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Use a collection as object inputs in Animation nodes
i;m trying to use animation nodes for the first time. I've made a sub program which does what it's supposed to (scale objects up as a sweeper object goes past them in the X axis) , but How can i make it do this for all objects in a collection instead of having to put an object input for each object i want to affect?
Something like " for each object in Collection, set it as input for Subprogram"
I have hundreds or maybe thousands of objects i want this to apply to so its really not practical to add them all one by one.

Use a Loop Subprogram to do "for each something in somehing":

A huge amount of thanks, that worked perfectly, i just "changed objects from group" to "collection Info" because i'm in 2.8 and it doesn't seem to have groups here.

Hi, hopefully this question and answer is still live because i'm really struggling with the answer!  I have tried every way possible to pass the Collection list length into the subprogram - how do you get the 'Iterations' input on the Invoke Subprogram node?  Without it, i can't see how you get the loop to address each object in the Collection.  Any help will save my sanity . . . .!!

@StephenSamuels add Invoke Subprogram node, click New Subprogram and choose type: Loop. The node should have the iterations input. Then you go to the subprogram node and add a new parametre of type Object Group. If this does not work, what version of AN are you using?

@JaroslavJerrynoNovotny I've been messing around with animation nodes for about 2 years and that's the first time i've understood how to achieve an iteration input!  (i could have saved myself a lot of hair tearing if i'd asked sooner!).  What i have been doing is adding a loop node, defining the iterators and parameters and then creating an invoke node.  This then comes with inputs to match the loop node - an iteration input therefore missing.  By creating loop and invoke nodes together - before defining inputs - gets me precisely where i wanted to be.  Thank you Jaroslav, you've done it!


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How to mark seams for simple planes?
I'm new to texturing in blender and I've learnt how to unwrap cylinders properly. However, what is the correct/efficient way to unwrap simple faces? The face I've selected are distorted in the UV view (become a triangle). What's the reason behind that? Any help is appreciated :)

Please add details as to what unwrapping method you have tried that resulted in distorted faces.

It's likely that you haven't placed seams on the mesh properly and used Unwrap from U menu. In this case mesh parts near the seam can be unwrapped good, others will be stretched

Try smart uv project with angle limits at 90 degrees

Try applying the scale of your model, in object mode (Ctrl+A)>Scale

And then unwrap your plane again

The smart uv project worked for me (temporarily). I'll update this post if there are further issues. Thank you so much for you guys' help!

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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File format for exporting blender model
Most of the 3D models published online include file formats such as 3ds, max, obj, fbx for download, I wonder if obj and fbx files already allow users of all 3d modelling or animating applications to import them and use? What file format should be available for users to download online? Thank you.

.fbx and .obj files should be importable for most or any 3d applications.

+1 for .obj files

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

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


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UV unwrapping and efficient island packing?
I have been trying to unwrap my model after following some online tutorials on this topic, in the tutorial, the instructor said that all sharp edges should be selected and then marked as seams for whatever hard surface models you are making, is what the instructor recommend right? Because right now there are tonnes of small islands as shown in the photo (mainly placed near the boundary after I unwrap the model w/ all sharp edges marked as seams)
On the other hand, what is the 'correct' workflow in packing islands to make the UV map user friendly? Should I place islands that are of the same object together in the UV map to make it more intuitive for users(for example all selected mesh of my model in photo packed together in certain area of the UV map)? Or no one cares about the positioning of these small islands actually (I plan on texturing the whole model later)?

I am just learning this myself, but since nobody else has jumped in, I'll chime in with my 2 cents... I certainly don't mark every "sharp edge". It is good to mark at a sharp edge, but not necessarily "every" sharp edge. I try to mark along lines where I expect the texture to change, and I try not to mark through areas where the texture will stay the same, especially places like the middle of a floor or wall or other large flat-ish surface. The more patterned the texture is, the more obvious it will be if you mark across it (imagine a tiled floor where the middle of the floor has a line through it where the tiles don't line up).
This way it is somewhat easier to texture, and once textured, the seams are not so visible. Of course, this is not always possible without severe stretching, so in cases where I MUST mark across an area where the texture doesn't change (to relieve stretching/squashing), I try to do it at a corner (or sharp edge, like where a wall meets the floor) or a place where it will seem less noticeable (with the grain for a wood pattern, behind an obstacle, in a dark area, etc...).
I don't worry much about where the "parts" land on the UV map. It would be ideal if everything with a matching texture were to land close to each other on the map, but I have tried and not yet found a way to do that without extensive effort after unwrapping (open to suggestions). It's easier to pick through it while texturing than to move things around beforehand.
Like I said, I'm just learning this myself, so let's hope someone with more experience will pipe in with some really good tips.

Thanks for the help, I will try to put more focus on hiding the seams instead of just marking all sharp edges as seams, the unwrapped UVs looked better indeed.


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How to produce realistic wood material
How should I composite the material so the wood material would have depth? I've tried methods suggested by online tutorials like connecting the image texture to the displacement input of material output. Or using normal map of the image for realism, however the wood material still looks too flat for me. Is there any way to improve the material without immensely increase its polycount? Any help is appreciated.

The output socket of your normal map node should be plugged in the normal input of the upper Diffuse BSDF. The second Diffuse BSDF is completely unuseful, as the displacement input of the material output node expects a greyscale value (the socket is grey) and not a shader value (green sockets). For a better result you could also modulate a mix of diffuse and glossy shader, both with a reflections texture and the Fresnel effect, which gives you more reflections on the borders of your material (according to the angles of light reflections). At the end of this process you can decide if it's necessary to subdivide your mesh and add some displacement maps, augmenting the poly-count.


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'Grid-like' diagonal sculpting?
I'm new to sculpting in blender and I've came across this problem where any diagonal sculpt that I add to my cylinder looks 'grid-like'. However, horizontal and vertical sculpts are fine. I've tried to find solutions online but seemed few have discussing about this issue. Is there a way to make the diagonal sculpt smoother? The cylinder was divided 6 times up to a few million polycounts already. Any help is appreciated.

Judging by how many vertices you already have I'm guessing this isn't for real-time rendering. If you don't have  a super computer and cannot afford to subdivide anymore, you might find that with the sculpting option "Dynamic Topology" in the left toolbar during sculpt mode you can add geometry specifically where you sculpt on the mesh. If you think that works as an answer just let me know and I can put it in an answer.

That "grid-like" are polygons which started to be distorted a bit and corrupt shading of the mesh. The edge flow of the edges composing those faces doesn't correspond the curvature of the bulging sculpt..


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How to create a face out of edges
Is there any way to create a face out of these selected and enclosed edges in the screenshot? I have tried using the F key but the face overlapped part of the model. Any help is appreciated. :D

try Ctrl+F--> Grid_fill ( the settings are down in the tools panel )

This guy invented Cybertruck!

You definitely need more then one face to fill that side, I used six.
The best way to fill that shape would be to look at your model, and think about what edges you need where, then decide what faces should go where. You should be thinking about edge flow, and face loops for your entire model.
In this gif I added two edges on the bottom, then by selecting two edges at a time pressing F, filled the side with new faces.


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integration of blender file into webstorm?
I need help for my Final Year Project, I want to know that how can I integrate .blender file into my webpage? i didn't get any answer from anywhere. please I need help. answer it as soon as possible

You might want to take a look at these two: How can I use my Blender models in WebGL and Can Blender be used online for viewing and editing my 3D model?

If you want a hosted solution for presenting 3D models online you may look into services like p3d.in or Sketchfab
If you want an easy (as in GUI workflow) self hosted solution directly from inside Blender check out Blend4Web


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how to specify a scene to load in blend4web web player
How to specify a scene to load in blend4web web player?

The load attribute should be used to load a scene, this attribute contains relative path to a JSON file.
https://www.blend4web.com/doc/en/web_player.html#webplayer-attributes


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how to process 3d models in blend4web
well I want to implement on click changes in my blender model through html and blend4web.. kind of like dress up games where object changes on click.. Can we do that using blend4web web player?
please give the answer soon

Yes you can do this in the Web Player by leveraging the Logic Editor.
See the example
https://www.blend4web.com/apps/webplayer/webplayer.html?load=../../assets/interactivity/inherit_material.json
The corresponding source Blender file can be found in the free SDK.


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Subdivision surface problem
So I'm making a basic car model here for fun, but when I try to add the subdivision surface modifier for smoother body, the side of the car become what it looks like in the screenshot. Is there any solution to make the side look less bulky? Any help is appreciated. :D

Avoid ngons
Subdivision surface give "predictable" results when you are using quads.
Your car's side face is a ngon, so is not a quad, but instead 4+ faces poligon which is triangulated by the modifier and then smoothed by creating a vertex in the middle of each existing edge.
Depending on what you are exactly looking for, you should make some changes on your model's topology.

Thanks! I'll try modifying my model and see if that worked.


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How to create stitching by texturing?
How should I create realistic stitching on my 3D model's leather grip via texturing? I have tried doing so by making threads with meshes and duplicating them as a curve, which is suggested by many online tutorials but that raises my project's polycount too much. Is there a way to add stitching texture on top of my leather material of my model? Any help is appreciated.

Texture painting allows you to "paint" the stitching onto your model.

@Mr.Benson You use Cycles or Internal Render?

@Paul Gonet Cycles Render

@sambler I'll try out texturing painting though I'm new at it. I'll let you know if it worked out. Thanks for the suggestion.

You can also try to bake the stitching (modeled) to the cloth surface.

You may do it using a bumpmap. All you need is to create two textures.

Create a stitch image in photoshop or gimp and transform it into a brush (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGSK3Q0Iy3c). It's color should be from over 50% grey to almost white color.

Export your unwrapped UV Layout.

In photoshop layer it over a 50% grey color layer to see where to put stitches. Use your newly created brush to paint them on the grey color layer.

Use a method as shown here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbDA3XinISs

Now you have a bumpmap (let's call it BUMP).

You need also to create a black and white texture as pictured below (let's call it MASK). It'll act like a mask for mixing two different materials.

Set up the nodes as pictured below. We'll use a BUMP texture to create a depth to the stitches. Plug it to the Displacement input of the Material Output node. Add a Math-->Multiple node between them to control the bump size. Use a MASK texture to set a border between two materials (in this case jeans material and stitches material). Plug it to the Fac input of the Mix Shader. Now you have a full control over jeans (or leather in your case) and stitches shading within one cycles material using only textures.

Here's how the stitches present in final render. With the proper mix of Diffuse and Glossy shaders they may look quite convincing.

I may post an answer showing how to use @lemon 's concept also (baking normals), but I guess it is more time consuming as you 'll need to model all the stitches by hand.

Thank you so much for your detailed answer, but for me, my colour texture is actually a leather material created by nodes instead of a image, how should I connect the whole group of nodes of my leather material into the whole map???

In the same way as I shown above. Imagine that there're no jeans texture nodes there. Just replace it with your leather shader (plug your leather shader output into the Shader input of the Mix Shader).

I have made the texture I preferred at last, thank you for your answers so much!

Glad to hear that mate :). Thanks for upvoting.


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How To Create 'Hard Plastic' Material?
I'm new in texturing and I've been trying to create materials for my pistol model. However, for the grip part the plastic texture is undesirable as it is way too smooth when rendered. Ideally I want the material to look like this.

But for my own texture it looks like this.

How should I create the plastic material to make it look realistic? (With roughness on the surface) I have gone through the Internet but the tutorials mainly focused on creating glossy plastic which is not the one I need. Any help is appreciated.

Breakdown
Rough hard plastic or similar materials with slightly irregular surface textures should obviously have some sort of displacement.
Also, even if they are rough, they still have some sort of glossiness but it's more evenly distributed.
Base Material
The base material (blue box) consists of a diffuse color bsdf to control the base color, a glossy Beckmann bsdf to control the glossy color. The roughness that should be slightly below 0.5, everything above gets too evenly distributed and everything below generates too sharp glossy areas. The mix shader should have a factor that puts more stress on the gloss (0.75).
Displacement Material
The displacement material (yellow box) also generates some variation to the diffuse color. The Voronoi Cell Texture with a high scale is always handy when it comes to nice uneven distributed surfaces. It needs a Texture Coordinate node, since it gets generated per object and a Gamma Node to control the intensity.
Material Mix
Both the base material and the displacement material go into a mix shader. The gamma-corrected color value of the Voronoi Texture also gets connected to the displacement value of the Material Output node.
Node Setup

Result

This material is what I'm looking for, thank you so much for the detailed answer.

@Mr.Benson - you're welcome. Detailed descriptions about material setups and detailed observations about a material's properties  should go hand in hand IMHO.

Afaik it's better to mix those diffuse and glossy using Fresnel, plastic in particular.


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Subsurf modifier and texturing the UV
I am planning on texturing my object in substance painter, however, most of my objects (like the one in my photo with its UV map at zero subsurf level) have used subsurf modifier and the UV map of the same object before and after applying subsurf modifier are very different and I worry that people who download my model prefer using other subsurf levels but my texture maps are all painted at certain sursurf levels (e.g. level 2 subsurf).
What is the common practice in texturing objects that have used subsurf modifiers? Any help is appreciated.

you could apply the subsurf before unwrapping, obviously, to get perfect matching...

@m.ardito Thanks, but what if those who downloaded the model prefer a lower or higher subdivision level to be used? For example, I published a model at subsurf level 2 but the downloader somehow want level 1 or 3 during their render?


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Why my UV unwrap is messed up after joining all objects
My turret model is made up of a lot of separate meshes and I UV unwrapped them separately as well, each of their UV map is fine w/ acceptable stretching but after I join all objects together, then unwrap the whole object, some parts which have fine UV maps before became heavily stretched. What should I do to fix this?

Independent objects before joining them

After joining objects and unwrapping

why unwrapping again after joining? If you don't it will keep the original UV. Since you joined the different parts, unwrapping tries to optimize the combined meshes.

The heavy stretching of the highlighted part of my model still exist even I did not unwrap the whole object again after joining all meshes.

Only certain parts of joined mesh are selected hence it's unclear what was reunwrapped and how it was done (since selected islands intersect with other ones). Ngons will nearly always behave unpredictable when unwrapping (and not only), consider converting them to quads/tris. Check that scale is applied for both objects which are being joined.

Triangulating the stretched meshes worked. Thanks for the help!

did you try to select the object then "pack islands" ? it should keep everything the way it is, and change only the size to make the islands fit


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Excess duplicated object in array + curve modifier
I have been trying to create an ammo belt by the combination of array and curve modifier for a cuboid as shown in the image, the rest of the belt outside of the cylinder (ammo box) is fine but why are there some excess cuboids inside the cylinder? I have positioned the cuboid at the initial vertex of the bezier curve already. What should I do to remove those excess cuboids as the whole array of object start to went off the path of the curve when I try to move the first cuboid. Any help is appreciated.

Try moving your cube along one axis only to slide it along the curve. If that doesn't work, try switching your transform orientation from global to local or normal (at the bottom of the 3d view) and trying it again, either with the manipulator or by pressing G then the axis key twice.

Your first suggestion worked (moving along one axis only), thanks for your help!


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Array Modifier Rotation Problem
The array modifier worked fine for me when I was creating a tire for my model. However when I used it again on this small cylinder, I expect the modifier will rotate the cylinder around the cursor and duplicate them, but it created strange figures as shown in the screenshot after I set it to object offset. Any help is appreciated :)

There are two issues here:

The duplicated cylinder is not the same size and orientation as the original. This is because you have not applied the scale and rotation on the first cylinder.
Your cylinders are not being duplicated around a circular path because the origin point of the cylinder should be where the empty is. Snap the cursor to the empty and then select the cylinder and click Object>Transform>Origin to 3D Cursor. Then once you rotate the empty on the Y axis you'll get the circular duplication you want.


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Cutting a triangular pyramid at precise z coordinates
I'm trying to cut a triangular pyramid precisely into two pieces, a lower base part and the upper tip, as shown by the blue lines in the picture.

Vertices A B C must have the same exact z-coordinate.  So when the tip is cut away it will leave a perfecly flat (non-angular) surface.
I've tried subdividing and sliding vertices (Shift V) and trying to snap to a vertex in another mesh (with the required z coordinate), but its semms there is no vertex snapping for slide operations.
I also tried bevelling the top vertex to 0.0001 which allows using Edge loop and slide, but the same issue then occurs, ie no vertex snapping.
I could just add the vertex on each edge and then manually slide into place until I see the exact z coordinate, however I need to do this many times and it is relatively slow and error prone.
Is there a builtin way (or add-on) that simply lets us cut an object into two pieces precisely?

You can easily achieve this with a boolean modifier, using a plane.
Add a plane, set its height to be where you want to cut the pyramid,
then add a boolean modifier to your pyramid, set the plane as the object, and duplicate the pyramid.
One copy of the pyramid should have the boolean operation parameter set to difference (keep the top of the pyramid), while the other should be set to intersection (keep the bottom of the pyramid).
Apply the modifier on both copies to complete the process.

Great, that does the job thanks.  I've had issues with the Boolean modifier in the past messing up meshes and not working with coplanar edges.  But that was on more complicated meshes though.  Do you know if it has been improved/fixed recently (I'm using 2.74).

The boolean modifier has made huge improvements. I used to be scared of using it in any program (coming from older versions of Maya you're taught to avoid it at all costs). But I've been using it in many different applications since, scripting on complex meshes included. You just need to avoid some things that cause it to malfunction (non-manifold geometry, reversed normals, irregular scale and rotation) and you're fine.

For quickly cutting intersections in edit-mode, the intersect tool can be used for this.
Simply add a plane in edit-mode, access from the Menu: 'Mesh->Faces->Intersect' (demo video)

Advantages over bisect is you can intersect more complex shapes.
Advantages over boolean is it doesn't have to calculate inside-outside, its an editing tool instead. Also its less hassle to setup then boolean.Although they are really intended for different purposes.

Thanks.  4 ways to accomplish it, each with their pro/cons!  Still, this question will be a good reference for me (and others) in future. (That demo video is ok, but way too fast paced.  I think  Blender needs more tutorial videos and less demos).

Since this is a primitive operation, theres going to be a few ways to do it :), as for the video, it wasn't intended to be a tutorial - just showing that the tool was added to Blender.

Bisect
As stated by the Blender Reference Manual page:

The bisect tool is a quick way to cut a mesh in-two along a custom plane.

You can find the command in the Tools tab of the toolshelf while in Edit mode:

Select the interested faces (probably all) and draw the trace of a plane.
Once released the button you can tweak the cutting plane location and orientation in the operator panel:

For a cutting plane parallel to the XY plane you should set a normal vector of (0,0,1). By changing the plane Z position, you'll have full control on where to cut the pyramid.

Thanks, works well.  Boolean may be slightly quicker as I don't have to separate mesh.  When tracing the plane can you "snap" to  angle increments such as 5 degrees?  Then we wouldn't have to adjust the normal.

No, you can't snap angle increments. It requires precise vector values that you can calculate (e.g. 5° of rotation on Y axis => X=sin(5°), Y=0, Z=cos(5°)), but if you need some grade of interactivity because you don't know the final anglese, boolean operations are definitely the best option.

You may use a Knife Project tool.
Add an edge and place it at a certain distance from your pyramid.

Enter the orthographic view (5), choose the Front view (Numpad 1) and place the edge at the desired height. In Object Mode select an edge, then a pyramid and then press Tab to enter the Edit Mode. Now press (Space), type Knife Project and press Enter.

In Tool Shelf check the Cut throught box.

Delete the top vertex. Fill the gap with the F button.

Really helpful, thanks.  I had to use a plane as I'm not sure how to add just an edge.  I also tried cutting 3 objects at once, but it only works on the final selected object, is that possible?

Ash, if you want to add an edge just add a plane and delete its 2 vertices :). If you want to cut through multiple objects you'll have to join them first (Ctrl+J) and eventually separate (P) them later.


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.blend1 File Function
What does the .blend1 file do?
It automatically appears every time you create a .blend file.
I only use the .blend file.
When I double-click on the .blend file, it opens Blender.
When I double-click on the .blend1 file, it doesn't have a software to run the file.
What is the .blend1 file used for?

These are backup files of the previous save. Some related questions: http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/14413/599, http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/14101/599, and http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/3026/599


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How do I export my armature and pose library
I am trying to export an armature and a pose library from my .blend file so that they can be loaded in to any .blend file. The ultimate goal being to start with an empty file, load the armature, load the pose library, load the mesh to parent to the armature and take it through the poses in the library.
Thank you in advance for your help!

Save it in a .blend, then either Link or Append it to the new file.

I find it easiest to open two instances of Blender. One for the scene I am working on and
one that has the model/material/rig, etc.
You can copy from one running instance of Blender to another using the Copy and Paste keyboard shortcuts.  Ctrl-c then Ctrl-v

This works well because you can select everything that you want from a scene all at once without having to dig through Blender's file navigation dialogue.
If you transfer an object that has rigging, the armature will go with it even if you did not select explicitly select the rigging.
Materials and textures will transfer over as well.
You can use this for Light and Camera setups and probably several things that still have to be thought up by someone.
BTW.  Even though OSX uses a slightly different key-combo for Copy and Paste, Command instead of Ctrl; both tend to work because Blender was programmed to recognize both.

When you open a .blend to append or link (recommended method) you will see the internal file structure:

Menu: File append / link
Select the poslib from the action folder
Menu: File append / link
Select the rig from the object folder (not armature)

After that you can select the poselib in the properties:

Note that pose libraries are just actions and can also be found and edited in Action Editor Mode of the Dopesheet.
If you decide to use linked files, you might also be interested in the Edit Linked Library addon which must be enabled in the User Preferences and allows to switch quickly between your work- and library .blend file.

Related:
how to copy a rig to another mesh


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Can Blender build proxy files with transparency?
I'm editing multiple sequences of png with transparency, but the preview is very slow (8fps).
I tried to use proxies, but it seems that Blender can only generate jpeg files with black background.
Is there a way to use png files as proxies?
Any help is appreciated!

I've found this solution:
Blender looks for jpeg files, but actually you can use PNG files with .jpg extension.
This is my workflow:
1. Create resized copies of the render images:
25% > 1920 x 1080 -> 480 x 270
2. Change all the extensions from .png to .jpg
Assuming that the render path was:
/User/render/def/barca/b.png

the Proxy Directory in the VSE Panel was
/User/render/proxy/

I've used ffmpeg to create a scaled copy of the render files.
Open terminal (I'm on Mac) and type:
cd /User/render/

ffmpeg -i def/barca/b-%04d.png -vf scale=480:-1 proxy/images/25/b-%04d.png_proxy.png

than rename all the files
cd proxy/images/25/
for old in *.png; do mv $old `basename $old .png`.jpg; done

(thanks: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14887275/changing-file-extensions-for-all-files-in-a-directory-osx)
Here's a rough script that sets all the strips
import bpy
C = bpy.context
C.scene.sequence_editor.proxy_storage = 'PROJECT'

C.scene.sequence_editor.proxy_dir = '/path/for/proxy/'

seq = C.scene.sequence_editor.sequences_all
for s in seq:
    s.use_proxy = True
    s.proxy.use_overwrite = False

    # I ONLY NEED PROXY 25%
    s.proxy.build_25 = True


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Height map tiling: what is it due to?
I'm creating a script that produces height map from a mesh.
Testing it, I remarked strange rounded tiling... so I thought it was a bug in my code (again...), but comparing the result with another map taken from the web, it is similar:
my texture on the left, the web texture on the right:

And the corresponding images:
Mine:

From the web:

These tiles appear only at a given subdivision of the grids and above, not if too low.
What is it due to?

What you are seeing is stepping from using a limited colour space.
A 24 or 32 bit colour image uses 8bits for each channel (RGB/A) which gives you 255 possible values for each channel. If you open your gradient in the uv editor and right click on it you will see the x,y and RGB value of the pixel under the cursor. Make sure your zoom is at least 100% and see how many pixels next to each other have the same RGB value. You can find some spots that have more pixels with the same value, which is where you see the flat spots on your model.

By opening your gradient image in krita you can convert the image to use a 32bit float bit depth (gimp only supports 8bit channels), if you then blur the image and save it as an exr, then using that image you will see a smoother surface deform. Bluring the image will change the curve so you want to start by creating the gradient with a higher bit depth.

PNG, TIFF and JPEG2000 support 16 bit channels while OpenEXR supports 16 and 32 bit float channels. That is assuming blender's procedural gradient texture doesn't match the shape you are after.

Thank for these explanations. I did not guess that conversion as I created the image from ray casts using float/distance values (bpy.types.Image)... so I was not imagining it was somehow converted back to integers RGB. Is there a way to keep the float format for the displacement?

If you are creating it in blender, just save it as openexr or try a 16bit png.

Do you know if creating the image with float_buffer = True here https://docs.blender.org/api/2.78b/bpy.types.BlendDataImages.html#bpy.types.BlendDataImages.new is equivalent to openexr ?

OK... float_buffer works. Last point to do: better sampling, anti aliasing or blurring... but this is another story! Thanks

Only relevant as you create the image. If you save out to disk or pack the image, the image format causes the conversion.  You will find this question relevant.

Not sure what is really the underlying cause, but I figured out how to reduce the artifacts.
It seems to be related to the image filtering interpolation method.
Turning on Interpolation and increasing the Filter Size property seems to reduce the effect noticeably.

Thanks... well for now I don't know which answer to validate: yours provides a solution, @sambler's one provides explanation...

Well since the original question was "Height map tiling: what is it due to?" I guess he deserves the medal, my answer doesn't really explain what it is due to. :)


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Scaling only the height of a parallelogram plane
Still learning Blender so sorry if the answer is obvious but I seem to have hit a mental block on this.
How do I scale a parallelogram (a plane) to give the result of halving its vertical (Z) height?

In the image:

Left: The starting plane
Centre: The result of scaling using: S Z 0.5
Right: The result I want.

I can get the result I'm after in Edit mode by just moving the lower vertices upwards (the rightmost shape above), but I want to do be able to do this from a script in Object mode.
I've tried moving the center of rotation and origin to the center of the top edge before scaling, but it makes no difference.

I have a script that I think accomplishes your mission: http://web.purplefrog.com/~thoth/blender/python-cookbook/scale-parallelogram.html
import bpy
from mathutils import *

def share_vertex(e, horiz_edge):
    return e.vertices[0] in horiz_edge.vertices or e.vertices[1] in horiz_edge.vertices

def horiz_score(vector, axis):
    v2 = vector.copy()
    v2[axis]=0
    dz = abs(vector[axis])
    if dz >0:
        return v2.magnitude/ dz
    else:
        return float('inf')

def most_horizontal_edge(obj, axis):

    mesh = obj.data
    global_verts = [ obj.matrix_world*v.co for v in mesh.vertices ]

    score = None
    rval = None
    for e in mesh.edges:
        v1 = global_verts[e.vertices[0]]
        v2 = global_verts[e.vertices[1]]

        s2 = horiz_score(v2-v1, axis)
        if (score is None or s2 > score):
            score = s2
            rval = e

    return rval

def scale_parallelogram(obj, factor, axis):

    mesh = obj.data
    horiz_edge = most_horizontal_edge(obj, axis)

    global_verts = [ obj.matrix_world*v.co for v in mesh.vertices ]

    if True:
        other_verts = set(range(len(global_verts)))
        other_verts.difference_update(horiz_edge.vertices)
    else:
        other_verts = set()
        for e in mesh.edges:
            if share_vertex(e, horiz_edge):
                continue
            other_verts.update(e.vertices)

    #print("%r -vs- %r"%(horiz_edge.vertices[:], other_verts))

    z1 = [ global_verts[i][axis] for i in horiz_edge.vertices]
    z2 = [ global_verts[i][axis] for i in other_verts]

    z_all = [ v[axis] for v in global_verts ]
    delta_z =max(z_all)-min(z_all)
    z_change = 0.5*(1-factor)*delta_z

    delta_v = Vector([0,0,0])
    delta_v[axis] = z_change

    #print(global_verts[0])
    mwi = obj.matrix_world.inverted()
    if (min(z1) < min(z2)):
        delta_v = -delta_v

    for i in horiz_edge.vertices:
        mesh.vertices[i].co = mwi * (global_verts[i] - delta_v)
    for i in other_verts:
        mesh.vertices[i].co = mwi * (global_verts[i] + delta_v)

    #print(mesh.vertices[0].co)

    mesh.update()

#
#

x_axis=0
y_axis=1
z_axis=2

for obj in bpy.context.selected_objects:
    scale_parallelogram(obj, 0.5, z_axis)

Thanks, I'll try it out.  Do you know why scaling the parallelogram doesn't give the result I'm after?  I'm guessing Blender uses a mathematically correct scale but it is not what I want in this situation?

yeah, blender's scaling performs a transform like z' = az+b, but you want z'=z+delta  where delta varies for the top and bottom edges.

You could also get what you want manually in this way:

in edit mode, select upper or lower edge
ctrle  edge slide
press .5 enter

I don't know how to use this approach in a script, though, and you need to get into edit mode, anyway, so this is not a solution, but just to give you another idea.

As I've had no answers or comments (yet) or further information on if this is possible to do by scaling, I decided to write a python function to automate moving the vertices in global coordinates.
def SetVertexGlobal(objectName,vertexIndex, targetLocation):
        obj  = bpy.data.objects[objectName]
        mesh = obj.data
        vert = mesh.vertices[vertexIndex]
        mat_world = obj.matrix_world

        pos_world = mat_world * vert.co

        if targetLocation[0] is not None:
            pos_world.x =targetLocation[0]

        if targetLocation[1] is not None:
            pos_world.y =targetLocation[1]

        if targetLocation[2] is not None:
            pos_world.z =targetLocation[2]

        vert.co = mat_world.inverted() * pos_world

'vertexIndex' is the index of the required vertex to move in the mesh of object.
You can find out the index  by typing: bpy.app.debug = True in the Python console.  Then, in edit mode on your object, enable 'Indices' in the Mesh Display of the Information panel.  Slect a vertex to see the index.
'targetLocation' is a 3 item array containing a global X Y Z to move the vertex to. Pass None to ignore X Y Z, eg. [None, 4, None] to move the Y coordinate only.


text:
Why isn't my animation working?
fellow blender users.
I recently learned how to animate and I created a simple moving cube and that worked fine. Now I want to apply an animation to a lizard that I've modelled for a game. The lizard walks with its square legs shrinking and growing. So I've applied the scale keyframes (Because the legs are growing and shrinking) but the animation doesn't work! Please help.

Did you set up at least two keyframes? Are you sure that you have enough intermediate keyframes that lets the program understand that you are moving?


text:
Importing point cloud to Blender?
I have developed a 3D scanner, this is a relatively fast scan of a big space.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHAK1L_AQig
The scanner works great. it Provides text files in X; Y; Z format
The only program I have succeeded to import this is Meshlab. Now trying to import to Blender via Meshlab in .ply format. Something gets imported but it appears as a sphere, I just can not find a way to get this right, any help would be appreciated.
Here are the files https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B7y_Hbr29sx8WFppMjhZUm5ZR1k
.TXT directly from scanner and .PLY converted with Meshlab. both open ok on Meshlab, but not on Blender, see the Image.

Not totally related to your question, but can you share how you built your 3D scanner?  That's something I've been wanting to do; seems like there are a lot of different ways of doing it and I'm trying to figure out what direction I want to go in.  Thanks!

ply file imported.  Scaled as indicated in image below.

I see now it was just misreadings around the sensor I was viewing originally. Must remove those.

Would there  be a easy way to import X; Y; Z ASCII format directly without going trough Meshlab, Or maybe I should look into making the scanner to generate a PLY directly...


text:
batch rendering multiple audio strip files
I have some edited audio strips inside sequence editor and I want to batch render them because rendering them one by one will take an eternity.
so I thought of writing a simple add-one to do so and I mean what can go wrong!
this is a how my audio strips are

they each have at least one empty frame between them and the cuts with no empty frame are going to be one file. I decided to make those a meta strip since I use the Strip_jump command for setting render frames.
also if not obvious, its my first time writing scripts inside blender so yea
here is what I got so far:
import bpy
from bpy.types import Panel, Operator

    #make a panel in the sequence editor
class AUDIOSTRIPEXPORTER_PT_main_panel(Panel):
    bl_label = "Batch Audio Strip Exporter"
    bl_idname = "BATCH_PT_export_audio_strip"
    bl_space_type = 'SEQUENCE_EDITOR'
    bl_region_type = 'UI'
    bl_category = "Export"

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout

        layout = self.layout
        layout.use_property_split = True
        layout.use_property_decorate = False

        rd = context.scene.render
        ffmpeg = rd.ffmpeg

        layout.prop(rd, "filepath", text="")

        if ffmpeg.format != 'MP3':
            layout.prop(ffmpeg, "audio_codec", text="Audio Codec")

        if ffmpeg.audio_codec != 'NONE':
            layout.prop(ffmpeg, "audio_channels")
            layout.prop(ffmpeg, "audio_mixrate", text="Sample Rate")
            layout.prop(ffmpeg, "audio_bitrate")
            layout.prop(ffmpeg, "audio_volume", slider=True)

            layout.operator("audiostripexporter.strip_export")

class AUDIOSTRIPEXPORTER_OT_strip_export(Operator):
    bl_label = "Export"
    bl_idname = "audiostripexporter.strip_export"

    def execute(self, context):

        strip = bpy.ops.sequencer
        strip.strip_jump(next=True, center=False)
        bpy.ops.anim.start_frame_set()
        strip.strip_jump(next=True, center=False)
        bpy.ops.anim.end_frame_set()
        bpy.ops.sound.mixdown(filepath='filepath', codec='MP3')

        return {'FINISHED'}

classes = [AUDIOSTRIPEXPORTER_PT_main_panel, AUDIOSTRIPEXPORTER_OT_strip_export]

def register():
    for cls in classes:
        bpy.utils.register_class(cls)

def unregister():
    for cls in classes:
        bpy.utils.unregister_class(cls)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

but ofc it doesn't work and gives me this error:
Error: Python: Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "\squencer_batch_audio_export.py", line 49, in execute
  File "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender 2.92\2.92\scripts\modules\bpy\ops.py", line 132, in __call__
    ret = _op_call(self.idname_py(), None, kw)
RuntimeError: Error: The file couldn't be written with any installed writer.

so how should I go about fixing this error and the add-one?

well after a lot of testing I was able to do it and wrote something that does the trick for me
here is the code, it not perfect but it works :)
import bpy
import os

#set the directory to where the blend file is
basedir = os.path.dirname(bpy.data.filepath)
# if the blend file is not saved, operator wont be called
if not basedir:
    raise Exception("Blend file is not saved")

# the panel in the UI of sequence editor
class AUDIOSTRIPEXPORTER_PT_sequencer_panel(bpy.types.Panel):
    bl_label = "strip exporter"
    bl_idname = "EXPORT_PT_exporter_panel"
    bl_space_type = 'SEQUENCE_EDITOR'
    bl_region_type = 'UI'
    bl_category = "Export"

    def draw(self, context):
        layout = self.layout

        row = layout.row()
        rd = context.scene.render
        layout.label(text="Strip Exporter")
        row = layout.row()
        row.scale_y = 1.0
        row.operator("export.audio_strip_exporter_operator")

# the export operator
class AUDIOSTRIPEXPORTER_OT_sequencer_operator(bpy.types.Operator):
    """Exports all the strips separetly"""
    bl_idname = "export.audio_strip_exporter_operator"
    bl_label = "Simple Object Operator"

    def execute(self, context):
        layout = self.layout
        strip = bpy.ops.sequencer
        selection = bpy.context.selected_editable_sequences
        select_num = len(selection)
        bpy.ops.sequencer.select_all(action='DESELECT')
        number = 1

        for each_strip in selection:
            # name the file here, the code will add a number to each file like: FileName_001, FileName_002 ...
            name = "FileName_" + str(number)
            # joining the file name with the directory name for saving
            fn = os.path.join(basedir, name)

            bpy.ops.anim.start_frame_set()
            strip.strip_jump(next=True, center=False)
            bpy.ops.anim.end_frame_set()
            bpy.ops.sound.mixdown('INVOKE_DEFAULT', filepath=fn + ".mp3", container='MP3', codec='MP3')

            number = number + 1
            strip.strip_jump(next=True, center=False)
        return {'FINISHED'}

classes = [AUDIOSTRIPEXPORTER_PT_sequencer_panel, AUDIOSTRIPEXPORTER_OT_sequencer_operator]

def register():
    for cls in classes:
        bpy.utils.register_class(cls)

def unregister():
    for cls in classes:
        bpy.utils.unregister_class(cls)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    register()

now as I said its not perfect so you have to change stuff to fit your needs
and remember:

it renders the files to the folder where the blend file is
you need to put cursor at the beginning of the first strip
add at least a few empty frames between each strip
you have to change the export name in the code

thats all I think

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


text:
How can I zoom/rotate view while I use brush select?
How can I zoom or rotate view while I use brush select (c)? Because scrolling adjusts brush size and the middle mouse button deselects, respectively

I think you can't. Unless you have a 3Dmouse I guess.


text:
What advantages does Blender Render have?
What advantages does Blender Render have? I personally always use Cycles Render, because I think the rendered material looks more realistic and node shaders are easier to use.

Cycles is more advanced and realistic. BI is simpler to use, if you don't require much realism and need a quick material setup. Also, I've once asked a question where I was getting noisy results in Cycles, but plausible and good-looking ones in BI https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/31088/noise-reduction-in-tight-area-in-cycles

Cycles is not really Animation Ready as of yet, that is, despite it being far easier to create physically accurate photorealistic scenes compared with BI, the far greater render times for larger scenes don't lend themselves well to animation, or are less desirable. BI is also based on a scanline rendering method, and ends when the render finishes. Cycles however is based on a progressive rendering method, and gradually gets less noisy overtime, stopping when the user tells it to. :)


text:
How to set up custom controls - Pan using Mouse 4 + MMB
I would like to change my user preferences to pan the 3D view using Mouse 4 button + Middle Mouse Button and dragging it. This is the same as SHIFT+MMB. I would like to use Mouse 4 instead of shift.
I am using a Logitech G5 mouse which has 2 extra buttons on the side and I would like to use them. The buttons are recognised in Blender, that's not the problem. In Blender it is referred to as Button 4.
In User Preferences under the Input tab under 3D View I have created a new shortcut. I have tried multiple possibilities but none seem to work.
I tried copying the same as the shift+mmb entry and replacing shift with Button 4 but that doesn't seem to work. I have tried using view3D.view_pan (as in the shortcut using ctrl+mouse wheel) but that also doesn't seem to work. I have tried the press and click and numerous other options, also changing Middle to Move instead. none seem to work.
I have saved my settings as default and am using a custom preset.
Am I missing something?
edit: I am using a new custom preset. Besides this new entry, everything else is set to default.
updated picture: expanded view3d move modal

Settings for default shortcut SHIFT+MMB

note that the shortcut says "Button4 Mouse Middle" as opposed to "Middle Mouse". I don't know why. This might have something to do with it.
Or as mentioned in the comments, maybe Blender does not support mouse buttons as modifiers.

Below the expanded entry, there's View3D Move Modal, which belongs to the above entry. Make sure it's the same as for the default Move view keybinding (and adapt for Button4).

Interesting.. I tried this on linux, however blender does not seem to allow mouse buttons as custom modifiers.

It doesn't accept any mouse button as key_modifier here, how strange. Even tried to re-bind it via PyConsole: >>> C.window_manager.keyconfigs['Blender User'].keymaps['3D View'].keymap_items[3].key_modifier = 'BUTTON4MOUSE' # -> 'NONE'

Count me in on that question. Does mouse button 4 have some priveleges the other buttons haven't? Miva2, how did you make blender accept the button?

Just to be clear, button 4 did work as the main button (not as a modifier)

@CoDEmanX, I haven't touched it. It looked fine. Screenshot above.
@gandalf3, That would be really strange and illogical. The button is placed perfectly for use as a modifier and there is a separate box for custom modifiers.
@Haunt_House, What do you mean exactly with privileges? The button isn't used anywhere else. This is the only custom shortcut. I just pressed the button and it works.
I have noticed that in my custom shortcut it says "Button4 Mouse Middle" while the default says "Shift Middle Mouse"

I mean, you have Button4 written in the field next to Alt and Cmd while I cannot do that with any mouse button. I click it, the field says 'press a key' and I do and it stays blank unless it's a keyboard key.

Out of curiosity, why do you want to use MB4 + MMB instead of just using MB4 to pan? If you have five buttons I would think that would be sufficient...

Haunt_House, I clicked that field and pressed my mouse button. It worked.
@WChargin, That is also a possibility. I just prefer to use it as modifier instead of pinning a single action to it. I believe i tried that and didn't work. Might have filled in the fields wrong that time.

As far as I know, you can't use a mouse button as a key modifier, but only keyboard keys. (I don't know how you have set up "Button4" in the input)
"Button4" is only available in the drop-down list of mouse buttons :

This makes button 4 move the view, OP said they wanted only a combination of button 4 and MMB to move the view. ("I would like to change my user preferences to pan the 3D view using Mouse 4 button + Middle Mouse Button and dragging it")

Very strange. It just worked for me.
Yes, I wanted to use Button4 as modifier. I believe I have tried this and it didn't work (but that might be because I did something wrong)
Will look into it more.


text:
Combine depth images from two cameras using the world matrix
In my simple scene I have a very simple model and two cameras. From each camera I know the external parameters Pi (from bpy.data.objects['Cam0'].matrix_world) and both have the same internal parameters K. Additionally, I have one rendered depthmap (z-buffer) per camera.
From the depthmap I should be able to generate a point cloud X, with Xi = Pi^-1 xi, where x are the pixel scaled with its depth. However, if I combine the point clouds, they do not match, because they one is rotated away from the other.
Is P the used projection matrix (excluding K), especially is the rotation of the camera correct in terms of what I want to achieve?
EDIT:
I have uploaded a example that illustrates my problem. From the setting in the blend file I have generated two depthmaps (are both contained as exr and as ascii txt). Further, the Matlab example visualizes the rotation errror. Example

If the point clouds rotate apart than the transformation is wrong, when Xi are in world coordinates what is the rotation center? Perhaps you could add a .blend containing your cameras and the point clouds. From my understanding Pi would transform say a cube at the origin to the position and orientation of the camera Pi^-1  would apply the inverse transformation.

See also this paper http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-12232009-222118/unrestricted/Short_NJ_T_2009.pdf page 13pp.

I have uploaded an example.

You are doing all the calculations in mathlab , I couldn't convert the ascii files with meshlab (meshlab.sourceforge.net) for use in blender. I would have give it a try if I could do it in blender instead of mathlab (I don't have). Now the question seems to be off-topic.

The problem can also be visualized (with the same scripts) with Octave, which is open source.


text:
How to read pixels of a video from python API?
How to access pixel values in a video footage frames from python API?
Sequence or clip editor? Or loading data directly perhaps?
I'd like to make a primitive laser 3D scanning addon utilizing same principle as
http://en.myinventions.pl/index.php?page=3Dscanner
Edit: Ok, half way there - able to load file, but can read only the first frame.
Is there a way to change frame?
import bpy
img = bpy.data.images.load('H:\\Data\\_blender\\Fluid\\Video_Edit.mov')
print(img.frame_duration)

#getting data
pixels = list(img.pixels)

#testing data
tmp = bpy.data.images.new(name="sample"+str(frame), width=w, height=h, alpha=False, float_buffer=False)
tmp.pixels = pixels

Note, while Im sure this is possible to do, this is not at all something the Python API was designed to do, so probably some workarounds to force updates for an image will be needed to have this working as you would want.

@ideasman42
It seems it's not possible directly:
https://projects.blender.org/tracker/?func=detail&atid=498&aid=37216&group_id=9
Still, probably there's some way through canvas of image or sequence editor? Don't know if those are accessible.
Sure, API of a 3D app wasn't developed for that :) But it can give quite interesting possibilities.

Though not officially possible (https://projects.blender.org/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=37216&group_id=9&atid=498), I found a dirty workaround:
import bpy

frameStart = 1
frameEnd = 155
frameStep = 50
viewer_area = None
viewer_space = None

for area_search in bpy.context.screen.areas:
    if viewer_area == None and area_search.type == 'IMAGE_EDITOR':
        viewer_area = area_search
        break

if viewer_area == None:
    viewer_area = bpy.context.screen.areas[0]
    viewer_area.type = "IMAGE_EDITOR"

for space in viewer_area.spaces:
    if space.type == "IMAGE_EDITOR":
        viewer_space = space

path = 'H:\\Data\\_blender\\Fluid\\Video_Edit.mov'
img = bpy.data.images.load(path)
w = img.size[0]
h = img.size[1]
viewer_space.image = img

frame = 1
for frame in range(frameStart, frameEnd, frameStep):
    viewer_space.image_user.frame_offset = frame
    #switch back and forth to force refresh
    viewer_space.draw_channels = 'COLOR_ALPHA'
    viewer_space.draw_channels = 'COLOR'
    pixels = list(viewer_space.image.pixels)
    tmp = bpy.data.images.new(name="sample"+str(frame), width=w, height=h, alpha=False, float_buffer=False)
    tmp.pixels = pixels

img.user_clear()
bpy.data.images.remove(img)

I managed to get the pixels of a certain frame, but several condition have to be met (it's a bit obscure why all this is needed):

The Image datablock needs to be used by an 'IMAGE' texture
That texture needs to be selected in the Properties Editor's texture tab (doesn't matter if an object is selected or if it's the world texture context)
Properties Editor's Texture tab needs to be activated (before every frame change!)Area.spaces[0].context = 'TEXTURE'
Set Texture.image_user.frame_duration to the desired frame
Read the pixels like Texture.image.pixels[:]

Maybe it's worth to rather create a sequence and set the timeline frame instead...

It seems texture images don't get updated until script finishes, thus frame change has no effect.
Also it seems there's no way to define what frame to get through image. I wonder if its just overlooked function or there's internal obstacle for this.


text:
car drives in direction of already defined path, how can I control this path using usual controls
I rig a car with this tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_bgexISCSA and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JOp2WJvIkw. The direction of driving depends on the already defined path. I want to make a game using this. How can I modify the path using the usual controls (left arrow and right arrow for turning, up arrow for accelerate)

Assign vertices of the path to hook empties?

the car moves forward, so then the path is going to be very long?

I mean that the empties move forward along with the car, but the already defined path is finite, so we have to append it?

Do you want to control it in realtime?

yes, because I want to make a game, so I thought of the path that could behave as a snake in a snake game http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/32101/make-path-move-like-snake-in-snake-game

If you want to make it in a game, consider using physics

But, can I use the same rig?

Maybe not, however i don't think using a curve will work very well for you


text:
Best way to make a transformer with a car, so use the shape keys or use the armature for parenting?
I'd like to make a transformer. I start with a car. There are three ways of doing this:

using shape keys (my car consists of one object, but more than a single mesh) and keyframe the influences
use armature (my car consists of more than a single object and each object consists of a single mesh) and parent each object to a bone (CtrlP)
use armature (my car consists of one object, but more than a single mesh) and parent each vertex group to a bone.

In the 3rd case, what is the best way to achieve this:

name the vertex group the same as the bone so they are automatically matched and parented
or use at each bone a Bone constraint, use as object 'car', and use the wanted vertex group?

I'd suggest using an armature, particularly for rotations. See http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/7189/599

if your meshed don't change "shape", but are only transformed (of course in this case :D ) "shape" keys are not suited... but sometimes there could be is some action (or cheating), doing this sort of things, and some mesh could change (maybe slightly) its shape... in that case you could use both armatures and shapekeys, where is appropriate.

authors: Віталій Яцук


text:
How can I bake the cloth simulation into keyframed vertices or shape keyed vertices?
I'm simulating a cloth. How can I bake the cloth simulation into keyframed vertices or shape keyed vertices?

If you look in the Modifiers section of the properties you will see an Apply button (you probably don't want that one) and an Apply as Shape Key button.  That's the one you want.
After you have turned the cloth shape into a Shape Key, you will have to go to the mesh section and dial up the influence of the new Cloth shape key to 1.0 to change the cloth into the shape that you "baked".

Just a note since I was having a devil of a time finding it: In Blender 2.9, the buttons for applying a modifier are in the drop-down to the right of its view toggle buttons.

If you want a single frame, see Mutant Bob's answer. If you want the entire cache, select your cloth object and export it as an .mdd or .pc2. You can then bring this cache back in using the Mesh Cache modifier, or you can import it as a series of shapekeys (1 for each frame.)

This is what I want :D So indeed bake the entire cache, but how can I export my object as .mdd or .pc2?

File > Export > Lightwave Point Cache (.mdd.) If the option isn't there, enable the addon under preferences > addons. But it should be on by default. I'm not sure if that exporter does the selected object, or all visible objects. If you try to import it and you get a vertex count mismatch, it's probably the second. In that case, you can isolate it by putting that object on it's own layer and turning off the other layers.

@Drudge Hello! I'm looking for a way to convert the cloth simulation in my scene into shapekeys animation, in order to transfer it from Blender to Maya and other 3D editors. Could you describe this process in more detail, please?

@Drudge How can I import .mdd or .pc2 as a series of shapekeys? And how can I save the result as FBX or other format, suitable for other 3D editors like Maya?

Select your object, then go to File -> Import -> Lightwave Point Cache (.mdd). If you don't see it there, go to User Prefs and enable it under Addons. To save as FBX, File -> Export FBX

also, you can import .pc2 to shapekeys with this wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/… ("import as file" from user preferences > addons), you'll get a shapekey for every frame, already animated: edit as you like

@Drudge Thank you for explanation! Unfortunately, I have problems when using .mdd. I describe them here: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/42910/how-to-bake-object-with-cloth-simulation-and-subsurf-not-applied-having-troub
There I ask the question of how to bake cloth simulation, as well as apply subsurf to the result, but also I describe there a problem that I encountered after importing .mdd of a simple object with a cloth simulation (without subsurf), maybe you know how to fix this problem?

@m.ardito Thank you! I had problems when I used .mdd. I describe them here: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/42910/how-to-bake-object-with-cloth-simulation-and-subsurf-not-applied-having-troub  I want to try .pc2, maybe it will work. I activated the addon, but now I can export in .pc2 format, but the option to import .pc2 does not appears. How can I turn it on? And could you please send the link again, the link in the previous message is leading to a nonexistent page. Thank you!

@Maxim sorry to be late, that link was truncated pasting it, here it is  working (hopefully) http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/Import-Export/PC2_Pointcache_import (I tried this and it worked)

@m.ardito Thank you! I downloaded the script and put into Blender add-ons folder, but I cant find it in the list of add-ons in the user preferences, even after restarting Blender. Sorry for such a question, but I almost never worked with Github, to download the file I used the RMB - "save file as" option, and received the io_import_pc2.py file. Is it the correct way to download the script or in this case, the script is downloaded incorrectly?

@m.ardito By the way, here I discuss the process of baking cloth simulation: http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?387794-How-to-transfer-Blender-scene-with-cloth-simulation-to-Maya-and-Houdini  I still have some problems, and I added a simplified version of my scene in my last post in that topic. If you will have any ideas - I will be very grateful for your advice.

@Maxim as I said above, you should "import as file" from user preferences > addons

@m.ardito I tried this way too. And there were no error messages, so it seems that the import was successful. But I don't see this addon among other add-ons, and the option to import pc2 not available. http://postimg.org/image/w9i9ztde7/

Just to add yet another reference on this subject, there is tutorial about it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roRaaG_D9d8

There is an alternate way which seemed easier for me, as I only needed 2 shapes. (I tried some other methods first.)
1. Simulate your cloth and bake as desired.
2. Duplicate the cloth mesh, move it slightly above. Remove cloth simulation, shape keys, ... to get just a plain mesh.
3. On the timeline, go to the frame you want for the cloth shape.
4. Select the duplicate cloth and add a Shrinkwrap modifier. Shrink to the original with the shape. For example, "project negative Z". Fine-tune until it looks right.
5. Apply the Shrinkwrap modifier as a shape key to the copy. It will be removed from the stack. You can test it by turning up the influence of the shape key.
6. On the timeline, go to another frame with a cloth shape you want.
7. Repeat 4 and 5 as many times as needed.


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How can I bake the material from cycles render (with diffuse, glossy, emission, transparent, glass and translucent nodes) and use it next time?
How can I bake the material from cycles render (with diffuse, glossy, emission, transparent, glass and translucent nodes) and use it next time? According to http://www.blender.org/manual/render/cycles/baking.html I added in every material an image texture and then pressed the Bake button, but it doesn't work.

Can you describe what exactly is not working? Could you add a screenshot of your material setup? What do you mean by "use it next time"? As far as I know, you can bake only 1 image texture at time whit the built-in function.

I mean I would like to know how to use the baked image as material for next time if I want to render


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Keyframe or parent separate meshes in same object?
I know I can use keyframes and use parent-relations in meshes in individual objects. But is it possible to keyframe or use parent relations to separate meshes in the same object (maybe when I use vertex groups)?

Yes.
Use vertex groups and armatures.
If an armature can move an attached hand of a human body mesh then it can also move disconnected sub meshes of a Blender Mesh Object.
Parent the mesh to an armature.  Use weight painting if necessary.  Armature need not to be connected. Think of the armature as a collection of controllers and not a mechanism to control an organic mesh model.


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WIll modifying an essential python file cause data loss in blend file?
I reinstalled Blender freshly from blender.org and I noticed that, after working on a file, the size of destination folder where Blender is installed has increased and I don't know if this usual. Because the size of this directory has changed, this brings me to the question: can I modify/remove/add some python files (which are essential) by accident by just working normally on a blend file?
In case of removing or modifying a python file, will Blender continue working (and there is chance of data loss in my blend.file) or will Blender give an error and quit immediately?

As far as I'm concerned No Yes No and No ;) But you can't be 100% sure, always can happen "something", so make sure to save your work every now and then.

I did save the files, but I don't know if modifying an essential python file cause data loss in the to be opened blend file (like the data loss can have when you open a new version file in an older version of Blender) :)

You can't have a data loss until you save your file. Blender will give an error as soon as missing essential file is accessed. How it will behave greatly depends on what is missing. It can crash, or just give you an error, but I'm quite sure it can't just continue like nothing happened.

Well… There are several questions here actually:
I. Is it normal that the installation directory of Blender grows after the first launch?
YES: Blender is only distributed with “pure” python files, the first time those get used/executed, the python interpreter will sort of compile them into an intermediary “machine language” code (similar to assembler, but universal and that still has to be interpreted by the python engine, not directly by the processor). You can find all those .pyc files in special __pycache__ directories next to all py modules (UI scripts, addons,.etc.).
See also this thread and the official py doc.
II. Can I modify some Blender's python files by accident by just working normally on a blend file?
NO: Usual editing of a .blend file will never touch anything on your file system. Unless it has been manually and maliciously crafted to do so, of course (a .blend file can easily execute arbitrary python code, which means it can wipe out your whole system if it wants to) - that’s why in .blend opening settings you have an option to “trust” the file or not.
III. Can I modify some of Blender scripts such that they delete and/or corrupt data in .blend files?
NO in general, but YES if you really want it. @Vitaliy already answered the general case: modifying “randomly” some script files of Blender is highly unlikely to have any bad effect on your saved data, it is much much more probable that it will just very soon error.
However, it is possible to modify a py script such that it breaks saving valid data (the simplest way to do so is to register a save_pre handler, and in that handler to e.g. delete all scenes or other nasty things like that. You can also generate invalid data (broken mesh, etc.) that will crash Blender on next load of the file, but that’s not so obvious to do. But yes, if you really want to, you do can break saving of .blend files from py script, like pretty much anything else in Blender.


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25% Proxy on 2k video and 2fps, what did I do?
I am editing mostly 2k video footage in the vse (edited down to about 40 seconds or so). I have set 25% proxies and set the scene preview to 25%. This allowed me to preview at 24fps (the fps of the footage). However I added a new strip (that for some reason I can't get a properties window for - will be a separate question). Then I couldn't preview at 24 fps, so I removed the 4k video and none of the strips previews at higher than maybe 10 fps. I have tried deleting the proxies and rebuilding, with no change. Restarting didn't help either.
FYI this is on a PC in Windows with 2 X5650 processors (XEON 2.66ghz 6 core hyperthreading) and 24 gig ram and a 2T hdd.
What did I do and how can I fix it? 2fps makes editing pretty impossible.

Have you increased the sequencer memory cache limit in the user preferences:  system tab , middle column bottom?

Yes, that is set to 16,000. I also have global undo set at 128 steps if that makes a difference.

I'll try Davinci, but I really want to use Blender. Maybe I'll just have to use both for their respective strengths. It just adds a whole new layer to the learning curve.


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How to create an object with both emmision and diffuse or reflective properties?
Imagine two opaque plastic spheres with small light bulbs inside of each that aren't too bright.  They should both emit light, but also be partially illuminated even more by the light emitted from the other one.  So, hiding one of the spheres should make the other less bright and vice versa.  I would prefer to use the Cycles renderer.
It seems like I can only choose between using emission or diffuse material.
P.S. I'm a newb at Blender but know the basics.

I'm wondering if what I am looking for is not physically possible.  I'm imagining a glowing ball that seems brighter when another glowing ball is close to it.  Is that natural?  With Daniil's solution, by the time you make the balls bright enough to reflect off of the other, they are so bright that it doesn't matter if they are close to one another or not; they glow brightly at whatever distance.

Make them shading properties visible
I think that your problem doesn't rely on the shader itself, which can be simply made by a mixed Diffuse+Emitter shader, but on the ability to make their properties come out.
Two sphere in an emty space are not enough. To show how a material is emissive I would suggest to put some obect around. See how the dffusive semispheres next to the main geometry help to show that both spheres are emissive, and with different intensity.

Another tip is to avoid using mono-component colors. That's why you see a node to lower the saturation. If one object is fully diffusive (red rgb = 1,0,0) and is hit by a blue light (rgb = 0,0,1) it will not be visible, as none of the object points can react to that light. They share no component.
Notice in the image above how the red sphere is more bright in proximity of the blue one.

You can plug a Texture Coordinates node from Reflection to Mapping node, mapping node to Math node set to mulptiply connected to ColorRamp and connected to another Math node set to multiply plugged in a Mix Shader node, in the Mix Shader connect Emmision Shader and another Mix Shader With Diffuse as the First Shader and With Translucent as the Second shader

The Result

There is supposed to be two spheres.

You could mix Diffuse and Emission shaders by Mix node, using constant amount of mixing or based on surface normal, different ray factors, or even custom texture.

Doesn't work. With your setup, set one of the spheres to 100% diffuse and 0% emission and the other sphere to the opposite.  Set one sphere to red for both diffuse and emission and the other sphere to green for both. The 100% diffuse sphere will go black when it should reflect some light from the other.  EDIT:  Ah, have to turn-up the strength of emission way over the default value of 1, to like 200!

Yeah, light power factor outside standard [0,1] often do miracles, HDR environments for example.


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Cannot apply image to material
I am watching a tutorial on how to UV map a model and I have this horse I created.

There should be a section named 'Surface' beneath the section named 'Preview' which is required to select the image. I have tried restarting blender and it just isn't there. I really hope that I don't have to re install blender.

Sounds like the tutorial is using Cycles, but you are using Blender Render.

@gandalf3 Yea I just remembered seeing a render option at the top and when I switched to cycles render the surface option that was missing appeared so I guess that cleared the mystery thx. If it isn't too much of a bother could you help with my new issue >.< http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/35225/blender-wont-allow-me-to-select-a-single-bone


text:
How would you go about making a model transform into another model?
I understand the gist of model animations and rigs and whatnot, but say I want to make a druid-type character. It would normally be a humanoid but I'd like to make an animation that could allow it to, say, transform into a wolf. Is such an animation possible or is that something that would happen entirely in the code? I'd imagine it would require some sort of system for mapping the geometry of the humanoid model to the wolf model but I have no such knowledge.

You may do it using shape keys. Take a look at this tutorial: https://vimeo.com/16783367 and this answer: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/80868/transforming-morphing-one-objects-shape-into-anothers

@PaulGonet ok I guess this process is far easier than I ever thought, you can make an answer and I'll accept it.


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camera track - was good, but breaks after editing an object
First, I'm a newb to tracking.
That said, I tracked my scene with a .3 solve rate.
I dropped in a cube and rendered out a short animation... looked great.
I readjusted the position of my cube... nothing more... and now my track is broken.
All tracking points were locked, I did not resolve the scene... just suddenly my object is wobbling all over in the render.
Going back to my LOCKED tracking points, they are no longer staying put.
Anyone else seen this?  Has happened on 2 machines, same reproduction steps.
This last one was first time I tried locking the tracking points.
Memory issue?
Thanks...
Blend file
Original footage (40mb

Blend and footage above.  1st render here: http://www.legacyoffun.com/download/stackexchange/blender/good-render.avi

Sorry for the confusion, renamed it when collecting files... 00014.MTS = Footage.MTS

No changes at all


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how to drag , move , elongate object in blender on mac
I have installed blender for  making small logo . I have no prior idea of blender . The challenge i am facing is only PC i have is mac.
I am facing problem in moving  , dragging deleting objects on blender + mac.
As i do right click on cube( selected object)  in upper right window hierarchy , i m unable to see delete option. But on windows it shows delete  option in pop up menu.
Also , i m facing problem in changing shape of object ... i don't use mouse . Can  some one help me with the menu option where i can set length  width height of any object selected .
Please help .
Thanks in advance.

I suggest you watch a video tutorial series .  Here is one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY6KPrc4uMw   [].  This site is not focused on tutorials.  Please take the time to clarify your statement. I find your problem statement unclear.  Others may find it clear.  I do not currently operate on a Mac.  The [delete] object  also on the menu bar.  You might consider temporarily borrowing or buying an economical mouse if your mouse does not operate as expected.  You stated [click] and then stated [don't use mouse],   so I find that difficult to understand.

On a Mac Book Pro in the Blender “Outliner” move your cursor with the scratch pad over an object and while pressing “Command” and then clicking the scratch pad will open a drop down menu with options including “Delete”.

With your cursor in the 3D Viewport pressing “N” will toggle on and off transform options. In “Object Mode” move your cursor to an object in the 3D viewport and then while pressing the “Command” key click the object with the scratch pad to select it. Then hover your cursor over the appropriate Transform input field and click in it with the scratch pad. You can then enter numeric values to make changes in your object.

authors: Виктория Медянская


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How to bend my screw to the shape of an S
I want to take my image of a screw (i.e. rectangular almost 1-D) and bend it to the letter S (for "Screw").
Note that I don't only want to distort it, I really want the head to point in the direction and angle of the upper start of the S and the end to point along the end of the S, i.e. along the vector a pencil would move as the end is drawn.
Can anyone help accomplish this?

Why no subdivide the image, a whole bunch, then rig it with armatures? you can rotate/move the armatures and the image should behave similarly to how you are describing.

Use the images as plane add on. Insert your image plane & browse to your desired image, then sub-divide it up. Add a lattice. Then on your image plane use the lattice modifier, and select your lattice as the reference object inside the modifier. Then manipulate your lattice to have the S-Shape that you desire.

Looks like as good a method as any.

Is it possible to rotate pieces of the lattice? I'd like the top to be more forward facing.

Absolutely, I'll modify my answer to include the blend, that way you can see what its made up of. As far as the lattice, go into edit mode like you would a mesh, and select its vertices. Then you can Move/Rotate all you want.

The blue scaled cube with many loop cuts has Curve Modifier.
Consider

Curve Modifier

With much more difficulty

Armature Modifier
Spline IK Modifier with an armature


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Can I import DXF files,exported from Gerber? The DXF file is AAMA file
I am trying to import DXF files exported from Gerber but it is not importing the content.
I used following settings:
- Replace scene
- Remove duplicates, Limit 1.00
- Merge All
- Thick ON
- Codec- ASCII
Do I need to choose a different settings?

Is the Outliner showing a completely empty scene? Could you privide a sample file? Blender should be able to import DXF files, but maybe that format has peculiar characteristics...

I remember having problems getting DXF files into recent versions of Blender. Try using Blender 2.49b because I believe it has a different DXF importer - one that was not maintained by the developer in versions beyond that. Again, going from memory here and I could be wrong, but give it a try.


text:
How to invert f curves?
So I am currently making an audio visualiser and I want it so that when a specific frequency hits the object will be black. Currently, whenever a specific frequency hits it is white. This means I have to invert the f curves. Is there a way to do this?

When you say 'frequency', you mean a specific pitch or tone, right? If the curve in your sample image is the waveform curve, you'd have to compute the Discrete Fourier Transform on the curve in order to transform the audio into the frequency domain. However, the result would not be a 2D F-Curve, but a 3D surface.

Yeah. I have the same problem, except that I need to change the shape of something. Is there a way to invert the f-curves themselves?


text:
How come my object doesn't show up after rendering?

Basically my problem is, I can see the objects and player model perfectly fine in editing, but as soon as I render the image, the screen goes black. How can I fix this? I am new to blender so screenshots will help.

hard to tell. Could you post the .blend file

Do you have any lights in your scene?

I want to tell you the answer is easy when I look at the image you posted. Your camera is facing the background and not the character. When you hit render you render what the camera sees and not the current view in the viewport. That's why you don't see anything. Select camera and press Numpad 0. Your view will be moved to the camera view. Now you'll see that character is not visible. Go to the bottom panel of 3D view and press View -> Navigation -> Walk Navigation. Now use the keys WASDto move your camera around until it looks at your character, and then press LMB(and not RMB otherwise your camera will reset position). Now you can press F12 to render and your character will be there.
If you still don't see it, then you need to add a lamp to your scene.

what is the WASD?

Keyboard keys - W, A, S and D. Like when you play most of games;)

walk navigation without ground?

It is in 3D view - a special feature for easy placing camera at your desired position. It has no ground data. It is for navigation not for simulations.

last time i tried it, a ground was necessary, good to know :)

You can use "Align Active Camera To View" from the View>Align View menu.

(Keyboard shortcut is: ctrl+alt+Numpad 0)


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Viewpoint coordinates
Is there a way to set the 3D viewport coordinates directly? I find I spend a lot of time fighting with the viewpoint and would rather type in some values.

Are you refering to setting different views while using blender? Front, right, Left, Top, etc?

Yes, but mainly the User Pers.

Why not store it as Camera objects? That is their intended purpose after all.

I'm building a model for a game, not a scene to render. Adding camera objects may interfere with the conversion to other non-Blender formats.

I don't see how. At worst you would get a few unwanted Camera objects after export that you could delete, which can easily be avoided by not exporting them in the first place (use export selection only, untick cameras, hide them, move them to another layer, or scene). Other than that you could probably use python scripting to save and load a few preset coordinates, there may even be scripts around that do this already.


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Scene description language
Does Blender have a scene description language (SDL) that I can view and edit in real-time? Something like JSON or XML? Often, I can work faster with text than a GUI.

The bpy module and the API provided by Blender is pretty close to a scene description language.
Switch to Console Editor.
Now you can interactively make modifications to the scene.
The bpy module is already imported into the console.
>>> list(bpy.context.scene.objects)

[bpy.data.objects['Point.002'], bpy.data.objects['Point.001'], bpy.data.objects['Point'], bpy.data.objects['Cylinder.006'], bpy.data.objects['Cylinder.005'], bpy.data.objects['Cylinder.004'], bpy.data.objects['Cylinder.003'], bpy.data.objects['Cylinder.002'], bpy.data.objects['Cylinder.001'], bpy.data.objects['Cylinder'], bpy.data.objects['Suzanne'], bpy.data.objects['Plane']]

>>> bpy.context.scene.objects['Suzanne'].location.x = 1
>>> bpy.context.scene.objects['Suzanne'].location.x = 0

C is an alias for bpy.context, so you can also do
>>> C.object.location.x = 0

You can keyframe object properties (In the example below we are adding a keyframe on x location attribute)
The data related to the scene can be accessed from the context directly.
>>> C.scene.frame_current = 1

>>> C.object.keyframe_insert('location', index=0)

>>> C.scene.frame_current = 25
>>> C.object.location.x = 5
>>> C.object.keyframe_insert('location', index=0)

Links to some important blender python API modules

https://docs.blender.org/api/current/info_quickstart.html
https://docs.blender.org/api/current/bpy.context.html

Blender has an extensive Python API that allows to access and modification of much of it's data, not sure if it fulfills your purpose.
It also has a DNA/RNA based data structure that describes the scene and all of the .blend file structure.
Also see https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11961557/what-is-an-rna-or-dna-property

Are DNA and RNA abbrevations? I really miss the documantation about these concepts.


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Blender rig not working correctly. What do I do?
I apologize if I've made any mistakes prior to encountering this problem, I'm still new to rigging.
Alright, so I made a model and rigged it, but every time i rotate/grab a bone, the mesh doesn't follow correctly.

Here's the blend file: http://www.mediafire.com/download/ny2yon0s53ibpyf/wonkyrig.blend
I've tried asking on other sites, but I've had no luck. I would really appreciate the help. Thanks in advance.

Is your model as one object ?

@IgorTatarnikov Yes, the only 2 objects are the model and the armature.


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Black shadows on Faces, not a normals thing
this is the first time I've used this website, sorry if I dont organize the post wrong. I've been using Blender for a couple months now, so I'm not too terribly new, however, There are these weird black shadows on my model and its driving me crazy, as I cant get rid of them. They're not a normals issue, as I've already recalculated them and it's not that. Does anyone know what causes this? Its in object mode, by the way. It happens anywhere.

Its probably a problem with the way I modeled it or something, as it's happening around these sharp edges. Here is it in edit mode.

Here is it in edit mode. Does anyone see anything wrong that I did? I'm sure I did something wrong.
Thanks so much for your help.

That is caused by the smoothing. Add a subdivision modifier or a bevel modifier.

Oddly enough this actually is a normals thing.. The normals are interpolated at the sharp corners, almost as if the surface was rounded. This causes the dark colors mapped to the sides of the model to bleed around and appear on the front. Try adding more geometry (e.g. supporting loopcuts)

This occurs because you have smooth shading applied to your model. To resolve this, ensure affected topologies are selected, go to the Tool Panel T goto 'Shading' section select 'Flat'.
You can also apply an 'Edge Split' modifier, found under the Modifier tab in Properties Panel. Split edges need to be marked, once selected, with Ctrl + E. Dragging the mouse up/down to define amount.
You may also add more Geometry to the mesh. Either manually with 'Edge Loops' Ctrl+R or by adding a 'Subdivision Surface' modifier, also found in the Modifier tab in Properties Panel.


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VSE. Textures missing when combining video clips with 3D scene
In addition to a few video clips I have added a scene with a 3D model to my video sequence editor. Now the final render of the video does not appear to have rendered several settings that I have given the objects in that scene such as the materials for instance. Does anyone have an idea what might be causing this?

Objects don't render if there's a video on the VSE.

Is there a way around that?

Thanks for the answer but I can't see a change. To be clear it's not just the preview that's missing things but the final rendered video.

It's okay. I can just render out the scene as a sequence of png images and insert those into the sequence editor. It's more cumbersome and means that not everything is contained in a single file but it works.


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Transparent Plane Still Casts Shadow
In cycles render I have a RGBA movie of a man waving that I'm using as a texture on a plane.  Using nodes, I can make the alpha channel transparent, but the plane is still casting its rectangular shadow on the plane behind it.  I want only the man's shadow on the back plane. Is there a way to do that?

Did you accidentally disable Transparent Shadows for the scene or material? It should work with those enabled.

No, transparent shadows are enabled on both planes.

What movie format are you using - most don't support alpha. Are you sure the alpha is 100% clean? not at 98% alpha.

This might be a bug.  I started over & WAS able to replicate this problem.  I then changed the Image Input node to 'generated' which caused the plane to go magenta. Then I re-selected the movie (yes RGBA) from the hard drive (not internal) & everything started working...only the man was casting a shadow.  So I went back to this file & tried the very same thing, but it did not fix it. So ????  BTW, since the new file worked correctly, I used that one.


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How to assign different colors to splines viewable in the viewport?
When importing a .dxf architectural drawing I get all lines drawn in a dark green color. (however they had been assigned unique colors in autocad)
Is there an option to change the appearance of one or more line colors to achieve a better organized scene? (preferably in the viewport without any additional modifiers.)
In the past I've imported several .svg files but they always seem to turn out as a black outline in the viewport.
I wasn't able to find much documentation about this subject.
Machine specs:
Windows 8.1
Blender 2.78a
Renderer: Cycles

Not at the moment no, unfortunately. Blender doesn't have the tools to draw user customized wireframe colors per object at the moment. Future 2.8 versions might bring that. Only workaround I know at the moment is as described below by Craig D Jones, by adding a slight bevel width to the spline and using material colors instead

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos Do you know if the blender foundation is adding this to a future release roadmap?
Can't seem to find anything regarding this subject. Only this task which seems to be abandoned: https://developer.blender.org/D458
I see A LOT of potential with this extra feature. It could also help bring in more users for example 2D vector artists to manage files way better when doing laser cutting operations, etc. £
Just my 2 cents.

I see that if you give the curve object/spline a tiny bit of Depth, then you can set a material to it and see it in viewport. I have exaggerated the Depth here and set it to 'Full' but you can see here what is going on. If the spline does show a color in the imported material, possibly it will show after giving it some depth.

The best workaround so far.
Still waiting for see if the blender foundation is going to implement this in any way to achieve much greater scene organization.


text:
How to use flat color shading with anti-aliasing for multi-materials?
I've been searching a while now for a solution to render out a flat colored map for masking out objects in photoshop.
I found this very helpfull topic:
https://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?387255-Surface-ID-Pass-in-Blender
Is there a way to combine this technique so that objects with the same material/object will use the same color?
The main benefit from this technique is that it's anti-aliased which makes it more suitable for masking.

Each material can have it's own Pass Index set up in the Properties Window > Material > Settings > Pass Index
If you set them up correctly after rendering, using a Compositor you can use an ID Mask node to mask out each part of the image according to material.
It can be directly from the Render Layers node or from an Image node through a multi layer file format like EXR.
See the Blender Manual on how to
You an then use the compositor to extract one mask for each material and save it as an image.
This technique has the advantage that since it uses a black and white mask for each layer pass you can get full anti-aliasing for each mask, without running the risk of 'ID Collision' when the mixed anti-aliased colors match a different object from another pass.

I don't believe the ID masks are anti-aliased? The ID node in the compositor has some sort of "anti alias" option but it's never worked well for me.

related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/28917/accurate-indexob-and-indexma-passes

Hum never really tested it myself, but there seem to be some nice workarounds in the answer linked by poor

Thanks for the input but unfortunately I'm not looking for a workaround.
Also I'm not so much looking to isolate every single object into a sepperate black and white mask because this would be extremely time concuming if you have a complex scene with lots of objects.
I only want to render out a collored map wich in turn could be used in photoshop to quickly mask out parts of the image.
End use: Architectural visualisation

Maybe you could set it up in the compositor in such a way that the per-material masks would be automatically combined into a color mask of your choice. It still takes some work to set up, but you only have to do it once, then all you have to is re-save it whenever you update your scene.


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Is it possible to continue baking Rigid Body Physics
In Blender, I already baked Rigid Body Physics for about 200 frames. Is it possible to continue baking, or do I need to Free Bake or Free all Bakes and start all over again?

Very relevant question indeed. But to state the obvious: a simulation is about capturing complex physics interactions. In principle there is no generic way to pick up such a process, other than running the simulation process over again from start.

What you should be able to do is 'Free Bake' but leave the baked frames in the memory cache (the frames in the timeline should switch to being marked in lighter orange instead of dark orange). Then play your animation (without changing anything about the objects which were previously baked) and Blender should play the 'cached' frames and then continue the animation from the point where the baked frames stopped. Once Blender has completed the simulation up to the new end point then click Current Cache to Bake to convert the cached frames back to a baked animation - without re-simulating.
Note, however, that you have to be very careful not to change anything about the animated objects - otherwise Blender will discard the cache and start afresh when you 'play' the animation, losing your bake. You should ensure that everything about your project (including the baked cache files) is backed up before you try this so as to not risk losing your previous bake if something goes wrong.

the baked rigid data is stored in the blend-file itself, and not separately in a folder as is in the case of fluid baking right?

@FacebFaceb Yes - it is for Rigid Body - but the same principle should apply for other sim types (Cloth, Soft Body, Hair, etc.)

Of course, it would always be safer to re-bake the whole simulation if that's possible.

After moving some objects, when I am rebaking it doesn't overwrite the data, but continues, how can I start over again?

Free Bake or Free All Bakes should reset the simulation. After freeing, moving back to frame 1 should take you back to the start of the animation and playing from there should simulate afresh. Alternatively, Back following the 'Free' should re-back afresh and should not use the previous simulation at all. If it is then something unusual is happening - perhaps ask that as a separate questions (since this one was regarding specifically continuing from the existing bake).


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My Mac Mouse has only a left button
My Apple mouse has only one button (a Left button). Normally I use                   ctrl + left mouse as a way to use the left mouse button but it doesn't work with blender. what do I have to do. Because I can't select anything.

You may also want to enable right-clicking under the OSX System Preferences->Mouse->Secondary Click  The Apple mouse is touch sensitive if you have something similar to mine.  It can detect which side of the mouse your finger is on when you click and so it supports both left and right clicking with only one button.

There is a setting I recently heard of but never used that allows for the middle mouse button to be emulated by left-clicking and holding down Alt.  It's mentioned here.  https://developer.blender.org/D1286

You can set selection to be with the left mouse button :

got to File➝User Preferences➝Input
in Select with click Left

also you can search and reassign all what is related to the right mouse button

Depending on how recent the mouse is (mighty mouse, magic mouse), it may contain sensors for right and middle click. Right click is disabled by default. See the mouse preferences in OSX to enable right click (aka secondary click).


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Imported .obj - textures gone
I have created a 3D Model in Cinema 4D and exported it to .obj (and a .mtl-file) with Riptide Pro.
When I import it in Blender (2.74) I cannot see the textures or materials. They are visible in the scene browser (Scrennshot) but not on the object. They also don't appear when I switch to other viewport shaders.
I want to export the model to a .JSON-Object for displaying it with webGL in a browser.
What can I do to make the textures and materials appear?

The menu item where it says 'Object mode', beside that change the white sphere to the chequered sphere, to show textures. Right now you are just showing plain solid shading. Does that work for you?

or possibly related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/23255/imported-3d-scan-displays-texture-in-editor-but-renders-without-texture

Sadly this doesn't work, as I have written above I tried different viewport shaders. Also the exported .JSON file does not contain a valid texture.

When you have the image viewer open, and have the object in edit mode does it show the UV + right texture? else you must manually pick the texture

make a throwaway object that you are comfortable sharing so we can test the obj + mtl+ texture import for ourselves.

related: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/24020/importing-obj-with-mtl-and-image-not-working-properly/24024#24024

It is most likely that the view mode of 3d viewport is set to solid shading, and should be set to Textured shading instead.

Sadly this doesn't work, as I have written above I tried different viewport shaders. Also the exported .JSON file does not contain a valid texture.

@user980018 i see, well perhaps you might share the obj + mtl + texture and we can have a better look at it, there's little reason why the obj wouldn't load correctly, unless the exporter has a quirky way of writing obj files..or something, it's difficult to say from a distance


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Set 3D cursor position while left-click selection is enabled (2.8)
I decided to switch to the new Blender 2.8 default selection mode, left-click.
But then... How do I set the 3D cursor position ?
left click does nothing, while right click brings a contextual menu.
Thanks !

Use Shift right-click (in edit mode). No need to use the toolbar icon!

thanks ! works in object mode, too.

True! I tend to use it so often that it's become automatic and I don't always notice which mode I'm in! :^)

You have to click on the cursor icon on the left-hand corner

ok, thanks. Too bad that it requires an extra click.