How do I rig Walschaerts valve gear in Blender? I'm trying to rig a Walschaerts valve gear, which looks like this:

I've got some of it working, but I can't figure out how to get the combination lever (the mostly vertical bar between the wheels and pistons) to be influenced from both sides while attached to the valve stem (the upper piston) which it rotates about. The point where the valve stem attaches to the combination lever must not move vertically on the z-axis, but does need to move horizontally along the y-axis, which is what controls the valve stem.

I've got one IK constraint on the large yellow bone + the two bones guiding the lower piston. I have another IK constraint on the small yellow bone all the way through the two bones controlling the upper piston. I just don't know how to influence that from the top as well.

I've tried adding another IK constraint to the bone beneath the highlighted radius rod, but I can't get it to work. I basically have one rod, and each end needs to be acted on by a different IK constraint.

In case it is of use, here is my blend:

I think the problem is that you have the valve stem and crosshead rigged to move together.  In an actual valve, the motion is more complex

I'm not good at drivers, but what I think you need to do is match the actual cycle more closely.

Using the animation from wiki starting with the valve stem all the way to the right end of its cylinder, the piston end of the cross head in the middle of its cylinder

Steam enters, pushing the piston to the left end of its cylinder
As the piston approaches the end of the cylinder the various mechanical linkages pull the valve stem to the left.
Once the valve stem is all the way to the right, the direction of steam reverses. This reverses the direction of the piston.
The piston moves all the way to the right
Mechanical linkages pull the valve stem to the left

end of cycle.

A driver that causes the cylinder head to move as if it were driven by steam and a set of bones that match the actual mechanical linkages, down to parenting, should cause everything to behave properly.

Have you looked at Damped Track or TrackTo? I looked at the blend file. I'm going to try to do something with it. It looks like the armature is parented incorrectly. Have you considered having two different armatures? I remember when I animated a wishbone suspension system I had a lot of parts that moved together but separately. I used 3 armatures per system. One to control the strut, one for the upper control arm, and one for the lower control arm. I think your upper, what I'm assuming is the exhaust and intake, piston needs to have a separate armature but link them with tracks. If I have time I'll try to edit this to make it work. This does look like a complicated setup. But one thing to note in the future is power flow. Just add in bones to act as force transmitters. Then you can have one driver "pushing" the whole thing.


Limit Blender RAM usage? So Blender started crashing whenever I bake fluid for no reason (I mean no reason, discussion here). I'm thinking maybe reducing the amount of RAM it uses could help, but I can't figure out how to reduce it.

File > User Preferences > System > Middle Column at the Bottom (Sequencer / Clip Editor:) and reduce the Memory Cache Limit: value (I believe it's in Kb, but you would have to check that).


What would be the better hardware to use in cycles? So, i have a dilemma. Do i use my i3 4160 or the soon to be mine gtx 960 to render out scenes and animations in blender cycles, please any answers would be helpful

EDIT thanks for all the advise guys, ill look into this a bit more then.

I think a Intel Core i7 is faster on rendering than a GeForce GTX 960 4GB. If you had A GTX 980 I may had some doubt.


Change view rotation command Does anyone know how to change the rotate view command?
The scroll on my mouse is a bit buggy and I can't find it on the keymap.

Menu Edit User Preferences.  Then Keymap on left side.
Name Search  text ... rotate.
3D View will show the match.


Blender Game Engine, Falling Through Ground I'm making a first person view game, and I have a big low-poly hilly terrain.  Occasionally while testing, my character falls through the ground.  What is the best way to fix this?  I've heard that increasing the physics steps can help but I don't believe it has.

Set the physics type on your ground to triangle mesh. That should fix it, But if it doesn't not, you can also turn up the margin or extrude the ground down in edit mode.

It is possible that your ground is not calculating the collisions correctly, and changing the collision bounds on the ground should fix it.

If your problem still happens, you can also try changing the collision bounds on your character. If you are still unsure what the problem is, you can activate "Physics Visualization" to show exactly what is or is not working.

Notice the difference between these pictures. The first is using triangle mesh collisions on the ground. The second one is using box collision type.

Although there is normally no problem with box Or triangle mesh, sometimes there is still an error and the collision bounds will not detect properly. In this case it is normally a good idea to try a different type, or increase the margin.

What fixed my problem was applying a subsurf modifier to my ground.  I tried the options given to me in the first answer, but none of them seemed to work.


How can I do a detailed landscape? I am a beginner in the use of blender and in this community, so I do not know if this is the appropriate place to make these comments. I'm trying to make blender the landscape that is shown on the next page Landscape construction, since I think blender can do it in a faster way, but I still do not know how to do it, if someone knows how to do it would be a great help, on the page mentioned above, show each step of the construction of the landscape in detail. Any help is welcome. Thanks in advance

Following the advice of @cegaton this image is the result that I want to achieve,following the steps indicated in the web page of the hyperlink shared by me.

As of 2.78a, you can use adaptive subdivision by turning on experimental features, using a subsurf modifier, and checking the "adaptive" checkbox in the subsurf options. Then, you can head up to the object's node tree and connect a procedural texture to the "displacement" input of the material output. Depending on what kind of landscape you want to do, you can mix procedural textures using the mixrgb node. Noise alone yields a connemara-ish landscape, Voronoi + waves creates a desert and Voronoi + Noise creates alpine mountains.

You can try to use this addon : Add Mesh : ANT landscape

https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/Add_Mesh/ANT_Landscape


Easy way to run python script in blender python console? When I press "run script" with a python script in the Text Editor, it runs, but seems to spawn some new invisible python interpreter. I'd like it to run in the Python Console that I already have open. Is there a way to do this?

As it stands now, I'm copying and pasting from the Editor to the Console, which sure is tedious.

In Blender 2.80 and higher, you can use as_module().

In the above example, an unsaved text editor shows this code:

def myTestFunc():
    print('This is my test function, running')

print('This is my test module, running')

Then, in the Blender Python console on the left, you can import this:

myModule = bpy.data.texts[0].as_module()

Note that since this is my only text file, I've used texts[0] to reference it.  If you had multiple, you would reference by name, such as texts["Text"] or similar.

Note that anytime the source code changes, you will have to re-run the as_module() command again to pick up the changes.

Finally, I can call functions from the module I imported, like so:

myModule.myTestFunc()

This uses the variable name that was assigned by the as_module() line, and looks for a named function within that module to call.

In Blender go to Window and select toggle system console. Do this after "run script"


Workflow for UV orientation How to I deal with unwrapped UVs orientation?

Delete the default Cube.
Add a Cylinder
Edit mode and edge select the Top and the Bottom and a single connecting edge.
Make them into seams
UV Unwrap (standard Unwrap mode)

The unwrapped UV now shows two circles above a row of quads. I can save this and open it in an image editor and paint over those areas and get the texture to align on the cylinder back in blender.

But, the pattern(just happens to be text) that was inserted in place of the row of quads is now upside down on the model. Any attempt to flip or align just makes things worse, from upside down to mirrored or the Top/Bottom not aligning.

So my real question is how could I have known that the quads represented an upside down view of the world?

Do other blender users export UVs and mark them with arrows and colours just to see how they align on a model before actually painting for real?

I tried selecting the edges in step 3 in different orders before making them into seams and it made no difference.

I also looked at the Normals but they appear to be only Inside/Outside not Up/Down.

Blender 2.70

You can make sure your UV's are rotated the way you expect by loading in a test texture before saving out the UV layout.

Blender has some built in textures which you can load by going to Image> New Image in the header of the UV Image Editor while in Edit mode for the object you are unwrapping.

Choosing 'Color Grid' and pressing 'OK', will load in the test texture.

From here you can edit the UV's in the Image Editor using the normal rotation, grab and scale shortcuts until the UV's are rotated the way you want.

Below, I selected the row of quads by hovering my cursor over them and pressing L to trigger 'Select Linked', then R to rotate the UV island.

You can remove the texture once the UV's are aligned correctly.

you can also use tiles in values of "NxN" to refresh your eyes while you are exploring the behaviour of the uv in the 3d's viewport , or alternate between  "color grid" and "UV grid" for example to see the things more clearly


Is it possible to have more fireflies at the same time I use more samples? I am referring to the white dots that appear in glossy objects.

I moved a little the metal carpentry for the second image, and I got less noise in the horizontal ones which are on the top, but for some reason, dots appear in the vertical one, and also in the one that is from the terrace, which is outside, and I didn´t change anything to it.
The first image has 1200 samples and the second one 1800.

First I would recommend checking to see if you are using any small light sources. A sun should be fine but small spotlights and things of that nature can cause fireflies.
Blender Guru has a solution to fireflies. As to why the amount of samples cause more fireflies is strange,  but you are working with a complicated scene.
Blender Guru Fireflies


Why is the shader editor stuck on 1 material? I have been working on a car model but just now I found that the body material is still stuck in the shader editor when I was working on something else. The selection drop-down menu is completely greyed out and I can't do anything to fix it. I tried exporting the FBX file and saving it as .blend but nothing worked. Can anyone please help? Here is a photo for reference:

The push pin button is enabled on the Shader Editor View.  This locks the view.
[       ]
Please disable the the push pin to allow the view to synchronize with the current object selected. ⛸


How to make my standalone game not require blender installation? I am making a game and I want it to not require Blender to be installed in order to play it. Currently it needs 'blenderplayer.app'.

I am using Linux Ubuntu 14.10, Blender 2.72b. How can I do this?

Use the "Game Engine: Save as Game Engine Runtime" add-on:

Then you can save the game as executable, which can be run without needing to install Blender:

You will end up with an executable, and a directory named after the Blender version. The executable will be for the same OS as you performed these actions on.

The blend file only contains data, you need to use either blender or blenderplayer to view that data and play your game.

blenderplayer is a "view only" application, it is blender without the ability to edit the data. When you distribute your game other people will need to use blenderplayer to play the game, you can either include the player with your data files or tell people to download it themselves.

If you don't want to include blenderplayer then you will need to export your data to a different file format and create another application for your game. Only your model data will transfer so any game logic will need to be re-done.

Unity is a popular game creation application. Godot Engine is a newer opensource option. gamekit is another option if you want to program your game from scratch.


Rigid bodies keep bouncing Can anyone help with the following:
I have a rotating frame with cilinders.
the cilinders keep bouncing. Also, when there are more cilinders they will bounce even more, and even fly out of the frame.
I would like them to behave physically correct.
Thanks for your help!

What are your Scene Rigid Body World settings?
Have you changed the defaults to use a higher number of Steps Per Second?
I have tried to replicate your setup (with Cylinder collision shape) and got a stable simulation with 60 steps per second (the default) but got "bouncing" behaviour when I increased that to 600 steps per second. I think this could be an issue with how the active rigid body is interacting with the animated passive rigid body - since the animated one only changes position each frame but the active one is simulated many times per frame so that the 'jumps' in position of the surrounding mesh on each frame change 'kick' the cylinder on each frame.
I need to do more investigation into this but if I can get together a suitable test case and prove out the circumstances I'll raise it with the developers as a potential bug.
Simulated at 60 frames per second  :

Simulated at 600 frames per second (should be more stable) :

Note that the simulation with more steps should be more stable but is producing more unexpected 'bounce'. This appears to be due to the interaction with the animated surface and may be a bug. 6000 steps per second (which should be more accurate) produces an even more unstable simulation!

Taking this a step further, I replaced the keyframe animation of the rotation with a Motor Rigid Body Constraint - to keep the animation all within the simulation. I ran this with 6000 steps per second with the following result :

As you can see this is running fine without any bouncing on the collisions. To me this seems fairly conclusive that it's the interaction with the keyframed animated mesh which is causing the 'bounce' in my case.

According to my experience, that may be caused by the Margin parameter, which I don't know how to adjust.
Because your geometry is quite simple, I would suggest you change the collision shape (from Mesh) to Cylinder and Convex Hull, respectively.


How to export animation to Unity Hi I've animated a simple mesh using the AnimAll addons, now I would like to export the animation (packed into fbx or not, it's not important) to Unity 5. How can I do that ? I've already tried to export the animation doing File->Export-> Fbx then import the fbx into unity but the animation is missing.
From the other hand I got 2 different meshes:

1) Is the mesh of the model at frame 1.
2) Is the mesh of the model at frame 80. ( the frame where I've put the animation).

just drag and drop the blend file into unity assets folder, and open the file, then drag the armature to controller. thats all...


Transparency animation not working with a plane I'm trying to create a simple animation. I have have a plane and a line, first the line fades out, then the plane fades out. For that I am using the transparency value. The line fades out just fine, but I am having problems with the plane. I set a key frame with the transparency value at 0 in the frame 260:

And then I set another key frame at the frame 320, with the transparency value at 1.

But the plane is still there, still visible, I do the same with the line and it works fine. What am I doing wrong.

I found out the problem. I had to change the setting in the render properties, light paths, to allow more transparency.


How can i add stylized cracks on my sculpture? How can i add cracks on my stylized game asset sculpture ? And how to get a good result without having to increase the polycount? Also how can i get a non-destructive workflow where i can continue to sculpt without the cracks and then edit the cracks?

Most artists are dragging an alpha of a stylized crack on their sculpture, you can find a set of popular alpha on the Gumroad page of Michael Vicente aka Orb here: https://gumroad.com/l/nOkHw
You will also need an high polycount to apply the alpha's details.

But the best way to apply cracks is by creating a mesh that you will use to cut your mesh with boolean, you will get more realistic cuts and non-destructive (with Modifiers and BoolTool brushes). You can use the BoolTool to work faster, you will have to select your crack mesh (completely closed) first then the mesh to cut and use the Difference operation.

If you use the Brush Boolean menu in the booltool you will be able to edit the cracks. Add an edge split modifier with a 30 degree angle to display your cracks correctly, sometimes the smoothing appears badly arround booleans.


How do you reuse a texture in cycles? In blender internal render, in material nodes, there is a "texture" node by which you can select a previously created texture. But in cycles there is no such node for material nodes, all the nodes are to create new texture. How do you apply an already created texture?

You can choose it here, at the Material tab.
The same option you can find at the bottom of the Node Editor.


Eevee - How to cast shadow on a background image Using blender 2.80 official release
I want an object to cast its shadow over a plane (to show the right direction) but then i need the plane to disappear, while leaving the shadow as it was and over a background image.

In the picture i already hve the object and the plane + the image exists as a texture on an actual object.

I found a video from blender guru addresing this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjWoglMYXBE), but i'm not sure how to replicate the effect on 2.80.

Any Ideas?

Update. Found this video on "Shadow catchers" for EEVEE.
Solved the problem perfectly. Thank you "Blender Pirate"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WYCZGOCPEY


Why is this bad topology happening i was trying to create my first room art , i started with a cube , deleting its one vertex , then i extruded three faces , finally , i started to model a sofa , but then i figured this bad topology at the corner of the sofas hand-rest

i tried to fix by changing the technique of miking it , earlier i  made by extruding the face , but then i also tried extruding edges , but the problem doesn't seem to vanish , here is a better shot in edit mode

the problem doesnt exist in edit mode
here is the file

There are a lot of faces overlapping, or vertices that seem to be part of a face but actually are not, etc, you didn't model it the right way. Also, as pointed out by Lemon, you use a Mirror modifier but your mesh go beyond the center of the mirroring. Maybe re-do it from scratch, and maybe follow some basic tutorials about modeling.
If I just take one example: If I select this vertex...

... and then move it...

... we can see that it was not part of the face.

I solved it , it was happening because of the CAVITY ENABLED.


Where i can find latest compiled Animation nodes for windows 7 32 bit? I tried my best to compile Animation nodes for my OS (windows 7 32-bit) but as i am not from programming backgroud and neither i am a techie guy, I found it quiet hard to compile.
Is there is anyone who has compiled AN for the same OS i have? If yes, then please upload that to github or other link for me.
I am stuck with version 1.6 of animation nodes.

There are no 32-bit builds for Animation Nodes. The developer said in this issue:

  So far I never compiled AN for a 32 bit system. It should be possible somehow but I don't know how without having access to a 32 bit system myself.

And the release page states that for the 2.1 test builds:

  Also 32 bit operating systems are not supported.

And for version 2.0:

  Only 64 bit systems are supported for now.

32-bit is obsolete for new computers, as someone told me. 64-bit is in, as too 96-bit. Anyway, most CG softwares today require 64-bit (minimum), as stated in specs. Time for new computer. It will be cheaper to buy new computer than upgrade your old.


Renders coming out completely white I've been trying to learn some basic blender stuff and I'm trying to render a small animation out to After Effects for compositing.

However, when I try and render the animation, the image comes out completely white

This is what it looks like if I just render the one frame

and this is what it looks like in the viewport

If its fine with just a single frame render, why isn't it working for the animation?

Here's the .blend file: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1AzEwQUvbfivx6lFPLStplxBoxI34YmFB

I found the solution. I needed to uncheck Compositing under the post-processing tab. This gave me the result I was looking for.

That's solved the headache I've spent the last four days trying to solve...

Or, you could turn compositing back on, and go into the compositor and make sure everything is connected that should be.


Howto get the filepath of a rendered animation frame with python I want to modify every frame in an animation after it has been saved as an image. Since bpy.data.images["Render Result"] doesn't have associated data I need to load it from disk.

How do I get the path of the last rendered frame in a render_post handler?

The filepath is stored in:

bpy.context.scene.render.filepath

However there is a function to find the output filename for a frame (the same function blender users internally).

output = bpy.context.scene.render.frame_path(frame=10)

example use:

>>> bpy.context.scene.render.filepath = "/test/some_###_anim.png"
>>> bpy.context.scene.render.frame_path(frame=10)
'/test/some_010_anim.png'

The expression you want is bpy.context.scene.render.frame_path()

Calling frame_path without specifying a frame uses the current frame.

import bpy

def handle_render_write(scn):
    print(scn.render.frame_path())

bpy.app.handlers.render_write.append(handle_render_write)


How do I load an MP4 file with Blender 2.74 under Fedora? I tried to repeat this tutorial, loading my own MP4 file. After clicking "open" in the movie clip editor and picking the file, it didn't seem to load and here's what I got in the terminal:

not an anim: /path/to/file.mp4

At the same time, file says it's ISO Media, MP4 Base Media v1 [IS0 14496-12:2003]. Is there any preprocessing I should do before I import it to Blender? How could I do it with mencoder or ffmpeg?

You need to build a version of ffmpeg with full support for proprietary codec.

In the movie clip editor, hit SHIFT + A and choose clip. Then, when the file browser opens, choose your mp4.


Automatic weights affect opposite side of the pants Ok so I'm having this problem where i have these pants and i want to link them via mesh deform but when i try to apply automatic weights and even bone envelope weights, the bones will affect the opposite leg. So for example, i apply automatic weights to the right leg, and the heat map will go on the left leg. Does anyone have a reason for this and possible fix?

I found out what was wrong. Apparently I did have negative scaling. I just scaled the pants on the x axis until it flipped itself and now I've got proper weighting with bones.


How to create a cylinder with a given circumference? I have a face on a mesh and I want to create a cylinder where the faces around would perfectly fit on this given face, not taking in account the height of the cylinder.

I know the number of "vertices" (8).
I have the size of the face I want to stick the cylinder on (0.399833).

How can I do that?

EDIT : Here's an image. I need to merge the two faces.

OK, I assume you need the box to stay the same size and want an octagon that has the right size or else Bastian's answer would be best. I also assume that you want a really clean result because one could simply scale around the cursor (with the cursor sitting on a vertex of the box and the box snapped to the box using the magnet), getting it roughly right and then zoom all the way in to do the fine adjustment.

I tried to use snapping while scaling it but somehow Blender steadily refuses to bend to my will. So I use a more predictable approach.

I set the magnet to vertex and closest. Then I go into the editmode of the box, select the right face and duplicate it. I rotate the face by 45 degrees (R45Return) and then move it holding ctrl so the magnet snaps it to the edge of the box. It's sometimes easier to roughly position the face first without snapping so that Blender gets which verts are supposed to be closest. I repeat to snap rotated faces until I have the octagon.

After that I hit remove doubles and fill the edgeloops and delete the inside face so the mesh stays manifold. I also select all verts and hit ctrl-N to recalc the normals

An array modifier would of course work, too.

My solution would be to create the cylinder first and then extrude one of the faces if I understand your question correctly.


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.


Can blender export files for games, probably for mods? I'm thinking of creating mods for games. I want to know whether or not I can use blender for exporting game models.

its done using the fbx file export from blender generally...you'll have to look at what the game engine your looking at wants for setting up stuff within the file in blender, like collision objects names(ends in _ucx for unreal etc.. since blender exports fbx files i know they will go into unreal 4 at least.

https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/addons/io_fbx.html

for unity
https://answers.unity.com/questions/439807/blender-to-unity-which-export-format-is-best.html

for unreal 4
https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-us/Engine/Content/Types/StaticMeshes/HowTo/Importing
https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-us/Engine/Content/Types/SkeletalMeshes
https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/Engine/Content/FBX
https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/Engine/Content/QuickStart


How do you create a rounded, inset beveled edge? TL;DR How do you create a smooth, inset, rounded, beveled edge?

Hello! I'm sorry for the mundane question, but I'm a bit stuck. I'm trying to learn Blender and as an exercise I'm modeling a cabinet from my living room.

This cabinet has a beveled, rounded, inset edge:

So far, I've managed to create this in Blender: (bevel modifier with 3 segments)

Now here comes the problem. I'm trying to apply a subdivision modifier to smooth the bevel, but of course this smooths the entire mesh. I've thought of using 2 seperate objects but I felt like I was just avoiding the problem and it didn't even solve it completely.
So my question is this: How do you create a smooth, inset, rounded, beveled edge?

Similiar to creating the control edge loops manually (as stated in stauVictors answer), you can create them procedurally with the bevel modifier. Using a bevel modifier before a Subdivision Surface modifier, is common practice to prevent smoothing on sharp edges.

Create a vertex group for the edges, which are supposed to stay sharp and assign the edges to it

Then add a bevel modifier and select that group as the Vertex Group of the modifier. If you use more segments in the Bevel modifier, the following subdivision modifier will have less effect on the beveled segments.

Edit from Coffeehouse's comment: As an alternative to the Vertex Group, you can choose weight as the Limit Method and create Bevel Weights for the mesh.

Use loop cuts (ctrl + r) and the mouse wheel to choose how many you fant on a face. Loop cuts can be moved after selecting which way you want it and the numbers of loop cuts on the selected face. The loopcuts can be moved later by selecting them and dobble tapping "g". Create a rough beveled edge and then add a subdivision surface modifier. Add new loopcuts too sharpen the edges.


Hair filtering through weightmap? How do I paint (vertex group -paint¿?) the area where I want to filter the hair?

I want to limit the hair to grow in the mesh in the area painted (vertex selection group?) but then how can I make it smooth it towards the border?

I come from a Softimage background. Back in the day we created a weightmap (in Blender it would be a vertex group) where we painted the area where the hair was to be emmitted.

In the image above you see Particle Edit Mode offered. Weight Painting is also offered.  The yellow arrow points to

Textures Panel associated with a Particle System while the Cycles Render is offered. Blender has

Vertex Groups can control density and length as an abbreviated explanation
Textures can control density and length as an abbreviated explanation
Textures can have higher control Density than a low poly mesh
Weight Painting a Vertex Group. So weights can be [0.0 to 1.0 floating point],  .55 or .77 for example. This can be searched here at BSE. Again a video probably offers the best introduction to weight painting.

There are many BSE answers related to weight painting.  Weight painting will seem quite ordinary to you once you see 33 free minutes of training video on noonoob. What follows is some collection of ideas you may find useful after you see one of the many discussion and videos of weight painting in Blender.

Image above show Brush Panel in Particle Edit mode.  Comb Brush is selected.

Blender has a Particle Edit Mode for Hair particles.  So you may

Create a Particle Edit .. Particle Cache is the result of Particle Edit mode work. Videos are the dominant way of learning about this for many people.
Place hair anywhere by using Brush panel .. metaphor Hair painting ... using different brushes with strokes
Shorten and lengthen hair and Remove the entire Strand
Comb hair in a direction
Other Attributes can add Hair Children, Spirals
Distinct Meshes
Users often create separate well fitted meshes to limit placement of hair.

For plant life such as grass and the simple human hair crew cut, we can easily state vertex groups and textures are very useful. Such contexts are of low intensity inspection.  Casual, Quick and Dirty.

For highly styled human hair those two items may be less useful.  Particle Edit mode for hair is more precise. This tool is useful when we are in high intensity inspection contexts. I suggest you see a video on some famous website that rhymes with noonoob because hair styling can be quite complex.  I think video will be best once you know what search keywords are best.  This will need a few days to sink into the subconscious mind.

Suggested Keywords ... Hair Styling in Blender.

In the image above we see the Active Data of type Texture associated with a Particle System.

I am avoiding any tutorial content.  This is just perhaps a quick discussion for further research by the reader in the form of text and videos. Videos have an advantage for precise hair manipulation.


Is there a "Volume Select" equivalent in Blender? 3D Studio has a modifier called "Volume Select" that allows using an element's geometry as a sort of selection force field that influences elements in its path. It can be used to transform many at once, as illustrated below.

Is there a way to do this in Blender? If not a modifier, maybe a script? I'm trying to animate a block of cubes that shrink and grow in a pattern and something like volume selecting would help a lot.

Thanks!

Animation Nodes can be used here. The Find Nearest Surface Point node is used to compute the distance between every element and its closest surface point, the distance is then used as the scale of the elements as following:

Evaluating the distance at an interpolation gives you fine control over its rate of change:

If you want it as you showed it, create the mask first

Put the object to be animated in the hole less than 0,01 below the mask and make sure the mask's color is the same as world's

Animate the objects within the mask's boundaries

This is the fastest, simplest way and gives the desired effect. Nodes are needless complication.


Remove edge loop from selection in 2.8 What is the best way to remove a whole edge loop from an edge selection in Blender 2.8?

The Process is as follows:
a) in edit mode, select three (or more) Edge Loops with double click shift + LMB
b) with three edge loops selected, remove loop "A" from selection without losing the selection of "B".

How can this be achieved?
Thank you in advance!

You cannot select loops by double-clicking Shift+LMB in default Blender's 2.80 keymap. The hotkey for selecting edge loops in 2.80 is Alt+LMB by default. If you wish to add to the selection or subtract from it something that is already selected you hold Shift while using Alt+LMB.

So the answer to your question is:

When you select a few loops with Shift+Alt+LMB click, you can deselect them the same way clicking LMB while holding Shift+Alt on a loop that is already selected.

Use edge select. Delete the faces or merge faces


Hard-edged polygons with normal maps Background

I'm making a character for my game (with MakeHuman), and I wanted to add normal maps to the characters. I generated one low-poly character and then one high-poly using a bunch of Subsurf modifiers. I was able to use the new Cycles baking to bake normal maps mapping the low-poly object to the high-poly object.

Problem

I'm getting some odd artifacts and very hard-edged polygons when I'm applying them to the character, even with the character set to being completely "Smooth-shaded". Can anyone explain why this is happening and how to fix it?

(left) low-poly model, (right) high-poly model

(left)low-poly without normal map, (right) low-poly with normal map produces weird shading

EDIT: Here is the normal map I am using for the low-poly character that is causing the hard-edged polygons (32px margin):

Also, here is my node layout (using Cycles):

Sorry for any trouble, but I was able to find the answer in one of the Blender docs. The real culprit was the Image Texture I was using for body_normals.png:

  (emphasisis added by me)
  Generate a perturbed normal from an RGB normal map image. This is usually chained with an Image Texture node in the color input, to specify the normal map image. For tangent space normal maps, the UV coordinates for the image must match, and the image texture should be set to Non-Color mode to give correct results.

I guess I must have skipped over this part in this project. Switching to Non-Color data in the Image Texture fixed my problem :). Now there is are no hard-edged polygon shading weirdness anymore.

if you have a very low poly mesh you can get a self shadowing problems .. this is common raytracing problem .. I am not sure but I strongly believe cycles do not use any special polygon representation. You have to rise the polycount. Also normal maps produces some other bunch of artifacts especially on strong normal maps with glossy shaders .. Normals (and normal maps) are just a fake shading trick to make polygons looks smooth, there aren't any real geometry bumps and sometimes these perturbed normals are pointing away from the view and you should not be able to see that point technically leading into shading problems .. like missing highlights. Normal maps are good only to add very fine details.


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

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

I tried saving output to local drive instead of server but no luck.

I am using the "File output" node in the compositing node editor, and NOT using the render settings output path. I just tried putting something in the output path and leaving the composite nodes untouched, and now it renders fine but renders each frame twice (once for the File Output node, and once for the render settings output path.)

Why would I get this error?

I realize I've found a workaround where I just have to delete the extra renders, but I want to get to the bottom of this problem. ;)

Thanks!

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


How to make the ocean modifier to deform an object, but don't move it? After using the ocean modifier with an object (in displace mode), the object is floating in space. How can I make ocean modifier to deform it, but don't move it?

It is deforming it, but the result is probably not matching the scale of your object. Try to reduce the Size parameter and maybe also the Scale parameter of the Ocean modifier.

Apply SCALE to the object (so that x, y and z scale are all 1).


How do I get these animated obstacles to work right with fluid physics and prevent freak outs like this? I recently tried to bake a fluid physics simulation with a mixing vat style setup. I did some basic parenting and keyframes to animate the stirrer, but the fluid immediately freaked out completely (or as immediately as it could have been, considering it baked for 3 days).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Mli_sOjYDc

What settings do I need to change to keep this from happening? I've heard about something called exporting an animated mesh, but I can't seem to find anything on the internet about it.

Select your obstacle object, go to physics in the properties pane, under fluid obstacle settings there's a checkbox called Export Animated Mesh. Use it :-)

You might be able to save yourself a few headaches by using a domain the same shape as your container, rather than a generic cube.

Try selecting the inside edges of your container, Shift-D to copy, and build a new domain from that. Be sure to reverse the normals after you do this, and put a top and bottom face on this new mesh/domain.

Once that's done you can enlarge the domain bigger than the inside edge of the container, and shape the top for splash.

Controlling the splash... that requires lots of tweaks, as scale can be a factor for the simulation, as can elements that affect viscosity and mass.


diference between preview and render Hello
i ma a bit noob... but i need to make glass for helmet which i will put on someone face after that...
so i would like to have the same resoluts with preview render and final render.
so please can someone help me to have the sam resoluts in preview like in render ? thanks
it happend just when i do that glass transparent for render (so that mabie happend in old version too i am not sure now)
here is non transparent shoot:

I found a solution: You can refine the alpha channel post render, here is how:

Just use any node that can influence a gradient and stick it in between the native alpha channel and the one of the output node.


Cancel Gamma Correction when importing Objects I'm having issues when importing objects from other software like Marvelous Designer.

The material color isn't the one I choose to be. I've made some research and it appears that Blender "correct" the Gamma value to be in sRGB space. Problem is I already choose my colors from a sRGB space (in Photoshop) and don't want it to be "corrected" afterwards.

My question is there a way to avoid this correction when importing objects?

I did find a solution to my problem. It isn't the most optimal but it will sure help, if any one have the same issue.

0 . Import your object

Go to the “Scene” tab
Go to “Color Management”

In “Display” change from “sRGB” to “None”

Go to the “Render” tab
Go to “Bake”

In “Bake Mode” change from “Full Render” to “Texture”

With your mesh selected go in “Edit Mode” and Unwrap your
Object if it’s not already done. Here I use Smart UV Project to be fast.
Then Bake and save the image result with F3 or on the menu.

Go back to the “Scene” tab
Change “None” to “sRGB”

Go the “Material” tab
Remove all material except one (doesn’t really matter which one is it)

Go to the “Texture” tab, add a new texture with “Image or Movie” type
Select your Bake result image (it’s already in Blender so you don’t have import it)

You’re done. I didn’t find anything else to avoid all that process right now. It’s fine for me because I also use the baked image as an IDmap.

Note: On my viewport the material show the exact colors because I selected “Shadeless” in the Material proprieties.

Hope it will help.


2.8 how to restore timeline cursor jump to left click in older versions of blender you could just click anywhere in the timeline and the cursor would jump to where you clicked, instead now it defaults to box select.

how do I change it back so i can just click anywhere in the time line?

If you're in left click mode then Shift + right click will get the playhead to move the position you click.

Changing Edit > Preferences > Keymap > Select With to Right restores the old behavior.


No object or images found to bake to I tried to give a bake to make a texture from the selected object but it does not work. I've made a new image and you can even see it on the screenshot, image, .,Barrel.001" and tries to do it in UV editing or through the default layout selecting ,,tab'' and then ,,a'' to select the whole object but then I have the same error when I press bake.

it is kind of weird, but make sure the texture you bake to is present in your material node tree and make sure it is selected when you bake.


Can't change material of anything? Title says it all. I can not add/change the material/color of ANYTHING.The entire page where materials should be is just completely blank.

http://imgur.com/a/hOhIL

You Have to scroll up lol, you can see that you Have the scrollbar down.


Honey shader in Cycles Trying to make honey material. I think there is some manipulation with nodes I need to do to get results but I have not enough experienced in that.
Can you please help me simulate honey consistency and color?

To(kind of):

Hopefully this will get you started... As others have said lighting is very important. This example uses Cycles to render and incorporates an HDRi for the overall lighting. An emission plane for an additional reflection (Camera Left) and a point light to brighten up the "Honey".

If you need more control over the color of the honey and being able to adjust it with different colors and shades of color, you can use a color ramp. You can also replace the emission shader with a glossy and translucent shader by adding both to a mix shader before connecting to the Material Output.


Blender Intro only renders one frame I just finished making my first intro in blender, and when I click animation it only renders the text for the first frame and the clouds for the first frame and then stops rendering, I have a few screenshots that could help solve the problem.

I actually fixed it by re-installing blender, my friend tried to render it and it worked for him so i decided to try re-installing blender.


Is there a quick way to copy the Object Name to the Mesh Data Name? I like to keep my scenes clean. Much of my Blender life is spent naming an object, copying the name and pasting the same object name into the mesh data name. Is there a quick way of doing this (or an add-on out there) where I can name a single-user mesh and the mesh data will be replaced with the same name?

My answer is a tip rather than a true solution, but it may save your time a bit. Instead of copying and pasting you may just click on the object's icon and drag it to the mesh datablock window.

And if you want to change the name through Blender's Python API you can run the following:

bpy.ops.object.select_all(action='DESELECT') # Deselect everything in the scene
bpy.context.scene.objects['oldMeshName'] # Select the mesh whose name is going to change
bpy.context.scene.objects.active.name = 'newMeshName'
bpy.context.scene.objects.active.data.name = 'newMeshName'


Mesh Deform modifier in 2.83 not behaving (This is a tricky one, might be a bug) I have a problem with the Deform Mesh modifier in Blender 2.83 (which I suspect may be a bug).

I created two simple rigs in exactly the same way to demonstrate this, one in 2.79 and one in 2.83.

In 2.79 the rig works perfectly.

The tank tracks follow the Curve modifier nicely.

I can deform these moving tank tracks and it also works perfectly.

If I follow the same steps in Blender 2.83 using the same modifiers, same process, I can get the tracks to turn just fine...

...but when I use the Deform Mesh modifier I get this:

You'll notice that the tread pieces that are vertex parented spasm on rotation.

But this only happens when it's animated.  In the same file, (the same file!) if I move the Mesh Deform controller and then MANUALLY rotate the tracks I get this instead:

Personally, I think it's a bug, but I'm open to get community answers before I report it as such.  I'm also very open to it being human error as well.

Let me know what you guys + girls think?

A link to BOTH files (from the images) is here:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1sD9AIzSouclUJgGaLjXn5VcVuzf7GI8u

Contains:

  TankTracks - deformation 2-79.blend

  TankTracks - deformation 2-83.blend

While the Mesh Deform modifier still doesn't work like it did in 2.79, (I've now submitted it as a bug) I was able to get a work around with Lattice.  This actually works amazingly well.  Thanks to Richard Lester for the solution.


Which tool allows bending a mesh? In the feature video of version 2.72 the mesh intersection tool is introduced. Which tool is used to bend the scaled and loop-cut cube here?

It is the Bend Tool, Mesh -> Transform -> Bend

Shortcut Shift-W.

It is documented as operator in the API

  Bend selected items between the 3D cursor and the mouse

The Warp function that used to be on Shift W is from 2.70 replaced by the Bend tool. The Warp Tool is still there, but you have to search for it. In the feature video you can actually hear the commenter telling he is using the Bend Tool.

I know this is an old question, but for those who still need help, you can go into edit mode>Mesh>Symmetrize.


Baking object with "combined" results in much too bright an Image Texture (Cycles) I am attempting to bake the chairs in a living room scene in Cycles using the "Combined" bake.  When I apply that image texture to the chair it is MUCH too bright compared to a render of the same chair. What other types of bakes should I use and how would I combine them?  The original chair uses a Wood.jpg image texture into a diffused shader mixed with a glossy shader.  I've tried baking diffused direct, diffused color, and glossy, and MixRGB them together, but it looks even worse.  Adding a brightness node & turning down the brightness looks bogus too. What am I missing?

I'm adding some more info, but I don't consider this problem answered because what I came up with is a ridiculous kluge that's sill not quite right.  I've tried so many things that at this point I don't think I can replicate all the bakes I'm using. The chair on the left is the one I'm trying to bake. In a nutshell:

Two slightly different 'combined' bakes are totally subtracted from each other which leaves shadows too dark & the color messed up. A color adjustment node (RGB Curves) corrects the color which is 'lightened' with a 'diffused color' bake to reduce the shadow from the table.

Like I said, not really a solution.

I can't be sure, but it seems entirely likely that your whites are getting crushed. I can guarantee that the white in your specular highlight on that chair is much higher than "255." But a typical image can only hold up to a 255.

Generically, this situation is handled one of two ways. Either, anything over 255 is just clipped/clamped to 255, or the whole range of values is crushed/scaled so that everything fits in a 0-255 range. This makes all the highlights darker because what used to be between 1000-2000 level of intensity gets scaled down to something like 150-250.

You situation would only be explained if Blender is doing some kind of intensity compensation that's tuning everything down so that your whites are crushed instead of just clipped. I don't know if Blender actually does that or not, but it'd explain what you're seeing.

I also don't know how to solve that, unless you can bake to an EXR or HDR that will record values higher than 255.

Hope that helps.

Try just using a diffuse shader for the baked texture. If it's still to bright try turning down the lights to about half the strength.
When you're baking Blender factors in the lights in your scene. So when you're just exchanging the wood texture with the baked one there's basically double the light for just that chair.

What I meant with "double the light" is that when you're baking with the light source you'll later use to light the chair, the baked texture already contains that light info. I once had the problem you're having, figured that's what it was. Sorry..
Also I think I misunderstood. Your saying the baked image by itself is messed up? Not the image looks fine and only weird when applied to the chair? Maybe you changed a setting that's causing that? Have you tried using default settings?


what is the default code for the operator.modal method? So I'm working on an export script and need to implement some extra data...
I want to add the extra data when the file browser is open and remove the data when the browser is closed on cancel or export.

The problem is I don't know how the default modal method works, I want to keep the default code, but extend it with the .append and .clear methods for my added data.

So what is the default code for the modal method?

Well I managed to make something work with the ExportHelper.invoke source...
This is coming from not knowing about the invoke method because the example doesn't provide it let alone explain where to look for more info.

what I did to access the data was simply to use the invoke method and integrate and modify the code from ExportHelper into my class rather than inherit from it.

to supply the needed data, all I did was create a dedicated PropertyGroup initialized in the scene context, and when invoke was called, clear and update the CollectionProperty items with their associated index IntProperty items in the group.

there may be a better method than this, but it works for me:

I did the dialog with this at the end of invoke before returning {'RUNNING_MODAL'}:

context.window_manager.invoke_props_dialog( this, width=900 )

Would be nice if blender's api was documented as well as they claim it to be...


Missing addon in V2.78 I want to build a stair, according to a video of Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5UrVrmErwQ), using "add mesh : building objects" addon.

I've noticed that the addon "add mesh : building objects" is missing from Blender 2.78.

Is there an option to download it from somewhere?

Since 2.8 is changing every day there is no point for add-on creators to make their add-ons compatible with it, because the next update could make it incompatible again, which means many of them most likely won't be available until after 2.8 is officially released. For now though you could follow the tutorial in 2.79 and append it over to your 2.8 file.


Speed up Cycles Render: Only calculate whats visible to the camera I remember reading an article not so long ago about a node setup to significantly speed up render times in Cycles by telling the engine to only calculate materials based on the portion of the object visible to the camera and not the entire object.

I think it was posted on the official blender page/ blender nation but I cant seem to find this information anymore.

Does anyone know where that article/video is? Does anyone else remember this?

It's not really limiting the render to what's visible to the camera, but you can limit some effects to camera, such as bump maps.

Mixing your bump BW factor with a 50% grey color with light path's "is camera ray" to make your bump map only visible to the camera. Add (math node, clamp checked) "is camera ray" with "is glossy ray" to have your bump visible in glossy reflections too.

While this method of achieving faster CyclesR rendering time does not include node setups,it does involve scene visibility, particularly tile sizes.

Tiles are the black squares that obscure the scene currently undergoing rendering by Blender. The purpose of tiles are to allow for more manageable rendering by the processor and thus minimizing chances of Blender crashing by limiting how much data the processor renders at a given time, saving memory in the process.

Under the 'Performance' section in the 'Render' Properties window, you will find the 'Tile Size' selection. These dimensions represent the pixel size of tiles, where dimensions in powers of two provide faster render times for processors, 16x16 being the optimal choice.

http://www.blenderguru.com/articles/4-easy-ways-to-speed-up-cycles/#.VLsvs0eorMN
It's the third render optimization tip listed in the provided link.

Hope this serves as another useful method aside from what you're seeking.


How to create and bake animations in Blender (when you already have created the Rig Skeleton) I've created a little blocky character in Blender, with a rigged skeleton. I've tested the joints out in Pose Mode and they seem ok. (the character is for a 3rd person 2.5D side-scrolling platform game, I need idle, run, skid animations for now)

From the instructions ive been following and several tutorials, I believe I need to bake each keyframe. Now I'm not fully sure what that is, but I understand it basically means taking position details etc for every frame so that the rig doesnt need to be manipulated in my code in unity.

I am going for very simple approach here, I dont mind things like foot sliding and stiff like that. Its going to only be a few keyframes per animation.

I have to make it into FBX file i believe, however I've downloaded a few OBJ before off the net and they worked with animation in unity (if i recall correctly).

Here is the screenshot for what I've done so far showing the model and the rig skeleton. What screen do i need to go to in order to start making keyframes, and saving animations for unity?

(Sorry if this is quite a dumb/broad question, im just stuck again :\ )

Thanks for reading

To answer your answer , when creating animations i personally do prefer to go to frame 0 press A in view to select all bones and press I & select PosLocScale to get the starting pose and do the same on the last frame of the animation , then i just skip to certain frame and edit bones i need to , before jumping to another frame i select the bones i have edited and press I => Set LocPosScale or u can press A and set it.

OK I found the answer. There is an animation mode in the view selection bit at the top of the screen (where is usually says default). This brings up the dope sheet and then I can manually add keyframes in for each rotation . Ie. I have to set it to keyframe 1 and then press button 'i' on my keyboard, then press rotation. The I got to say frame 30 and move the rotation of the bone and press 'I' again , press rotation. This will make the bone rotate smoothly between 1 and 30 frames between the two values i inserted for that bone.

The bad thing is, that AFAIK I need to do this for every joint of every bone I want to animate, separately. Which seems annoying.

I tried to do it with multiple bone rotations at once and it seemed to forget most of it and the animation came out completely messed up.

I still have a lot to learn but thought id answer my own question just in case someone else reads it and needs the same help.


How to export into .3ds and keep materials? I have a model that has all materials applied.
I use Blender export feature, click 3DS Max, save the file, but if I import that same file back into Blender, it loses all the materials -> they're converted on a white colour. Materials are based on an image texture. The file also loses the UV. What am I doing wrong?

Additional regarding Fbx

3dsMax

Make sure your units match that of Blender (meters for this example) - Customize menu - units setup.
Import your Fbx file.
Although your lights and camera import they are not compatable with 3dsmax rendering.  You will need to discard your lights and camera and install most probably photometric lights and at least one of the system cameras in order to render.
2) - Your scale will be correct.

Maya

Change working units in Maya to meters or match your settings from blender.
Windows - Settings and Preferences - Preferences -- Click on Settings. Under working units change to meters or match blenders settings set before your project.
Import your Fbx file.
On importing you will have your lights and camera. However they are probably not compatable (untested as yet). You will probably have to set up new system of lights and cameras.
3) - Your scale will be correct.

Fbx Review

Opens correctly in Fbx review.

Lightwave 2015

Opens correctly in Lightwave 2015 Modeler. Scale is correct. No lights (modeler).
Imports correctly in Lightwave 2015 Scene. Scale unverified. Option to play with scale on import. Cameras and Lights available but compatability unverified.

Other systems as yet untested

Exporting to Collada from Blender

Phases 1, 2, 3, and 4. as above

Phase 5 Export your model to .Dae

Export to .Dae as below
In the properties panel -(Render Tab) set animation frame rate to match your target systems default. check defaults or settings on other systems.
Select File - external data - (check) Automatically pack data into .blend
Save your .blend file
Select File - Export - Collada
Leave all Collada export settings at their defaults. Change only if you are deviating from this recipe for good reason.
Export Collada
Open the file in an application that supports Collada. Autodesk FBX review is an excellent one for checking (make sure textures are switched on)

Additional regarding Collada

3dsMax

Make sure your units match that of Blender (meters for this example) - Customize menu - units setup
Import your .dae file
You will loose your lights and cameras. - Set up new lights and cameras.
Your scale will be correct

Maya

I don't have the version that supports .3ds import.

Fbx Review

Opens correctly in Fbx review.

Lightwave 2015

Opens in modeler. Geometry only. UV mapping unknown. Scale is correct. No lights (modeler).
Imports into Lightwave 2015 Scene. Lights lost camera displaced and probably inoperative. Scale unverified. Option to play with scale on import. Texture (will turn some lights on to verify)

Other systems untested

Exporting to 3ds from Blender

The methods above do not work for Autodesk Fbx reviewer and 3dsMax but 'Load object' does work for lightwave 2015 modeler. However the scale of the import is 10 times too large. There is no where to adjust scale on the exporter and lightwave is fixed in meters. My thinking is that you must model in blender at 1 tenth scale to achieve the expected result for lightwave. Further cameras and lights are not imported as it is Lightwave modeler only. Further Lightwave's rendering package does not support .3ds.
in Autodesk FBX review - scale is lost - proper geometry is lost - textures are maintained. UV mapping appears correct but the object is warped.
In 3dsMax I have proper looking Geometry although there seems to be a few additional verticies somewhere. Scale is correct but textures are lost. If you look in the textures 'slots' in the materials editor the correct name of the texture is there but the swatch is black. This is someting to do with paths I think. If the texture can be located in the correct place then perhaps it could become available. You would still have to manualy map the texture adjacent to the diffuse colour tab in the materials editor. The uv mapping may still be intact (untested) as the result from Fbx reviewer would suggest that the uv mapping does make it through the export at least.
Regarding Maya I don't have the version that supports .3ds import so I could not test.

Additional

Lightwave 2015

Does open in a lightwave 2015 modeler. (File load object). Uncheck Scale Object in the import dialogue for correct scale.
Does open in a lightwave 2015 scene. (File load object). Uncheck Scale Object in the import dialogue for correct scale. Load object means system cameras and lights.

Other systems untested

Exporting to obj from Blender

As above for Phases 1, 2, 3, and 4. as at top

Phase 5 Export your model to .Obj

Export to .Obj as below
The obj file format does not support animations natively so don't waorry about frame rates.
Select File - external data - (check) Automatically pack data into .blend
Save your .blend file
Select File - Export - wavefront (.obj)
In export settings export set scale to 1 if you are going to 3dsMax and 100 if you are going to fbx review. Only deviate from defaults for good reason.
Export OBJ
Open the file in an application that supports OBJ. Such as Autodesk FBX review (make sure textures are switched on)

Additional regarding obj

3dsMax

Make sure your units match that of Blender (meters for this example) - Customize menu - units setup
Import your .obj file
In the import dialogue of 3dsMax - Check - flipZY-axis.
You will loose your lights and cameras. - Set up new lights and cameras.
Your scale will be correct

Maya

Change working units in Maya to meters or match your settings from blender.
Windows - Settings and Preferences - Preferences -- Click on Settings. Under working units change to meters or match blenders settings set before your project.
Import your Obj file
You will not have any lights or camera. You will have to set up new lights and cameras.
Your scale will be correct.

Fbx Review

Opens correctly in Fbx review with the 100 x scale adjustment in the Blender Obj exporter settings.

lightwave 2015

On 'open object' the following error message occurs - Can't find file "Images\myTexture.jpg" select an alternate file?  Select Yes and locate your texture file manually.
The scale will be correct. (The Lightwave grid can cause some confusion regarding scale)

Other systems untested for .obj thus far

This is intended for newbies like myself and anyone who wants to export from Blender to Fbx with basic textures. It may or may not be usefull when exporting other formats. I apologise it is verbose and intended for beginners.

Phase 0
1) - For export at least to FBX Set your renderer to Blender Renderer an not Cycles Renderer.
2) - Set your units of your scene.
3) - Fbx defaults to meters. On the Scene tab on the properties panel find units and change length to metric. Change units to meters also for good measure.

Note: ( When you are complete and you have opened your Fbx up in another application such as Maya or 3dsMax the import dialogue will state that your file units are cm. This seems to be an abberation of sorts. This is also of no consequence as your imported Fbx will still be to scale. I suppose it comes in as 100cm instead of 1m. - Reason unknown)

Phase 1 Create your Model
-1) - Create or Import your model into Blender.
-2) - Clean up your model

Phase 2 Get a Material/texture assigned to your model
-1) - Get a material in the material slot in the properties panel - (materials tab)
-2) - Get your texture into a texture slot in the properties panel - (textures tab)
-3) - Set - mapping - coordinates - to UV and mapping - projection to flat (textures tab at bottom)
-4) - In edit mode with the relevant part/s of your model selected and from the materials tab assign your material to your selected part/s.

Phase 3 UV Map your model
-1) - Click and drag an new viewport open from the top right hand coner of your screen. Split your screen 50:50 left and right.
-2) - In your new viewport open the view port options menu and select UV/Image Editor.
-3) - Return to and select your default 3d viewport.
-4) - In edit mode (edges) - using shift select your intended seams for unwrapping.
-5) - Cntrl E to bring up the Edges menu and select mark seams.
-6) - Still in edit mode using the A key toggle to select all.
-7) - Still in edit mode now using the U Key bring up the uv mapping menu.
-8) - Select - unwrap.
-9) - Arrange your UV Islands (pack UV islands ect.)(Indepth uv mapping separate subject)
-10)- Switch to 'view materials' in the default 3d view port- (Precheck your model and textures)

Phase 4 Turn on some lights
-1) - Add some more lights so that you can properly see whats going on in your scene.
-2) - In object mode - Shift A - In your default 3d viewport.
-3) - Select Lamp - Point Light.
-4) - Drag the point light up in the Z direction from the origin 0,0,0. Drag X and Y directions to suit.
-5) - Repeat the above steps at least once more so that you have at least three point lights in your scene lighting all sides of your model.
-6) - These lights should be on when you create them if they are not figure out how to switch them on.
-7) - Make sure you are still set to 'view materials' in your default 3d view port.
-8) - Check your model
-9) - If you have any dark or black faces then flip normals for the effected faces as below.
-10)- In edit mode (faces) select the affected faces.
-11)- From the adjacent Mesh menu select - Normals - Flip normals.
-12)- Also try select - normals - recalculate - if you still having issues.

Phase 5 Export your model
-1) - Export to Fbx as below
-2) - In the properties panel -(Render Tab) set animation frame rate to match your target systems default. (30 for 3dsMax or Maya and perhaps others)
-3) - Select File - external data - (check) Automatically pack data into .blend
-4) - Save your .blend file
-5) - Select File - Export - Fbx
-6) - Leave all FBX export settings at their defaults.(FBX 7.4 Binary and all preset defaults). Change only if you are deviating from this flow for good reason.
-7) - Export FBX
-8) - Open the file in an application that supports Fbx. Your whole scene icluding lights and textures should be there.

Note - This basic setup could be the basis for some experimentation for Blender exports to other formats although different file formats address textures differently, both regarding texture file location and their implementation. Sticking to this basic recipe is probably not a bad idea especially if you are new to blender. - Thanks to the posters who have got me going with blender.


How can I make a part of a texture glow? I need to make a part of a texture glow slightly.
Like Killer Crocs eyes (see image below)

How do I do this?

I added a black and white texture (white for the glow.
But then this happened.

There are strange colors around the eyes.
Also how do I change the white glow to red?

You have 3 options to create the glow:

Define the glow with a texture and use that as Emission shader added to your model. The glow haze has to be "baked" into such texture. Limitation: There is no glow outside of object's silhouette.

This is our starting point:

We need to define the glow with a glow texture - it should look like this:

define the color of the glow (you can have different color glows in one texture)
size of glow haze with amount of blurring
and amount of glow with brightness

Here we made both eyes glow. The emission is added to your previous shader:

Keep the emission strength between 0 and 1.

Advanced:

You don't have to necessarily make a glow texture, it is possible to extract it from your color texture with nodes inside Cycles to make a procedural glow:

Let's make a basic Color Key node based off color difference:

Next we can key out multiple (or single) colors into a mask and use it on the original color texture to extract areas to glow (example with eyes and teeth):

Now only the glow haze is missing, which is easy to do. Get the ImageBlur node from B°wide node pack or make it yourself:

It is noising the image mapping vectors, so use like this:

Now we just need to combine (add together) the un-blurred and blurred to get our glow (only kept the eyes and deleted the teeth - was just too many nodes to show):

Use with your shader as before - this is the procedural result(s):

2. Render a mask (with render layers for example) and add the glow in compositor with Glare node set to Fog Glow. There will be glow outside of object's silhouette but the result won't be physically correct.

It is very similar as with the cycles procedural nodes, you also don't have to render some glow mask but instead key it out from colors (which might not be accurate though because lighting can affect the model colors).

3. Add a volumetric fog environment into your scene to get physically correct glow. Your eyes have to have emissive material also but the glow haze is not painted in.

Just go into edit mode select the faces you want press P select Separate Selection.

Go into Object Mode select the part you separated add a new material, add an Emission shader change the color and Strength and parent to the original piece.

That should work for v.2.7.9


Mapping out sculpted details from a high-poly I need to bake a map in order to separate different colors and materials on the low poly model.

The padding part is easy because it is a separate object. But the scratches are sculpted and I don't know of anyway to create a uv map of those details(alone from the rest of the object). Is there a way for me to do this without painstakingly painting every small detail manually?

EDIT FOR CLARITY

I need to generate a map from sculpted detail (from the Highpoly) in order to have different material proprieties on the same object (the lowpoly).

I dare to post this answer, because the following tool is free and in my opinion everyone should know this great piece of software. Please forgive me! :-)

After some testing the best working solution I found so far can be archived by creating a heightmap in XNormals. Therefore I hope that you are on a windows system, because XNormals is a pure windows tool.

Export your highpoly and your lowpoly  and a cage as seperate Fbx scenes.

Import them to XNormal (just drag the highpoly and the lowpoly into the list).

for the cage, a checkbox in the lowpoly object has to be enabled and you have to select it by clicking with RMB in the sceen and select "Browse external cage file"

In the baking option select your texture size you want to export, your export location, and check heightmap as renderer.

To render, press the Generate Maps button and after some calculating something like this should appear:

After adjusting your heightmap, close the window  and it will export it to your predefined export location.


Why don´t certain shapes/faces extrude? So i am working on a project, where i created a shape based on an image, but when i extrude it certain areas just won´t extrude right. As you see in the screenshot there are no "walls" at some places.
 Why is that? I guess that i used a couple techniques in the process to create vertecies, that apparently don´t work well together.On the other hand i don´t see why this should be a thing. Is there a way to assimilate the condition of the whole mesh so it extrudes normaly?

Removing doubles may fix it in this case, but similar results may show with wonky normals, generally fixed by Ctrl+n in Edit mode


keyboard doesn't work with blender (OSX) I've got this issue. My keyboard works fine in OS and other applications but when I start Blender have to hold down opt or my keyboard writes signs like: "ß∂ƒ¸˛√ªﬁø" instead of "asdfgh".

Anyone know why this happens?

It's because OSX keyboards have their own Apple Mac layout, incompatible with Windows PCs Maybe the link below helps

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202676


BGE: Can a cube copy the rotation of another cube in game? If cube1 has rotation logic, how can I make cube2 imitate the rotation of cube1 without using the logic of cube 1?

This is possible with a simple python script:

import bge

def main():
    scene = bge.logic.getCurrentScene()

    cube1 = scene.objects["realCube"]
    cube2 = scene.objects["secondCube"]

    cube2.worldOrientation = cube1.worldOrientation

where realCube and secondCube are the names of the actual cube objects in blender.

To attach this script to secondCube, you can use a python controller with an always sensor. Note that the script name must end in a .py extension for the script to be recognized as a module, and that the python controller is given a method (.main) defined as a function inside the script:

One way is to use drivers. You can, in effect, link the properties of one object to other objects. In your example, you have the choice of driving all 3 rotation angles or just a single angle.

To add a driver, display the rotation properties of the linked-to object (cube2 in your example). An easy way to do this is press "N" in the 3D View or choose the Object Properties tab. Then right-click one of the rotation angle values. Choose "Add Drivers" (all 3 rotations) or "Add Single Driver" (only the chosen rotation). The property value will turn purple and can no longer be changed manually. You can remove the driver by right-clicking and choosing again.

Next open a Graph Editor window and press "N" to display the Properties sidebar. To the right of the window menu ('View', 'Select', 'Marker', 'Channel', 'Key'), there is a drop-down labeled "F-Curves". Change this to "Drivers".

For simplicity sake, I'll describe how to set up one driven rotation angle. If you want to drive 2 or 3 rotation angles, simple repeat the following steps:

In the upper left, click one of the angles below "Drivers". If they aren't visible, you may need to click "Drivers". Find the Drivers panel in the right-hand Properties sidebar. This panel shows the driver setup.
The first item you likely want to change is "Scripted Expression" to either "Averaged Value" or "Sum Values". Since you want to copy a single property, you will get the property you want by choosing the average or sum of that single value. (This was confusing to me at first, but it provides a lot of power and flexibility in more complex situations.)
By default, a variable has been created called "var". Choose the driving object (cube1 in your example) and then choose the property you want to copy using the "Type" drop-down menu.
You might click "Update Dependencies" if an error message appears beneath the "Remove Driver" button.

You can test out the driver by rotating cube1 and watch cube2.

Other resources on using drivers:

In the Blender Reference Manual
Gustav Nilsson's in-depth tutorial on YouTube


Baking Metallic map? Hey what's the best way to bake Metallic maps since it's not one of the types of baking blender's interface offers you?

I know about plugin your metalic node setup into a diffuse node and bake that, but it can get tricky if you use multiple Mix Shader nodes making your material (so your metallic information could be split among tons of tons all over the place).

I need to do it through code reliably, if possible.

Metallic maps are maps that tell the shader which parts of the object to make metal, and which to make dieletric.  If you want to make a custom map, the best way to do it in my opinion would be to texture paint a black and white map in blender.  it's not really a type of map you can bake.

hope this is helpful :)


How to increase camera frames view area? The Camera view area is so small (see picture). How can I increase it?

To make the camera view fit the window press the Home key
(This works even when the camera is in locked to view mode).

If the camera is not locked to view, using the mouse scroll wheel (Or Numpad + and  Numpad - or Ctrl+ and Ctrl-) will make the camera view larger (or smaller) on the screen.

ok, idk if anyone has said this but go to the camera setting, and change the focal length. its somewhere around 30 to start i think. working down the scale makes it a larger frame size. working up the scale makes it a smaller frame size... yeah


Textures won't work on some objects I am working on a scene, and am on UV mapping and texturing phase. I have managed to successfully UV map and texture a few objects, but for some weird reason now the objects I am trying to UV map won't take textures. In 3dview and render they are appearing pink, which I know means Blender isn't finding the textures, but I am browsing to select the texture images. The images are there. In one computer, after browsing to select the image, the node fails to show the name of the texture. On another computer, the name shows up but the texture doesn't get applied (same .blender file). Any ideas? I am using cycles render.

I have seen something similar when I have forgotten to UVMap an object to which I intend to apply an image texture.


Blender 2.79 crashes on Startup System: Windows 10

Graphics card: Nvidia GTX 1030

Hi! I'm currently facing an issue where whenever I launch blender (version 2.79) the program immediately crashes. Since this has started happening I have re-installed all relevant drivers and have uninstalled an re-installed the program multiple times. I have even gone back to older versions of blender; interestingly blender 2.78 would launch but would crash whenever I entered "cycles" mode (leading me to believe this is an issue with my graphics card.

For more information this has only started happening since I installed this graphics card a couple of days ago; also, here is the debug log of Blender from the cmd line:

Thanks for any help you guys can provide!

*****UPDATE*****

The one of the newest official nightly builds of Blender (blender-2.79-46dceef-win64.zip) seems to be working on my machine perfectly; although I would still like to figure out why the official build refuses to open.

That fail line at the top looks like an audio interface issue. Your audio interface is set to 48000Hz and Blender is trying to startup with 44100Hz. Try setting your audio interface to 44100Hz. Don't know if it will stop the crash, but at least that issue will be solved.

By what you are describing and the access violation error tho it sounds like you got a faulty RAM chip.

Remove RAM chips one at a time until the crash stops then you will know which RAM stick is bad.

AND if you haven't, download and update your graphic card drivers from the manufacturers website. You said you reinstalled drivers, but maybe you are installing old drivers from a CD or letting windows handle it. Get the most up to date drivers straight from the source.

If none of that works you could try creating a new windows user account, log in as the new user and install blender. Incase of your user profile being jacked up.


How to Properly Unwrap an Intermediate Mesh? I am running into trouble with what seems to be a simple UV unwrapping.
THE INTENDED END RESULT:
Essentially for the end result I am looking to place two sperate logos (size, shape and subject) on the box; one on top and one on the bottom. Additionally I need to place a leather texture over the entire box.

THE SET UP:
The Box is hollow as per my image, and there is no usage of logos on the interior.
I am including images of both my current state and a photographed end result for reference. (Logos have been replaced out for copywrite reasons.
THE PROBLEM
I have added seems to the box, in what I believe could be the proper places (But not sure) and used smart UV unwrap to project onto the test grid.
The projection seems stretched. and shrunk in the center? This only applies to the top and bottom though (Where I will need to include logos)
Could someone please help me figure out why this isn't unwrapping properly? And help me figure out how to place two logos on one material?
"UPDATE" : PREVIEW WITHOUT ANY UV MAP
As you can see with the below 2 images, with out any unwrapping or reseted unwrapping The material applied still appears to be warped from the edge?
TOP

BOTTOM

Thank you.

hello select some edges and mark seams like this, then uv wrap and select the conformal option, and it should appear like this...

your model with a uv grid should look like this:

Additionally you can turn on the stretching option there to check stretching issues...

there should be a marked seam along the other axis


How many "polygons" does my model have? I have my model and in the info bar its show this

May I need to know how many polygons it has, but  there is no option to find polygons. Verts, Edge and Faces nothing polygon option there.
In the website its say that the upload limit is 400,000 polygons. I did not get over that limit or how many polygons my model has?

Whenever you have a "poly limit" it is referring to triangles. You need look at Blender's Tris count.

A "face" is just two or more triangles (quad has two triangles, an N-gon has more) so the face count is not the real number.
If you make a model with only triangles, the face count and the Tris count will be the same.

Notice the face and triangle count in the images below.
This first cube is a default cube with 6 quads. The other cube has been triangulated. Notice the face and tri count match.

This is an object consisting of a single N-gon, and nothing more.

Your info bar that you inserted an image of has the "faces" information.  The number of faces shown is simply the total number of polygons in your scene, including all tris, quads, and n-gons.  So looking at the info, your model has over 3 million polygons.

Edit: as someone pointed out below, the polygon restriction likely refers to tris specifically, and as such your model has over 5 million (a quad is really 2 Tris, and ngons can have any number of tris).  All polygons are eventually split up into tris for rendering anyway, so looking at the number of tris is probably the most accurate number.


Complex grid patters for chair I need some help in creating a complex(might not be complex) grid pattern for the back support of a chair.
I attached the image it is based on.
Please note that I have also created the outer frame, do let me know if that's necessary or if I'm headed in the right direction.

Here is a simple and basic way I would go about it.
Made you this short video.
-Subdivide a Plane, Shape with "Proportional editing", Add wireframe mod and Subdivision surface -
enter link description here


How to lower/higher one surface without the neighboring surface making weird stuff I am currently building a ship model (18 century british navy ...) and I have a question ...
I have looked at mirroring, so that my object is mirrored and I do not have to worry about forgetting an vertex or sth. similar.

I want to higher the back part (with the marked edge).
However, when I do so

this happens.
I want the rotated surface to stay down (I otice only now, that I need mor room for the quarter deck, but that's not the problem here ... :-D )
This object does not need to be very precise, it is for a concept work (maybe I'll stretch it and improve some other stuff ... but basics first, right? :-D )
SIne I have worked with maya before, sadly not a student anymore, one could do this simply by exxpanding it, with blender, I have some trouble figuring out, how to do this ...
any help would be highly appreciated,
Karanda (yes, a David Eddings fan)

What you are looking for is called extruding in Blender (and most other 3d software).

Select the faces you want to extrude in edit mode and press E. In this case, the face will extrude along the z-axis. press  RMB to confirm the position.

Maybe disable or apply the mirror modifer and hide the faces you dont want to move.

You could also just use proportional editing.


Why is my smoke bright on the edges? I was doing some motion tracking and I implemented some smoke. Once I rendered the scene, there is this bright perimeter framing my smoke. I'm not sure if this is a bug or not but i would like to know how to remove it.

I don't know if this is your issue, but you should give it a try :D


How do I custom set the origin when use the mapping node? I'm going to use the mapping node to rotate my X-mark texture.
However, the origin isn't centered on the X-mark.
How do I custom set the origin when I use mapping nodes?

Test Chris's Answer
The origin of the geometry seems like independent of the rotation origin of the mapping node.

All you have to do is add a vector math node before mapping node, set it to add. Now you can easily change the origin by changing the value of vector math node

Tap on cross to select

object -> set origin -> to geometry


2 images as planes, one of them shows incorrect control for alpha I imported image as planes after enabling the add-on.
In First image , I have imported Image A as the BG and the alpha is numeric value and can be used to reduce opacity.
In second image, I have imported Image B as the BG but here I am not getting an alpha value to manipulate.
Based on @susu comments here is the nodes>Base Color

I further went ahead and added a proper plane and using material I added the image as material. Doing the same you can see I get controlable aplha value. What I don't understand is why is the image coming out looking grey??

I exaggerated the problem due to lack to knowledge to application. I just needed to add BG's which can be reduced in transparency.
I was given simple solution of add Image as refrence. It is easy transparency with no grey etc issue.
Importing image as plane creates material complications which for SB work are unnecessary.
Thanks for taking the time out to answer.


How to properly texture this cylinder For some reason, this hollow cylinder gets textured differently than a normal cylinder, and it's auto generated as a column, just like doors and windows.
I like the way it looks better than texturing a normal cylinder, but it stops looking good at one point and the texture seems to clip.

You can see in the left column that at the bottom, it's well textured, but as it goes up, it becomes weird. It's a poliigon texture I applied with nodes.
What can I do to fix it, or achieve a result like the bottom part of the column?

In the Edit mode delete the top and bottom faces. As we do not need extra faces here.

With the edge selected. Select the top and bottom and any center edge with shift select

With the edge selected press Ctrl+E and select Mark Seam

Now Press A to select all Faces. Press U and select Unwrap

Drag and make a new window -> UV Editor

Click on the new button and navigate the image.

Now in the material tab -> New and select the image from drop down

Note : Before you process the above steps. Press Ctrl+A select Rotation and Scale

Click on the small dot -> image texture

Then click the drop down here (find the same texture you have used in UV editor)


Adding a vertex with control-LMB does not work on OSX - how can I fix that or work around? A technique used in a number of tutorials is start with a mesh, delete all the vertices and then start adding new vertices with control left mouse click.

It seems this never works on a mac.  At least there are a lot of forum posts out there saying it doesn't work and asking for help.  I haven't yet found one that results in useful answer.

The user preferences, 'input' tab, shows very clearly what keys are bound to actions and allows you to reassign them but mouse gestures don't seem to be exposed to configuration with the same clarity.

I'm working on a macbook air with a three-button wheel mouse plugged in.  I've tried turning 'emulate three button mouse' on and off, I've tried working with the inbuilt trackpad instead, I've tried all the combinations of modifier keys and mouse gestures I can think of.

I have come close to using harsh language.

Does anyone know how to add a vertex to a mesh on osx?

I too had the same problem. I noticed that I had was using face select instead of vertex select. Changing that might help you. Good luck!

Thanks for the comment parameciostudio. I tried doing the simplest possible thing - ie start with a new file, delete the vertices from the default cube and start adding vertices with control LMB.  And, in fact, it does work.

As far as I can tell the mistake I made with my original project was this - I inadvertently selected an object behind the one I was trying to create.  I carried on adding junk geometry to this without getting any feedback from Blender.

It sometimes feels as if the Blender interface is cryptic to the point of actual malice!

What would be really helpful, is a feature I think is in C4D but not in Blender, where you can view and edit the geometry of an object in a numeric table.


How do I texture an arrayed mesh? As an exercise in Tabletop Simulator modding and learning Blender, I'm trying to recreate the game Kingdom Builder. This game uses different tiles to construct a board for each game session. An example is at this link: https://sodaklady.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/p1010414.jpg
Based on the shape of the board, I thought it would make sense to make it out of a number of hexagons. I created a cylinder mesh with 6 sides and triangle fan fill type, and then used the Array modifier several times, applying the appropriate offsets, to create the right tile shape. Everything looks good up to this point.

Next, I want to UV unwrap it so I can paint different textures for each of the different tiles. My goal is to have the UV map match the board shape to make it easier to create different image textures. I selected all the edges around the outline of the top of the tile, used "Mark Seam" and then did UV --> Unwrap but the map looks very distorted, as shown below.

The top and bottom sides aren't even separated, even though I thought I would have detatched them via the Mark Seam command. I've tried watching some tutorials on UV unwrapping, but haven't found one that seems to cover this kind of case. I have the suspicion it's something to do with the Array modifier as I've seen arrayed meshes behave oddly when playing with other functions (e.g., using a Boolean modifier set to Difference with an arrayed mesh as the reference point does not produce the results I'd expect).
Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong or point me toward a good tutorial on the subject?
Full disclosure, I'm a total Blender newbie. I've done some BlenderGuru YouTube tutorials that walk you through a number of the basic concepts while modeling a doughnut and coffee cup, but that's about it.

It may be a bit hard to say, you need to explain a little more about the way you made the mesh.
Mi guess is that you only create the shape with the array, but you didn't delete the faces in between, so, every hexagon is still a separate object but very close to the other so you don't notice that is a separate shape. If that is the case, you need to delete those faces to make a one mesh and then, unwrap all the final shape or UV Unwrap every hexagon individually


How do I set up a material with diffuse, normal and alpha (transparency) maps? I'm finding it very difficult to set up a basic material with diffuse, alpha and normal maps. Although I've managed to create a material with diffuse and normal maps, I can't manage to get the alpha channel working correctly. I would like to use three separate maps as shown below:

Below is the desired result of combining the maps with a single spotlight shining from above.

Although I found a few examples of setting up materials with transparency online, I couldn't get anything to work correctly. Instead of me posting lots of pictures of my failed setup, could someone explain the correct way to combine these maps? I would really like to see both how to do it in the standard material/texture panels, and also in the node editor. I would like the result to appear in the real-time textured viewport mode.

In order to help explain what I am trying to set up, here is a picture of the current result of the material as it looks with lighting in my scene. I'm viewing using GLSL, but if I switch to multitexture, it's entirely black. I tried rendering it, but I just get the result shown here.

UPDATE: Partial Answer

Thanks to this tutorial, I managed to achieve the result I want if I'm rendering in cycles. The problem with this is that I want a clean real-time render that works in the viewport, so I'm still only half-way to a real answer. Here's my node setup for cycles:

However, as I said, I would like to see this kind of bump mapping working with alpha in the standard real-time view:

The only problem I see in the node setup is that the normal map image texture should be put through a normal map node to convert the color output data of the image texture to the required normal input of the shader.

If you are working in Cycles, it isn't currently possible to view the alpha channel in the textured view. The rendered view is the only current workaround.


convert cycles materials to blender render I created materials in cycles(assigned a color). I need convert cycles to internal, but when I do it, materials lose color and broke material(Node< none >).

How can i convert?

Thanks!

You could try disabling the "use nodes" option.


Difference between Octane render and Eevee render? I am blender beginner. I found Blender has 2 renders, eevee and cycle. But I also find an Octane render in website. What are the differences among eevee, cycle and octane? Is octane an addon? Is yes, how much?

Well, yes and no. Octane is not for blender only, it's more of an engine in many 3d software. https://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=72241#p366488, Octane uses the computer GPU to render, and it is like Cycles but a real-time raytracing, which means its acts like evee but produces renders like cycles. Evee is just a real time render engine
which doesn't care about light that much.


How to key out an object in a video? I've keyed out the green screen in my video although I have an object in the background (circled in red) that I would like to 'key out' also. How do I achieve this? I want to add a background to the video without the furniture in the way.
I've looked at other similar questions here but I don't understand how the nodes work due to a mixture of it not being up to date with the current blender and also my lack of understanding.
--I'm using the Composition workspace.

This video helped me with rotoscoping:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hppbUi2i74


How can I get a shot of the whole room without removing walls or distorting the camera? I have a scene of an office and I want to capture the whole room with the camera when I render it.

When I try to bring back the camera using ⇧ Shift+F to capture a shot of the whole room it just goes through the wall and I can't see the room anymore. I can't remove the walls because I need them.

How can I get a shot of the whole room without removing walls or distorting the camera?

There are several options to sort the problem.
Quicker would be to set the camera clipping:

Set the Start to a value higher than the distance between the camera and the wall you want to see trough.

Other option would be to set the wall invisible to the camera from object options tab in Cycles settings:

There isn't really an option to fix this apart from moving the camera. Select your camera then pressing G and then press Z twice, from this you can move the camera backwards from its current view angle by moving your mouse back.


Curve Modifier Problem I have a mesh which want to array 360 degrees with help of curve modifier and array modifier. I created a circle curve. I moved cursor to its origion and mesh's origin to cursor. I want to array it on y axis but when i click on it, it turns my mesh upside down under where it is not supposed to be. When i drag it on x axis, it moves on z axis. i tried CRTL+A - scale, rotarion, too in case. But still same.

Above, position of my mesh and curve

The result

Im not really sure what exactly  what you exactly mean by "array it on y axis" but my answer is based on "360 degrees". You could try uploading your Blend in the question to get a proper answer. But here's what i got.

Here's the blend file:-

Edit:---------------------------------
So i looked into your blend and it seems like you must've turned off the Modifier visilibilty of the array modifier. Also you need to use the x axis in both of the modifiers and rotate the object in edit mode in order to achieve similar results like mine (if thats your goal).

If i understood your question

The curve axis is to x axis and not to Y axis. So change from Y to X axis
In the array in the relative set the x to 1 and rest to zero

And unhide the array modifier

This will give the result


Object not receiving message I have a game I am making, but I have run into a brick wall.  My player is not receiving any messages.  It uses Dynamic physics type and it is set to receive any message.  I want it to receive a message from a child circle below it.  They are both in the same scene.  I want the circle to tell the player that it is on the ground so the player can know when to jump.

The circle's script:

The player's script:

Possible cause: combination with keyboard sensor

Just as it is the configuration looks fine. But there is a danger.

You combine the message detection with keyboard detection. That means the actuator will only be activated when you hold the specified key  and receive a message at the same time.

It might be you want to activate the motion actuator when either the key is pressed or a message is received. In that case I suggest to replace the AND controller with an OR controller.

To analyze if the message can be received at all, you can disconnect the keyboard sensor (leaving the message sensor).

To analyze if the motion actuator has any effect on your object, you can disconnect the message sensor (leaving the keyboard sensor).

I hope it helps

On your collision trigger, click the true level triggering (pulse mode) or the other gadget at the top left of the actuator. Same for if using the always.


Smart find a vertices Hi and thanks in advance.
I am trying to find a reference point on a 3d scanned arm model in Blender, so I can know its current position and rotation. A phyton script to find a certain vertices, let's say the one on middle finger's tip, would help me a lot. Can someone lead me in the right direction, please? (With no opencv involvement)

I see that it is not something you can do in blender. I will have to use OpenCV feature recognition for such a purpose. Thanks for responses.