text:
How to render this matcap in cycles?
I would like to render a material similar to this. been trying all day, but can't come close. I tried searching for a similar material online (like plastic or rubber) but to no avail.

See https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/147846/mimic-sculpting-shader-light-setup-for-render/147854#147854

There are lots of ways to do this. Here's one of them:

The Value node determines the softness of the highlights.

i think he wont need the bump map in this case...

Just tested it out. worked amazingly. thank you!

Just one question, how do I get a smoother material (without the bump map). Would just deleting the 'noise texture' and 'bump' node work?

Yeah - just get rid of the bump node or set the strength to 0.

Thanks for the response. Setting the bump node to 0 created some issues in the rendering. I went with deleting the noise texture and bump node: https://imgur.com/a/wtrywjh Is this the best set up?


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Problems with rigging a modeled character in 2.92
I've modeled a cyborg/droid looking character and got my meta rig set up fine but when I generate my rig several pieces of my fingers and side plating on the forearms and two toes are separated and don't follow when I pose. the legs are modeled in the same fashion and there's no problem with either of those.
I researched a little about weight painting and when I tried doing that the areas Im describing lit up red and took I guess but still no change. I get the concept but don't know what to do from there as I'm not a Blender guru some any explaining in laymen's terms would be greatly appreciated.

Screenshots or images means better help usually, but will try. The arms may have lit up red, but does that mean they were in the right vertex group? If they are all assigned to the wrong one, they will not move with the correct bone. I’ve had situations happen where I accidentally assigned one arm to the other arms bone, and it moved with it.

I think I understand what your saying but do not know about vertex grouping where could I research this topic as this is my first attempt at rigging so not really sure what Im doing. Thank You so Much for the info!

As a good fallback, you can view or download the Blender Manual from docs.blender.org for free. It even includes its own search engine.

Ok I figured out the whole weight painting step including changing things that should not be assigned to. I have my mesh parented to my meta rig at the moment so do I unparent that before generating my rig? I have tested movement on all arms and legs and everything is moving as it should so dont want to mess it up

I do not know much about generated rigs, but I am pretty sure that generating a rig from an armature will not have any affect on the mesh.

Ok....Thanks for the input very appreciated

source: Stack Exchange

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

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Eyes turn red when posing character
I created a character, used rigify and now, when posing, the eyes turn red. Their texture kinda moves, however they don't when I just move them in Object mode.
The character does an animation, where he sits down (just basic for testing). I will provide the .blend file, knowing that it isn't really cleaned up and that there are some backups in it.
Google Drive for the blend

Frame 0

Frame 10

Frame 30 (moved the light a bit so you can see it better)

I took a look at the file, but I can't see any red eyes. The eyes don't move because you have to manually parent them to the bones. But you want to correct their position first because they are a little off and that makes the eyeball stick out of the head when your character wanders his gaze.

Can you add a screenshot of the red eyes? Please remember that BSE is a question and answer page. Your question can help future readers, but only if they can quickly decide if this question is relevant to their problem. Downloading and reviewing a 150 MB file just to decide this is not an option. Also, all relevant information should be included in the question. Cheers.

I will do so! The red eyes for me occured from frame 10 on.

Ah ok, I had not played the animation because the rig animation and the cloth simulation froze my blender

Have you found anything so far? I really dont know where the mistake could be as I never found someone with the same problem online...

Probably something is wrong with the Texture Coordinate and the Mapping shader nodes and the Eyes 3D position affects the shader. If you hide anything else and rotate the eye, you will see the cornea appears/dissapears on some points.

Procedural eyes + armature = bloody-red mess
The eyes are built procedurally. The shader makes heavy use of the object coordinates and is a bit prone to changes in the object's origin and scale.
You have parented the eyes to the armature. This applies an Armature modifier which deforms the mesh. The eyeballs don't get deformed but moved down when you play the sit-down animation. The origin (orange dot) stays where it is during the animation, just the mesh is moved. This finally messes up the procedural shader of the eyes. The iris disappears and the bloody back of the eye with all the veins begins to cover the entire eyeball.

How to fix Rigify eyes
In a nutshell: remove the Armature modifier from the eyeball objects and parent them to the bones MCH-eye.R and MCH-eye.L of the generated rig (not the metarig).
Make sure the origin of the eyeball is at the center and the bones of the metarig are at the center of the eyeballs else the eyes will stick out of the head when they are rotated. You can use the 3D Curser (Shift+S pie menu) to align them.
If the bones are a bit off re-generate the rig to have all relevant bones in the right place. Remember to make a backup copy of the mesh with the weight paint if you did already some weight paint. Then align the bones with the eyeballs, and re-generate the rig from the metarig.

Parent the eyeballs to the bones MCH-eye.R and MCH-eye.L of the rig. The MCH- bones are on layer 31. In Object mode, select the first eyeball, then select the rig additionally (eyeball is selected red, rig is selected in orange). Switch to Pose mode, select the bone, and parent the eyeball to the bone (Ctrl+P, Parent to  ... Bone).

Once you have (re-)generated the rig and parented the armature to the mesh you need to weight paint the eyelids (or transfer the weights from a backup copy if you already did this step).  See Why are my model's eyes deforming so badly? for details.
Hope this helps ...
I can see you ;-)

Great! Thanks a lot!

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


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Asset Browser Will Not Update As Expected
my asset library consists of a number of well organised blend files used exclusively for storing my assets for use in the Asset Browser. Within my asset browser I use a set of classification tress to make using assets easier.
For exmaple:

Materials & Textures

Concrete
Wood
Metals

Objects[Scifi]

Architecture
Items
Clutter

Nature

Trees
Grass
Rocks

You get the point.
My issue is that sometimes I decide to update these trees to better categorise or simplify the organisation, but when I open a blend file housing the assets/categories to be updated, once I am done and saved. The Asset categories from that file are just broken, often deleted and all the assets in that file end up in 'Unassigned'. Other times the categories remain but the assets are still in the 'unassigned' section. Even after refreshing the library and trying other things. I can reopen the blend file storing the assets and under the 'current project' designation everything looks fine in there. The assets are in their categories etc. It just doesn't update in the Asset Library proper.
I've tried so many things, and I have got the library to update before but it's so random I cannot tell you what makes it work, which is the most frustrating part as this can eat hours of my time.
Things I've done:

Deleting the file path in preferences, closing Blender, reopening Blender and readding the file path. (Don't think this has ever worked on its own.)
On the drop moving from 'All' to selecting the broken asset library blend file, hoping it will force the cache to update. (Pretty certain this has helped before.)
Copying a backup of the file elsewhere, deleting the original and all it's files, opening the back up and resaving back to it's original location. (Maybe this has helped, I'm not sure.)

Typically, as I am now and what prompted me to finally seek help with this, I have to do all of these 'fixes', sometimes multiple times, along which I have to retype all of my categories in the asset library blend file and place the assets in them again multiple times, which is beyond tedious. Of which, there is no guarantee it will work. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.
On the one I was just updating today, I only wanted to create a new sub-category and move one asset within the file to it and it broke the entire library leading to an hour of trying to fix it. Now all those assets are in the 'Unassigned' category. It's crazy.
Please, I really hope someone has some helpful insight in to this as it is driving me nuts.
Thanks

I forgot to add that I am on a powerful computer. All the files are stored on m.2 NVMe drives, and I am using Blender 3.5.

Make sure in your entire library there is only one file named blender-assets.cat.txt at the root of the library, if there is one in the child folder where your asset blend file is located it will overwrite the catalog definitions and unsync everything

Each blend file that is used for storing assets are stored within their own folders.
For example:
Blender Resources\Asset Projects\Natures Assets\Nature Asset.blend
Blender Resources\Asset Projects\Scifi Assets\Scifi Assets.blend
One Blend file per folder. Inside every folder is a 'blender_assets.cats.txt' and a 'blender_assets.cats.txt~'. The categories update okay most of the time. The issue, like now is that the categories appear but the assets are not put into the categories and are left in unassigned.
Where does blender save the info for which category an asset belongs to?

Like I said if you have an asset library, the information is stored in a single blender_assets.cats.txt file, at the root of the library. You can check out the insides if you open it with a text editor, it's a text file. You should not have a blender_assets.cats.txt file for every blend file in your library.

I do have one for every blend because the blends are in different folders. Are you saying that all asset blends must be kept in a single folder?
I have looked in the .txt files before, and they only store the categories. They don't tell assets which category they're supposed to be in which is the main issue.

Each asset blend file can be in subfolders, but there should only be one blender-assets.cats.txt  at the root of the library. The information that tells Blender which catalog an asset belongs to is the catalog guid which is linked to the individual asset, the string of letters and digits that's written in the txt file. You can see it if you enable developer tools and asset debug info in the experimental preferences. If you modify your catalogs in one txt file and not in the others, the guid will not update accordingly leading to a discrepancy

Okay thanks, I still haven't been able to solve the problem but this did reveal some more insight in to the problem.
To simplify I opened one of my Asset Blends and saved it to a brand new location. Re-made the categories and put the assets in them. There is only one txt file in the directory.
After enabling the asset debug I can see that inside the Asset Blend, where everything looks fine, the assets have the correct category string, but looking at the assets in a new Blend the assets are in 'unassigned' with an incorrect string. Clearing and re-marking an asset didn't help.


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UI Theme Limitations - How to request changes?
I really enjoy making themes for Blender, but my intention always falls short due to a few limitations that are in the theming system. As granular as the system is, there are a few options that control more than one item seemingly unnecessarily and so on.
It would be great to have this addressed, but I have no idea how to submit my request/documentation to Blender.
Thanks

Probably best to bring your ideas up on Right-Click Select first and see if there's any enthusiasm for your proposals. Here is definitely not the right place for it!

Hello and welcome. This is Q&A site run by volunteers, we are not programmers nor in any way associated with the Blender Foundation, decision making nor development process of the software. For suggestions and feature requests use https://blender.community/c/rightclickselect or https://blenderartists.org. Before doing so consider that ideas are a dime-a-dozen, what we lack is manpower. Every single one of the millions of users have their own long list of personal wishes and desires, while comparatively very few people have the knowledge and inclination to actually implement them.

Are you saying that they don't want feedback?

@Atheneo No, the developers want feedback but they cannot implementd every feature requested. If other users like your request it can get up voted and this will increase the chances that it will added in further versions of Blender.

Okay, well yeah it was not so much a demand but a notice of the limitations in the UI editor. I'll post it on the right-click select place. Thanks


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Add a margin to the object
I am new to Blender and I want to prepare a shape like the below image (sum of A and B) for 3D printing. I have designed part A with blender, but I don't know how to design part B and add it to part A. can you help me?
Thanks a lot

Do you have a 3D reference?

Create the mesh 1 and the mesh 2:

Fill the gap between their neck with Ctrl > Bridge Edge Loops. After that select all and press ShiftN to make sure that the faces are correctly flipped:

Now you have an object that is ready for 3D printing:


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HDRI is not showing correct color
Currently I'm doing outdoor lighting in Blender using HDRI. I'm not really new to HDRI lighting, I usually done this kind of work in V-Ray Sketchup and the render output is quite correct (at least the dark area is pretty dark as the HDRI image), I just need to adjust the intensity and units in the V-Ray Dome Light (and 0-ing the highlight burn in Sketchup), like this.

And now, in Blender, my lighting is not really great. The Env. Map is just using a spherical image set to Non-color, with such configuration of Color Management. Not all HDRI being used is showing such incorrectness, some day light HDRI may light up the scene really well, but still I need to adjust the white value of materials color. This is what it looks like.

The looks in the photo viewer, blender texture editor, and the scene is just not right. The brightness seems shifted so much. The dark area of HDRI in photo viewer is blue-ish, but in the scene is very different, with no adjustment in the World node.
The HDRI is in HDR format, tried to convert it to EXR, but nothing changes. What should I do? What could possibly go wrong?

You need to play with gamma node after the hdri, sometimes you'd need to split HDRIs to camera and not-camera visible ones and fine tune them there. Blender Cycles doesn't use HDRIs the same way as Corona or Vray.
Check out tutorial on
HDRIs in Blender.


text:
Blend 2 cylinders with geometry nodes
I'm trying to blend 2 cylinders perpendicular into each other.
The smaller cylinder should follow exactly the curvature of the bigger base cylinder.
I achieved this already with the help of the Raycast node.

Thats a good beginning but I additionally would like to let the curvature fade out stepwise. Like I scribbled here:

Can you advise me how to achieve this?
Thank you in advance!

The Loft Curves GN group described here interpolates between profiles naturally, so to achieve your purpose, you can use it to construct your base-projected cylinder:

To loft cyclic curves with this group, they must be split, and re-merged after conversion to mesh, to preserve the UV coordinates of face-corners in the named attribute uv_map

I haven't  exposed all parameters to the interface in this example, or gone very far wrangling UV's in a way that might suit you.. if you need more refinement,  call back, and I'll do my best.

Wow,this is great! Thank you very much.


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Assign blender objects to every asset in another object group from BlenderGIS
New User to blender... Can someone point me in the correct directions
After reading about using ai to create ski maps I thought it would be fun to try to make actual resort maps in blender https://www.skimag.com/ski-resort-life/ski-resort-maps-generated-midjourney-artificial-intelligence/
Using BlenderGIS mod https://github.com/domlysz/BlenderGIS I Imported a tree location into blender from QGIS containing several hundred points.

I would love to turn all the dots it added from dots to tree objects.

Hello ! You should look into vertex instancing or a geometry nodes setup. A simple setup with an instance on points node should do it. You can even vary scale, rotation that way

Thank you @Gorgious I watched this video on vertex instancing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_nSEEcEnEA&t=133s&ab_channel=JosephBurgan3D and was able to make every point a tree!!


text:
Retopology after sculpting
Been sculpting for a while and watched vids on retopolgy but absolutely none explain what to do after it.
None explain what to do after retop is done in preparing it for animation or exporting it to engines like unity/unreal.
“Just slap a multi res modifier and boom it’s done, good luck after that though” Mhmm yep, now what about a step after that?
1: Do I need to apply the shrink wrap mod after retop?
2: Do I need to apply the sub div/ multires after that if I want to animate/texture/rig my character? If I do I’m back to square one with a high poly count model.
Is there no other way ?
Is this workflow what sculptors use here on blender?
Sculpt > retop > keep modifiers on > add textures / rig > bake
This is kinda making me tear my hair.
Suggestions needed and welcomed
Thanks

Not sure about how you use the Multires, I guess it's on the high-poly tht is sculpted? When you retopo you have 2 objects: the original high-poly, the retopo low-poly. Once you have finished the retopo, apply the Shrinkwrap of the low-poly if you've used one, don't apply the Subdivision Surface if you're using one, and it should be good, rig this low-poly and so on. Also keep the high-poly in case of

Also if you want to keep the details of the high-poly you'll need to bake the normals, there are plenty of tutorials on this topic

You use retopology for two reasons: To optimize the sculpted figure topology and keep adding fine details with Multiresolution modifier on. Or prepare a low-poly version for games and animation. In both cases after retopology you apply all helping modifiers. Before moving forward usually you create a UV Map for the model, which makes life easier when transferring details from high-poly to low poly versions of the model.

for  more context that I accidentally left out, I'm using that quad remesher add on for blender to speed up my retopology workflow

It depends what you're trying to remesh,if it's a piece of the setup, a remesher is ok, if it's for an object that you want to animate, it won't give a clean result and you need to retopologize manually


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Joining duplicate objects automatically
I'm trying to join several duplicates to the master object at once. Thank you. For example, I mean joining SOMETHING_1 and SOMETHING_1.001 together, and so on.

Select all the duplicate objects using SHIFT key one at a time, then lastly, do the same with the original Master object.  With the duplicates highlited red and the Master highlited orange you can use  CTL-J to join permanently, or CTL-P to do the same but non-destructively. (i.e. you can undo the parenting later with ALT-P)  If using CTL or ALT-P, choose the "Keep Transform" option to avoid animation issues.

Recommend  the select pattern operator.  Single select original, then select pattern SOMETHING_1.* case sensitive true, extend true. then join.  Related https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/24301/how-can-i-select-hundreds-of-items-in-the-outliner-that-have-similar-names


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How to script value in Shader so it changes over time?
I need this number to change in a given range over time. I thought that I could just write a driver to this value, but I did not find any random function that could solve my task.

Type #frame into the box. This will make the value correspond with the (current) frame number. Use a math node (or multiple) afterwards to manipulate the range (ex Math node dividing by 25 - default number of frames is 250, so this would yield a range from 0-10).

Put “#frame” in the input. that sets up driver that uses frame number as value. math nodes can change result.

You can use Keyframes for this task. Even if you don't see a diamond icon for keyframing you are still able to add keyframes. Hover mouse cursor over the value slider and press I. This will add a keyframe that you can use for animating the value


text:
Why does the Smooth Brush behave differently when using it via Slide Relax?
It turns out that the smooth brush behaves differently depending on which brush you activated the smooth on (pressing Shift)? Where does the manual tell you how it works?

The smoothing mode for that brush relaxes the underlying topology, evening out the distance between vertices.
Here's the manual description:
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/sculpt_paint/sculpting/tools/slide_relax.html
Here's video demonstrations from the developer:
https://developer.blender.org/D6059


text:
How to find out the average dB value of a track?
How to find out the average dB value of a track?
I need to understand how much I need to lower the thunder (Decibel) to fit into the standard from -10 to -14 dB.

To calculate the dB value of a strip, you can use the following code. I've described it in more detail in my attempt to update the VSE docs (see https://vse-docs.readthedocs.io/edit/sound/measuring/volume.html).
For calculating the average dB of a track, you'll have to repeat that code for each strip on the track.
Please also note that there is a difference between average dB and Peak dB. Maybe, it's better in your example to use the peak value (see the docs).
import bpy
import math

strip = bpy.context.scene.sequence_editor.active_strip
depsgraph = bpy.context.evaluated_depsgraph_get()
sound = strip.sound.evaluated_get(depsgraph).factory

samples = sound.data()
m = np.mean(samples**2)
rms =  np.sqrt(m)
db = 20 * math.log10(rms)


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Blender don't see my GPU Nvidia Geforce 820m, why?
Why is this happening and how to understand which card suits Blender and which one does not?

Looks Nvidia didn’t enable CUDA on the 820m. https://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-gpus
Until blender 3.x with vulkan support try using OpenCL kernel. Should be faster for now!


text:
How to create such a mechanism?
I thought to do it sideways. Here you need to use drivers and math, I think. But where can I find similar examples in execution, tutorials with a solution to a similar problem? Or books, videos, articles on sections of mathematics that would help create such a mechanism.
Tell me the sources of information that would help create such a mechanism and in the future know where to get knowledge to resolve such issues. I will be grateful)

Hello, this site is preferably for focused questions. Here it is a bit hard to understand at which step of the problem you need help.

You can get this effect by using a cast modifier and instancing. Create a plane and use edge loops and cut once down the middle and a few times on the side. Then delete everything besides the middle edges to create a single line of vertices. Then in the object properties for it, set instancing to vertices and add a cast modifier. Then create the rectangles or whatever else you want to be moving up and down. Then set the relations for its object properties to be the line of verts you previously made. This should instance the rectangle to all the verts on the line.
Now create an empty, and in the cast modifier settings you added to the line, set the object to be the empty. Make sure to clamp it to the Z axis as well in the modifier settings. Mess with the scale and radius settings until you get the effect you want.


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Why are anti-aliased normals so rough on polygon faces?
Smoothed the mesh normals. Put Auto Smooth normals at 30 degrees. But these stripes - I don't understand why they appear. Maybe someone knows how to smooth them out and why are they so rough? ?

Why do your smooth shaded normals look so funny on this shape?  Because of the triangulation of long trapezoids.
Here's how Blender determines your per-sample normals: A) It calculates face normals (from the average plane of the face, for a quad.)  B) It calculates vertex normals from the face normals.  C) Then, very importantly, it triangulates the mesh (this is why a wireframe shaders shows triangles on a quad mesh).  D) Finally, it interpolates your vertex normals across each face to find the normal of each particular sample.
But let's look at what happens when we triangulate your mesh (using fixed triangulation, which is Blender's default method):

So first, be aware that when I triangulate, I'm going to get slightly different normals, because then I'm doing C before A or B.  I've left a copy of the untriangulated mesh in the upper left corner of the matcap view so you can see that the normals of the original still display triangulation.
But look at the triangulation: I'm left with these long skinny triangles, of uneven size.  For each sample inside each of those faces, I'm only interpolating from the 3 vertex normals composing that face.  The vertex normals are smooth throughout the mesh, but the triangulated mesh is not smooth-- the faces are of uneven size.  And so the per-sample normals are not smooth.  As we move our gaze across the object, the normals change rapidly then slowly, rapidly then slowly.
And this will persist even as we do procedural subdivision-- even as we subdivide, we maintain long, trapezoidal faces.
This is why one of the rules of good topology is, evenly sized square quads-- square in aspect and angle.  Is that doable for interesting meshes?  No, but it can be approached.  (This is one of the lesser appreciated rules of good topology, and I'm grateful for this SE question because it gives the simplest demonstration of it that I've seen.)
Okay, so then the next question is, how can we fix this?  By making our faces more square.  We're kind of stuck with trapezoids if we want to make this dish shape-- we can't get rid of the trapezoids without turning it into a cylinder.  But we can make them more square in aspect by adding loop cuts:

Upper left has our original mesh with subdivision level 1.  Lower right has our original mesh with two loop cuts to make our faces more square, and subdivision level 1.  Looks a lot better to me!  Of course, if you look more closely, you'll see triangulation-- unfortunately, triangulation is a fact of life in 3D rendering, and the only fix is lots of vertices.
Note: the problem here is a problem with interpolation of vertex data.  If we want to normal map this mesh, we don't have to worry about its actual normals, vertex or interpolated, because we're going to be overriding them anyways with arbitrary, per-sample normals.  (Although we will want to explicitly triangulate our low-poly, or else make sure our ultimate rendering engine triangulates in the same way as Blender, since those normals are specified relative to the interpolated normals, and those interpolated normals depend on exactly which way we triangulate our mesh.)

i've had a similar issue some time ago. I turned off auto smooth normals since it seems they are sometimes the issue temselves. Then i just rightclicked and chose Shade Smooth.
What might be enhancing your problem are converging normals in the middle but i'm not sure.
If this doesn't do the trick establish the smoothness with a subdivision surface modifier and support loops. that's gonna be the go to method for rendering anyway.
I hope this helped!


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How to Mirror weights from one side to other for group of vertex groups?
I need that, but do that in one step for group of bones without manually work with bone by bone at vertex group tab.

One of the solutions, but it is suitable when you need to make this action for a maximum of a pair of bones or a little more, but when will there be more? It won't be convenient.


text:
How to use the equation of the circle in the driver expression?
How to use the equation of the circle in the driver expression?

x^2 + y^2 = 1 we can write in driver expression as sqrt(1-scale^2)


text:
What areas of mathematics will help me in creating this add-on?
I want to create an add-on like this. It edits the selected edge, adds vertices to it ( as much as you need - the parameter will be adjusted  ), creates the curvature we want.
I want to make this add-on to better understand math, blender and python.
I think I can still deal with Blender and Python. But how can I do exactly what I planned with the help of mathematics - it's hard to say, I'm not very good at mathematics.
Therefore, the question is - What topics in mathematics should I study in order to understand how to make this add-on?

This seems to be reinventing the wheel into a more limited wheel. Additionally, the curve profile widget is already available within blender, so you would probably not be doing much mathematics.

I think you'll be fine with arithmetic, algebra, geometry and trigonometry.


text:
How use lerp python function at driver expression?
I'm trying to use a lerp function, but Blender gives an error. What is the problem?
The problem appears exactly when I try to do something with a lerp. The rest of the driver works fine.

You can always ask a question @ZargulTheWizard

The problem ist that there is no function called lerp() that you can call like this. Could you please explain how you intend to linearly interpolate in your use case?

Usually the lerp function take 3 arguments anyway, what are you trying to do ?

@brockmann okay I asked https://www.sololearn.com/Discuss/2743533/?ref=app


text:
Mirror Rig System

I created a sophisticated hand rig system with constraints - rotation, scale, action, and also drivers. I wanted to mirror this system on the other hand and was faced with the problem of losing important parameters from the aforementioned constraints and drivers. Is there any way to mirror the rig system without losing parameters?
PS: For example, the recorded actions are not related to the copy in any way, and therefore the constaint action does not work anymore, the drivers simply disappear when copying.

Although I'm not sure, I would try making a new save (just in case), making sure all of your bones are specifically named, i.e middlefinger1.L and this allows the computer to know to copy it. Then once you've done this with all of the hand, select the hand bones, right-click and press symmetrise. This should work but it can be fidgety. Hope this helps and good luck, the model looks great! :D


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How to clear the weights on the vertices from a group of bones?
How to clear the weights on the vertices from a group of bones and leave only one bone to affect these vertices, which at the time of the operation is active, selected?

You can remove from all groups, but I'm not sure there's a way to remove from all groups except (selected or locked) one (or several ones), it would be interesting though

How can I remove weights from a group of selected vertices from all vertex groups one by one or in a couple of clicks?

you can select some vertices (or all the vertices) in the 3D view, then in the Properties panel > Object Data > Vertex Groups, choose the vertex group you want the vertices to be removed from and click the Remove button under the vertex groups list, or in the menu on the right of the vertex groups list (down arrow icon) choose Remove From All Groups. Does it answer?

Yes, it helped me, thanks) In order to clear a group of vertices from weights from all groups, it is now clear how. But the question of how to clear weights from all groups except one is still relevant.

Sure, I think it should be a feature, like if you lock a group and Remove From All Groups it protects the group, or other solution, maybe suggest it to Right Click Select

blocking a group doesn't help. i checked in practice. I think there is simply no such function, but I don't know how to find out for sure.
"maybe suggest it to Right Click Select " - What do you mean here?
Feature? Do you mean addon or just want to say that such a function should be present in blender?

yes I meant you could suggest the idea to Blender developers through this site: https://blender.community/c/rightclickselect/

Oh, cool idea, thanks for the clarification, I just haven't done this before - did not offer ideas for development

Select All vertexes you wnat to edit, edit weight settings in side bar, click "Copy" and your edit settings distribute on all selected vertexes.


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What's the difference between Glossy and Glass shaders in Eevee?
What's the difference between Glossy and Glass shaders in Eevee? Also What's the difference between Glossy and Glass shaders and Roughness parameter in Princepled BSDF shader?

Hello :). It should be explained in the Blender manual, something in there isn't clear?

I understand correctly that Glossy BSDF and  Roughness parameter in Princepled BSDF shader they do about the same thing?

From left to right, is Glossy, Glass, and "Shiny". All 3 have roughness at 0.

Roughness in Principled BSDF determines how "shiny" or "polished" the surface of somthing looks. It bears no effect on the underlying colors.
Glossy is the equivalent of metallic - the color determines the hue of the specular reflection (how much of its own color is reflected back with the light). Default (white) Glossy with roughness 0 is the equivalent of Pure Metal (White basecolor, Roughness = 0, Metallic = 1) on Principled BSDF.
Glass essentially a Glossy shader, but with a transparent BaseColor, and some refraction added which also gives transparent/refracted reflections. It also includes a Fresnel to alter the refractions near the "edge" of objects. It is one of the best ways of replicating glass in Cycles, but has its limitations in EEVEE.

Very detailed and simple, thanks)

The most obvious difference between Glass and Glossy is that glass lets light through so you can see things on the other side, while glossy merely reflects light.

All of these materials use the same roughness value of 0.15
The Glass and Glossy shaders are more like building-blocks that are used to assemble more sophisticated shaders. No material is 100% glossy for example, and the apparent gloss of a material actually varies with the viewing angle, as per the fresnel effect.
The Principled shader is pretty much functional right out of the gate. It creates, with in certain limitations, materials that behave realistically in terms of their interactions with light. This includes important differences between how dielectric materials behave vs. metallic materials.

As you can see above, the Glossy shader behaves a lot more like a metallic material. One of the big differences between dielectric and metallic materials is that on dielectric materials, the specular highlights remain white regardless of the material's color, where as metal materials have specular highlights that are tinted by the metal color.

Thanks for such a high-quality answer, it helped me figure it out)


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Why do we need Composite node?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml1Kic4VopA - I watched this video and wondered - why Composite node exists? What is it for and what does it do? After all, we can work through a viewer node and export the result.

The Composite node is where the actual output from the compositor is connected to the renderer. Connecting a node to the Composite node will output the result of that node's full tree to the Renderer, leaving this node unconnected will result in a blank image. This node is updated after each render, but also if you change things in your node-tree (provided at least one finished input node is connected)
The Viewer node is a temporary, in-process viewer. It can be plug in anywhere to inspect an image or value map in your node tree.
From this you can say that the compositor node exist for the sole purpose of applying the composition to the render while viewer node is mainly used to see specific result of a certain group of nodes as well as it can do the job of a compositor node.
To further explain it:
The problem with the viewer node is that you will have to go into the Render Output panel and would have to select the viewer node to be displayed in it . And then you are free to save it. In highly detailed scenes we will be forced to make multiple renders , improving it gradually . That is where the Composite node comes to help - You wouldn't have to select the viewer node each time and save it.
Blender automatically composites a render if it's connected to a Composite node and will give you the finished result instantaneously. And that is the easiest way to put it...

You can also switch between Composite and View Layer as shown in here:-

Is the node only needed for the render to be immediately loaded into the composite node editor?

@White Raven ,I have edited my answer. Hope that answer your question.

I'll try to simplify the definition of this node - it should be just for show, so that the renders can be safely loaded into the composer right away. That is, in a sense, this node does the same thing as the checkbox in the item "Use nodes"

What do you think? Does this definition fit? I'm trying to figure out if I understood the answer correctly

I think I get it, the composite node is the output for the render layers. Is this definition close to the truth?

@White Raven, as i told in the answer the viewer nodes main purpose is viewing image as the backdrop. It can also be used to view a particular part of the compositing (like if creating a mask). It can be also used to save image by a hotkey Alt + S to save the output on viewer node

While compositor node's sole purpose is applying the composited result to the image instantly.

Happy that I could help you : )

You are cool, thank you for helping me figure it out)

When you asked the question I started reserching on this topic and I finally made up this answer. I learned a lot from this question . Thanks to you : )

The Viewer node is there so that you can see the result of your node tree in the backdrop.
The Composite node result is not visible in Backdrop, for that you need to actually render, and if you don't use the Composite node when you render the whole node tree wont be used and will not actually be applied to your scene.

Am I right if I say that the Composite node stores the result of the previous render? And if the Render layer is disconnected from the Composite node after creating a new render, will the previous render result simply be erased and lost, being replaced by a new render?

@White Raven, The composite node won't store anything. I don't know what you mean by disconnecting the Render Layer node as it is the primary input of the compositor nodes unless you use another Input node.

The composite node won't store the results because the Render Layer node will update as you make a new render and the previous render will be lost completely as far as I can tell.


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Distributing Objects on a Plane with Defined Probability in Blender
I'm looking to distribute my objects from a collection on a plane with defined occurrence probabilities. @quellenform response in this thread essentially answers the question. However, I'm having trouble getting the provided code to work to the extent that I only get one type of object instead of four.

Hello and welcome! You would have to have four different objects in a collection for this to work. Give it a try. Otherwise, please share your blend file so that I can take a closer look.

I just used your provided blend file. There are 4 objects in the source collection ... So I must be doing something wrong, but I don't know what yet.

I'm not sure what you're doing wrong, but I've just successfully tested the attached blend file with versions 3.1 to 4.0, and it works exactly as described. Did you open the file directly or did you modify something? Can you tell us a bit more about your problem?

Blender update from 3.0.1 to 4.0.1 did the trick! Sorry for the confusion!


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How do I adjust the scale of items placed in a circle with Geometry Nodes?
I have a Geometry Nodes setup where I'm distributing 7 cylinders around a circle mesh and placing a star at the top of each of them. So far, so good.
However, I'm trying to achieve an effect with them similar to the MLB World Series trophy, where as they approach the front of the trophy, the posts get smaller. I'd also like the stars to get smaller as well, as their posts shorten.
How do I go about doing this? Any help would be appreciated, thanks!

This is my current node setup:

Here is another idea, it's basically like the given answer, just a bit different in how the poles are created and I've put scaled icospheres on top of the poles where you would want your stars: scaled instances circle

here is a node setup for the poles, so you know how to do it.
You have to add the flag manually with some additional nodes.


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Copy animation from rigify to armature created from scratch
Hello Blender community!
I created an animation in a rigify rig but now I want to copy its keyframes to a rig I created from scratch on my own. Is this possible?

your own armature needs to have bones that has the same names as the original

yes I know that but I created a rig with less bones than the autogenerated metarig of Blender and it doesn't work.


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Why can't I change what bone I'm looking at in Weight Paint?
When I select a bone, it shows up as selected, but the weight data being shown to me does not change to match that of the bone I selected.

When you're in weight paint mode, the mesh is the active object, so, to change the bone you want to paint you have to select the corresponding vertex group.
As a shortcut, you can select the armature, shift select the mesh, go to weight paint mode and use Alt Click on a bone to select the relevant vertex group (Ctrl click on Blender versions older than 4.0)

I tried that, it highlights the bone but doesn't show me the weights.

Do you mean that you don't have color overlays or do you mean that everything is dark blue? Or maybe you're dealing with a rig where control bones and deforming bones are not the same (like Rigify)?


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Can't seem to find the canvas slider anywhere?
I've been following a blender tutorial, its literally my first time in this software. In the tutorial it mentions having a grease pencil object selected in order to see the Canvas slider option in your viewport overlays drop down menu. No matter what I do I can't seem to get this setting in my viewport overlay menu and so I'm inable to see the physical plane that im trying to draw on. Is there something I'm doing wrong?

Would you mind showing screenshots of how it looks in your Blender vs. what you expect to see? As a beginner, I can only recommend you pay attention closely to what is shown in a tutorial. That already begins with which Blender version you are using and which one is in the tutorial. For example: As far as I know there is no Canvas slider in the Show Overlays menu anymore in version 4.0, but a separate Grease Pencil menu next to the overlays. Up to version 3.6.5 this was integrated in the overlays.

When you have a Grease Pencil object selected, a Grease Pencil menu appears next to the Viewport Overlays drop-down. The icon is two squares connected by a looping line. The Canvas option has been moved into this menu; it is no longer part of the Viewport Overlays itself.


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while sculpting in blender, my inflate brush shows pink lines but doesn't inflate the geometry
I'm Vishakh. I'm new to sculpting in Blender. While sculpting in blender, my inflate brush shows pink lines but doesn't inflate the geometry. I'm not sure what settings need to modified so I reset to factory but still same is there after reset. This is not an artifact. This happened with my Grab brush as well. Once in a while it actually sculpts along with showing these lines. I'm sure I've done something silly, but can't identify what.

please help me.

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/295884/sculpting-brushes-not-working-as-intended?rq=1

In Sculpt Mode under the Stroke tab, make sure Stabilize Stroke is disabled. This can also be set with ⇧ Shift + S.


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I save my video in blender, there is a scene when it snows, but it is not in the saved video
I use blender 4.0 version. I made snowing scene, it works when I play it in blender, but when I render it there isn't any snow.

Hello, maybe show some screenshots, are you sure that the particle system is enabled for render?

Hello, Diana, welcome to BSE. There's not enough information here for us to make a sensible guess about what's wrong. The best way would be to make a simple version, (Perhaps the non-rendering snow all by itself), and share that on https://blend-exchange.com/, following the instructions there, and pasting the generated link into your  post.

Please clarify your specific problem or provide additional details to highlight exactly what you need. As it's currently written, it's hard to tell exactly what you're asking.


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What is the correct way to add settings from the Bone Properties tab to a Sidebar Panel?
I once again stumped with the add-on that I'm working on that puts the settings from the Properties Editor into a panel in the 3D Viewport sidebar. I completed the Armature Data Properties section, but the Bone Properties tab is another story. I would appreciate it if someone can help me with this seemingly simple thing.
Here is the code for the current section I'm having trouble with:
class VIEW_3D_PT_animation_bone_properties (bpy.types.Panel):

    bl_space_type = 'VIEW_3D'
    bl_region_type = 'UI'
    bl_category = "Properties"
    bl_label = "Bone Properties"
    bl_idname = "view3d.animation_bone_properties"
    bl_parent_id = "view3d.animation_rig_data_properties"
    bl_options = {"DEFAULT_CLOSED"}

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

        col = layout.column (align = True)
        col.prop_search (context.object.bone.data, "parent")

Before I did context.object.bone.data, I also tried context.object.data since that worked perfectly for mesh data, then context.bone from the Edit Source option. .....both contexts didn't work, even though I'm in Edit Mode, where the Bone Properties tab is.
I'm still not even half way done with my add-on, as I still have 25 or so more tabs to go, so any help with my progress would be very much appreciated.
If you're a Discord user, you can friend me for an easier time conversing with me and helping me since I'm on there a lot more. My discord is Sonario648.

I just figured out the answer a few days ago.
col.prop (context.active_bone, "parent", context.object.data, "edit_bones")
col.prop (context.active_bone, "use_connect")

Repeat until satisfied.


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Python API for Drag and Drop Events?
I am trying to create an add-on for Blender that uses a drag and drop event, similar to the Drag and Drop from the Outliner, and various other areas of Blender, however, I have no clue where to find such a handler for what I'm trying to do.
For context, I am trying to create a script where upon activation thanks to a persistent handler, it overrides the current Drag and Drop feature of the Outliner, and makes it so that when a Light, or Camera is selected, and dropped into the 3D Viewport from the Outliner, it activates the Set Active Object as Camera operator.
This is something that is native to the 3D Animation software I used to use, and while I know I can just select the light, and press CTRL Numpad 0/0, it just makes more sense to drag and drop it from the Outliner since you have to select the light anyway.
Any and all help would be appreciated. If your solution works, you'll see your name appear in the add-on info page, along with getting a discount for products on my Gumroad store if you're interested.

it's not possible with the python API, it's not exposed yet.

I'm surprised. We're on 4.1, going into 4.2 now.


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How to scale a model with an animation already on it?
I have a wheel model from a friend with a rotating animation on it, and I want to put it on my vehicle for a game, but its too big. So I tried scaling it, but when I go to play the animation, it reverts back to its original scale. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Check if the wheel has its scale keyframed on the timeline. (If you only need the rotation animated, then there shouldn't be any scaling keyframed in the animation)

You can also parent it to an empty in which you can adjust the scale of the empty, The size of the wheel will also follow that adjustment.

Thanks! At first, I tried parenting a blank to the mesh, and that didn't work, so I tried parenting it to the bones, and this worked. Thanks for your help!


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Create a pattern of speckle/interference?
I am learning blender for scientific figures. I would like to create an image like this:

Right now I have done this:

and the result is:

Do you know how can I improve it?

I think a great way to learn would be to represent and overlap multiple waves to show the interference? Though I imagine complex patterns like that emerge after many bounces of waves, so maybe geonodes could be useful here.

Possibly related: [Nasty wriggling worms procedural shader)(https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/211759/78972)

First thing I'd try is mixing different types of noise into the coordinate field.
A couple of interesting results:


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How to animate a character applying lipstick?
I could add lipstick to a character easily enough, in a few different ways:
A - UV mapping and adding a version of the texture image with lipstick on
B - Adding a 2-dimensional mesh for the lipstick and then using a shrinkwrap modifier to attach that mesh to their lips
C - Selecting  lip faces on the character's mesh and changing those faces to a different material
But, none of those seem to present any easy/feasible way to actually animate the character applying lipstick to their lips, which will require a bunch of frames where the lipstick is applied to part of the lips, but not the entire lips yet.
The  best I can think of is to use method B above, with the shrinkwrap modifier, and also add a boolean modifier to hide the part of the lipstick that isn't supposed to be visible yet. But that sounds pretty clunky to me, and that method will be difficult, anyway, because it may be tricky to prevent the lipstick from sliding around on the mesh when the character's lips move.
Is there any relatively easy and sensible way to do this that I'm not thinking of? (Other than just playing tricks with the camera angle, so you don't actually see it being applied, lol.) It seems like there should be a better way... Something like an extremely high viscosity and very sticky fluid physics simulation, maybe? If anybody knows a good way to do this, that would be a huge help!

I would try option D - Dynamic Paint. There are 2 textures (no lipstick & lipstick). Make the lipstick object a brush and the lips the canvas. In the shader you can use the paint/wet mask as the factor to mix between the two image textures.

Or even geometry nodes. Should be pretty basic with e.g. a proximity node.

Neat! Dynamic Paint seems like it would be the way to go. Never heard of it before. I'll have to look it up and give it a try!


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I need to rotate a face created using I without effecting the geometry of the other vertex of the object
I am creating a human figure for animation following series of you tube tutorial from 'Blender Character Modelling Tutorial - Body Modelling for Beginners'.
While I am doing the hand, I manage to create the fingernails face using 'i' keystroke.
Now I want to rotate the fingernail faces without changing the geomancy of any vertex of the finger as same as the video does it. But when I do it change the finger.
This is the link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSluNGHUevk
Please see the 19:20 to 20:00 in the timeline.
I will attach a picture of my works so far as well.

In the Transform Pivot Point panel he chooses Individual Origins and also he disables the Proportional Editing option (press O), otherwise it will affect the adjacent vertices

You haven't added the image of your work to your question. https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/75491/how-to-upload-an-image-to-a-post. As @moonboots says, he has Individual Origins selected in the Pivot Point settings and Proportional Editing disabled (toggled with the 'O' key).

Thanks for the advice. Yes, it was 'O' for the propositional editing was enabled. Once, propositional editing is disabled, that worked. However, I was unable to find how to do the 'Transform Pivot Point panel' or 'Pivot Point settings' change.

In the Transform Pivot Point panel he chooses Individual Origins and also he disables the Proportional Editing option (press O), otherwise it will affect the adjacent vertices:


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How to follow a path with a fixed camera direction?
I would like that my camera follows a path without rotating. How can I manage that?
Below I added some pictures where you can see my settings and the problem.

Deactivate the Follow Curve option in the constraint settings.

If I do that, the camera doesn´t point in the right direction. How can I change the direction?

Rotate the camera, so that it points in the right direction?


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How to convert vertices to points with geometry nodes?
I made a Geometry Node that allows me to make a Fibonacci Spiral for a project that I am working on. However, I need to instance points on every vertex position and get rid of the edges.

Do the Geometry Nodes have any way to do that or do I need to rebuild parts of it?

Turns out I might have had some errors in my Node Tree.
Gorgious has pointed out that the Point Instance Node is supposed to work.
This method did not work for me until now but I have also edited my question once because I had another error in the Node Tree I needed to correct.
This seems to have solved my problem.

Use the Point Instance node ?

Weird, I tried that and it never worked.
I did change some parts of the Node tree since I submitted the question so maybe I fixed another problem without realizing it.

Did you achieve what you were trying to do ?

I only now realized that the answer I gave to my post explaining that this has been solved was deleted. Yes this did solve my problem. It seems I had another mistake in my Tree.


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Why does the mirror modifier disappear when I merge objects together?
For starters, I started studying blender it's been just a couple of weeks.
So, just for fun, I started modeling a key using a torus, a cylinder and a cube, as you can probably figure out by the images below:

It was all fun and games 'till I tried to merge the objects into one using Ctrl+J, weirdly the result was this:

I've tried changing the sequence of selection when I was merging, but it didn't solve the problem. That little thingy still disappeared. I think this error is due to the mirror modifier I used on the last piece of the key, and maybe when I merged it something wasn't compatible.
I also tried adding the same modifier to the other pieces but the result was the same. The last piece in detail can be seen in the link with the screenshots.
If anyone would kindly explain what's going on and hopefully come up with a solution I would be very much appreciated.

When you merge two or more objects together, all selected objects will inherit the modifier stack of the active object (the object selected last).
If you're selecting the teeth object first (the object that has the Mirror modifier) then the key object (the active object that doesn't have it), the Mirror modifier will be deleted, since the active object doesn't have one.
The best solution is to copy the object that has the Mirror modifier, put it on a different layer for backup, then go to the original object and apply the Mirror modifier before merging it with the key object.

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


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Creating edges between sequential vertices using geometry nodes
I have a mesh that only consists of vertices - no edges or faces. This was achieved by importing x,y,z coordinates from a .csv file.
Can geometry nodes create edges between the vertices by using the index of the spreadsheet?
So, procedurally an edge is create between vertex[0] and vertex[1],vertex[1] and vertex[2] and so on.
I haven't been able to really get my head around geometry nodes as yet. Every question/answer I've found to date just doesn't work. Thanks in advance.

Very simple using the "Points to Curves" node:

Awesome and so easy. Is there now a node to make the curve smooth but the points stay where they are?

@Symo ask another question :) Consider how the points define corners of the curve, so by definition you can't smooth the curve without using these points. Make sure then to explain in your question exactly what you mean by points not moving or by curve smoothing. You could convert the curve to bezier with auto handles, it will smooth the curve, keep the points in place, but also drastically change the look of the curve.

yes, bezier curves / auto handles did the trick. Thanks again.


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Animating with Geometry Nodes with a real life time line
I'm creating a reconstruction using real life data. I've imported a spreadsheet that has a very long list of rows that I've converted to a curve with the intention of animating an object along that curve. The spreadsheet contains x,y,z coordinates. I also have a column for frameNumber or time (t). All the data for the animation is brought to animation nodes using the Named Attribute node.
So the object needs to be at the xyz coordinate at frame number 't'. Is this possible in geometry node animation or am I a crazy person?

Instead of a curve, could you have a "Mesh Line" with the vertices index matching the "frameNumber" ? If so, you could use a "Sample Index" node to recover (X,Y,Z) selecting the right frame by connecting the "Index" input socket to the "Frame" output socket of a "Scene Time" node. Otherwise, the curve enables smooth interpolation with a "Sample Curve" node, but you will have to convert your "frameNumber" to U coordinate going from 0 to 1 to input in the "Factor" socket to "move" along the curve as the frame number increases.

In your initial spreadsheet file, is time/frames uniformly sampled, with a constant interval ? If so, you can save you Geometry Nodes by just having an empty following the curve with the "Follow Path" modifier.

No, not constant. I have created the frameNumber from the time. 0 being the first point, and every frame being a second referencing that... eg 3.34:55 is frame 0 and 3.35:08 is 12 (13 seconds apart). But open to other ways...

Could you share your Blender file with the spreadsheet data already imported, using https://blend-exchange.com/ ? It will be easier for us to help you.


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Cannot import an asset Library
What am I doing wrong? I've tried saving the asset file in different locations (desktop, onedirve), using the user library, creating a new library but cannot get my assets to show up.

Did you mark your objects as assets?

Make sure you don't have a search query in the search field in the top right https://i.sstatic.net/uyRlT.png

The Cats.txt wasn't showing up in the folder when I downloaded it from the instructor's dropbox. I opened a new blender file, opened his .blend file with all the assets, catorogorized and resaved all the assets and it worked.


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daz to Blender bridge issue with exporting
I have installed the Daz to Blender bridge add on and it used to work fine. But now I am having some variation of this error message whenever I try to import a model animation in Blender:

If anyone has an idea why this is the case please let me know :)))

You may want to ask this at https://www.daz3d.com/forums/ or https://www.daz3d.com/forums/categories/blender-discussion


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Video Zooms When Put on Face
I've been making a marvel-type intro and have got to the part where I'm adding the videos. However, when I add the video as the texture for a face, for some reason it shows up zoomed in. I'm not really sure why it does this.
(I'm pretty new to Blender)


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get rid of stretched faces on models?
Here is the scenario, for a project i'm working on i need to stretch a uv sphere into a long spike and then apply a displacement on it (let's for convenience sake say i'm using the procedural voronoi displacement found in blender), the problem is when i stretch it the faces get all stretched out and the displacement just looks like streaks, is there any way i could stretch out a uv sphere into a long spike, and then change the faces back into a similar arrangement as the non stretched out uv sphere? i have tried the remesh option but the displacement still just looks like streaks. i am using the latest release of blender.

You don't say enough about your final purpose, for example is it supposed to be animated, is the texture supposed to be exactly the same or about the same, etc?
If you're animating it with shape keys you could use the Texture Coordinate's Object output socket. The texture won't deform:


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Make displacement modifier line up with poles of object?
Here is my problem. i have added a default bezier curve and used the screw modifier on the X axis to turn it into a teardrop/vase shape then converted it into a mesh. now if i apply a displacement modifier with a picture as displacement it places the displacement on the Z axis facing the side of the object,but i want it to face the x axis so that the center of my heightmap lines up with the tip of the bezier curve, like how a displacement on a uv sphere would line up with the 2 poles of the object.
i apologize for the quality of the picture but all it needs to show is how it displaces the object by default. if there is anything unclear about my question i'll gladly clarifiy. Thanks in advance!

Have you tried using a Mapping Node?

i'd like to apply the transformation to the actual object, can you do that when making mesh displacement using nodes? and if so, how? edit: with that i mean, i want the change to remain, even if i switch back to using the non experimental version.

Not sure what you want, but using nodes to create a displacement has been a well supported feature for years, so you don't need an experimental version to use it (it will work in previous versions of Blender too). However, if you want to apply your displacement to the mesh, so that it actually changes the position of the vertices, you need to use a Displacement Modifier, which is a bit limited when compared to nodes. However, the Displacement Modifier lets you select the orientation or even a UV unwrap: you can just play with them


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Recreate material from blender sculpt mode with nodes?
When you are sculpting in blender sculpt mode you can switch between a number of different materials. one of them is a red clay like material, i would like to recreate this specific material using nodes. i have attempted to get something similar with the principled shader but to no sucess. could anybody instruct me how to do this? (attached picture depicts the material i am refering to).

See https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/147846/mimic-sculpting-shader-light-setup-for-render/147854#147854

Thank you lemon, this is exactly what i was looking for.


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How to create flat circular spiral made from quads?

I have been trying to create a specific mesh, the picture showcased is the closest image i have found to demonstrate the mesh i want, basically a flat circular spiral made out of quads, with the gaps (colourful areas in picture) also being filled with similar quads. And of course all the quads must be joined together, so i can't use the array modifier. If anything is unclear, please say so, i realize this image is not optimal, and i am happy to clarify. Thanks in advance.

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/42674 https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/79764 https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/111337 https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/87253

yes, those adress various spirals, but none of them adress my specific problem, Thanks anyways.

With your description, cubes with inset Faces, an Array modifier and a curve modifier is a good option. you might need to explain a bit more about your final goal.

using a cube with inset faces, adding an array modifier and curves modifier, then, inside the curves modifier you need to add an Archemedial Spiral (Shift + A > Curves > Spiral >Archemedial)


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replicate both screenspace and world space valley in eevee material?
in the "workbench" rendering engine of blender there is an option called "cavity" where you can enable a feature which is called "valley" which basically is similar to ambient occlusion where it fills tight spaces with darkness in the model. is there any way to create a similar effect in an eevee material? i know world space is pretty much just the ambient occlusion node, but i am unsure of how to replicate screen space. and i would like to have both enabled at the same time. is this possible?
Thanks in advance

I'm not sure if Eevee has capability to get there, since all edge detection nodes (like Bevel, Pointiness, or what ever) is not working in Eevee.

The closest I was able to get is with Cycles and yet with problematic part.
Node tree contains Pointiness feature that is sensitive for vertex distances, so to get there I had to use Subdivision Modifier in a very high level. So whole this example is quite useless.
So just for an idea or someones exploration ...
Workbench

Cycles


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how to ease the radius value along the bezier curve?
The radius pronunciation is linear. Is it possible to change it to something similar to orange curve in the image below. Can there be some easing control? Sorry my english is not perfect, I hope I used correct words...

Here is the solution, the formula comes from easing functions from the higgsas nodes.


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raycast node sample nearest surface but is hit mesh island only
I have three lines (with the attribute spline ID named "orig"). I then subdivide and split each line into three parts and scale down a bit all of them. I'm raycasting all these lines onto a surface composed of multiple mesh islands. To approximate the positions for points that do not hit the surface, I am using the "Sample Nearest Surface" node. I want the "Sample Nearest Surface" node to consider only the hit surface mesh island for each "orig ID."

Not sure if this is the best way, but it seems to work.


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Change world strength without affecting color?
I am using the default world (Background). I need to change the world strength but mantain its color. Is it possible?

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/53359/how-do-you-make-an-image-emission-without-washing-out-the-image/ https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/58272/making-an-emission-shader-emit-a-different-colour-of-light-than-the-colour-assig/

In the Shader Editor > World, mix the Background node with another one in a Shader > Mix Shader and use an Input > Light Path (Is Camera Ray output) as factor:

If you want to keep the same color but just change the Strength, plug an Input > RGB (or Environment Texture nodes) into 2 Background nodes:

Sure. Just adjust the strength:

It depends on the whole scene how it changes the color of the lighting though. If you have other lights in the scene that are different color, when you lower the strength of your world background, they start contributing more to the overall lighting so you could adjust them accordingly until you get the same colors, or you could adjust your shaders as well.
You can take a screenshot of your desired colors and then load it into your scene on a plane with shadeless material(emission shader) so you can compare the results you get to your desired result directly while adjusting other lights or your shaders. Or just have it on screen in something like PureRef.
Hue/Saturation/Value node is useful for changing color(as you can see I happen to use it as well in the scene I happen to work on at the time to adjust HDRI lighting color) or it's also possible to use Color Mix node in multiply mode - that might sometimes be convenient, but it's just a suggestion and there are many ways to manipulate colors of shaders(including shaders used for lights).

I did assume we are talking about color specifically (meaning the hue of the light). Only seeing the answer Moonboots provided,  I realize you might have meant that you want to preserve how the background looks to the camera(meaning color and brightness).


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Baking rigid body simulation with python script
I am working on a script to generate scenes and render them.
Since I want my objects to fall on a plane before rendering, what I want to do is bake the rigid body simulation, go to the last frame and render the scene.
I am baking the simulation like this
for i in range(0, 1000):
    generate_scene(i)

    #bake
    bpy.context.scene.rigidbody_world.point_cache.frame_start = 0
    bpy.context.scene.rigidbody_world.point_cache.frame_end = 100
    bpy.ops.ptcache.bake_all(bake=True)
    bpy.context.scene.frame_set(100)

    render_scene(i)

At the end of the process my timeline looks like this:

As you can see the simulation was only baked about till frame 25.
This of course results in a incorrect render.
How can I bake all the frames and render only when I am sure that the bake is done?

Have you tried the application handler object_bake_complete?


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Is it possible to use filmic and raw in a single video?
I am currently doing a motion tracking scene where the compositing looks like this :

The problem I am facing at is that I want my foreground layer to be rendered with a View Transform that is Filmic and my movie clip with a raw one.
Here is the difference :

Obviously, the filmic mode for the movie clip is removing all the colors but it's perfect for the rendering of the ball.
If I change the View Transform parameter in the Scene color managment, it's changing it for the whole scene.
How can I do that?

Ok thanks for the answer !


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Apply array modifier on multiple objects that have modifiers themselves
I have a scene with a movie theatre and I modeled a chair.
The chair is composed of different parts (meshes) that have subdivision modifier applied to them.

I want to apply an array modifier on the chair in order to make a real movie theatre but I can only apply two array modifiers (for both directions) on each parts of my chair. For performance reasons, I want to keep the meshes without the subdivision modifier applied to them.
How can I do that?

If you have chair with Subsurf already applied (Apply button was pressed in modifier settings, modifier was removed from stack, changes to geometry became real) then there aren't really any choices except for retopology to bring polycount down or modeling new chair. That said if you're concerned about performance you could bake normal map and use lowpoly chair in the scene

Array will eliminate any performance benefits Use dupligroups or particles instead https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/108541/animate-a-spheres-system-as-a-camera-diaphragm/108546#108546 https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/68923/torus-object-stretched-in-array-curve-modifier/68925#68925

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/113973/place-spawn-objects-along-curve-with-randomized-scale-and-rotation/113989#113989 https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/84815/how-do-i-make-an-ocean-of-independently-moving-objects/84835#84835

Thanks for the answer, I finally managed to join all the parts then apply the subdivision surface modifier on the whole chair and then the two array modifiers. It's reducing a lot the amount of memory needed when rendering.


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Compositing file output node file slots keys length are limited in length
I was trying to setup some File Output node inputs through the Python API and I found this weird behavior:
import bpy

scene = bpy.context.scene
node_tree = scene.node_tree
scene.use_nodes = True

file_output = node_tree.nodes.new("CompositorNodeOutputFile")

slot_name = "a" * 64 # Arbitrary string longer than 63 chars
slot = file_output.file_slots.new(slot_name)

# This would give an error:
# file_output.file_slots[slot_name]

assert slot.name == slot_name, f"Got {len(slot.name)} chars, expected {len(slot_name)}"

Error: Python: Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "\Text", line 15, in <module>
AssertionError: Got 63 chars, expected 64

It seems that Blender is truncating the key length to 63 characters.
Is this a bug or a known behavior?

Yes, Blender names have 63 character length limit.

@MarkusvonBroady Thanks I just found other topics mentioning this limit online. The name has a 63 character limit but not the underlying data. For now I am doing file_output_node.inputs[out_name[:63]] as a workaround...

You never explained why you need long names, so I couldn't suggest any workaround. Might be an https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problem

You're right, in fact I am using a single File Output node to output separated EXR files to disk. I am using the file slot names to point to a different sub directory per AOV like Combined_arbre/SH010_LGT_QUILL_v009_Combined_arbre.####.exr (which is then added to the base path). Sometimes if the AOV name is too long (light groups Combined_*) it can overflow the 63 character length.
A solution could be to create a separated file output node per AOV (except for EXR multilayer)

You can set the path and you can even access the input by its full name, and you can maintain a dictionary translating the long names to the short names if needed.


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Problem in boolean
I use the cube and draw this thing. I want to use boolean, but it failed to set value. I use ctrl+shift+alt+m, and i found it highlighted as picture below. How to fix it in order to use boolean modifier to this object? (i tried remove doubles and ctrl+n)

So what exactly is the problem with boolean? What are you expecting it to do ?

@GeraldDegeneve I am not sure why my boolean isn't working properly. I watch on YouTube, and it says that my model highlighted got problem and need to fix, but I tried but failed


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How to connect 2 faces?
I am new to blender, and tried to make my sword based on my mind. And I found a problem...
I want to connect the center/middle cube to the lower sword part(the small gap between the sword), but I don't know how. I tried to connect it, but it will be intersect with each other and unable to delete the area inside it(at least I tried). I tried to use boolean method, but it  got an error(might be my drawing's problem). Can you teach me how to fix/do it?

Before you do as Benjamin says, use, in Edit mode, the Loop cut and slide tool (CTRL+R) on the biggest lower cube and snap the lines to the upper cube.

In Edit mode, and on edge mode, select the edges you want to create a face with and hit the F key.

Thanks! Now I just need to figure it how to combine it into a 90 degree edge cube between the middle cube and the added faces.


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Adding stray hairs to hair particles?
i'm not too sure if i worded it right, but i'm looking for a way to make hair look more spares in some areas so it has some stray fly away hairs

the first image is the look i'm going for, while the second is my current project file and what i've achieved so far. i've tried fiddling around with a few settings but i can't seem to find the right one just yet.
is there anyway to easily achieve this, or would they need to be added and styled by hand?
2.8 blend hair file on google drive

so, i found out the best way to do it. increase the roughness, but also increase the threshold as well. the roughness makes it more shaggy so it's not combed to a point, but the threshold makes sure that there are some combed hairs as ll


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Mesh with clean weight paint distorts unexpectedly
i have a model i've been working on, that came with weight painting on it. i made a few edits, set the rig as the parent again, and for some reason when i move the left hand... this happens

when i move the left hand, the characters body shifts with it, but i had checked all the weight painting and it's only painted for the hand. it also seems exclusive to this hand, and automatic weights also distorts the model
i was hoping someone could help me with this problem please!
(.blend file)


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Style particle hair to a fine point?
I've been hoping to recreate some video game characters hair in a more realistic way, but I ran into an issue where I can recreate the hair collecting to a point, but because of the children it separates apart creating a much looser look.

Is it possible to make it a finer point? I want the hairs to group together, as well as the children like a stylized mustache that ends in points, or similar to an anime wig in these examples below. Thanks!

Under Children > Clumping set the Clump value to something closer to 1, maybe 0.75 or 0.85. You can also mess with the Shape or Clump Curve options to get a different look


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Is it possible to generate hair particles from a mesh base (like in xGen) / a good alternative?
i've been doing research on how more professional, but cartoony hair is done. for example, in the overwatch animated shorts, or in frozen

it seems that the general workflow for it is blocking it out using solid geometry and then having the hair particles calculated on top, then cleaned up pretty quickly after. the issue is with this, is it doesn't seem like it can be replicated in blender.
i have been looking at some add ons and so far i haven't been able to find any that can create hair that follows a pre-set modeled shape, or is generated from a mesh.
(please correct me if i'm wrong!)
looking it up, i found it's possible to convert particle hair from curves and grease pencil using the "HairNet" add on, but it's not exactly the best option since it's outdated and does not seem like it will be updated
TL;DR:
is there a possible way to generate blender particle hair from a mesh shape (even with an add on) that is up to date, or is there a better way to quickly comb a bulk of the hair to give it those stylized shapes without having to nit pick with the comb tool?
thank you for reading this!


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Rigid body chain with armature breaks
I'm trying to make a chain rigid body simulation. I found I wanted to streamline it more, so I could rotate a bone to move the end/start, and I added a bone constraint to it as well, so that I can't pull the two too far apart and break the simulation.
However, when the bones in the armature begin to move, the simulated chains attached to it fall through, The settings applied below are nearly identical on all chains.

Settings changed:

Mesh shape
Sensitivity margin lowered
(Chain with bone) Animated
(Chain with bone) Deforming

Is it possible to have chains with rigged bones? If so, how would I fix my simulation to that it properly animates without the chains falling through?
Thank you.

hello, could you please share your file? https://pasteall.org/blend/

https://pasteall.org/blend/4f90cbccb0d6410e91d629d621e1f16c
Here you go. I was able to figure out a bit of a round about fix as well. I'm not sure why it works.
Having the objects be stand alone objects, with "child of" constraints it fixes the animation. However, you need to delete the weight painted ones. If you know why this happens and how to weight paint them and have them work, I'd love to hear why!

I'm not sure this is exactly what you want but maybe it will help, I've deleted Armature.001, deleted all the keyframes of the links, made the first and last link Type > Passive instead of Active, put the origins at geometry and added edge loops:

Ah yes this works, thank you! This is exactly what I had wanted and was looking for. Would you mind explaining why this fixed it up, or linking a good tutorial explaining?
I'm not sure about why it worked, but it didn't explode like the last few attempts, and quite a few videos I watched didn't talk about why physics work like this. Even if you don't though, thank you so much for helping. I can copy this next time it messes up.

if you choose Shape > Mesh it needs enough topology to correctly calculate the interactions, otherwise it bugs, I think it was the main problem here


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How do you control the selection in "Clump Hair Curves" Node for the "Guide curves" and "Curves to be clumped"?
I've watched the video blender studios have made, but I'm still rather confused on the topic as they quickly go through clumping. How do I control which attributes are "Guide curves" and "Curves to be clumped", and edit them?
I'm trying to use guide curves to create interpolated hair, and then narrow it down to only 1 of the 3 guide hairs clump the generated interpolated hair together. But looking inside the geo-node I'm not too sure what I'm doing in particular.
I've recreated a similar set up in the .blend below, with the hair I am trying to isolate as the sole clumping guide circled.

Thank you

I am not sure if I understood your problem correctly but here is a hair system that uses three guides to create the base hair interpolation and then clumps them around a single guide by removing the toggle for use existing guide map and tweaking the guide mask. The problem with this approach is that the selected guide curve will be more or less randomly selected removing control. For a solution see below the images.

To select a specific curve we need to use geometry nodes to set it as the guide curve beforehand. This can be done with the created guide index node group. We need to delete all the curves we don't want as guides and then send the remaining to the guides slot. Woila we have created a new guide map :) It is important that that happens after the interpolated and before the clump.

Hope this helps :)

Ah yes that's exactly what i was looking for! It's a bit of a shame I can't just select a curve and give it a attribute, like selecting a line and giving it a vertex group but this helps out a lot. Thank you so much!


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Can not add new curve hairs on geo-node hair (3.5), Invalid surface UVs
I made geo-node curves from a mesh (mesh, convert to bezier curves, convert to geo-node curves) and I can't seem to add any new hairs on it in brush mode now that it's been converted.
New empty curves come with a few things listed here Blender 3.3 Invalid UV Map with Hair Curve object
(parented to object, has a geo node for the surface deform)
and I made sure to recreate those as well, but it seems to still not be working properly.

It also gives "Invalid surface UVs on 82 curves" error under Surface Deform. It doesn't have "surface_uv_coordinate" at all which I believe might be part of it.
It's been unwrapped, the UV also isn't overlapping, and as well the faces are all facing out.
Below is the project file. I would appreciate some guidance, thanks!

The "Invalid surface UVs on 82 curves" has not been fixed, but was ultimately throwing me off. I'm still not certain how to fix it or what it is, but I was able to add more curves
Seeing "Path11 Media" answer and "density" brush working made me realize I was focusing too much on it, and not the brush itself.
The problem lied in the curve interpolation. Due to it not having enough curves to interpolate between, adding hair on certain parts of the mesh would make it just not exist.

Disabling shape interpolation had helped fix the problem, however it will only interpolate properly if I add more hair guides for it to blend with.

I just now found that issue on mine, I don't know if it is a bug or what. I think it is a bug. I went out of my job, opened a new one and divided the basic cube up then started to add hair, everything fine so far. Then, I went to Edit mode, moved one point on one hair and all the hair tools were disassociated with the hair and none of them would function with everything I had put in up to that point (luckily I learned to save my progressions as different named jobs). Also, whenever I had the UVmap disassociation error I noticed in the curves tab my UVMap wasn't correct so I reset it but, yours looks correct on that which leads me to think that any edit unhooks the hair sculpt tools.
Update: I started a fresh job, left the cube and duplicated it and pulled to the side. Added a few hairs on each and all sculpt tools work fine. Went to one hair on the first cude, edit mode for the hair, moved one point and sure enough, all sculpt tools for the hairs I put on were disconnected and unusable for the hairs on that cube. On the same cube I added fresh hairs just below the originals and those allowed me to comb and sculpt but the ones I had previously added and edited above them would not. In the object tree, it was still one set of curves yet the first ones (top rows) are not touchable and have no curve to manipulate like the ones below that hadn't been manipulated.
So, if anything is done to the curve, it quits being a hair curve apparently
Now I went back to yours and couldn't add hair...then noticed that your selection was set to points, I couldn't add any hair (I'm using 3.5.1).
I switched it to curves and it let me add hair.

Thank you! This does seem to help out quite a bit. It didn't fully fix it, but this gave me a ton more insight as to how I can fix it.
It still didn't work when I added curves using the add tool. I realized it seems when I enable interpolation on the curves (as well as on density) it makes it disappear.
The error regarding the surface UV was throwing me off, the issue lies in how the interpolation works and how it has a lack of guides. It is odd to me you weren't able to add more curves in in point mode though, as I was able to somehow...?


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Retargetting code using transform modifier "KeyError"
So to be clear, the purpose of this script I am making is to make it so:

The value of a bone in rig A in Edit Mode is copied
The value of a bone with the same name in rig B in edit mode is copied
A transform bone constraint is made, with extrapolate turned on, the setting changed to "replace" rather than "add". and then the copied values are pasted.

When I try to run the script below, it results in "KeyError: 'bpy_prop_collection[key]: key "CopyRig" not found' on line 18. And I'm clueless to how to fix it.
https://pastebin.com/y8SQ6aUv
I have read this, and have spent today trying to understand it, but I can't seem to understand clearly why the problem is happening, or how to fix it. I've linked it before for added reading, as well as clarification I've been trying to figure it out on my own and have done research.
keyerror: 'bpy_prop_collection[key]: key not found Blender python
I would love an explanation if possible in Layman's terms on how to help make it work. I've been trying and watching videos, but program is not my strong suit at all.
Thank you for your time!
--EDIT: This is the .Blend file I was working with.--

"Relaxed" below kindly provided the answer. It was a user error, Armatures can have a different name in the armature properties than they do in the Object properties, which is why it was able to pass through until line 18. You can see in the uploaded .Blend it works fine now!

would be great if you could provide a blend file as well so we can test wether it works (when we change it) instead of lettings us recreating all things we need to test it. I personally would make it as easy as possible for all that guys who spent their spare time helping other for free (and yes, this is just my opinion)

small hint: you should not use bold font because it can be interpreted as shouting

Is the name of the object the same as the armature? By default an armature is named as Armature.

@Chris
My apologies! I meant to bold that section so it was clear the main focus of what I was trying to do at a quick glance. I didn't see the need to add the blend for the script since I was so certain it was a scripting error, but I realized it's very much user error
Thank you for your patience, I'll make sure to post a .blend no matter what next time, lesson very quickly learned!

@relaxed Thank you very much! I had thought it was, but I didn't realized there was another section. I was making sure it was named CopyRig in the object properties, not the Armature properties...


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Is there no way of rendering headless using EEVEE?
I am using a computer without good graphics card and a remote LINUX server with a K40 Tesla card. I am operating on a remote server by MobaX to get the rendering working. For now I'm using Cycles to render and everything works just fine, here is my command:
blender -b -noaudio /Path/to/File/NAME.blend -P /Path/to/scripts/linux_enable_GPU.py -P /Path/to/demo/run.py -o //results/part{variable}.mp4 -a -- variable

The linux_enable_GPU.py helps me to enable the GPU as well as setting the engine to Cycles and Cuda and the run.py helps me to create actions.

However, sometimes it is quite expensive to render a simple scene using Cycles so I'd like to use Eevee to render my animations.
I tried lot to make it work. According to the official guide, I use:
blender -b  -noaudio test_eevee.blend -E BLENDER_EEVEE -a

to call for Eevee engine but it failed. In debug mode I get:

Version 280 sub 39 date unknown hash unknown
/run/user/1205/gvfs/ non-existent directory
Read blend: /home/blender/works/demo/test_eevee.blend
read file /home/blender/works/demo/test_eevee.blend
Version 292 sub 15 date 2021-02-24 16:25 hash 02948a2cab44
Writing: /tmp/test_eevee.crash.txt
Segmentation fault (core dumped)

And in debug-all mode I get a lot of errors:

Seems that Eevee does not support headless rendering: Headless Eevee rendering However, it seems that we can fake a display to use Eevee. But the script in that Q&A is not crystal clear and I'm using Blender 2.92 version.
Is there any way to render headless using EEVEE?

AFAICT rendering should work if you have a graphics card installed. Have you tried setting the render engine in your blend file? ... and then run the usual blender -b file.blend -a? Seems you GL configs are messed up. Related: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/150526/blender-2-8-aws-ec2-command-line-eevee-render Also I recommend take the tour to learn how this site works: https://blender.stackexchange.com/tour

How can I fake a display?   The method in the first link is not very clear

Did you read my comment?

Yes I have set the engine as EEVEE before, and I also learned that eevee does not support headless render. I think that maybe there is something wrong with my gl but I dont know much about it

... and you get the same error? Again, if you have a graphics card installed it should work fine, rendering headless does not work without a graphics card installed however, or any hacks to fake a display driver (seems not needed in your case).

Check my self answered question here:
How do you use Eevee renderer in a Docker container using bpy?
It's instructions for how to use Eevee in a container, but the instructions are directly translatable to your scenario.
Basically what you would do is create a service that starts xvfb.
Fair warning though, in my experience Eevee doesn't have nearly as impressive a speedup when run in this manner. Not sure if it's because xvfb doesn't offer the best performance, but after I tested for a while I decided to simply stick to Cycles when running in a headless environment. Eevee was faster, but an image that took maybe 5 seconds to render when running Eevee on my actual computer took like 10 times longer running as a container, whereas Cycles was maybe 3 times longer.
So, for me at least, my result was that:
Eevee = 5 seconds per frame * 10 times slowdown = 50 seconds per frame using xvfb
Cycles = 30 seconds per frame * 3 times slowdown = 1 minute 30 seconds per frame, doesn't require xvfb
So again, for me Eevee was still faster, and rendering roughly 30% faster is still nice, but I so vastly prefer the results from Cycles that it didn't feel worth the added hassle just to get a worse result faster. When Eevee was vastly superior in performance I could live with a less appealing result, but headless Eevee led me to prefer the idea of running multiple Cycles renders simultaneously on multiple servers then merging the results.


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How do I light out dark areas
I am learning Blender but I'm not too familiar with lighting.
I am trying to create a simple powerbank and the usb ports just don't get any light because they are extruded inward.
I tried an area light in the usb port but even decreasing it to a single watt just made it look like there was an atomic nuke going on in there, that's how bright it was.
Do you guys have an idea which other light object i should use, or how I should modify the Area Light?
with light

without light

I used the 3 point lighting technique to light out everything a vit more and added a small area light infront of the usb ports with a small ammount of mW.

Start with the basics :https://youtu.be/RDbrOpnIY7Q

The size of your object affects the lights. If you modeled your USB bank in ant size then even a 1 W light might be too strong. Also, the distance light <-> object is important. The size of the light source affects shadows (small=hard/big=soft). In addition to 3-point lights (Emirs Link), an HDR image can produce illumination from all sides.


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What physics make an object not pass through another, if it's the "Child Of"?
I am trying to add physics to the Lego Figure I have modeled.
The body of the figure, has holes on each side for the arm, just like real Lego Figures do.
I know I can attach the arm to the body, by using the "Child Of" Constraint.
If I do so, I can only rotate the arm in one direction, or else it would pass through the mesh/body.
How can I add physics, so that I can rotate the arm also to the side, or even let it pop out, without one object passing through the other one.
Does anyone know how to do so?
Maybe what physics I should add to make it work that way?
And different question, how can I let my figure pick something up, can that also be controlled by physics?

Please ask only one question per post, make as many as necessary

Sorry, I didn't think about it.

If you want to do an animation with only one or maybe two Lego figures then just animate it using keyframes. Lego figures are stiff anyway so physics make no sense in that context.

I know they are actually stiff, but in recent animation movies, they actually managed to pop the arms out of the body for special movements. And that's what I want to do with mine as well.

From what you're describing, I would strongly encourage looking at constraints over physics. They should be able to solve this for you without the CPU hassle of unnecessary collision calculations.

If you need physics for the project you're working on. You'll want to set the origin of each of your arm pieces to their joints. Parent the arm to the body. Then use a limit location constraint to keep the arm attached to the body. To do this copy the location coordinates to the maximum and minimum values for each axis, activate all the check boxes, and change the convert value to local space.
To unattach and reattach the arms you will probably need to write a script that will remove the parent relationship and the constraint between the arm and the body when a certain event occures and then set up the relationship and constraint again for the new arm.
As for picking stuff up, a similar limit location and parenting set up should work in conjunction with another script.

I already limited their rotation, so that they don't pass through the body when rotated. Problem is , like this I can't pop them out or anything like it. So I am looking more for a physics that keeps the objects from passing through each other in the animation. If I don't do so, it will most likely take very long, animating them.

You might be able to use a rigidbody with the gravity turned down to zero.


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Soft body control rope
Making a whip, I've used the soft body, collision and various other options. Rigged the body and the hilt of the whip to the hand. As the hand moves, the soft body rope moves, but it does not move with precision I'd like. When adding a hook to it, I get a sharp L shape. Without the hook, the rope doesn't have the correct flow as a whip should have. Some advice would be appreciated. Here's examples.

A cloth is not always the best solution for a rope, maybe you want to try rigid bodies.

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/48801/are-curve-physics-possible

Leander, I was using a soft bodie, not a cloth. I will try the rigid body though.


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Strange Indentation
Man, I hope this has an easy fix. As I'm sculpting and shift from object mode to edit mode, I notice a strange indent in the character's forehead (I call it the "bullet-hole". This only appears when I go into object mode. Once in edit mode, it disappears. How can I get rid of that bullet-hole?

Can you post a blend file with https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/, From the screenshots its hard to tell what the cause of the problem is.

maybe an inner face?

Your model has a very uneven mesh, with big NGons on the top. When sculpting you move individual vertices around. This area does not have many vertices to move, so the effect is very immediate. To solve this do the following:

Add more geometry, preferably very evenly
Get rid of your NGons


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Can I use Blender 2.7 on my Macbook Pro 15" 2017?
Can I use Blender 2.7 on my Macbook Pro 15" 2017? I have 3.1GHz Intel Core i7 processor, 16G memory, and my graphics card is Intel HD Graphics 630 1563 MB - I am anxious to start learning to use Blender, so I hope so, but I am a little confused by the details I see in the manual regarding requirements.  THANKS - Billy Beyond  - NYC

I learn Blender 2.79 with an older Macbook Pro than yours, so you won't have any problem. It's slower than a PC with Nvidia, but it's largely enough to learn. I'm not sure you'll be able to work with 2.8 though

Why don't you download and see if it runs? What happens when you try?