text:
Delete Object with Zero Verts
When separating a mesh in edit mode using P,  bpy.ops.mesh.separate(type='SELECTED'), it will select your vertices and make a new object. You are left with two objects.
However, if you select all of the mesh of one object and use it, you will be left with two objects, of which one of has no vertices in it. I need to select this object "if no vertices are present" and delete it.
Here is why I need to do this. I have one object, say a sphere and then using Vertex Weight Proximity and Vertex Weight Edit on other objects (which are joined with one name), I am able to detect all objects intersecting my sphere. These will leave a vertex group, which I can then link up ⌃ Ctrl + L and separate the objects.
However, if all the objects are selected, then I am faced with the problem of having one object with no vertices. I do hope I am clear enough in my question. I need some help with the python script of deleting the object if there are no vertices.
Here is my initial script to separate the objects.
bpy.ops.object.editmode_toggle()
bpy.ops.mesh.select_all(action='DESELECT')
bpy.ops.object.vertex_group_set_active(group='V_Group')
bpy.ops.object.vertex_group_select()
bpy.ops.mesh.select_linked(delimit={'SEAM'})
bpy.ops.mesh.separate(type='SELECTED')
bpy.ops.object.editmode_toggle()

Remove all zero vert mesh objects from scene.
Script below will remove all zero vert mesh objects from the scene.  For your use case could instead look only over context.selected_objects.
import bpy
scene = bpy.context.scene

empty_meshobs = [o for o in scene.objects
                 if o.type == 'MESH'
                 and not o.data.vertices]

while empty_meshobs:
    bpy.data.objects.remove(empty_meshobs.pop())

Another alternative is to not split if the selected vertices are all of total.
sel_verts, _, _ =   context.object.data.count_selected_items()
if sel_verts < len(context.object.data.vertices):
    bpy.ops.mesh.separate(type='SELECTED')


text:
Join these two objects together?

I'm trying to join the bottom of this arcade stick to the face below it by actually having it attached to the mesh. What would be the best way of doing this?
I've tried to bridge the bottom edgeloop to the face however this did not work. I've been looking all over google to figure out how to do this but my blender terminology is next to non-existant so I wouldn't know exactly what key terms to be searching for to begin with.

very hard to say, please share your file or at least show different pictures

What does "best" mean? There are several ways.

Whatt is the reason to attach meshes one to another at all? Geometry shouldn't be connected if one object is just staying on another (and not only in those cases). Depends also on the purpose of the model.

Your modeling shouldn't be real life perfect unless you are planning to animate it,
Just cut a hole with boolean modifier and place the stick in it.

Try to use the boolean modifier set to add and then fix the topology manually using the knife tool

This was my first attempt however it doesn't seem to cut properly. If it cut I would just bridge the vertices to the newly made hole. I can try to perform this again and post a screenshot as to what happens.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Select next or previous vertex in edit mode
In Pose Mode, there is a really convenient way to select the prev/next bone with [ and ] and accumulate their selection holding ⇧ Shift.
In Edit Mode, when working with path, line, or plane, there is a really obvious prev/next vertex relative to a currently selected vertex. However, there appears to only be a ⌃ Ctrl +, ⌃ Ctrl - that accumulates both the next and prev vertices in the selection. There's also no way to simply advance the selection to the next vertex.
Is there any way to make vertex selection behave more like pose mode's bone selection? Any plugins addressing the limitation?

Do you mean Ctrl+Numpad+ and Ctrl+Numpad- in Edit mode to select more/less? Is Shift+Ctrl+Numpad+ to select the next active vertex when you have selected a pair that what you're looking for?

Thanks for clarifying. I don't mean Ctrl + Numpad plus or minus. I only want one vertex selected at a time and am only looking to advance to the vertex next to the currently selected vertex. Shift + Ctrl + Numpad + seems to only work when 2 or more vertices are initially selected. Also, this appears to accumulate selected vertices, whereas I only want to have one vertex selected at any time.

Update: I made a free Addon that helps with this problem. Check it out here:
https://github.com/dancrew32/blender_vertex_traversal

Here's a short script that tries to advance to the next vertex or previous vertex. I'll update this with a link to an actual addon soon.
import bpy

def get_vertex_data():
    bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode = 'OBJECT')
    obj = bpy.context.active_object
    bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode = 'EDIT')
    bpy.ops.mesh.select_mode(type = 'VERT')
    current_vertex_index = 0
    vertices_length = len(obj.data.vertices)
    for key, value in obj.data.vertices.items():
        if value.select:
            current_vertex_index = key
    return {
        'current_vertex_index': current_vertex_index,
        'vertices_length': vertices_length,
    }

def select_next_vertex():
    data = get_vertex_data()
    obj = bpy.context.active_object
    bpy.ops.mesh.select_all(action='DESELECT')
    bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='OBJECT')
    next_vertex_index = 0 if data['current_vertex_index'] + 1 >= data['vertices_length'] else data['current_vertex_index'] + 1
    obj.data.vertices[next_vertex_index].select = True
    bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='EDIT')

def select_prev_vertex():
    data = get_vertex_data()
    obj = bpy.context.active_object
    bpy.ops.mesh.select_all(action='DESELECT')
    bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='OBJECT')
    prev_vertex_index = data['vertices_length'] - 1 if data['current_vertex_index'] - 1 < 0 else data['current_vertex_index'] - 1
    obj.data.vertices[prev_vertex_index].select = True
    bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='EDIT')

# Select Next Vertex:
select_next_vertex()

# Or Select Prev Vertex
select_prev_vertex()

The problem is, what is the next vertex?  Vertices aren't ordered the same way that bones are.  There's no hierarchy of vertices.
I think you may like the "select loop inner region" and "select boundary loop" operations.  The first of these selects all the vertices enclosed by a selection (to the extent that Blender is able to figure out what "enclosed" means) while the second selects all vertices at the edge of a selection.  For me, I tend to use these from the searchbar, but they're also available in edit mode 3D's select->select loops submenu.
Using ctrl +/- and these operations, as well as a few more (select linked, hide selection get frequent use, they work great in conjunction with each other) I'm rapidly able to select what it is I want selected.  I think you'll feel the same way.

I really appreciate your answer and I'll research those selection techniques. I left an answer below that achieves what I was looking for when moving to the next/prev vertex (https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/249818/70346). Next and Prev are determined by looking at the mesh's array of vertices. Obviously less useful on a dense mesh, but really intuitive when extruding from a single vertex and using skin modifier (requires key remapping of course)

@tester I can see how that would be useful when dealing with strings.  For dealing with surfaces, index is probably a less useful identifier.

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


text:
How to fix this ngon?

I have Mesh Check Addon which says that I have a bad polygon (red vertex). How can I fix it? When I triangulate all faces and set Shading: smooth,  black shadows appear on the model.

Just for clarification of the terms: It's either a polygon or a vertex, two different things. You most likely have double vertices somewhere or at least vertices that are very close to each other, that could be merged. It's hard to tell from the screenshot. You might want to upload your file to blend-exchange, then edit your question (edit link below it) and add the link given by blend-exchange to your text.

Maybe just switch to Wireframe mode Z, box-select the general are (don't grab anything useful), then merge it at center with Ctrl + M.
Afterwards use snap to vertex on the individual axis, to make sure it ends up back in place.


text:
Make script to add empty to head of bone
I'm trying to use bpy.ops.object.empty_add(type='PLAIN_AXES', align='WORLD', location=(bpy.data.armatures['Armature'].edit_bones['Bone'].head), scale=(1, 1, 1)) to place an empty at the head of a bone. I have a lot of bones that need this, and I need this done on a few models with the same armature.
I get a context error when I try using this code. I cannot seem to figure out how to do this.
    Python: Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "\Text", line 3, in <module>
  File "D:\Steam\steamapps\common\Blender\3.2\scripts\modules\bpy\ops.py", line 115, in __call__
    ret = _op_call(self.idname_py(), None, kw)
RuntimeError: Operator bpy.ops.object.empty_add.poll() failed, context is incorrect

EDIT:
I've tried using this script to move the 3D cursor to the head and placing an empty there, but I am getting a context error again.
def add_empties(thebones):
    bpy.data.objects['Armature'].select_set(True)
    bpy.ops.object.editmode_toggle()
    bpy.data.objects['Armature'].data.edit_bones[thebones].select_head = True
    bpy.ops.view3d.snap_cursor_to_selected()
    bpy.ops.object.editmode_toggle()
    bpy.ops.object.empty_add(type='PLAIN_AXES', align='WORLD', location=(0, 0, 0), scale=(1, 1, 1))

Python: Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "\Text", line 13, in <module>
  File "\Text", line 7, in add_empties
  File "D:\Steam\steamapps\common\Blender\3.2\scripts\modules\bpy\ops.py", line 115, in __call__
    ret = _op_call(self.idname_py(), None, kw)
RuntimeError: Operator bpy.ops.view3d.snap_cursor_to_selected.poll() failed, context is incorrect

I found the error, but it's still not moving the cursor. Really super confused on everything now. It would have been faster to do it by hand =/
bpy.ops.view3d.snap_cursor_to_selected = True

bpy.ops.view3d.snap_cursor_to_selected() will raise error in Editmode but not in Object mode
import bpy

def add_empties(obj_name, bone_name):
    # set active object
    obj = bpy.data.objects[obj_name]
    bpy.context.view_layer.objects.active = obj

    # to editmode
    bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='EDIT')

    bone = obj.data.edit_bones[bone_name]
    bone.select_head = True

    loc = bpy.context.scene.cursor.location

    # change head to 3dcursor location
    bone.head = loc

    # add empty
    bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='OBJECT')
    bpy.ops.object.empty_add(type='PLAIN_AXES', align='WORLD', location=loc, scale=(1, 1, 1))

add_empties("Armature", "Bone")

bone.head = loc actually causes the bone heads to change position to world origin.
I omitted the bpy.context.scene.cursor.location and replaced with loc = bone.head and it works perfectly


text:
Is it possible to project an object onto another object's surface?
What I wanna do is not like a shrinkwrap modifier, but move the the entire object like this:

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


text:
I can't generate pitchipoy armature
This is my 1st time using pitchipoy armature and i can't generate it. This is the error messages :

The automatic rig generating scripts are only designed to work with the provided meta rigs. While there is some ability to alter the rigs, they tend to be very specific about bone names and parenting relationships.
You will need to replace the bone/s that you deleted and probably get the parenting configured to match the original rig. This could mean it is easier to add a new meta rig and start again.
Even if you don't want to use all of the bones provided, you can leave them there and not weight paint them to any part of your mesh. Then you can place the bones on a separate bone layer that you can leave hidden so that they aren't in your way when you are animating.

I didn't delete any bone, I just moved it to match the mesh.

Did you maybe rename one? or clear the parent setting?

I think no, i'll redo later.

My bad, I made some mistakes. I redo it and it works fine.

You may try "Rigify", it has great controls and can be "Set parent to -> With automatic weights"

Best of luck, It will make your life easy :)
Please take a look, all controls

Can you please try to use this rig :

After adjusting bones as per your character, please don't forget to apply, scale, rotation and location to the rig before generating the controls.
I hope it will work for you :)

Did you make the controls manually ?

No, Rigify is doing the job for us, and its on a single click

Please take a kind look of updated image

@BlenderForYou the pitchipoy rig is one of rigify's meta rigs, it is the rigify generate rig button that gets the error.

Opps sorry about that, I did not notice the child name of rigify, can you please hide the mesh and show only the meta rig, seems that lip bone is a problem

I've updated it.

Please have a look on the updated answer, if it worked for you please accept the answer.

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


text:
problem with subdivision surface modifier
So Im making this model of BMO from Adventure Time.Being beginner and all I am not quite skilled with subdivision surface modifier(and all modifiers in general),so could somebody tell me a way to model these "fingers" so they dont look warped the way they look now.
Thanks!

That's a problem with topology of the mesh, not with Subdivison Surface modifier. As long as model has Ngons (faces with > than 4 vertices) most likely there will be problems when subdividing it. Decrease amount of edge loops on the finger end, increase their amount on the model itself.

Use sculpting on the finger or try to roughly model them in edit mode and then use the subsurf modifier.

Can you expand this to explain exactly what they need to do to improve it? Currently they have already modelled it in edit mode and used a subsurf modifier.


text:
Fill a volume with spheres from a particles generator
I'd like fill a volume with spheres from a particles generator
Maybe I can use Rigid Body options
but I don't know how I can
Could you help ?
It a sphere volume with Solidify modifier
I tried with Blender 2.78a I have some crashes to apply Rigid Body informations to spheres objects generated by particles generator. What could I do to fill the volume
with spheres ?
EDIT: I use three Arrays Modifiers and use I copied Rigid Body informations from Active Object

Could you please be more specific? What kind of volume? What should it look like? Maybe add some images with desired result.

If I understand correctly this should help you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haS3B6q82kY

Related: https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/63812/how-to-make-foam-with-bubbles-beer-bath

Is Collision option useful for this task ?

If I am correct that this is the effect that you are trying to achieve, the most important thing is enabling collision on the volume sphere, not rigid body simulation.
A quick visual walk-through of what I did...
1. Add three spheres

Volume sphere
Emitter sphere
Particle sphere

Note: the max draw type of the volume sphere was set to wire to make it easier to see.
2. Setup particle system on the emitter

Give the particles a long lifetime (like 250+)
Emit them from the volume of the mesh
Turn off gravity effects
Set the render mode to object with the particle sphere selected

3. Enable particle collision on the volume sphere

Note: the default settings work fine if you don't want particle damping/killing.


text:
Volume materials rendering weirdly
I have a bunch of cylinders with a possibility of having 1 of 7 materials. The only difference between them is the transmission color however they render differently. What's causing some of them to be black?

Here's the blend file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/u1p9l6dq31d33kh/weirdVolumeMaterial.blend?dl=0

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it should be a comment on another question.

what about this one from 3 Minutes earlier? http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/59079/some-objects-not-rendering

You have a few instances of overlapping faces, and some cylinders directly above other cylinders with faces touching or overlapping.
You also have a few instances of objects inside objects.
Depending on your volume material settings that can lead to artifacts, and in general Blender doesn't like it, confusing the rendering engine on how to calculate depth and render the volume materials.
Overall your scene might benefit from some optimization. Since all cylinders seem to be roughly the same shape you don't need so many unique mesh data. You could probably make them all instances of the same object and simply scale them differently in the Z axis.
This will make your workflow easir if you ever need to edit the shape of the cylinders, and also make your scene lighter and faster to render since there's less unique geometry to upload into memory.
Also make sure you apply materials by object (as opposed to by data) right next to the material name dropdown menu, so each instance can have it's own material definitions


text:
How can I smooth out the edges of this mesh?
Okay, I did look up other questions and actually I found that I need to use Bevel modifier for this, but due to a way of how my mesh is made, it creates the shape which I don't want, what can I do to remove those "damaged look" parts from my mesh? As you can see below, adding Bevel modifier smooths it out how I wanted it to be smoothed out, but it also smooths out in between the vertices and adds (random?) dents, giving this weird look.
My mesh and problem that occurs:

Any ideas? All vertices (I checked thrice just to make sure and really couldn't find any single one out of place) seem to be in their places (on x plane, all vertices have same x, on y plane they also have same y and so forth...)

Have you tried the 'angle" option of the bevel modifier ?

Thank you, it worked! I still had to change few vertices after that but that was unrelated to initial problem, I guess I should look more before asking, anyway I started using blender only few days ago so I don't really know much.

Don't hesitate to ask... If someone knows all is simple !

the problem is that some of the faces are triangulated, resulting in the bevel modifier having a hard time in finding a desirable solution. looking at the model you have there, you could automatically clean up the geometry using a decimate modifier BEFORE the bevel, set its mode to planar, and then, as lemon suggested, use the angle method in the bevel. See those two screenshots here:

I already solved it (lemon thought that it's better to just comment under my question instead of answering it), but thank you for further explanation.
Also it was lemon who suggested that, I asked question, lol.
Anyway, when should I use decimate? Is it what I need when I want to export my model into Unity(any game engine) and want to reduce vertice/triangle count?

decimate can be used to reduce the vertex and face count of a mesh using a few automated algorithms. It can be helpful in many situations, I use it for instance to clean up 3D Text geometry automatically, which tends to be a bit dirty at times. For exporting I'd say it depends: most game engines don't like n-gons at all, many triangulate the mesh automatically on import. So you'd decimate in Blender, they add the same stuff back on import. However, if Un-Subdivide or Collapse mode works for your situation, that would really reduce the poly count.

Well for this example, it seems that I could decimate and yes I know, Unity uses only triangles, so Unity itself would triangulate (I am not sure, maybe blender does that when exporting to .obj) but would do it better since some vertices which aren't needed (middle ones as you could notice), are removed forever, so in the end it's still worth it? My finger won't fall off from adding one more modifier :P

it's definitely worth trying, but be aware that the modifier changes the geometry, so your textures (or better said UV Layouts) might be affected. With this example you might be right, it could reduce the poly count indeed.

Thank you, also I didn't try texturing at all, but I'll keep this in mind.

A complement to aliasguru's answer, because the behavior of bevel rely also on the inner geometry of the mesh, not only its aspect in object mode.
And this is important to understand, because, if the geometry is really not the good one, at some point, no bevel option can correct it.
If you redo the geometry like this, with quads (4 vertices faces) only, there is no bevel problem (and by the way, concerning your other recent question, you have a lower polycount).

But if you introduce triangles in it :

Blender is a quad tool, and this matters a lot.
Another example with subsurf modifier instead of bevel, with quads on the left and tris on the right :

So if you want to use the angle limit, this may be mainly because we don't want to add too much (or unnecessary) geometry to the model.
Here, bevel with limit 'none' on the left and with limit set to 'angle' on the right :

Okay, that makes sense, though I did a whole different process as I found out that I can bevel only selected vertices, so I chose only corners and ctrl+B'd them, though decimate still did a pretty good job with removing those inbetween vertices. Also I did that corner from a cube (deleted inner corner vertice that wasn't needed), so I think that's why it was so messy.

Okay, beveling with ctrl+B is good too. But two things : this is not removable (the modifier is removable) and so if there is a mistake somewhere, all may be to be reworked again. Also you can use weight or vertex group options of the bevel modifier to specify the edges you want to be beveled (even if there is some limitations to do that as this is at vertex level and not at edge level).


text:
How Can I Get A Clean Topology While Keeping The Normals Smooth?
I'm working on the star destroyer.
I have created the hunger bay at the bottom of it
but while trying to maintain clean topology. The result ended up with normal's that are a bit warped.
Any idea how to fix is while keeping good topology?
https://youtu.be/fRLFHv2eFCc

I'm also adding the Project file in case everybody can and will to take the time to look into it:
https://we.tl/t-spXh3879N5

Can you show the normals in your screen captures?  BSE has a mechanism for offering your files. Info offered on other sites can disappear which is undesirable.

well i was actually able to fix the normal.
but it resulted in an uniformed. topology the thing is i want to add a displacement later on and im afraid it might screw it up
[url=https://www.linkpicture.com/view.php?img=LPic5fc7115555df9488573433][img]https://www.linkpicture.com/q/image_2020-12-01_200015.png[/img][/url]

if u refere to the face orientation then here you go.
https://www.linkpicture.com/q/image_2020-12-01_202314.png
but again: this is really not the point anymore. the normals are fixed.
the problem now is the topology witch is very not uniformed


text:
Hide an object from reflecting in the ocean modifier
I'm new to Blender and just following a tutorial.
I wanted to put a bit of my own stamp on it and got this grid set up at the top to give it an 80s vibe:

But its making a mess of my ocean.
I want to have the pink grid object in the top to be hidden from being reflected in the ocean modifier plane below.
I tried searching and looking for how to hide an object, turn off the shadows, etc.
I thought maybe I could add a plane in between that would work as a one way mask - you can see the orange plane outlined which has a holdout material shader applied to it and backface culling on so I can see through this side, but it didn't stop the ocean still getting a peek.
Can anyone point me in the right direction? Is it possible?
(Update, I've been using Eevee to render this)

You could use the Compositor or try this kind of node setup for your grid material: Use the Input > Light Path > Is Reflection Ray as a factor between the original material and a Transparent node (you'll need to give your material a Settings > Blend Mode > Alpha Blend):


text:
How to create porous material
Porous material
I tried to model a porous material which contain empty spheres or complex shapes, modeling it into a cube.

(source: scielo.br)
I found this video as an example, but the procedure was made by Cinema 4D with an add plugin.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcRlTK0TUBg
Is there a technique to use procedural textures and volumetric effects to these porous texture, or if there's a script to do!

You could use 3d dimensional procedural textures for volumetric rendering:

With a node setup like:

The scale of the voronoi texture controls the size of the bubbles. You could also try noise or musgrave texture with different settings.
For more details I reduced the step size in the volumnetric render settings:

1-  Using a particle system and a sphere mesh as the object fill
a box the more variety in sizes the better, the box will need to be larger than your final "block"
2-  Convert the particle spheres to real geometry and join them together into one mesh.
follow this tutorial:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gM8yEMFMjg
Then using modifiers ,
3-  Remesh using voxels.
4-  Decimate to break up spherical obvious shape.
5-  Boolean intersection the sphere mass with a box with a box with actual dimensions you want .
6-  An other voxel remesh (finer resolution)to eliminate boolean artefacts.

this reads like a link-only answer.

As to make volumetric porousity on volume level for your bony object ,I found a useful blog with beautiful open source downloadable plugin AtomBlend, developed in Sydney by Vavara Efremova under the supervision of Anna Ceguerra, Simon Ringer and Peter Felfer. It works for Nano particles material research . so can handle enormous number of vertices for visualisation , render and analysis .You can load your object vertics data and make Atomic view and switch halo material (circles as atoms) to Vertex duplication (spheres as atoms) by switching On Vertex Duplication in the object tab.
http://www.peterfelfer.org/?p=214

Please do not go around just copy pasting your "answer" to any question that sounds like it will fit. As it is you have given very little information on how to use this addon. The screen shots you lifted from this video do not really help (aside from making it look less like a link only answer.)

you are right , but some answers are applicable for more than one question , what to do for?

The linked site does not exist (anymore?), the site isn't even registered to anyone anymore.


text:
When I render, only some emissions and some gloss render, while others doesn't
I've worked in blender for a bit over 2 years now, and I've never encountered something like this before. I was modeling a stage (for performances, etc) and when I tried to render, some of the emissions wouldn't render at ALL. Some would, which is very weird. I'd be really grateful if anyone knew what I could do, because I'm completely lost... :/
.blend :

make sure you enabled render for these lights (ctrl + recursive disables it), and by the way could you put your blend file? this would help make sure

Hi. For uploading images in future, please use the in-built uploader to place the images in the question body. See: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/75491/how-to-upload-an-image-to-a-post

I am not sure I fully understand what the problem is. Which picture is the "correct" one? Only thing I can think is to make sure you have all the object enabled to render in the outliner and the object tab.

reply to ray: okay, will do - reply to icYou: the first one is the rendered one and the second one is the prerendered one. also, how to add a .blend? i dont really know how to, i just made this account to ask this...

I'm appearently restricted to 30MB and the .blend is 110MB. I honestly have no clue what I should do or how I should add it :/ @icYou520

I would honestly need to see your file to know. I would correct your original post because you said 1st image is "pre render" but in the comments your say the 2nd image is "pre render". If you can I would erase all the things in your .blend file that you dont need and just leave a few of the things you are having problems with. (To get it under 30MB) then upload it so I can take a look.

@icYou520 I added the .blend with removed spotlights, but it still has the same problem.

oh @icYou520 thank you very much! :) very appreciated!!

Hi. In general it is still useful to have images in a post so if people come across your question in future they can tell if they are having the same problem, whereas with just a blend file it's a lot harder to tell. Also, for people to get notified of comments you will have to '@' them, e.g. '@RayMairlot'.

I think I found your problem.
You had certain objects set to NOT render by turning off the camera icon.
Just turn them all back on and it should render fine.


text:
I rendered a 2000+ frame AVI movie with Blender Render and it corrupted, why?
I wanted to make a movie showing of a 3d model, 2250 frames long, Blender Render, AVI, but after I rendered it it won't open, and when I open it in After Effects only 7 seconds is available. Why is this? Is there some setting that one can change to render it without it getting corrupted. There was nothing happening, it was running alone, no errors.
Don't really know what screenshots I could add, it just won't open any media player and is always just 7 seconds long in editing programs. If there's a question that needs to be answered to solve this, I'll try my best to answer it. I'm sorry if it's anything obvious, but I've never done a render as long as this so I'm maybe doing something wrong, I don't know..
EDIT: Tried the video editor in Blender. File still corrupted

Things can go wrong during rendering - sometimes frames are dropped - and that's why it considered best practice to render stills and then compile them into animations later. Compiling video's with stills goes really quick, and if you notice you have one dropped / corrupted still frame to re-render, is not a train smash...

Sorry to hear about your file; that can certainly be frustrating. I'm not sure why it became corrupted, but the best practice is always to render an image sequence. That way, if something goes wrong you can resume from where you left off. Plus, you can also open the sequence in After Effects (or any program that supports image sequences, including Blender) and re-export as an video file of your choice, if you need it to be one contiguous file. See this video as an example. I hope this helps.

I had trouble with animations, and it was 'corrupt' in every app I tried to do anything with it, except VLC. I opened it in VLC, it opened fine, and then exported as a different format (avi > mp4) and now it's working in all the apps I use just fine. Maybe it's just a weird issue with how blender exports but that might help you move forward with it.


text:
Blender Game. My Game does not move when executing but it goes to the final position when I stop it
I'm trying to create a simulation in blender of a person walking.
I did a program to advance one leg 1 degree (and return the other 1 deg) after pressing the space bar but I can't see the advance while the game is executing and instead of that, I see the movement until I stop the game. I think it could be because of the pose mode. But I'm not sure. No error is displayed in the console while executing.
I attach some pictures and the code:

Before running the game:

While running the game nothing moves.

When I stop it after pressing the Spacebar a few times and it leaves the executing screen it appears it what I think is the final position, but nothing happens while executing.

Logic Editor:

Code:

    import math
    import bpy
    import numpy as np
    import bge
    from bge import logic

    controller = logic.getCurrentController()
    own = controller.owner

    sensors=own.sensors

    #CODE PART 1. ROTATION
    ob = bpy.data.objects['Armature']
    bpy.context.scene.objects.active = ob
    bpy.ops.object.mode_set(mode='OBJECT')

    rhip = ob.pose.bones['Thigh.R']
    rleg = ob.pose.bones['Leg.R']
    rfoot= ob.pose.bones['Foot.R']

    lhip = ob.pose.bones['Thigh.L']
    lleg = ob.pose.bones['Leg.L']
    lfoot= ob.pose.bones['Foot.L']

    # Set rotation mode to Euler XYZ, easier to understand
    # than default quaternions
    rhip.rotation_mode = 'XYZ'
    rleg.rotation_mode = 'XYZ'
    rfoot.rotation_mode = 'XYZ'
    lhip.rotation_mode = 'XYZ'
    lleg.rotation_mode = 'XYZ'
    lfoot.rotation_mode = 'XYZ'

    # select axis in ['X','Y','Z']  <--bone local
    axis = 'Z'
    actual_angle = [0,0,0,0,0,0]

    def refresh_angle():
        global actual_angle
        lecture=[1,1,1,-1,-1,-1]
        angle=np.array(lecture)-np.array(actual_angle)

        rhip.rotation_euler.rotate_axis(axis, math.radians(angle[0]))
        rleg.rotation_euler.rotate_axis(axis, math.radians(angle[1]))
        rfoot.rotation_euler.rotate_axis(axis, math.radians(angle[2]))
        lhip.rotation_euler.rotate_axis(axis, math.radians(angle[3]))
        lleg.rotation_euler.rotate_axis(axis, math.radians(angle[4]))
        lfoot.rotation_euler.rotate_axis(axis, math.radians(angle[5]))

        actual_angle=angle

    if sensors["Spacebar"].positive:
         refresh_angle()

BPY doesn`t work with BGE, bge armature, related https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/92722/how-do-you-move-a-bone-in-the-blender-game-engine

How did you solve it? Where do you specify the name of the bone? in owner.update??   import bge channel = bge.logic.getCurrentController().owner.channels["Bone"] bge.logic.getCurrentController().owner.update() print(channel.location)

Did you need to change something in the Logic Editor??

While in the related question i test channel.location.x += 0.1 and channel.location.x += 0.1 but none work all time print (0,0,0) (i try because i never has move a bone), so i read the armature documentation and location. Finally end up with this script.
from bge import logic

armature = logic.getCurrentController().owner
if not hasattr(logic, 'boneLocation'):
    logic.boneLocation = 0
else:
    logic.boneLocation += 0.5
    channel = armature.channels["moveBone.003"]
    channel.location = [logic.boneLocation, 0, 1]
    print(channel.location)
    logic.getCurrentController().owner.update()

Blender Game Engine Started
<Vector (0.5000, 0.0000, 1.0000)>
<Vector (1.0000, 0.0000, 1.0000)>
<Vector (1.5000, 0.0000, 1.0000)>
<Vector (2.0000, 0.0000, 1.0000)>
<Vector (2.5000, 0.0000, 1.0000)>
<Vector (3.0000, 0.0000, 1.0000)>
<Vector (3.5000, 0.0000, 1.0000)>
<Vector (4.0000, 0.0000, 1.0000)>

Thank you very much. The above code its just working for me for translation and not rotation; it doesn't move the full chain of bones like if it where in pose mode. Did you know one way to move one bone by rotation in some quantity of degrees with implicit movement of the full chain of bones?. Reading Armature I think joint_rotation could work, but I have no idea how to implement it.

I would like to help you while i learn how to do it but i am really busy and that may need a lot of time. Also i don't have a single minimum armature to start testing. I made the above just with one bone


text:
Why does my armature keep moving?
This is really frustrating. I have tried every possible setting and it will not stop the armature from shifting position in pose mode compared to edit mode. I have not added weights and I have checked all of the axis of every bone and they are the same when I switch from edit to pose mode.
When I attach the model to the armature it leans backwards every time due to the shift in pose mode and the back of the legs also get a slight backward curve.
I have reset alt R and alt G in pose mode each time.
The IK controller bone (bottom bone far left) is clearly causing the armature to leap backwards but none of the settings in the constraints fix it.

It would be helpful to see the bone hierarchy. Can you share the file?

The IK bone will always stick to its controller (the bone that you've called IK foot.R) as soon as you'll switch to Pose mode. To avoid that, switch to Edit mode and stick the head of IK foot.R to the tail of the bone that has the IK constraint.


text:
What would be the best way of recreating this jagged edge?
I want to create a rough wooden edge, similar to the top of the wood in this image. I have tried increasing the vertices on the edge and then extending a random number, but it isn't at all convincing.
I haven't used the particle system much, so not sure if that would do it.
I would also like to recreate some of the tiny wooden burs that appear on the flat side of the wood also.

Welcome. Please use a title that matches the content of the question. It should be descriptive but succinct, unique and identifying, summarizing the issue in such way that anyone searching for a similar problem may easily find it. Use the [edit] link above, remove anything superfluous, avoid words like "this","issue with" or "question about". Remember, your title is the first thing potential visitors will see, answers you get depend heavily on how inviting it is. See "What is the problem of asking “How do I do this?""

Try Luma.Ai or Polycam, if you have the object physically. it can make nice 3D scans

Maybe subdivide the top face and use a Displace modifier on Z? You can even pull some faces manually to have some peaks.


text:
How to find polygon number of a structure in blender?
I have created a cuboid room in blender using python and it has 289 faces as shown in the stats (in the image). How can I find which polygon number a particular face is ?
For example, If I print the output of the number of polygons by
Code snippet:
mesh = ob.data
face_list = [face for face in mesh.polygons]
print('Face list: ', face_list)

Output:
bpy.data.meshes['new_mesh.001'].polygons[0],
bpy.data.meshes['new_mesh.001'].polygons[1] ... bpy.data.meshes['new_mesh.001'].polygons[288]

I want to know which face belong to which polygon number. Is there a way to find this ?

To use indices (small blue number) you have to enable the Interface > Display > [X] Developer Extras in the User Preferences dialog to see this option.

Or use MeasureIt Tools (build-in)

You should mention in your answer that you have to enable the Interface > Display > [X] Developer Extras in the User Preferences dialog to see this option.

Thanks for the advice. I edited the answer

For Python: The index is stored in face.index.
Related question: How can I check face selection in edit mode
To print the indexes of all selected faces in Edit mode:
import bpy
import bmesh

context = bpy.context
ob = context.edit_object
me = ob.data

bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(me)
# check the selected faces
for f in bm.faces:
    if f.select:
        print(f.index)


text:
How to sculpt with dyntopo without damaging uv?
Is there a way to use dyntopo on an object that already has uv without damaging it's uv map, and if it is not possible
at least make the texture look the same?

If you want to have your "reference" texture while sculpting, it might help to set a background image to your camera (Front depth)

This isn't possible.  Once the sculpting is finished the model should be retopologized and the UV mapping should be redone for the new topology.

Yep, it goes sculpt/model > retopologize > unwrap > texture > animate, in that order


text:
Only show whole dots that aren't obstructed by mask
I'm drawing a dot-pattern, based on a vector grid (a) onto a plane.
Based on the position of two empties, that can move on the plane, there are masks (b) generated.
I then combine both of them (c), however I'd like to ignore (or complete) those dots, that are partially obstructed by the mask, so that only whole dots are being drawn (d).
Is there a way to achieve only whole dots, either by completing or deleting "partial-dots" within my mask?

I currently use these nodes to blend them together.

feel free to change the title of this question, if you find a better description for my problem ^^

Yes, but... Can you give an idea of the use-case? e.g Are the masks always 1-unit squares?  Would you like arbitrary images encoded as dot-patterns? All possible, but some things need bigger trees than others.... and you can probably simplify your existing tree considerably

Do you want to fix it keeping existing node groups, or would you accept to change at least one of them?

I want to use this as a face for a robot. Think of it like a display, which shows the eyes. By scaling the empties you can change the size and rotation of the masks. In the end I would connect this to a rig (where is the character looking) and add shape keys for different emotions.

@lemon I'm happy to change up the whole thing, as long as I'm able to achieve above described behaviour :D (using it for the eye rig and implementing some emotions via shape keys)

The current node-setup was just the only way I could think of it, my knowledge of procedural textures with vectors, etc. is somewhat limited

Rather than trying to make the dots behave to fully hide/show based on whether there are wholly or part within the masked regions, it is far simpler to control the masks so that they only ever cover whole dot regions. This can be done using the Modulo function to calculate the distance to the nearest boundary and adjust the edge to that boundary. In this way the mask edge will 'jump' to a suitable position where it will not cut any of the dots.
Consider the following material nodes :

The Object coordinates from the Empty (Texture Coordinate node near the top) are used to produce the mask by applying an Absolute operation followed by a Less Than on each of the channels. The result is combined using Minimum to produce the mask. Note that the Vector Math node is used for Absolute to perform the same operation on each channel of the vector. In this way, moving the Empty moves the mask and changing the values in the Less Than nodes will affect the Width and Height of the mask around that point of the Empty. Note that for this to work the Empty must have the same Rotation and Scale as the main mesh (otherwise the coordinate systems won’t work).
In addition, a modulo (*see below) operation is applied to the Object coordinates. This will return the remainder of dividing the coordinates by the desired 'pitch' (size) of the grid. By Subtracting this from the coordinates used for the mask we effectively offset the boundary of the mask to the edge of the grid defined by the 'dot pitch'. The result of the Modulo is also used to indicate the position within each grid cell and this is used (by scaling (Divide), offsetting (Subtract 0.5) and getting the Length to determine the distance from the centre of a circle to generate each 'dot' (controlled by the other Less Than node).
The result of the mask and the 'dot' is combined via a Multiply node to produce only complete dots within the mask.
Note : The standard Modulo function handles negative values by outputting a negative result. This is not suited to generating a grid in this way but the Modulo, Add, Modulo operations correct for this (see https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/122489/29586 for an explanation of this).
Here's the result of moving the Empty.

The Value node can be adjusted to set the 'dot pitch', the X and Y Less Than nodes to adjust the mask Width and Height respectively, and the Length Less Than node to adjust the 'dot size'. The empty can then be used to position the mask and only complete dots will be shown.
In order to support multiple masks, simply replicate the 'top row' of nodes (from the Texture Coordinate of the Empty to the Multiply used to merge with the dots) for each 'Empty' in use - and combine each row with a Maximum node.

You're awesome! Thanks a lot :)


text:
Why is soft body modifier always on top of modifier stack?

It doesn't matter when I add soft body modifier, it is always the first modifier, and can't be moved down. Why is this?

I don't think any modifiers aside from deform modifiers can be above soft body in the modifier stack. What are you trying to accomplish?

I just want to use SimpleDeform modifier to bend a sheet,then simulate the sheet falling onto bed.

I dont want to move it down,I want to add it to the botttom,like cloth modifier,but every time it just go straight to top

If you can read the error message at the top it says, "Can't move beyond a non-deforming modifier". It basically means deformation modifiers are always on the top.


text:
Why is only part of my render taking so long? Did I do something wrong? (Cycles)
So, I have been using blender for about two months now and have done a few small projects, but I decided to try something a little bigger.
I took a simple spaceship that I had modeled during a tutorial and added some burner effects to it, as well as an animation of it shooting and blowing up an asteroid. I added a quick explode and a quick smoke modifier to the asteroid to make it blow up. I've never really worked with these effects before, so I'm unsure how they effect render times.
The part of the animation with the spaceship renders relatively quickly, however any frame with the asteroid in it (frame 166 on) takes AT LEAST two hours to render, and doesn't seem to have the material I added to it ( a simple brown diffuse). I'm unsure if the render times are because of the added effects, or if I messed up something with my project.
I've gone through and turned down any of the quality settings that I thought I could afford to so that I could render faster. I'm using cycles render, but I don't have a GPU that supports GPU rendering. I was wondering if someone could take a look at my .blend file and see if I've done something wrong, or if it's just my computer.
Here's a link to the .blend file
http://www.pasteall.org/blend/41959
Thank you so much!!!!!

For answer the qyuestion, we also need what engine are you using (Internal or Cycles), what resolution do you have, and how mach pases. Remember that 1 frame may take even 5 min

I've been thinking, and 2 hours is about what should take.
Because the asteroid contains more lights and fractures as logically it will take longer to render. I recommend that if you are using CPU, put the tiles to 16 per 16, and if you are using GPU, you make the larger tiles. We also recommend that instead of rendering the tiles from the bottom up, put it from the center


text:
How to supress bpy render messages in terminal output?
Using the Blender Python Module bpy the rendering process bpy.ops.render.render(write_still=True) is quite verbose:
Fra:2 Mem:14.35M (0.00M, Peak 14.50M) | Preparing Scene data
Fra:2 Mem:19.00M (0.00M, Peak 19.01M) | Preparing Scene data
...
Fra:2 Mem:15.00M (0.00M, Peak 33.27M) Sce: Scene Ve:21001 Fa:41576 La:1
Saved: /path/to/output.png Time: 00:00.60 (Saving: 00:00.06)

I can't make use of the proposed solution to omit the script output, because the Blender renderings are embedded in a larger python project using import bpy API rather than calling a python script file.
I tried to suppress the output using a python standard method presented here, but no success.
Is there any way to reduce the verbosity of Blender renderings when using bpy module?

i didn't try blender as a module but see if this helps http://stackoverflow.com/a/11632982/2987234

Great, it works!

if you have a working solution please write a reasonable answer, so it is of some use to others.

The following output redirection proposed here does work:
# redirect output to log file
logfile = 'blender_render.log'
open(logfile, 'a').close()
old = os.dup(sys.stdout.fileno())
sys.stdout.flush()
os.close(sys.stdout.fileno())
fd = os.open(logfile, os.O_WRONLY)

# do the rendering
bpy.ops.render.render(write_still=True)

# disable output redirection
os.close(fd)
os.dup(old)
os.close(old)

cool! even if only relatively few people need to know this answer, at least they don't have to visit a different link now.

This worked for me. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5081657/how-do-i-prevent-a-c-shared-library-to-print-on-stdout-in-python
It makes a context manager you can use to block the output of specific lines. It is similar to above answer but cleaner.
import os
import sys
from contextlib import contextmanager

@contextmanager
def stdout_redirected(to=os.devnull):
    '''
    import os

    with stdout_redirected(to=filename):
        print("from Python")
        os.system("echo non-Python applications are also supported")
    '''
    fd = sys.stdout.fileno()

    ##### assert that Python and C stdio write using the same file descriptor
    ####assert libc.fileno(ctypes.c_void_p.in_dll(libc, "stdout")) == fd == 1

    def _redirect_stdout(to):
        sys.stdout.close() # + implicit flush()
        os.dup2(to.fileno(), fd) # fd writes to 'to' file
        sys.stdout = os.fdopen(fd, 'w') # Python writes to fd

    with os.fdopen(os.dup(fd), 'w') as old_stdout:
        with open(to, 'w') as file:
            _redirect_stdout(to=file)
        try:
            yield # allow code to be run with the redirected stdout
        finally:
            _redirect_stdout(to=old_stdout) # restore stdout.
                                            # buffering and flags such as
                                            # CLOEXEC may be different

Then just use as follows:
with stdout_redirected():
     bpy.ops.render.render(write_still=True)


text:
How to assign multiple color for inside (face) and outside (face) of a room in blender?
I have a building model in Blender created from python using vertices and faces. For making it look as realistic as possible, I want to render color on the outer face/outside walls of the room to be 'White' (lets say) and the inner face/inside walls of the room to be different (lets say yellow). I am using rgb color code to render the color but it applies same color to both inner and outer face.
Is it possible to achieve different colors on both (inner and outer) faces ?

Not unless you add thickness to the walls by (for instance) adding and applying a solidify modifier which will create two faces.

I am not sure if you want to do it with python and if it is possible to do with python but from a shader perspective, there is a node called Geometry, this node has value Backfacing that does exactly what you want, it gives one side one color/nodes and gives other side second color/nodes... It works way that value 1 is front and value 0 is back

As MikoCG wrote in comments, you can use Geometry node's Backfacing output:
import bpy
from bpy import context as C, data as D

bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_plane_add()
plane = C.active_object

mat = D.materials.new("double.sided")
mat.use_nodes = True
nodes = mat.node_tree.nodes
links = mat.node_tree.links

mix = nodes.new('ShaderNodeMixRGB')
mix.inputs['Color1'].default_value = (1, 1, 1, 1)
mix.inputs['Color2'].default_value = (1, 1, 0, 1)

geo = nodes.new('ShaderNodeNewGeometry')
base_col = nodes['Principled BSDF'].inputs['Base Color']

links.new(mix.inputs['Fac'], geo.outputs['Backfacing'])
links.new(base_col, mix.outputs['Color'])

plane.data.materials.append(mat)


text:
Unable to change focal length of camera using python
I want to add a camera from my scene using python. I followed the answer and it created the camera but I am not being able to change the focal length. I even tried using this answer but the focal length remains the same (as default = 50).
def setupCamera(scene, c):
    pi = math.pi

    scene.camera.rotation_euler[0] = c[0] * (pi / 180.0)
    scene.camera.rotation_euler[1] = c[1] * (pi / 180.0)
    scene.camera.rotation_euler[2] = c[2] * (pi / 180.0)

    scene.camera.location.x = c[3]
    scene.camera.location.y = c[4]
    scene.camera.location.z = c[5]

    return

scene = bpy.data.scenes["Scene"]
config = list([69.1, 1.6, 38.9, 7.22, -6.94, 4.95])
bpy.ops.object.camera_add()
cam = bpy.data.objects['Camera']
cam.rotation_mode = 'XYZ'
scene.camera = cam

# Changing focal length
bpy.data.cameras[0].lens = 9.0

setupCamera(scene=scene, c=config)

I have the links to answer but I cannot figure out why the focal length is not being changed to 9.0 ?

You are not modifying the correct camera. When you call bpy.ops.object.camera_add(), the newly created camera becomes the new active object. You can get it with bpy.context.object. You need to modify that camera.
scene = bpy.context.scene
bpy.ops.object.camera_add()
cam = bpy.context.object
cam.rotation_mode = 'XYZ'
scene.camera = cam

# Changing focal length
cam.data.lens = 9.0

config = [69.1, 1.6, 38.9, 7.22, -6.94, 4.95]
setupCamera(scene=scene, c=config)


text:
How can I thicken selected faces while keeping the edges parallel?
Apologies but I have difficulty expressing this in words; what I want to do is evenly, with the edges parallel, 'thicken' a selection of faces/planes.
I have used the solidify modifier, but for some reason this makes the topology look weird, as though it's sloped.

The object in the top part of the image displays what I would like, but to be applied to the bottom object. The red drawing on the bottom shows the cross section of the object when the solidifiy modifier is applied to it, whereas the green drawing shows how I would like it to look.
I would like to know if there is a way to achieve this not just for a circular object, but any selection of planes.

The solidify modifier works with the normals of the plains, so that sloped effect is normal (both expression wise and technically). One way you could solve this particular ring is simply do an extrusion with zero transform, and then scale the extruded geometry along the X and y axes. How to do this with “any selection of faces,” however, largely depends on what rules those faces would and would not be following. Do they remain in a band-like, edge-to-edge shape, even if it’s not a circle? Do they always tilt by the same amount together? Is the band always at an even height? Is it always concave? What you should do in any particular situation is a matter of engineering, and it requires more Help than this site can give, practically at least.


text:
Tiling a domed roof?
What is the best way tile the dome using these tiles? I'm trying to do it by using the curve modifier while changing rotation on the x axis but it's taking forever to get it right. Do I just need to try harder or is there a better way?

if your tiles have all the same size, I guess it's the solution, it should not take forever though

You can also try the instancing. May be you have to modify the topology of the sphere. https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/scene_layout/object/properties/instancing/index.html

are you open for add-on - solutions like sverchok, animation nodes?

If you are open to use sverchok...it is pretty easy.
Use this node setup:

and you get this if you are changing the factor:

The Tissue shipped with Blender might be well suited for this if I understood correctly.
Enabled it in the Add-on preferences.

Create a mesh object of one tile, select it then select the dome object. Go to the Edit panel in the N Panel and click on Tesselate.

You can tweak the default settings but it should be good to go already. Click on OK to tesselate the mesh. You may have to rotate the tile mesh in edit mode if the orientation is not right.
This will create a new object with the tesselated mesh.

Or

I don't think you can change the settings so the tiles are offset like in a regular roof. You can do it a number of different ways with a few steps but I'll show this one :
ALT + click then SHIFT + ALT + click on alternative face rings and type Y or go into Mesh > Split > Selection to make the faces stand alone.

Then rotate half a vertical ring along Z. This can be eye-balled if precision isn't an issue, otherwise it can be deducted by dividing 360° by the number of vertical rings then dividing by 2 again.

Finally, go back to the first steps to tesselate the mesh :

Is there a way to  offset per row. (akin to roof tiles)?

@batFINGER updated answer, I don't know of a one click solution but there might one :)


text:
duplicated Smoke emmiters
I am trying to do various smoke emitters on this secene, so i did one and duplicated it, but when i render they both emit the same, even if i have changed the size and the position of one of the emmiters, i tried to clean caché, but one of them keep rendering the same than the other.
The bottom one seems to work well, but the top one, nope.
I have to redo all the presets of one of the emmiters? or there is a way to do two differents emissions?

you have to change any property of the domain if you want to change a property of an emitter to take effect.

i have tried, but nothing, must be one particular property for it.

do you use different cache names?

OMG was that! i'm so stupid, THANKS!

You're welcome! I'm glad that fixed it :-)


text:
Can't move to collection
I have an object. There is no parenting or anything that I think would make it unable to move the collection. I have it in a collection but I need to move it to another. I don't have any collections inside other collections. So I am not sure what is going on.
it is the only object selected so I know it's not the problem where there is no active object, which has already been posted before. If I just press  M nothing happens. I am so confused. I can still, however drag and drop objects into different collections but this seems to slow of a workaround.

When this happens to me, I'm Usually not in object Mode.

@TomMorrow I have it in object mode.

This can also happen if you are in local view. You are not able to move any object to another collection while in local view. It indeed will appear to have no effect when selecting that command and it will also not give any feedback that it cannot perform that action while in local view.
If the move command is indeed not working due to local view, You can simply exit local view by hitting the /-key (it toggles). Once you leave it, move to collection should work as normal.


text:
Blender ignores SHIFT+MMB (panning) after switching to another window?
So this is not a major problem, but it is an issue that gets pretty annoying. Whenever I'm using Blender and I need to switch to another window or application on my PC (to pause a video, look something up, send an email, etc), It always ignores me initially whenever I want to ⇧ Shift +  MMB (panning).
It only ignores the initial keyboard command, and I can pan around my scene just fine after that— but it is still extremely annoying.
Is there a fix for this? Or something in the settings to prevent this?

When you go back to blender, the 'active window' is still on the other window so all keyboard commands will go to that one. Which is why it works on the second try(the active Window becomes blender) A good way is to ⎇ Alt + ↹ Tab to blender instead.


text:
Blender error: out of memory
I have never used Blender, so I'm totally new to the software, but today a friend of mine asked me to use my computer to render a picture for him since he doesn't have a powerful PC. So he gave me the file and told me what to do:
For both the two star-shaped bushes and the small ball-shaped bushes, I had to:
1)Select the object with the right click of the mouse
2)Click on the icon with the stars (the particle system)
3)Click on Display modifier in the viewport
4)In Emission, increase the number up to 100k
Then, I had to set a resolution of 6000 on x-axis and 4080 on the y-axis and start the render.
The resolution must be so high because the picture is going to be printed on 6mx4m rollups.
My PC's specs are:

i7 920 @4GHz (4 core, 8 threads)
12GB DDR triple channel @1600MHz CL9
nVidia gtx 1070 AMP!Extreme 2GHz on the GPU and 9000MHz on the 8GB of GDDR5
SSD 850 pro
HX750i 750 W PSU
Windows7 Ultimate x64
I have downloaded the last 64bit version of blender.

Every time I try to render, I'm getting the "out of memory error" before the render even starts (I get it when it starts to apply textures, I think, but I'm not sure).
I would like to know if there is anything I can do (is my PC not good enough or is a picture problem?).
I will attach a screenshot of the image (the original is 3,9 GB and when I open it, 11GB of ram are used). If you need more information about the picture tell me where to find them and I will report them.
I also tried to render with my GPU but I get the same error even if both AIDA64 and GPU-Z tells me that only 2GB of GDDR is being used.
Thanks.

You are simply ran out of memory. If your scene is around 11GB and you have 12GB (note that system and other software is using a bit o it) it simply isn't enough. And when you try to render it textures are applied, maybe you have set particles higher number for render and maybe same thing with subsurface modifier. Also render resolution has a big factor here. You can try to break your scene to render layers and then use composite to join them.

You have too many particles in your scene

So I supose this is true also for my GPU, right? Even if softwares tell me that only 2GB out of 8 are being used, when the render should starts, I don't have enough GDDR5 for it to begin, right?
Thanks to both of you.


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What format, codec, and color settings should be used for youtube?
There are probably 10,000 threads and articles dedicated to this and I've read about half of them but none of the suggestions are helping.
My scene has the exact contrast and saturation that I need for an LED promo video I'm working on.  But when I upload to youtube (or Vimeo) it completely loses both.  I know that youtube reformats and re-compresses, that's not the problem.
It looks like it's reading the video's format as 16-235 and so the contrast gets squashed.  But I'm outputting in sRGB color space and I've also tried VD16.  I've outputted MP4, MKV, AVI, MOV.  I've used H.264, MPG2, and DIVX codecs.  Nothing seems to work.
It's actually worse than the gif shows.  The screenshot / photo-edit / .gif conversion really degrades the images:

Basically, is their another format and/or color space I should be encoding with?
EDIT: The video is comprised of PNG images that were previously rendered and I used Filmic.

EDIT 2: As troy_s states I need to set the range.  As I said earlier it looks like it's a 16-235, but I don't know how to set it to 0-255 in Blender.  Is there a way to do this?

I saw that one and that's basically what I'm doing, but it doesn't mention color  management.  I read one thread that made me think the format might have something to do with it, but I'm more convinced that it's the color space.

I render out a 16 Bit PNG sequence (No Compression). Then re-render that as a Quicktime Lossless H264 for YouTube.

That sure looks like a broken encode. If using FFMPEG, you need to set the range to broadcast and the encoding weights to 709.
If you hunt through the other tidbits here, I explain how broken ranges or double ups will give you exactly what you are seeing.

I should have mentioned in my question that I'm animating PNG's in the VSE that have been previously rendered with Filmic.

Please add information or a link for how to set the range in Blender.  Thank you

BINAE: Blender Is Not An Encoder. You can't, and are at the whim of the defaults. From the command line, the important configuration is -vf "scale=in_range=full:in_color_matrix=bt709:out_range=tv:out_color_matrix=bt709". Try that please.

Aaahahhh, ok, I had no idea that FFMPEG was a piece of software.  That's also the file format that I used in Blender which is what I thought you meant.  So I got the program and tried what you typed and it further compressed the contrast, like it was the exact opposite of what's needed.  So I put "tv" on the input and "full" on the output and changed 709 to srgb and Bam, worked like a charm.  I greatly appreciate your help.

So a few things... You should always generate still images, and then encode. Second, if you have the sources, the stills would be full range, and the output must be broadcast range. I suspect your encode is still broken because I believe your "as is" encode (already broadcast scaled down) is being re-shrunk to broadcast again. It would be subtle, but still incorrect. Render to stills, and use the command line FFMPEG.


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extra topology and a vert doing odd things
I have two problems. One is I have a vertex that isn't moving as you would expect. It's kind of like it's sticking out.  I will be showing photos. The other is that I have extra topology that only shows up in object mode. You can see it in wireframe also, but only in object mode. I think they might be linked. I cant really think of any better way to describe it. If anyone has any idea what's happening that would be great.
I have marked the photos with green and red.
The green outlines the topology that is meant to be there. The red indicates an area that has an issue with it. Ignore the green Y axis.
1st photo shows the vertex sticking out
2nd shows the extra topology
3rd shows it in edit mode

It would probably be easier to diagnose with the .blend file: https://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com

These are 2 questions. 1-st is that your Subsurf modifier is set to show results of it work in Edit mode as well, disable that for understanding what is real geometry and what is subsurfed, see https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/9144/hide-subsurf-modifier-curve-in-edit-mode. For second  try pressing Alt+H in Edit mode, see https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/10576/missing-vertices-in-edit-mode

you got it mr zak i have no idea how but some how some topology was in there that seemingly hid it self both problems are solved it was just a simple matter of hidden geometry how ever it got there and got hidden i have no idea thank you I've been trying to figure it out for the past 3 days never thought to unhide it


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Edge angle as node property in a material
I am looking for a way to get worn edges as a procedural material. I have tried the ambient occlusion method, and I have also tried the "pointiness" property in the geometry node. However I don't find them satisfying.
In the viewport overlays there is a setting where you can view any edges angle.

I am looking for a way to get this value as some for of input in the material editor. Is this possible?! Thank you :)

Not directly, the closest you can get is Pointiness

Bevel node -> Math Absolute node.


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How do i get my interface back to normal?

I don't really get what else to put here because its pretty self explanatory.

Try Edit > Preferences > Interface and set Display > Resolution Scale to 1.0.

its so zoomed in i cant select it from the menu

If a menu is cut off, hover over it and use the scroll wheel (scroll or click+drag) to see the rest of it.

You can closely see the "E"
in the screenshot as scurest said

Try Edit > Preferences > Interface and set Display > Resolution Scale to 1.0 - scurest

Hope this helps!

The simplest solution is just to reset the Blender preferences by locating and removing the userpref.blend file. On Windows this is typically found in C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\<version>\config

Remove the file and Blender will automatically revert back to the default preferences the next time you start it.


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Mtree addon blender 2.83.10: Leaves and Tree branches separated in Particle System
I have an addon Mtree which I make trees and leaves the addon itself is working fine. The problem is, when I want to scatter the tree with particle system I only get the trunk and not the leaves, I tried to join the tree and the leaves but got the same result, I also tried a collection but to no avail. Can someone give me a solution?

This is not a real solution but it works. Select the tree and the leaves Export selected as .FBX then import again then join. Just like that you can just move it around and scatter it together.

Exporting and re importing is rarely the solution, it will lead to data loss like materials and modifiers

ill give it a try thanks


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Glare node with Fog glow makes Hard Edges
When I use the Fog Glow node, there are two Parts on my Character that makes Hard Edges.
Why is that so and how can I fix it?
Some more details to the scene There is nothing big just 3 area light with low value And the glare node is on mix 0, threshold 1 and size 7.

Hard to tell without knowing the lighting conditions and the settings of your Glare node.

Looks more like a light source reflection than Glare effect ...

no it is the glare node, when I mute the glare node than its gone

Maybe we need the file to check it. A hard edge usually comes from the fact that something is just a little brigther than the threshold, because the glow itself falls off a lot compared to the bright surface. Let's say threshold is 1, the bright area is 1.1, then there's only a difference of 0.1 contributing to the glow which is not much. If the bright area would be 10, there would be much more and brighter glow so that the edge wouldn't look that hard. Have you tried setting the Mix to 1 to see how the glow itself looks? You could blur it and add it onto the oringinal image.

Yeah that should be the problem but I don't want to change the light so what exactly do you mean with blur it and add it?

Could you maybe show an example for what you mean

@3Dbob I always prefer using the glow separately from the original image. So if you set the Mix value of the Glare node to 1 instead of 0, the output will give you just the glow effect without the original image mixed in. So plug the original image in the first input of a MixRGB node and the glow in the second. Set the node to Add. This way you can add the glow with more control and even more intensity if you set the factor to > 1. And before adding you could blur the glow with a Blur node.

If you want to let us inspect ... append all light and character's material into a new blend, assign material to a sphere placed in location of character and share via https://blend-exchange.com/ thanks

I've fixed now with the cryptomatte node. I mask the character out of the glow


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How can I make a neck and body for my head mesh?

I tried to create a neck and I succeeded. But when I try to turn the neck into shoulders it just doesn't work. (I mostly sculpted) (most of the mesh is sculpted)
can anyone help?

Extrude and scale is your friend.

Based on your screen grab you are in Sculpt Mode. What you are asking to do should be done in Edit Mode. I would suggest that you create a "Make Human" model and study its mesh.

Actually, this question is primarily opinion based. Everyone has there own way to model the rest of the body. I have my own extrude system, and I am sure everyone else who does character modeling has there own way as well. If you are looking for ideas, you should either ask for ideas in chat, or go to the Blender Artist Forum

That head could be a start for some really fun project like cartoon sculptures created in antiquity. However I fail to see a neck there.

I'd install this into Blender-  http://www.manuelbastioni.com/manuellab.php  -then scale & pose one to fit.

If you want to stick to sculpting you could click the Dynamesh button (in this gif I also checked constant detail and upped the resolution).
I used the snakehook brush here, but the normal clay brush works too (the grab brush does not work though, it does not add new typology).

Actually, to add to the first 2 answers, I would just

start over with a cube in edit mode,
and I would press the 'w' key while it is orange
and add a sub divide line
and I would press the 'a' key to get it out of its orange stage.
Then I would delete all of the vertices on the left side of the cube,
and then I would go over to the right under the properties tabs
and I would click on the wrench looking icon,
and then I would click on add modifiers,
and then I would add mirror
and then I would click on the add modifiers popup menu again
and I would add subdivision surface,
and then I would put a check on the clippings settings,
and then I would go down and make sure I would have the same number of subdivisions view as the render, 2 should be enough,
and then I would go down to the bottom tool bar where your edit mode is and click on the magnet icon to snap to the nearest grid line,
and then I would go to the object view,
and go to the left tool bar and click on smooth
and then I go back into edit mode to press the '#5' on the numpad
and also click on the '#1' on the numpad,
and then the 'c' key
and then I would highlight the right side's 4 panels,
and then I would move it to the left 4 times,
and then I would highlight the bottom 4 panels
and then I would extrude it down 2 times 1 whole grids down,
and then I would go under the middle subdivision line and click there and press the "ctrl + R" keys
and right click twice to snap the vertices in the middle,
and then I would highlight that middle section, all four sides,
and then I would make sure to press on the 'e'  and 's' and the 'x' keys in that order,
and then I would first move it to the left 2 times, click out of it
and then press the same three keys again, but this time I would go to the left 6 times,
and then I click on the numpad '#3' key,
and then I would press the 'e' and the 's' and the 'y' keys and go to the left 3 times,
and then click out of that,
and then I would click on the green error and go to the right 3 times,
and voilà, you have your first head and neck and body structure

enjoy!! these are the steps to take

start with a cube.
add a subdivision line, and delete entire left side.
go to the properties tab. Add a mirror from the modifiers and then check the box for clippings and add the subdivision surface. And, make sure you add the same number of views as the render.
click on the magnet icon at the bottom tool bar
click off or turn off the snowflake looking icon at the bottom toolbar.
highlight the right most 4 panels, and then snap them to the left 4 times or 4 places.
highlight the 4 bottom panels or faces and press the 'e' key to extrude it down 2 x 1 whole grids.
snap a vertices under the middle section.
highlight the middle section, press the 'e' and 's' and 'x' keys and move to the left 2 times, then click out it and press the same keys again and go to the left 6 times..
Press the #3 on the numpad, then press the 'e' and 's' and 'y' keys and go to the left 3 times, and then click out of that and drag the green arrow 2 times to the right...

but after step 4 go to the object view and click on the smooth feature on the left hand toolbar...

Hi, please, in future,use bullet points/numbered tools, in the editor, to make it easier for others to follow your step by step instructions... maybe some description image would also help...

You shouldn't be trying to sculpt it. Go into edit mode, select the edge on one of the sides of the neck (to make the shoulder) and press E to extrude it out. (I'd recommend extruding it while it orthographic view and pressing 1 on the number pad so it doesn't move backwards or forwards. As for the body, that's up to you.


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I can't export materials or textures
I'd like to create models for Unity asset store and so on, but I can't even export materials or textures, not just to Unity, but in general. In the picture below I tried exporting a simple object that has a material on it into 1. FBX and into 2. 3DS formats and then importing them right back. Neither worked, 3ds even didn't export geometry correctly.

Earlier today I also tried exporting a texture (simple table object with a texture on it, uv unwrapped), but I got the same result, so what am I doing wrong?
When I export objects with a simple program like Sketchup, the textures on the models appear instantly once I put the objects in Unity engine, no need to even assign anything, just drop it in the Unity project folder and that's it. I also managed to export a 3ds (or obj, can't remember) file from Sketchup to Blender, with textures, and everything worked perfectly fine, but I am missing something about Blender that's preventing me from exporting me anything other than geometry...

It's not a duplicate obviously since that one was asked a year ago and I don't even use unreal engine. Anyway, I'm a total noob, but I know how to make some basic and even intermediate models, but I don't know how am I suppoose to export them. I would like to sell them on 3d trade sites in the future, but I don't know how they should look, like that gray FBX export or...? I'd prefer an answer to a link, I checked a dozen of threads already, but none really gave me a simple answer I'm looking for.


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How to make grass respond to an object hitting them
How can i make the grass bend when this cube hits it?
Here's the picture:

@Tucker Should grass stand up after the hit or should it lay on the ground after it?

Final:

Overview:
Whole process is very easy. You will only need to make your grass object as Cloth or Soft Body (with Weight Paint) then Convert Particle System to mesh and delete Particle Emitter as it will not longer be needed. Then add to your Cube Collision.
First of all you will need to choose if you want to use Cloth or Soft Body. Quick test shows me that Cloth simulation is fairly faster, but Soft Body will give you probably more options, as Plastics, Edge Stiffness and such.
Secondly I don't know why (and maybe someone can correct me) when your object is in Particle System simulation works, but Pinning/Soft Body Goal won't. Maybe it's a bug or maybe there is an explanation.

Note: Below steps could vary from your scene setup so don't take them
  as granted. I will point out most important settings and you could
  tweak them for your needs.

Steps:
Grass strand.

You will need to Weight Paint your grass strand. Red is stiff, green is... less stiff. You can experiment with this as you like to make grass really soft or hard.
Add to your object Cloth Simulation. I have used settings as you can see on the image. Most important things here are:

Mass - it should be really low, higher will make grass to lay on the ground,
Pinning - from Weight Paint, it will keep grass strong at the bottom and weak at the top, or not if you painted it differently,
Velocity - how fast grass will return to base position,
Cloth Collision - check also Self Collision, there are lots of them so it will make simulation more realistic.

Particle Emitter.
Nothing special here, only after setting your grass go to Modifier Tab and Convert Particles then delete Particle Emitter.
Blend file:

This works fine for me in 2.79 but your blend file doesn't work in 2.8 any idea?

@Wes yes, this is because Blender 2.80 introduced new Cloth simulations. You can read about it here: https://code.blender.org/2017/06/improvements-to-the-cloth-simulator/ I can try to make it work with new settings but you should be able to tweak it properly.

I got it working for this particular use case (your file) by turning off self collision. However it doesn't help me for the use case I was hoping to solve when downloading your file. I'm finding the cloth/hair simulation a bit broken at the scales I'm trying.  A hair emitter just with hair particles falling onto a collision surface causes some crazy effects. Thank you I'm not disputing your comment. Also thanks for the link.

@wes I didn't had time and reason to test the new simulator, but first quick attempts wasn't very appealing to me also. You can drop your file somewhere and post a link, I'll try to think of something if you want.


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Having edges be a different shader than the mesh
Is it possible to create letters, for example, the letters have one shader, but the edge of the letters have a different shader?

You can add as many shaders as you have faces on a mesh.  Please edit your question to be more specific about what you're looking for.

I want the face of  the letters to be one color, but the edges of the letters i want to be a different color.

Please add some images for the reference of desired effect. Generally you can't apply material to only edges. You might add Wireframe modifier to the object which will add geometry on the edges or use Freestyle to render outlines on the edges of the object

How do i add images?

Click the edit link on your quesiton: https://blender.meta.stackexchange.com/a/1083/38953

It wont let me add an image. It says it is uploading but it wont for some reason.

To try to explain it better, what I want to do, is create a cube that is (blue) but the edges I want to be (red). Is this possible?

You can't have"shaders" anywhere. You can apply materials to faces only, edges have no actual geometry so can't be rendered nor have materials by themselves. Only exception being wireframe materials

Blender supports text objects. While you can extrude the text it doesn't provide a way to alter the material used on the sides. A solidify modifier can extrude the text shape and also allow assigning a different material to the side (and back if desired).

Add a text object. ⇧ ShiftA->Text. Edit the object to alter the text, select the desired font.

Create multiple materials.

Add a solidify modifier, set the thickness to suit.

Set the material index for the rim and back if desired. The material index is zero based which means 0 is the first material in the list and 1 is the second...


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Which angles are at these selected edges?
I tried to measure the angles of these particular edges.  What angles are the numbers describing in this screenshot?

The Angle information is going to be around the axis of the particular edge.  You can think about it as the angle between two adjacent faces.
In your example, the two 90 degree angles are formed between faces that are perpendicular to one another.  The 0 degree angle, however, is formed between two faces that exist in the same plane.
In other words, it's not measuring the angle between two edges.  For that, you would need to activate the Face Info Angle (shown in blue):

Edit: This might help visualize it a little more:

You can use the blender ruler.

See here how to use:
https://docs.blender.org/manual/de/dev/interface/ruler_and_protractor.html#usage


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How to reduce noise in really dark scene
So I've been working on this one scene for a while now and I just can't get the look that I want. It is supposed to be a bar and therefore pretty dark. For some reason, nothing I do seems to reduce the noise. I can't figure out if I need to increase the number of samples (I have it at 2000 right now) or what but nothing seems to be working. I really don't want to add more light to the scene because it has the kind of feel that want but I need to remove the noise somehow. Also, I need some advice on how to make it look more realistic. I am using Filmic Blender but it only goes so far. I'm using bump maps among other things to add realism but it isn't really working. Any advice is appreciated.
Thanks,

Dark scenes with small lamps, hidden lights, or low intensity sources, with "hard to find" lamps tend to be naturally noisier in Cycles. See related https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/4980/how-to-avoid-noisy-renders-in-cycles

Unfortunately, there's not a way to get the render less noisy other than increasing the number of samples.  One of the reasons for this is that most of the light in the dark areas is coming from indirect bounces.  There are a few ways to clean it up though.
First, you can use Render Passes:

This allows you to edit individual passes such as Diffuse Indirect to try to blur the noise.  This is pretty effective but it can also smear some detail if you're not careful.  The main problem with this approach is the amount of "noding" you must do to recombine the passes.  The good thing is that you can use Node Groups to make it look nicer [ Can I make a custom node from a group and have that available in other projects? ]
Here's the node tree for this.  It's a lot simpler than it looks.  Basically you just add the direct and indirect pass for each shader and then multiply it by the color pass for that shader.  I made this node tree into a group:

The only purpose of this node group is to combine all the passes into the final image.

Use the Depth and Normal passes to create your Determinator for the Bilateral Blur node like so and feed them into the Node Group above:

At a minimum I usually use one Bilateral Blur node for the Diffuse and Glossy Indirect passes.  This method gives that most control over denoising.

However, in the 2.79 Beta version, there's a new Denoising filter included with Blender that is quite effective: [ https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Ref/Release_Notes/2.79/Cycles ]

It can use your GPU to calculate the denoising of tiles, too.  The problem with this method is that it's processed as it renders.  So if you don't like the options you've chosen, you have to render the entire scene again.  That can get old really fast, especially if you have to wait ten minutes per render.  It also adds significant time to your render but not as much as a comparable amount of samples.  There can also be some artifacting in glossy shaders.  I've found that in really noisy scenes (like the one below) that it can look splotchy.  This can probably be improved with fiddling with the settings.
Here's a quick comparison of these two methods with a piece of a scene I've been working on.  It has bump mapped walls and it's very dark, so it can be really noisy.  In my opinion the Render Pass version looks the best and is much more versatile.  But the Denoiser is easier to use.  This scene was rendered at 800 samples.  I've increased the brightness manually so you can see the noise better:

Thank you so much! This is what I needed. do you think I can turn down the samples after adding this?

@MrSchmuck -That was my primary purpose in using it.  I had hundreds of frames I needed to render for a video and I didn't have the time to render 10000 samples for each frame.  If this solved your issue, please click the checkmark and mark it as accepted.  If not let me know what I can do.

Absolutely. Let me just finish making the group and I'll accept it.

Im not sure if I did it right. Themath nodes in the group didn't have the texture icon like thay did in your example and it doesn't seem to have made a huge diferance

From the node editor, go to Add -> Search -> and type "Mix".  It's a color mix node.  Then, from the node drop-down box, select "Add" or "Multiply".

@bartmoog you sir, are a wizard! thank you!!

@MrSchmuck - I'm glad I could help you, I wish you well with your project.


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How can I use an attribute value from a mesh's material in another material?
I want a lamp to emit as much light as a fire. I have a property in my fire material that says "flame". It seems like a good value to copy to my point light's material strength value.
I've considered drivers but I'm too new to the concept and I'm not sure how I can pull it off.
If anyone has an idea...
I understand that this question has already been answered in the case of constant input values, but the Attribute node I want to use is linked to a mesh, making it trickier to use for another object.
Here is a blend file with what I want to do: .
Light and fire on separate layers so it is possible to see the effect on the plane behind.

It's quite easy, and technically this is a duplicate question...but since you framed it within the context of lighting I will go ahead and answer.
Say you have two or more lights, and you want them to share a value for emission.
For any property you want to share between multiple materials, you need to Group it. CtrlG
In this case the Value we want to share is to be used for Emission, so create a lamp with a Value input node for emission strength and then group that node.

You should end up with a Group like this:

Hit Tab to go inside of the Group node and you will see your Value node that globally controls the emission strength for all lights with a material controlled by that Group node.

You can start by examining and playing with the example .blend provided.

The subject is lit with a proportionately controlled amount of light.

In this example render Suzanne is lit by multiple lamps. The distance, color, and even type of the lamps is different, but the global brightness is controlled by the same group-linked value.
Just keep in mind that if you're matching to an emitter mesh, the brightness will vary according to the surface area of the mesh. So you'll want to create a mesh light of matching size.
Update
I looked at your .blend. Compare the Group node you had...

to this modified one I made:

Since the flame attribute is local to the mesh, as you observed, the best we can do is to multiply the emission intensity by some value. And if we do that using a Group node then that value gets shared so we only need to change it once.
I put the color value in there so it can be shared too. But the nature of how the flame color is generated is different, and uses the ColorRamp, so while their intensity can be increased or decreased simultaneously, the color won't be exactly the same.
I added an emitter mesh because it emits more light than a Point Lamp. I left the Point Lamp though, so you can see how the Group node is applied to both.

I'm not sure what your final goal is with all of this, but I hope this can be a solution for you.
Taking it Further
You can keyframe the Value node and then add a Noise Modifier to the animation so the brightness will flicker in sync (although such animation will not be visible in Viewport Render).

Thank you for your reply.
In this instance I'm trying to use an Attribute node (namely a flame attribute), which is, in my understanding, linked to a particular mesh. I can pack it into a group and try to use the value as an input for the light's strength but it doesn't work. Not surprising, since, for the light, it has no mesh to read the flame value from.
The example you kindly provided works fine, but for attribute values, I'm still stuck trying to figure out how to do it.

Can you post your .blend using Blend Exchange? If so I'll take a look.

Sure, thanks. Made the fire sim low resource so you don't have to bake it for an hour like me (not sure how to share cache)

If I understand your solution correctly, the flame value will only affect the material for the fire domain and we're implementing another variation on the multiplication factor so that it can be spread along several materials. I guess no one would be too shocked at a flickering that is not completely equal to the quantity of flame anyway. As to my goal: combining two Andrew Price tutorials and trying to solve a problem: if the fire emits too much, it loses contrast. I'll try two fires sharing the same cache, one for light only and the other for render. Thanks a million, I learned a lot today.

The Group node is a single data block, shared by multiple materials. It transforms the input it receives and outputs a value accordingly. The process taking place inside the Group node is the same, but if the input is different the output will be different. Let's say you have a Group node with a Math node inside that multiplies whatever the input is by 2. And Material A and Material B both use that Group node, but A sends a value of 3 into it while B sends a value of 4... A will get 6 from its Group node output and B will get 8 from its.

Regarding the fire emitting too much and losing contrast - my first thought is to approach that like a photography problem and adjust the exposure accordingly. If necessary, you can render the fire and the scene separately at different exposures and use the compositor to recombine them and get the best of each. Although I think your idea of using two fires with the same cache should work just fine too. Go with whatever approach works best for you. Good luck and happy blending!

P.S. If you found my answer helpful please consider marking it as accepted. Cheers.


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grow a detailed object out of a low poly rigged object
I have a low poly rigged human arm, and I'd like a second high poly mesh (an animated face) to morph out of the arm.  I have a few ideas, but before I get started I'd like to know how others would do it.
At the moment I'm thinking perhaps shrinkwrap and transfer the uv data from the arm to the border face, and then keyframe the materials to blend as the shrinkwrap turns off.
Any better ways?  They have different vert counts.

Does it have to be geometry? You might consider a displacement map, if the hi-res is only needed at render-time.

@RobinBetts yes it needs to be geometry because there are overhangs, and I don't think it's possible to generate a vector displacement from one animated mesh to another in Blender.


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Control edges for lofting
I have 3 edge loops like so:

I can loft between 2 of them using Bridge Edge Loops or Loft from LoopTools

I'd like to use the third edge as a guide for the loft, like in most CAD programs. So the end of the loft that not connected to the first 2 edge loops is "guided" along the third edge controlling the shape of the loft.
How can I achieve this?

have you tried selecting them all and using grid fill?

I have, gives error "select 2 edge loops or a single edge loop...." I've tried connecting the 3 loops but still no luck

did u ever try animation nodes? or sverchok? i think both can do these things

I have not... And I've never even heard of "sverchok"... I shall check it out


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Noise texture shading
I'm trying to add a noise texture to one of my objects, to give it some realism.
In IMG 01 there's a green shape with some noise texture which has been added within  Photoshop.
In IMG 02 I added the noise texture, but my colour goes missing. I tried adding different nodes but to no avail.
What node do I need to add in order for the noise texture and colour to be visible?

Use the ColorRamp node which maps greyscale values to colored values.

In the bottom image, your Scale value is very high -- with the scale that high, and using the "Color" output of the noise texture, the colors aren't going to be distinguishable. Think about looking at a sandy beach from a distance; you can't make out the individual grains of sand.
To make the noise more visible, try turning down the scale (I bet 300 would work well) and using the Fac output (black-and-white) instead of Color.

Hi Reece.
I'm taking everything into consideration, but regarding the Fac output, if it's black and white, then it's not what I'm trying to achieve. Because almost every object in the real world has some colour applied to it.

@blenderbreath As covector pointed out above, you can pipe the Fac output through a ColorRamp; that way you can choose colors on the Ramp that have a higher contrast between them than randomly selected colors do.


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Tab key not editing text
Usually, when I edit templates, I can just press Tab and I can edit the text. Suddenly, when I press Tab, this happens:

That text object has been converted to mesh. It is no longer editable as text, it needs to be recreated as a new text object.

@Timaroberts how?

You cannot return this object to text, you would need to make a new text object.

@cegaton sorry my bad

Guys how do I make a text layer that is perfectly synced like the mesh layer? Or do I need to replace it? If I need to replace it, how do I?

@TheBoyWonder once you convert the text object into mesh, you cannot amend it as a text, you can copy the text object using shift+D and move it to another layer using (M) and choosing a layer, in case you need to revert to text, you'll have your back up object, it would e easier to describe what you're trying to achieve in a new question


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Rigging & Exporting: Non-Deforming Character Problem
So I've recently tried to learn how to make my own armatures for meshes, and I still don't know if I'm even connecting the armature to the mesh right.
One of the main problems that is causing me so much trouble is that the mesh I'm making isn't really a mesh. I don't want the character I'm making to deform so I just went out on a whim and made each piece of the mesh a separate object. ie. UpperTorso, LowerTorso. etc. The blockiness of the character is just the style I went for.
I'm trying to rig it for UE4. That on its own has had ALOT of problems which I'm currently trying to figure out. When trying to export character + armature, I export it as an fbx file, Hopefully, that's right.
I'm still a novice at blender and Unreal engine, At least in the armature and mesh exporting aspect, I have no clue if I did it right and it would be nice if someone could try and point me in some type of direction.
I am willing to start over the whole project, I just need to know what I need to go for to reach my desired goal of the character and where I want to import it to.
File link: http://www.filedropper.com/ue4charactertest3_1

For future reference please try to keep only one question per post, ask as many as needed. FBX is probably the only correct format for game engines, that supports armatures and animations. For "blocky" or "non deformable" characters you may separate your body parts into different objects, or you may also keep them as a single object and just weight paint them so each separate element is only influenced by one bone.

Oh! sorry for having 2 questions for this post. I'm new to this website.