drawn over

It is visible in front or back, but not left or right.

@BenMora, I meant, if you rotate so that they are front back: same thing

@lemon, to your second comment, it seems it's not related to that because even when I move the bone in right or left side view it still does not appear selected even when nothing is in front of it.

Oh, wait. I'm not sure what I did, but that isn't the case anymore. I can now see it when moving. Weird. It definitely was not visible when moved earlier.

And this is the same for meshes... just try: create a cube, select an edge on the right (you right) and see

Have a look at this: https://i.sstatic.net/WyDvh.gif

Figured it out. I had X-Axis Mirror on, so the one showing in front of it always shows in front. That was a silly mistake.

Following the question, its comments and the answer from the OP, my though is this is not the axis mirror which leads to the situation (or please @BenMora explain a bit more).
Here is a setting with an operator derived from the script templates.
It's showing in blue the faces index, in green edges index and in red the index of vertices. We are here in face selection mode, but the same occurs whatever the mode is.

Element's index is a way to identify it in the mesh. To be simple, it is an integer designing the element (in a separated range for vertices, edges and faces).
What is happening here (experimental conclusions):
In wireframe mode, Blender draws following the index. So bigger index is drawn over the smaller one.
And this is visibly the same for armatures.
To tell the truth, before this question, I've never noticed it... but thinking about it, I'm quite sure this is a wanted behavior for performance reason... maybe.
Please comment if this is to report to the Foundation in the bug tracker.

I had "X-Axis Mirror" turned on, so when I moved bones the mirrored one constantly displayed in front of it. @lemon pointed out that the order in which the bones were created is factored when determining which to draw.


text:
How do you limit property value without constraints?
Let's say I have an "empty" that I want to only be able to move in the X axis, and only between 0 and 1. I can turn on the transform locks for Y and Z, but how do I limit X to only values between 0 and 1?
I tried the "Limit Location" constraint but it doesn't actually limit the actual value of the property, so unfortunately any drivers or expressions referencing that property will still see values out of that range even if the physical object appears to be within range.

You can use a driver to do that:

Right click on the X location in the object's property panel and choose "manually create later (single)".

Now open a view with the graph editor (1)
Set it to drivers mode (2)
Select the X Location on your object (3)
Make the right panel appear (4) N, choose the driver tab, set the type to "scripted expression", check "use self" so that we can use object's own data. For instance here X location is "self.location[0]".
Then enter the wanted expression. To be between 0 and 1, type: min(1,max(self.location[0],0)).

A simpler way to do this, if I understand the question, is to select the object, open the constraints tab, add object constraint, limit location. In this panel you can set min and max values for transform channels. So if you are using an empty object transform as a driver for the alpha value on a material, you could constrain the min max values to 0 and 1 on that channel.


text:
How to animate model for unity?
I have tried animate character from mixamo in blender. But the animation saved the transform location like 0, 0, 0 where I animate it. Everytime I call the animation in unity, the object moved to 0, 0, 0. I want the animation plays on local object. Idk where is my mistake.

In my opinion, this question is out of scope for Blender Stack Exchange. It should, instead, be asked in the appropriate Unity forum at https://forum.unity3d.com/.

I have asked in unity first, still no answer. It looks like I have to solve it by myself.


text:
Transfer weight problem
I have followed some tutorials but I can't transfer the weight properly. I just got the neck weight. I'm using blender 2.78c.

could you add your .blend file on blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com to be able to help you

It's too big, I can't upload it. Where should I upload it ?

https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com

I don't know about your plans but why don't you use Automatic Weight painting and adjust the weights afterwards? Why do you want to transfer weight? between two meshes or mirroring?


text:
Blender doesnt play ANY audio
While creating my game in the bge
I think I just muted my blender with some hotkey, dont even know if its possible, but now all the audios from my game are muted.
Can someone help?

Send a screen shot of your logic bricks to see the settings and also which format are you using for the sound?

can you here the same audio files if assigned to a "speaker" and pressing ALT-A ?


text:
How to go back to previous state from amimation player?
I m new to blender. We play animation by pressing Alt+A. Now how to go back to previous state. Stopping anim player just pauses the animation.

After pressing Alt+A the animation is played back.
During the playback:

Press Escape to stop the playback and return to the original frame before playback.
Press ⎇ AltA to stop playback resting on the current frame.

If you haven't changed the user preferences, this is the shortcut setting (note the checked property Restore Frame).

In addition you can check this answer for some useful tips: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/20952/what-are-the-hotkeys-to-navigate-the-timeline

Hey..thanks for the response. Alt+A does stop the animation. But the backspace seems to do nothing. Is there any value to input key for backspace that i need to assign in user preferences. If yes plz guide how. Backspace is not doing anything. I am using the latest version of blender 2.78 .

@RahulJha Not backspace, the escape key is located on the top right of most keyboards.

@RahulJha Sorry, top left.


text:
Using PyOpenGL in Blender's Python API
I'm wondering if there was any way for me to use PyOpenGL in Blender's Python API? I would rather not use BGL, because I would like to render a lot of 3D objects and immediate mode is rather limiting...
It might help if I'm describing the project I'm working on. I would like to write an add-on that would allow you to work with Blender seamlessly from the Vive. I'm using OpenVR to control with the Vive and OpenGL to render to the Vive. So far, displaying things went pretty well. However, the issue is the usage of PyOpenGL in Blender. It involves the creation of a window for OpenGL to work with (GLUT), resulting in the Blender interface freezing. As a result, I can't modify the model or anything while the addon is running. In addition, if I close the window, Blender also closes, which is inconvenient.

I found a hack.
If you create a separate window when you're creating a Blender menu (SHIFT-LEFTCLICK-DRAG when you click the corner tab to create a new menu), turn that window into the Python editor, and then run the code from there, everything works great!

I can see two approaches:

Upgrade blender's python API to support interactive PyOpenGL auxiliary windows
Upgrade blender with built-in Vive support

I suspect #2 will be cleaner.  #1 would allow people with less understanding of blender's guts to do some nifty stuff, but it would probably require a core blender coder the same level of expertise and time to accomplish as #2.
There is also the problem of user input.  When you have the Vive on your head you have access to a pair of upgraded mice, but you do not have the keyboard.  There are solutions, but the paradigm does not exactly mesh with the existing UI.

I'm okay with the limits of the VR version since there is no keyboard usage. VR applications are generally a trade off between the cool factor and the practical factor. I'll have to change the UI in the Vive, but the important thing is to get a window without freezing Blender. Could you give more details as to how I can do your suggestions?

Unfortunately both of those options are are a little beyond my expertise.  Even if I were to write Mary Sue fanfic about this, my avatar would take 6 months to accomplish the mission.

Haha that's fine. I actually found a hack that's an easy fix. If you create a separate window when you're creating a Blender menu (SHIFT-LEFTCLICK-DRAG when you click the corner tab to create a new menu), turn that window into the Python editor, and then run the code from there, everything works great! I'm a bit new to StackExchange, so I'm unfamiliar with the protocol - should I accept your answer even though it didn't solve my problem?

No.  It would probably be better to create a new answer that details the answer to the question so that other people can understand it and use it.


text:
Cube arrow lattice
How can I put an arrow in the middle of each side of the cube. I basically need a lattice and an arrow in the middle on each side. Thanks for the help

Can you illustrate what you are trying to achieve? Maybe edit your question and provide some reference images of what you wish to do.

Create a cube > Create a texture with an alpha channel > UV Unwrap the cube > Create a material using the texture.

Almost positive this is not what the user wants, but my upvote for the funny answer and making me laugh

@Duarte Farrajota Ramos That means a lot... You are a force.

If I understood you correctly, I think you have to do it like this:

Select the face from what you want to put the arrow through.
Use the shortcut shift+S
Choose otion called "cursor to active"

This put your 3Dcursor exactly in the middle of a face. Then you can add an arrow.

I'm really new in Blender and I know I must look at all tutoriale but I absolutely need this picture.

Tab(Edit Modus)
Face Select
Shift + S, then Select Cursor to Active
Then in Object Mode, Shift+A, Select Empty, then Single Arrow
Object Mode-Add Modifier-Wireframe (beacause I need only the frame from cube)


text:
Rigid body: how to display collision margin in Blender 3D?
Hello I'd like to display the collision margins in rigid body simulation how could I do with objects and particles ?

If you mean you want to see the hitboxes of the objects with rigid bodies (the collision shape), you have to do nothing. Usually they are shown on top of the object. If you cannot see them, try to set the Viewport shader to in WireFrame. If you still cannot see the hitbox its because the shape box is set to Mesh, so it overlaps with the current mesh. If your intent was to see a bigger hitbox for objects with an higher collision margin. I don't know if that's possible.

First change the Collision Shape to Mesh. Then set the Sensitivity Margin to 0.00. Play the animation.


text:
How can i find out the indices in blender 2.78
Im trying to get the indices of my object. how can I get them. Also how can I export them into the obj file?
I exported into obj.
  v 1.000000 0.000000 -1.000000

v -1.000000 0.000000 -1.000000

v 1.000000 0.000000 1.000000

v -1.000000 0.000000 1.000000

vt 0.9562 0.0001

vt 0.0001 0.9999

vt 0.0001 0.0001

vt 0.9562 0.9999

vn 0.0000 1.0000 0.0000

f 2/1/1 3/2/1 1/3/1

f 2/1/1 4/4/1 3/2/1

how do I get the indices(triangles)


text:
Spotlights in Blender Cycles
I'm working a lot on creating Eurovision and other "concert-performance" stages, and I want to equip the stage with lots of spotlights. The problem is that the spotlights always turn out really harsh, no matter what I do to tweak the settings. Is there anyone who knows how to make realistic spotlights in Cycles (that kind of have the same effect as the ones in the Blender Render)? As seen in the first image, the end of the spotlight is very hard, instead of the soft light that a spotlight would emit. Sorry for potentially bad English.

For lights to behavior in that manner in a realistic render engine you have to understand the real physical reason why lights look like that at all in a staged environment. I would say these lights are heavily dependent on volumetric setting in the scene. Without some kind of volumetric smoke real lights just will not look like this, Plus such environment are really dark and lights usually focus and narrow. If you can create the volumetric environment you will have that "look" of light in cycles. My I ask if you have what you want in blender internal why bother with cycles?

This might help https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/101114/trying-to-fake-god-rays-stage-lights-with-materials

@hawkenfox The reason is the more realistic lighting that Cycles offers. But thank you!


text:
'Movie materials' doesn't play in Eevee
So, I'm trying to play an MP4 on a big plane in Eevee, but it doesn't work. It does work in Cycles, but I can't render a 4400 frame animation in Cycles. When in Eevee, the MP4 won't play and the only way to see a frame from it is to jump to that frame in Cycles, pre-render that and go back to Eevee. Is there anything I can do to make it work in Eevee as well?

I think you might just have to wait until support for this comes out. Sorry.

What about Workbench engine? I haven't tried it before, but you have a chance to unwrap it here! If it don't work then wait if some knows the better answer or as @RixYarbrough said wait till the feature comes in Blender.


text:
Updating Blender and keeping settings
Yes, I know that I can google it, and I did. My problem is that I've opened files using Blender 2.78c so I can't copy previous settings. Tried the other versions of 2.78 as well but the option isn't there anymore. Is there anything I can do?

If you are talking about user preferences and startup file, you can access your old blender directory:
go to the appdata/roaming folder (type Windows Key+R and then %appdata%) go to the blender foundation folder. Then 2.78 => and open userpref or startup .blend depending on what you want to get in the new version. Then save user prefs (Ctrl+Alt+U and save user prefs) and save the startup file (Ctrl+U)
Or alternatively copy these files into 2.78c\config, but I'm not sure if this will work


text:
Animation doesn't play
So, I've been working on an animation for quite some time now, and pressing space/clicking play to play the animation has always been working. But now, out of nowhere, when I click space or play it doesn't do anything. The FPS counter starts to jump but the "current frame" counter remains at zero. It also kicks me back to the very start of the animation every time I try to play, despite being somewhere else on the timeline.. To be clear, there is no play issue with any other file.
Does anyone know what could be the issue?
Thanks in advance.
https://i.sstatic.net/cPgiK.jpg

Are you sure you're in the camera view?

Yeah, definitely. It should also play even if I'm not in the camera view. @deltaray

Yes, but without knowing what your animation does, maybe you were expecting to see camera movement.  For instance, if only the camera was moving, you might think the animation wasn't playing.

Well, not only the camera but parts of the model itself, but when I hit play the frame number just instantly goes to zero and stays there, but the FPS counter is going. Nothing that's supposed to move moves. I'm afraid I've activated some sort of setting, but no clue what it could be. @deltaray


text:
5.1 audio mix doesn't support rear left and rear right channels
To,
Blender foundation
Hi. I am Rutu from india.  I am a frequent user of Blender  and would like to ask you that does  the Audio  5.1 Surround mix in the VSE only supports left ,center and right channel with a pan values of -1 ,0 and 1 respectively . The values -2 and 2 were for the extreme left and right (left surround and right surround ) which seems to don't work . The LF CNT RFare working perfectly fine but RL and RR were sounding from front speakers .
I have a 5.1 audio card and a Logitech Z906 Dolby certified speaker system so it should work fine .
I have mono audio files and even enabled the 5.1  surround option in scene tab .
I have also tried to make a scene where I have placed the speaker object at front left front right. Center   rear left and rear right of the camera  . Assigned them mono sources sound and play backed it. But still only front left and front right speaker is sounding correctly . Rear left and rear right sound is coming from front speakers .
When I mix the channels in audacity they sound perfectly from all channels which I have set.
Is there any other option we can do to make hear the separate channels for  rear left and rear right sound in Blender .


text:
Question to Blender developers on file handling in Windows
On one of our Windows 10 PCs we are not able to access render output files of Blender v.2.78 using windows explorer: The file is listed in the file selection dialog in Blender, but is not visible to Windows.
It seems that this behavior is observed by some other people in the net as well, and so far the only solution seems to be to do a repair reinstall Windows.
Fearing other complications of a windows repair, we looked further into the problem.
We checked every previous blender version until we were be able to locate a version that does not exhibit this problem, and found that v.2.61 does not have this behavior.
So, on a particular PC, render output files of Blender 2.62 and above are created, but not visible in Windows Explorer (display of hidden and system files enabled). Output files of 2.61 are visible on the same PC.
Could someone related to or knowledgeable on the development of Blender comment on whether there has been a change in output file creation routines when switching from v.2.61 to v.2.62?
Many thanks in advance,
Arifi Koseoglu

Nice investigation work this is very useful info for the Blender developers and in the right way to find a proper fix. Unfortunately this is not the right place to expose this problem. We are mostly end users, and developers don't often hang out around these parts. You should probably reports this to the Blender bug tracker, sharing as much relevant information as possible, or if you plan to contribute contact the developers directly in the Developers Mailing

Many thanks for the pointers  Duarte Farrajota Ramos, I will proceed as you suggested. Best regards. -arifi

Hello cetagon, Do you mean Windows file sharing? No - file is not visible in Windows realm. Or is there a "share" mechanism in Blender? I am very new in this world..

@ArifiKoseoglu Users will not be notified of new comments unless you put '@' in front of their (correctly spelled) username.

@Duarte Farrajota Ramos Many thanks for the pointers, I will proceed as you suggested. Best regards. -arifi

@cetagon I believe that there is a misunderstanding. I cannot access the file on the disk to share it. My problem is not with the output file itself, nor the process of creating it. It is about being able to access the generated file on the file system.

Agree with @cegaton a test file or  screenshot would be handy here... what is the name of the rendered image (Render Result???) what is the filepath it's saved to?   What exactly do you mean by the file selection dialogue?

As the original poster, I agree with @Duarte Farrajota Ramos and iKlsR 's comment saying "This question appears to be about an issue caused by a bug in Blender. These should be reported to the official bug tracker." I have reported it to the official bug tracker. Is there something that I need to do to prevent further communication on this question?


text:
mathutils.Matrix's position returns an empty vector instead of the actual position
In 4x4 matrices, the values of the last row are usually the position, however in blender, when scripting returns 0, even though when i display the matrix on the console, the values are shown properly (Even applying the matrix to the object)
Here's what i do in the code
tfm = node.properties.transform
print(tfm)
dec = tfm.decompose()
print(dec)

decompose() returns 3 values, which are the position, rotation, and scale:
<Matrix 4x4 ( 0.9962,  0.0000, -0.0872, 0.0000)
            (-0.0000,  1.0000, -0.0000, 0.0000)
            ( 0.0872,  0.0000,  0.9962, 0.0000)
            ( 9.6625, 12.2470, 55.6297, 1.0000)>

(Vector((0.0, 0.0, 0.0)),
Quaternion((0.9990482330322266, 7.4434889363317325e-09, -0.04361938312649727, -3.249897295720672e-10)),
Vector((1.0, 1.0, 1.0)))

These are the results after decomposing, which is what is applied to the object in blender when i do:
obj.matrix_world = tfm

However, even though the object rotates, it does not move.
A workaroud for this is applying the position is this way:
obj.location = (tfm[3][0],tfm[3][1],tfm[3][2])

However i should not be doing this and i would like to straight up apply the matrix and get all the values properly. Am i using the wrong method? Or maybe library? I think i'm not getting the proper values, even scale and rotation wise.

Looks like you have a transposed matrix if you are expecting row 3 (instead of column 3) to be the location.

As batFINGER said, the problem was that blender uses the matrices via rows instead columns, so i had to do the following to get the stuff right:
Doing this would fix it:
tfm.transpose()

I found this really helpful - thanks for taking the time to update. I think it's fine for you to click 'accept' on your own answer. That way when people are looking for an answer like this in a list, it will be flagged as answered.


text:
Can a material ignore a light?
I have several objects that need to be in the same scene layer and same render layers, but I want objects with a specific material to ignore a specific light. Is this possible?

Any solution I've found always seems to involve using separate scene layers and/or render layers.

Maybe with scripting? Or you could bake those objects without that light, and then make all lights have no influence.

Maybe a duplicate of http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/15337/how-do-i-make-objects-ignore-certain-light-sources /  http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/983/exclusive-lighting?


text:
How did I accidentally exit edit mode and revert all of my changes?
Twice now I spent a ton of time in edit mode, and upon exiting I noticed it seemed as if my entire scene reverted to my last save. I checked, and there is not a shortcut to "revert" but somehow I am reverting changes when I exit edit mode. Is there some key-combo/shortcut that I must be doing that is causing this?
Thanks!

One possible thing is that if, after exiting Edit mode, you press Ctrl+Z to undo (once), you'll undo all the changes done in Edit mode (may be handy sometimes). To undo changes done in some mode not globally (not all at once), you should do that from adjacent mode (enter it again).

That's it! Thanks for answering that. I just tested, and sure enough, that must have been what I did.

Yes, Blender keeps an "undo book" for every mode, not all together.


text:
Auto-merge is causing all vertices to snap to same distant vertex
I almost always edit with snapping to vertex and auto-merge on, but today when I started a project, no matter which vertex I move, and no matter where I move them, they all snap to the exact same vertex which is nowhere near them. I even scaled up significantly to make sure it wasn't a large threshold issue. If I move the vertex that they all are being snapped to, it just snaps to the nearest vertex no matter where I move it as well.
First screenshot shows the vertex I have selected and the arrow shows where I attempt to move this selected vertex...

And without fail, they always get merged to here...

As I tried on 2.75 eveything works as expected. As a workaround you may turn off Auto snapping and use W > Remove doubles after snapping by hand. Also you may upload your blend for further investigation.

I'm on 2.75. If I start a new scene it works fine. This one doesn't. It was just a super simple SVG I imported and converted to a mesh.

Does it work if importing it once more in another blend? Otherwise you can recreate your mesh with roughly modeling first and applying Shrinkwrap modifier after that; this will give opportunity to stop messing with corrupted mesh to the newly created similar one.

I tried appending the mesh to a new blend file, and interestingly, this behavior still only affects this particular mesh, while other meshes in the same file behave appropriately.


text:
Can you link render settings across all scenes so they can all be changed at once?
I have multiple scenes to render and in my "master" scene I have set up the render nodes to output the render of all scenes. This way I only have to hit the Render Animation button once and all of the scenes get output.
The problem is that I still have to manually change the render settings of each scene to match.
Is there a way to sync / link the render settings of each scene so that I only need to change them once?
More detail if it's not clear: If I want to render a preview, I have to manually set each scene to my "Preview" settings, but then when I am render for the final render I will have to once again manually change ALL of the scenes render settings to my desired high quality.
Also, I am using Cycles.

I have also tried and looks like you can't apply drivers or expressions to all of the settings to link them back to the master scene.

You may want to try Python approach. Here's a similar case described:
Modify render settings for all scenes using python

There is a copy render settings add-on that comes with blender.


text:
UV Rectangle projected wrong way
I have an image that is a rectangle shape, and have created a box that is the same proportions. After creating the box I reset the scale back to 1,1,1. When I try to map the image to the top of the box (the side that is the same size/proportions as the image), it gets mapped the wrong direction. The long edge of the image is lined up and squished to to short edge of the box and visa versa. I cannot find any way to rotate or otherwise make it project correctly.
Here's what happens no matter what method I use. I have even turned every edge into a seam and tried just unwrapping the top faces.

Just put the mouse cursor in the uv map editor and then type r90 and hit Enter. If it's upside down then r180 and Enter.

Also, go into the UVs menu of the UV editor and turn on Constrain to Image Bounds.


text:
Transparent object create opaque alpha channel. How do you get transparent objects over a transparent background?
I have a transparent object that I am rendering without any sort of background, ie film is set to "transparent."
Rather than have slightly transparent pixels, the alpha channel is black and white, no greys.
Is there a way to render a transparent object over a transparent background in such a way that the alpha channel is reflective of the transparency of the object, not just the shape of it?

Does your transparent object have varying degrees of transparency?

No, but unless I'm wrong about how it works, I'm expecting that it would appear less transparent towards the edges and almost 100% transparent towards the center, much like the fresnel effect.

Are you in Cycles? I am guessing so.

Oops... Sorry: My understanding is that the alpha channel's output carries 1 to 0 info on the sum characteristics of the transparent material.... So the % black or white reflects both transparency and surface color of the transparent material. (If you add a noise node to a transparent material's color input, for example, the alpha output reflects the noise -- but in B&W. ) You can use Set Alpha node to adjust these, but I do not believe any edge-like influence is intended... but I can't find 2.78 docs online right now. All have migrated to 2.8, which is cool but not helpful.

Not presented as an answer so much as extension of comments above: You can add a fresnel and holdout to your material to generate other alpha-node output characteristics...


text:
Importing a feature from higher version(2.74) to a lower version(2.65)
Currently I use blender version 2.65(portable) as the recent versions will not run on system due to lack of necessary "hardware accelerators". But there is a particular option in the recent versions which allows me to see the 3D window in a rendered view. Is there any way I can import this facility of the recent versions to use it in the older 2.65 version? I have both the zipped folders(2.65 and 2.77 windows 32) with me.

No.
Features are not separate files or anything similar that can just be copied over.
These kind of features are added by modifying parts of the blender code and then recompiling it, and generally depend on a number of other changes and are quite interlinked with the rest of the code, so that even if you were familiar with blender development, backporting to an old version of the codebase would be extremely hard.


text:
showing only a part of the object during an animation
I am trying to model a moving wave and i want that the object should be seen during the animation only in a given region to give the desired effect. Could anyone help me out with it.
Below is a sample image from the animation (the wave should be seen only within the two walls even as it moves).

Presuming you're wanting to create a window between the two walls, this would be a simple matter in Blender.  Make either a Chroma-key aperture or an 'Inviso mask' to create an alpha layer hole around the window.  Only the area between the walls would be visible.  Is this what you're wanting to achieve?


text:
User Theme Settings File
blender has some presets by default ( xml files )
and user can save his own settings for theme ( Save User Settings )

now, 3 simple question
1- is it possible to create an custom xml file to load when blender will open ?
2- where is saved settings file ?
3- where is default blender theme file ?

The default blender theme is located within blender's source code, it is the values used unless a preset theme is used to override them.
The theme settings used at startup are contained within your startup.blend file, you can make any adjustments you like and Save User Settings to have those theme settings active when you start blender.
If you want to create a theme and share it with others, you can create an xml file that contains the theme settings, that others can then use. To start with blender's default theme, click Reset to Default Theme, make any adjustments you like and then click the + next to the theme list and type in a name to use for your new theme. The xml file created for this can be found under scripts/presets/interface_theme/ either with your blender install or within your configuration folder. If you make adjustments, you can click the + again and enter the same name to update the xml file.
You can find the xml files for the themes that are included with blender inside scripts/presets/interface_theme or browse them online here, there are also some more themes in the contrib repository.

thank you for a complete answer. for default blender theme, can i change source code for values?? which file ???

You should find them all in resource.c - note that you will need to build your own version of blender. If you make adjustments to an xml file then you only need to load the theme.

1-Yes,You can import edit your theme or import one from and XML file then press Save user setting.
2-Blender save user setting here "C:\Users\Username\Application data\Blender Foundation\"
3-There no file for the default theme.

Blender has a user interface for creating, editing, exporting and importing theme files. You can find it under the File > User Preferences > Themes Window.
You can choose from the builtin presets from the dropdown on the top left, or create a new one based on the current using the + button to the right of the dropdown menu.
You can also import one from the Install Theme button bellow, or reset to the default.
Pressing Save User Settings on the bottom left will set the current theme as default for the next startup.


text:
How do I get pixel by pixel depth data out of a .exr file?
I have been trying to get pixel by pixel depth data out of a .exr file.  I am using blender and rendering with Lux Render.  I need to get pixel by pixel depth data, and have read that if I use the z-buffer in blender and render, then save it as a .exr file from Lux Render, there should be pixel by pixel depth data in the .exr file.  However, I have not been able to read the .exr.  I have access to Matlab.  Can anyone help me with this?

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it's about Lux render.

Yes, external renderers with Blender integration are ON topic. http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/questions/672/are-questions-about-external-render-engines-on-topic


text:
How to add a light to a live-action scene?
Is it possible to add a 3D light to a live action shot to "relight" the plate? say I want to add a colored light to a shot in Cycles to a live-action scene that is lit with a Tungsten light.


text:
Objects don't show up in the screen layout
I have several screen layouts that I have defined:  default, animation, UV, etc.
In some of them, after working in the layout for some time, some of my objects disappear from the scene, and won't show even if I unhide them.  They still show up in other screen layouts and in my outliner.  I assume I'm hitting a button or something, and it's not random, but I haven't been able to figure out what I'm pressing.  I have been able to get around this by deleting my screen layouts and remaking them, but I'm getting tired of doing this.  The objects are all on the same layer, and they won't show up even when I render.
Does anyone know what's happening?

Might you be in local mode? Press Numpad /

Yes, my thoughts exaclty

you might of hit H and they are hidden. check this by going to the outliner and seeing if there is a eye beside the object if not click where the eye should be or press alt h in 3d view. also check that the two other icons are visible in the outliner.


text:
Render stops after 1 frame. "Render error (Permission denied) cannot save: '0001.png'"
For some reason today I can no longer render more than 1 frame at a time. I was able to just fine yesterday. After successfully rendering the first frame, render stops and I get this error message:

Render error (Permission denied) cannot save: '0001.png'

I tried saving output to local drive instead of server but no luck.
I am using the "File output" node in the compositing node editor, and NOT using the render settings output path. I just tried putting something in the output path and leaving the composite nodes untouched, and now it renders fine but renders each frame twice (once for the File Output node, and once for the render settings output path.)
Why would I get this error?
I realize I've found a workaround where I just have to delete the extra renders, but I want to get to the bottom of this problem. ;)
Thanks!

The permission denied error is probably caused by the write permissions you set for the output folder and the user running the blender process (thus OS specific)
If you use the file output node AND click the render animation button both will save each frame, resulting in duplicates

This error can appears when you open Blender two times.

On Output property tab type /tmp\ into the Output file path.

This worked as a solution for me. Apparently not having any path in the Output folder field causes that error. As a matter of fact, by default there is "/tmp" as path, which I'm guessing sends those files in a temp folder that then gets wiped out clean. Thank you for this solution, should be marked as solution instead of downvoted.

What's the difference between Preferences > File Paths > Render Output and Output Properties tab > (input field)?


text:
Help with smoothing surface of mesh

How do I rid my mesh of its uneven surface. I tried subdividing the mesh, but I'm wondering why the rectangular geometry still persists after so much smoothing.

Did you use the modifier to subdivide it?

I did use the modifier.

I'm not sure how to get rid of the rectangles on the surface of the mesh.

Did you give your model anything else appart from subdivision surface?

sub surf modifier

It would be easier to know what the issue is if you posted a wireframe version of your mesh without the subdivision modifier.

Is it possible you could upload your .blend?

I will as soon as I can get to my computer.

Give your model Smooth Shading, go to (Tool Shelf) and under Shading section choose Smooth


text:
I'm having trouble making my model look good with a small amount of faces
Here a pistol that I'm trying to model for a game.

I watched a video where a guy made a whole rifle with way less faces than I have and his looked really good, while mine still doesn't look that great. I know part of it is just experience but there has to be something that I'm doing wrong that could be corrected.
Obviously there are a lot of unnecessary faces but I had to subdivide my model because there were some parts of it that were just looking horrible.  If you want to give me some tips that would be great or if you want to just link me to a really detailed tutorial that might help my situation.
Anything would help.
[

You probably need to learn about working with Subdivision Surface based meshes and adding control loops to control subdivision.
Try working with a lower poly version of your model as base mesh and add details only as needed dynamically with a Subsurf modifier on top.

That not only make modeling a lot easier and manageable, because there are a lot less vertex around to control, but also reduce polygons considerably.
You can control the number of subdivisions dynamically before exporting, without having to rebuild your model from scratch.
See tutorials about Blender Subsurface Modifier


text:
How to use texture paint in Blender Render
I had to use the edge split modifier and it makes my model IMPOSSIBLE to unwrap, so I just had to project from view, now its basically necessary for me to finish with texture paint but I have to keep it in blender render because the model will be going in a game.  When I select texture paint in blender render the model is just purple.

If you mean you applied Edge Split modifier then it's obvious that unwrapping will be more complex. Unwrap before applying that modifier (or remove doubles, unwrap and re-add modifier). As for pink texture painting - http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/31933/texture-painting-mode-missing-data-warning

Never mind I got it, I had to add a texture image then select the texture that I had on the UV map.


text:
How to I merge two objects so I can move them around as if they were one object?
I've seen other questions about merging objects, usually involving deleting faces from both of them and connecting them together. But that's not what I want. I just want to be able to control many objects together, using scale, movement, etc, as if it was only one object.
Does anyone know how to do this? It seems like it should be easy but I haven't found a good explanation yet..

Parenting


text:
How do I work with touching geometry?
Okay, I'm making something organic; a paw. The problem is, the toes of a paw touch. How do I make them touch and not go through each other. How do I then prevent removing doubles from merging touching toes, but still use that feature? I can't find the search terms I need for this subject. If someone could give me a means to find tutorials or other help on how to do this, that would be great.
Thank you very much for any help. :)

Not much of an organic modeler myself, but as far as I know stopping self intersections, and dealing with self collisions in animation is not a trivial task, posing challenges even for professional high-end professionals. To my knowledge perfect tangency is generally avoided, in favor of very-close-by-but-not-quite intersections. In organic models should not be very noticeable. Also play with the threshold value of the remove doubles operator


text:
How do I just move the nose in, not squash it?
I don't know how to delete my last question, so I'm just making a new one.
I'm making a mouth and nose. All I want to do is move the nose in a bit, but this happens:

How do I not deform the nose (under the mirror modifier) while moving it in?

What do you mean by move it in? Move it in on the face or shrink its width?

Disable Clipping in Mirror modifier. This will prevent vertices from cliping in the middle. After editing the nose, enable it back, cause it ensures middle vertices to be joined after applying the modifier.


text:
Make a 2D sprite from an object's shape
This involves using GIMP to get the shape of objects from Blender. How do I get the shapes of my objects, as seen from the camera view, and make them a single colour, with an invisible background? Is there a way to do this with total accuracy, and possibly as a vector image?
Basically, how do you do the computer version of tracing an object from a photo and colouring it in, all one colour, (with no outline afterwards), but with complete precision.
So, a blue vase, seen from an angle, would turn into something like this, but with an invisible background, not so pixelated and in GIMP instead of paint:

I'd rather not share my work (which is on my desktop PC, which has a broken internet connection) and have my idea stolen, so I shouldn't provide screenshots of it. Sorry.

In the "Scene" tab go to "Passes" and enable "Object Index". Then select the object you want and go to the "Object" tab. Under "Relations" you will find the "Pass Index". Give it a value, example: 1.
Then go to the compositor and add an ID mask node and a File output node like this:
Set the ID mask node to whatever your object's index is example: 1.
You will get a Black and white image of the silhouette of the object.
Make sure to have a decent resolution so that your image is not pixelated.
Hope this is what you were looking for.

In blender internal, you can check "shadeless" in the material.


text:
Retopolgy around eye holes
The mesh  needs retopologising, but I have the problem of the reotopologised mesh's eye holes not sticking to the edges of the eye holes in the original mesh. How can I fix this?

Thank you.

It looks like there is a small lip to the edge of the eyelid that your retopo is skipping through.  You are probably fine to just continue, retopo is generally for skipping detail like that.  If you want, you could capture that detail with a baked normal map.
If you are intent on modeling the small detail, I would add an edge loop in edit mode (ctrl+r)

It could the a subdivision modifier on the new mesh.
If so, then try selecting the new holes edge and play with the edge crease under Ctrl+E.


text:
Shrinkwrap modifier not using subdivision surface vertices
The reason the shrinkwrap modifier won't work properly is apparently because I have too few vertices in the relevant part of my mesh. (See my previous question.) However, I thought that the shrinkwrap modifier was using the vertices generated by the subdivision surface modifier. This doesn't seem to be the case.
How do I make my shrinkwrap modifier use the vertices generated by the subdivision surface modifier?
Thank you.

I think I might just need to make sure the original mesh is not hidden and I'm not on wire frame view for the problem to be solved. I added in an edge loop, but it only worked when I did those two things.

As cegaton said, the modifiers are a stack.  First in, first out.  The one on top should be subdivision.  After that, shrinkwrap.


text:
Splitting huge ngons
(Can't post images for some reason. Sorry.)
Combining two meshes resulted in huge ngons. I know I need to split the ngons, but I don't know the correct method for splitting them without creating artifacts when the subdivision surfaces modifier is applied. How can I do this?
Thank you.

Making faces inside them quads with proper edge flow. Without images or blend file I can't tell you more.

There is no "correct way", you should be concerned with your overall mesh topology instead. This may help http://topologyguides.com


text:
Creepy movment with IK
What is it that create this creepy effect

Seeing as we don't know what the model is meant to do, we can't tell what you mean by 'creepy'. Please be descriptive in what the issue is and what you are expecting to see.

I expect it to do something more useful than starting to float away.

Generally creepy movements are caused by the Ik target parented or constrained by a bone of the IK chain, so there is a loop: the Ik target moves the chain, which moves the target ..... An IK target should be parented to the root bone, or hips, or any bone which isn't part of the IK chain.

What should I start to remove to kill the loop

Whenever your bones kind of go off and do their own thing, 9/10 times it is because there is a cyclical dependency somewhere in your armature hierarchy.  The easiest way to diagnose this is to turn on the system console (Windows only, as far as I can tell).

From there, it will usually just tell you.

Fixing it is a matter of reorganizing your bone dependencies to not be self-referential.  What that means precisely depends on the model, but remember that an IK control bone cannot be parented to a bone it controls (i.e. a IK control foot cannot be parented to the shin it controls through IK).

The bone you're moving is parented to the bone that is controls. Just parent the bone that you are moving manually to the bone that is the parent of the last moving bone in your IK chain.


text:
How do I rotate bones along bone axis?
How do I rotate a bone along the bone axis? Nether the local or global help.

Normal axis should work here

NO. I know that it is exactly 90deg.

I meant normal instead of global or local. It does not work for you?

I did find it. I did probebly forget to reed and did just see R>>R

The bone in edit mode has no rotation. And that probably why you cannot obtain a local axis coordinates.
But you can set the axis to "normal" and (for instance) use 'individual origins' as pivot point to rotate it around X or Z.
To rotate it around Y, use the roll value on the panel on the right.

You can do it with 'local' (or normal) axis in pose mode. It will work for X, Y and Z (no roll here).
Once done, apply the pose as 'rest pose':


text:
How do I import export .nif
I'm trying to fix the items in Skyrim that I think is way to low poly and is stuck with a .nif that I can't find anything to open it with

Here's a link to an addon:
http://niftools.sourceforge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=5823
To install it:

Download the folder
Open User Preferences (Ctrl+Alt+U) and under Add-ons, click Install from File. Then navigate to the file and select it.
It should now appear in the window and you can tick the checkbox in the upper right to enable it.

Related: Installing an addon


text:
capillary waves and gravitational waves simulation
I'm a graduated physics student and I'm going to simulate capillary waves.I have recently tried COMSOL but I couldn't find any method or model which is related to fluid wave simulation and I spent pretty much time on it!After a little search I found Blender software and it seems promising.Is it suitable for my simulation?I need it to be accurate in physics details.

Try to include more information in your question, which aspects do you want to simulate, what kind of granularity / domain.  (edit your question with this)

dude.
I am still an undergraduated student but I've heard of a very promissing and free software called OPEN FOAM, which is very suitable to fluid dynamics simulation and it uses operators overload. I hope it may be usefull


text:
Assign Materials to specific faces in a mesh via Python
I have the following arrays (everything inside a structured array data):
Inside i have a struct called material, which has the following information:
face_start: The index of the first face that the material will be assigned
face_count: The amount of faces that material will be assigned to.
So for example: If face_start is 5, and face_count is 3, the code should assigned the faces 5, 6 and 7.
However it does not seem to apply, which i think it's an issue with the API and i can't seem to figure out properly how to assign said  materials to the specific faces.
This is how i am attempting to assign said faces:
bpy.context.view_layer.objects.active = obj
bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='EDIT')
#This is to set select mode to faces
bpy.context.tool_settings.mesh_select_mode = [False, False, True]

for j in range(len(data[i].materials)):
    #Here i create a material, for example:
    mat = bpy.data.materials.new(data[i].name + " Material" + str(j))
    obj.data.materials.append(mat)
    #After assigning all the material stuff, i proceed to assign it to the specific faces.
    obj.active_material_index = j #I assign the recently added material as the active one
    #I make a for loop where k is the first index (face_start) and goes to face_start + face_count, so it goes from face X to face X+Y
    for k in range(data[i].material.face_start[j], data[i].material.face_start[j] + data[i].material.face_count[j]):
        #I tried both of this, individually and at the same time, but none of them seem to work.
        face_list[k].material_index = j
        face_list[k].select = True
    #This should assign the materials to all the faces where select = True, but it doesn't seem to
    bpy.ops.object.material_slot_assign()
    #I deselect everything so the selected faces are not there in the next loop
    bpy.ops.mesh.select_all(action='DESELECT')

With changing things a little bit, i have achieved to either Assign all the faces to the very first material (aka probably nothing has been done), or it assigns all the the very last. But there doesn't seem to be an inbetween.
I'm probably not understanding the API properly, or there's something that i'm missing, but i'm a bit confused as of how to make it work to assign it to specific faces in a loop. What could i do in this scenario?
Thank you for reading!

Could you please make this a run-able example with data for the default cube.

Based on your description of desired effects I've put together a couple small examples of how you may want to approach this.
You didn't really show what your materials should be or how you have them setup in your data structure so I provided a simple function to make basic materials around a hue wheel.
The other 2 functions will either evenly distribute materials to the faces of an object or as you described given a face start and run length of faces apply a specific material index to those faces.
You need to have all the materials you want to apply to an object's faces assigned to the object, then you can assign the material_index.
import bpy
import colorsys

num_colors = 3
repeat_color = 2
face_idx = 2
runlength = 4
mat_idx = 2
obj = bpy.context.object

def make_mats(obj, num_colors):
    hsv=[]
    for i in range(num_colors):
        hue = i/num_colors
        sat = 1
        val = 1
        hsv.append((hue, sat, val))
    # clear current materials
    while len(obj.material_slots) > 0:
        bpy.ops.object.material_slot_remove()
    for col in hsv:
        if f'{obj.name}_{col[0]}' not in bpy.data.materials:
            mat = bpy.data.materials.new(f'{obj.name}_{str(col[0])}')
            r,g,b = colorsys.hsv_to_rgb(col[0], col[1], col[2])
            mat.diffuse_color = (r,g,b,1)
        else:
            mat = bpy.data.materials[f'{obj.name}_{str(col[0])}']
        bpy.context.object.data.materials.append(mat)

def assign_mats_even_dist(obj, repeat_color):
    for i, face in enumerate(obj.data.polygons):
        face.material_index = i // (repeat_color))%(len(obj.material_slots)

def assign_mats_idx_runlength(obj, face_idx, runlength, mat_idx):
    if mat_idx > len(obj.material_slots)-1:
        return {'CANCELLED'}
    faces = [f for f in obj.data.polygons if f.index >= face_idx and f.index < face_idx + runlength]
    for face in faces:
        face.material_index = mat_idx

make_mats(obj, num_colors)

#assign_mats_even_dist(obj, repeat_color)

assign_mats_idx_runlength(obj, face_idx, runlength, mat_idx)

Thank you! My main issue was assigning the ID's in the same loop as i was adding the materials, after i did it separate and structured it like you did, it works very well now. Thank you so much!


text:
Setting UV's of a mesh with an array of vertex coordinates
I've been trying to set the UV's of a mesh i created via code, and i have an array of vectros with the U and V coordinates, the problem is, the way to set up the UV's via the API seems to be via MeshLoops, which confuses me because, in this case, my mesh has 128 vertices, and on the UV Layer there's 384 Mesh UV Loops, which from what i understand, consist of one edge and 2 vertices in it.
This confuses me because this means there are repeated vertices in it, regardless of wether those verts are broken or not, and i do not know how to assign the texture coordinates to the proper vertices.
here's my code: (obj is the object that contains the mesh in it, and msh is the mesh itself)
            msh.from_pydata(data[i].vertices, edges, data[i].faces)
            uv_layer = msh.uv_layers.new()
            print(obj.data.uv_layers.active.data[0])
            #for j in range(len(obj.data.uv_layers.active.data)):
            for j in range(len(data[i].uvs)-1):
                obj.data.uv_layers.active.data[j].uv = (data[i].uvs[j][0], 1-data[i].uvs[j][1])

This obviously doesn't work, because i'm not assigning data[i].uvs array to the proper uvs on the uv_layer. How could i approach properly adding the texture coordinates to my mesh with my array? I'm not sure how to apply this with this API, and the meshloop doesn't seem to favor the way i stored my coordinates.
Thanks for reading!

Did you try looking at this thread? https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/30677/get-set-coordinates-for-uv-vertices-using-python
You can cycle through loops (as per second example in the accepted answer). Each loop has a vertex index. From there you should be able to map your vertex data to loops.
See https://docs.blender.org/api/current/bpy.types.MeshLoop.html for loop api

I've tried that, but the problem is, my model only has 129 vertices (which is the same number of texture coordinates i have), and there's 384 Mesh loops, which is the number of my faces (128) times three, so i'm not sure how to position each texture coordinate on each vertex that i have, is my issue.

Does the order of UVs in your array match the order of vertices in the mesh? If so, for every loop you assign it's uv based on the its vertex index. Not tested code:
ob.data.uv_layers.active.data[loop.index].uv =( data[loop.vertex_index][0],  data[loop.vertex_index][1]).
To clarify, as far as I remember, each face has a loop per vertex - this allows you to have multiple normals/uvs per vertex. In your case you only need a single uv per vertex, which can be achieved by setting the same uv value to each loop that corresponds to the same vertex

Okay, that actually worked! seems like the same vertices are grouped up together in groups of 3? Should i write my own answer or what should i do with the thread?

Glad it worked. I'm not sure about the customs as well, so I just posted the comment as answer. Accept it ant it will be it I suppose :)

Does the order of UVs in your array match the order of vertices in the mesh? If so, for every loop you assign it's uv based on the its vertex index.
ob.data.uv_layers.active.data[loop.index].uv =( data[loop.vertex_index][0],  data[loop.vertex_index][1])
To clarify, as far as I remember, each face has a loop per vertex - this allows you to have multiple normals/uvs per vertex. In your case you only need a single uv per vertex, which can be achieved by setting the same uv value to each loop that corresponds to the same vertex.
Answer based on Get/Set coordinates for UV vertices using Python


text:
I am writing a script to change a bone position on all my animations. Why doesn't my script work?
First off, I should warn you that I am a complete newb when it comes to scripting in Blender, so I might have made some really stupid mistakes in my script.
I want to move the ikHeelRight bone in my rig by one unit in the x direction, and one in the y direction, for every single keyframe in every single animation in my blend file.  Normally, I'd do this in the graph editor, but since I have upwards of 70 animations and I'm unsure if I will need to adjust a bone again in the future, I thought I'd write a script to do it.
I get no errors when I run this script, but it does absolutely nothing.  I have also tried this without the keyframe "For" loop, and it also does nothing.  I suspect that my script is failing to select the ikHeelRight bone, because after I run it, the heel bone is not selected at all.  I have checked to make sure I have the name of the bone and the rig correct.  However, I expect that's not the only failure point.  Here's the script:
    import bpy
    import mathutils

    bpy.context.scene.objects.active = ob
    bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='POSE')

    footRight = bpy.data.objects["Armature"].data.bones["ikHeelRight"]

    sce = bpy.context.scene

    animations = list(bpy.data.actions)

    for animations in bpy.data.actions:
        for f in range(sce.frame_start, sce.frame_end+1):
            footRight.select = True
            footRight.head +=Vector((1,1,0))
            footRight.tail +=Vector((1,1,0))

Thank you guys for any help you can give.

While the outline of your idea is right, altering the animation data takes a bit more. Firstly armatures contain two sets of bone data, one is the rest position that we change in edit mode when creating the rig, the second set is the pose bone data that we animate. The object.data.bones that you are using is the edit bone data. Using the pose bones found at object.pose.bones you could position and keyframe the bones but you will find that altering the keyframe data directly to be easier for your task.
An action contains a list of fcurves with each fcurve containing the animation data for one value, so there is one fcurve for the x location and another for the y location and so on, so you need to alter each value separately. Each curve has a list of keyframes that contains the frame and value used for the property that is keyframed. This leads to going through the fcurves of an action and looking at the data_path and array_index to decide if it is a value you want to alter.
If you are unsure of the data_path or array_index values, you can find them in the graph editor properties region.

To adjust the location of a bone in every action you could use the following.
import bpy

target_bone = 'ikHeelRight'

# Adjustments in (x, y, z) direction
adjustments = (1, 1, 0)

for act in bpy.data.actions:
    for fc in act.fcurves:
        if target_bone not in fc.data_path or 'location' not in fc.data_path:
            continue

        assert 0 <= fc.array_index < 3  # always good to make your assumptions explicit
        for p in fc.keyframe_points:
            p.co[1] += adjustments[fc.array_index]

The p.co[0] value is the frame number, so if you wanted to retime your animation you would change that.

I've taken the liberty to simplify the script a bit, in two ways. The first is to place the adjustments in a tuple (x, y, z); this avoids the triple if statement. The second change is to invert the condition inside the for fc in ... loop; by using a continue statement the rest of the loop body can be unindented a step.

I think I expanded that to demonstrate what each array_index relates to.  Also you changed p.co[1] to p.co[0] which will change the frame number not the keyed value.

Changing p.co[1] to p.co[0] was a mistake indeed. I think that adjustments[fc.array_index] is much clearer; otherwise you have to investigate three if-statements and their corresponding bodies before understanding that they all do pretty much the same thing. And array_index is literally the index into an (x, y, z) array.


text:
How can I compare already imported Fonts with the loaded filepath?

I'm working on a part of my plugin easyText.
(http://ranincodes.wix.com/easytext)

I want the import Font part to automaticly check if the Font is already imported. How do I get the name of the selected file (=filebuff)?
If it is, the font should not be imported

This is the part of the code wich is important for it
#Atribute
atr = bpy.types.Scene
atr.font = StringProperty(name = "Text Font", description = "Font of the Text")
atr.filebuff = StringProperty(name = "", description = "Choose Font to Import", subtype="FILE_PATH")

#window
class windowFont (bpy.types.Panel):
    bl_space_type = "VIEW_3D"
    bl_region_type = "TOOLS"
    bl_label = "Import Font"
    bl_category = "easyText"

    def draw(self, context):
        scene = bpy.context.scene
        layout = self.layout
        layout.label("Choose + Import Font")
        col = layout.column(align = True)
        layout.prop(scene, "filebuff")
        layout.operator("load.font", text="Import", icon="LOAD_FACTORY")

#button
class OBJECT_OT_buttonLoad(bpy.types.Operator):
    bl_label = "Load Font"
    bl_idname = "load.font"
    bl_description = "Import the choosen Font"

    def execute(self, context):
        scene = bpy.context.scene
        fontb = scene.filebuff
        bpy.ops.font.open(filepath=fontb, relative_path=False)
        return{'FINISHED'}

UI:

Thank you!

Instead of using the bpy.fonts.open(... operator you can use the load() command for Font Datablocks which has a check_existing property built in, which should do exactly what you want:
bpy.data.fonts.load(filepath=fontb, check_existing=True)

When check_existing is set to True if a font datablock already exists in the blend file from that path then it won't be loaded, otherwise it will.
For more information on why it is generally better avoid bpy.ops commands read here:
Why avoid bpy.ops?

authors: Алекс Монастырский


text:
How to Reposition an Empty Without Moving the Instances inside it?
I have a car model where the wheel instances are grouped under an Empty.  However, the Empty's position is not at the axis of the wheel where I want it to be for rotating..
Is there a way to position the empty without moving the wheel instances?

You could unparent them wheels move the empty then parent the wheels again

Thank you - I achieved the desired outcome by unparenting the instances with keep transformations, to reposition the empty, then reparenting the instances with keep transformations.


text:
Creating a bumpy model without any maps
I'm trying to create a model for 3D printing which needs many small bumps on it, meaning it needs to be in the physical model and not just as a bumpmap. Any tips on how I could create consistent bumps to my model?

you can use a Displace modifier then apply it, or even create random bumps with Mesh > Transform > Randomize, it depends a bit on the kind of object actually

Here is a tutorial that shows how to use a displacement map at 7:11. A displacement map is like a bump map, but it actually changes the geometry.

Geometry nodes solution (if you want regular bumps):

or a bit more randomized (scale + position)

This is an example of a sphere with some modifiers on it:

result:

Pefect! Thank you so much!

you are welcome!

@VDESC I haven't got a 3D printer, so I'm not sure about details... but to print it you of course have to apply the modifiers so that they become "real" geometry. And for the Geometry Nodes solution, if you apply it the small spheres will also have faces inside the big sphere, I don't know if this is a problem for 3D printing.

@VDESC Just a quick thought: for the Geometry Nodes solution, if you use a Mesh > Boolean node set to Union instead of the Join Geometry, the small spheres will not continue inside the big sphere, this might be better for 3D printing.


text:
Move the camera view display back to the center of the screen.
Something strange happened yesterday when I was working on a model. The camera just moved to the right in preview, and I have no idea what I did, nor what to search for. I'm not really sure what to do to get it back to the center..

As far as I know, there is no rule about that: you can shift the view even whilst you are in camera view.

In camera-view, press shift + middle mousebutton, then move your mouse and reposition your cameraview.
Alternatively your keyboard might have Pos1, works for you as well.


text:
Border rendering is not supported by sequencer (Render Region not the issue)
I've been having a problem that only popped up yesterday.
I was working on my model and suddenly I got the "Border rendering is not supported by sequencer" error. I looked up solutions online and it said to turn off the render region, so I did.
However, when I then went to render my scene, all I got in the output was a texture file that I had used in the model. I copied over every object and my camera to a new Blender file and then it worked for another 12 hours until the same error and the same problem appeared. Does anyone know what the issue could be, and does anyone know what could solve it that isn't "uncheck the Render Region box"?
I'm on Blender 4.1.0 beta so I'm aware this could be a beta bug, but I still want to make sure. I'm on it so I can use EEVEE-Next.

This question is similar to: Render result is completely blank. The reason #4 given in the answer applies here. You cannot render using the Render Region because the Sequencer does not support it. Which would be no problem if you would not use the Sequencer, but it will be used automatically (unless disabled in Post Processing) as soon as there is a strip in the sequence editor which is most likely the texture file that gets rendered. It that is not the problem it might be better to upload your file.

@GordonBrinkmann I'd completely forgotten I used it. Thank you so much.


text:
I want to make a stretch effect?
I'm trying to make an effect using the Blender Compositor, but I didn't know how to do it, and please I want the solution using the compositor not by adding more objects (Lens).
Here is a picture to explain what I want to do :

Here is an alternative that allows you more flexibility. You can use different textures for different effects.
In this example I have only used the X axis for side to side distortion but you could just as easily make a spherical shape with the Y axis as well.

I have also shown with the Curves how to edit the amount of distortion.
The color ramp (which is inactive here) is another way to adjust the distortion effect.
And here is the blend file

Could you send me the blend file please :) :)

Final result:

Composition nodes:

Overview:
I don't know your scene setup but mine is just plane with procedural stripes.
After render you just need to connect couple of sets - Lens Distortion + Scale nodes and adjust values as you like. X value will stretch pattern, Y is for straightening up after Lens Distortion.
Blend file:

You are a wonder and it is just what I need for Funky Pattern scrapbook. Thank you very much.


text:
Setting the texture's grayscale as alpha?
I have the following texture:

I am trying to make a a fading transparency on the part that is black, i could apply this in 3ds max with the "Alpha as gray" option, but i can't seem to do that in blender.

In theory, if i get the material right, it should be basically transaprent in the middle, and blue on the top and bottom, if that makes any sense.
I've been trying playing around with several nodes, with mix and color clamps, but i can't seem to get it right, any suggestions?

Are you using Eevee? There are a couple of switches to throw to tell Eevee to use transparency.

I tried both Eevee and cycles and i seem to get the same result. I don't know if this can be applied for both

Here is the way I would do what I think you're asking. I plugged to color data into a Color Ramp and plugged that into the Alpha channel. There is also a SeparateHSV node that might work well between the Color output and the Color Ramp. For Eevee, you need to go into Settings and set the Blend Mode. In the picture it is set to Alpha Blend.

Another way of doing it is to mix an emission shader and a transparent shader, assuming this is meant as a light. For this screen shot I added another white cube behind the blue object and turned on Eevee's 'bloom'

Yup! It is intended to be a light, so the light effect makes it even better, thank you so much! this is exactly waht i wanted!

Does this do what you want?

The image color is desaturated with a Hue/Saturation/Value node with Saturation set to 0. (You could also try an RGB to BW node.) The grayscale output is fed into the Alpha socket.
The ColorRamp is optional, you don't need it. You can use it to adjust how rapidly the gradient falls off by adding stops.
As always when doing transparency, make sure the material's blend mode is set to "Alpha Blend" or "Alpha Hashed".

Yes this is what i wanted! Both answers are valid, i wish i could set both with the green tick because they are both great! thank you so much!


text:
Animate a specific object on a specific Action with python
I've been trying to add animations such as positions, rotations, scale and so on, you know, basic stuff, but i can't seem to apply this to a specific Action, or if i do, the values don't seem to be associated with the transform of the object.
here's my attempt to make it work:
def animate(data, obj):
#print("ANIM PHASE - " + obj.name);
for i in range(len(data.animations)):
    print(data.animations[i])
    ac = bpy.data.actions.get(data.animations[i].name)
    if (ac is None):
        ac = bpy.data.actions.new(data.animations[i].name)
    #Initial transform
    print(ac)
    #obj.keyframe_insert(data_path = "scale", frame = 1)
    fc = ac.fcurves.new(data_path = obj.name + ".scale", index = 0, action_group = "")
    new_key = fc.keyframe_points.insert(0, data.animations[i].ini_sca[0])

If i do obj.keyframe_insert, while the keyframe gets applied, it just gets applied to a brand new Action, and if i try to do it via FCurves, it gets associated to some sort of custom value that does nothing to the object.
Maybe this is a bit confusing, but i have not found an answer that i can fully understand on other questions that were previously being asked. Does anyone know what detail i'm missing?
Thanks a lot!

I'm not sure what you're trying to do, but if you just want to insert keyframes, you don't need to explicitly access the actions.  You can simply add keyframes and they will be added to the action:  1) set the value you want to change, ie obj.scale and then call obj.keyframe_insert() but with frame set to the frame number you want the keyframe on, rather than 1.  What is data in your function?  (Example: object.location = (0,0,0)<return> object.keyframe_insert("location", frame = 1)

data is an array that contains my keyframes from a file format i'm working on, so it has for example, frame 5, position [1,0,0]. The issue here is that i have several animations, and i want to store them in different actions. so i do actually want to insert the keyframes in specific actions instead of just raw keyframes. That's my issue right now, i can either create normal keyframes like you specified without being involved with actions, or not put them in actions properly. Hope that makes sense


text:
Can blender be used to model an object from accelerometer data?
If I use the accelerometer in my phone to record data at 100hz, can I then use that data to model how my phone was moving during that time?
Would I also be able to get "kind of" accurate velocity from this as well?
For reference I am part of a dragon boat racing team and I am trying to find a way to appropriately measure the acceleration and velocity of the boat while my team is paddling.
I have successfully gotten the readings in python with pyqt and graphed them in real time (replay from the data) but I cannot see how to get the 3d object simulation like I would like to see in the end...

You need to solve two problems. The first is reconstructing the motion from the data. The second is visualizing  the motion. To reconstruct the motion, I'd suggest using both accelerometer data and gps data. The two can be combined in various ways. Kalman filters are one way to combine that data. You want to reconstruct the location versus time. Once you have that, you can use the animation nodes plugin to import the location at each frame and set the move an object.

ok I will look into combiming GPS data. BUT....assuming that I am not so concerned with GPS data and exact vector (I would assume that the boat is traveling in a straight line) Could I get the proper axis (X or Z?) acceleration and subtract the negative acceleration to get an estimated speed or am I missing something in the calculation?

You should be able to integrate the acceleration to get velocity, then integrate velocity to get the position versus time. Once you have that, you can animate the position versus time.

hmmm...@EdTate...since the phone GPS can be off by a factor of meters...say I had [1. Fixed starting point, 2. fixed ending point with accurate tripwire timer, 3. accelerometer data] would that be enough to do it as well without gps readings? I am worried that the GPS will be too wildly inaccurate.


text:
Issue with sculpting into cylinder
I'm trying to carve into a cylinder for a project due next week, but its not sculpting the way I need it. When I try it just leaves these tiny polygons behind (see image linked)
http://prntscr.com/d2ghhd
I'm not sure why its doing this, any help is appreciated

I gave you the answer for your question, but what exactly do you want to achieve with this? I bet there is an easier and cleaner way to do that without sculpting.

I'm trying to make it look like a the metal part on a no. 2 pencil (you know, the part that holds the eraser to the pencil)

It's not the best way to do that then.I edited the answer to show you how you can do it in more efficient and clean way.

It's because you have Dynotopo enabled in sculpt mode Tools option.It causes generating new geometry each time you use brush. Disable this option to avoid that.
And here is the way, you can make the element you need in much faster and easier way:

When I have Dyntopo off, it does nothing. I asked my professor about this and he said it has to be on. When I tried it (with Dyntopo on) on one of the school computers, it worked just fine, but on my PC, it does that.

Then you had smooth shading probably turn on on your school computer, and didn't see new geometry created during sculpting.

I see, thank you for the feedback and the tutorial :D


text:
Blender particle hair coloring problem cycles render
Im new to blender and I have a problem with coloring hair particles using cycles render. I used a vertex group to get the hairs sticking out of the scalp of the models head but when adding the colors the scalp is visibly colored as well and it looks really bad, is there a way to only color the hair and not the scalp?
Thanks!!]1

Well if you are simply trying to give the mesh object that has the hair particle system a different material than that of the hair strands itself, under the particle settings tab there is a section called Render where you can specify a different material for the hair strands than the emitter object.

I redid the thing a few times sometimes it works and other times the emitter and particles stay the same color, but thanks it worked :D


text:
UV texturing mesh object won't turn black in texture painting mode
Im following a video series by Darrin Lile (Texture painting part 1) my mesh doesnt turn black when I change to blender render, change from data to object, assign a new material, and switch the texture painting. Any ideas?
Thanks in advance!

are you sure this object is selected ?

Yes I am sure :)

It's likely that you don't have texture slot to paint on (warning about that and ways to correct are in the top of the T panel):

You have assigned material, set shading to GLSL, set Viewporrt shading to Texture and turned on Texture Paint. Thus the pink color - Blender's warning regarding to leak of texture, wasn't shown. If you switch back to Solid shading, you can see that the mesh is pink (tbh, this was the only way I could avoid of getting pink color in the beginning of the Texture painting). See why the textures are pink, or why the mesh is pink in Texture Paint.
I think it's quite handy to start this work being in the Solid Viewport shading. Then if image is missing you can notice that, while you'll see the texture in all details once it's added: