Blender - Common Mistakes & Tips

*Blender Cycles*

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1. Help! I installed a Blender Add-on, but nothing happened or it doesn't appear to work.

Important, make sure there are no extra periods in the zip filename:

Addon_Folder2.79.zip [BAD]
Addon_Folder2_79.zip [GOOD]

Demo - Installing Screencast Keys add-on
Demo - Installing XPS Tools add-on

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2. Help! I can't Scale or Rotate anymore in Blender!

- You may have accidentally enabled Only Origins (Manipulate Center Points).

- www.youtube.com/watch?v=6viFpj…
Blender 2.8 - Disable 'Only Origins'

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3. How do I use Old and New versions of Blender?

I recommend downloading the portable versions of Blender 2.79 and Blender 2.80.
You can switch between versions anytime, or run them both simultaneously.

• .zip = Windows Portable
• .tar.bz2 = Linux Portable

Unzip and run Blender, no installation required.

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4. Help! My selection is Rotating or Moving incorrectly!

Example:


Transformation Manipulators:

- Keep both Transformation Manipulators (Rotate and Translate) enabled.
- This will help you see the pivot point during rotation and other operations.
- Then change the Pivot Point.

Blender 2.8 - Pivot and Orientation Points

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5. Textures are not showing correctly while Viewport Shading is set to Texture.

If your Viewport Shading is set to Texture, the model will only show the active selected Image Texture Node.
Example:

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6. Help! Objects are disappearing / clipping while zooming in 3D Viewport Editor.

Example:

- In the 3D Viewport Editor, press the N key to open the Properties Shelf.

For large Mesh Objects:
- Try increasing the Clip value for End.
- Or try reducing the Scale of the Objects.
For small Mesh Objects:
- Try decreasing the Clip value for Start.
- Or try increasing the Scale of the Objects.

You can also change the Clip values for the Camera Object in the Properties Editor.

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7. Help! My objects in the 3D Viewport scene are too far away or offscreen!

Two Solutions:

• 
  - Home key - 3D Viewport will reveal all objects in scene
• 
  - Numpad_Period key - 3D Viewport will reveal selected Object(s)

Also check the Visible Layers or Collections.

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8. My rigged character isn't deforming properly when posing.

Before rigging a character, make sure both the Armature (Skeleton) and the Mesh Object(s) (Character Meshes) have their Transforms applied:

- Hotkey CTRL+A [Object Mode]
- Object → Apply → Location | Rotation | Scale

You can also tell if an Object's transform hasn't been applied by looking at the location of the Object Origin (Origin Point)


Blender Guide - Rigging & Weight Painting

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9. Checkered 3D mesh, strange checkered hair mesh!?

this happens mostly from doa hair rips. what the creator did was add a front and back to the mesh instead of just making the mesh double sided (or its made from ripping, not too sure). so.. in places there's 2 faces right on top of another, causing the colliding and ugly shadows; and that criss-cross/checker pattern too. maybe it looks good in the doa games, but for gmod/sfm it looks like shit XD
it would take some time. but you would have to manually delete one of the sides where you see that collision.
I had this issue with one of Christies hairpieces, and instead of going through all that, i found another download where her hair looked normal and that issue was already fixed; you might wanna try to find another download for that specific hair; i'm sure there's a few Sarah Bryant models with this already fixed - Alan13

Example:

L Key = Select Linked [Faces, Edges, Vertices]
- This will select the connected faces on the hair mesh.
H Key = Temporarily Hide Selection
- This makes it easier to work with overlapping meshes.
Alt + H = Unhide Selection

If the 3D model is only being used in Blender, you can just enable Backface Culling.

- Blender 2.80 Demo
- Blender 2.79 Demo

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10. My 3D model has a blocky appearance or weird shading, even when there are no lights or textures/materials applied.

Examples:


You can use Face Orientation to see the direction of the faces/normals:
- Blender 2.8
- Blender 2.7

Try 1 of the solutions below:
- Select the Object, switch to Edit Mode, select the whole mesh, and Set Normals from Faces.
- Select the Object, switch to Edit Mode, select the whole mesh, and Remove Doubles or Merge by Distance.
- Select the Object, switch to Edit Mode, select the whole mesh, and Recalculate Normals.


*BONUS* What the hell is a Vertex Normal?
- www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xB7nb…

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11. My Normal Map texture makes my 3D model look blocky or inaccurate.

Bad Normal Map

Fixed Normal Map

Keep in mind, if you're only using Blender for rendering, then your Normal Map should be Blue-ish.
If you want your Normal Map texture to be Blender-friendly, you can use either an Image Editor (Photoshop/GIMP) or Blender's Node Editor:

[Example - Node Editor] by TSelman61
• [Before] [After]
• Why is the B (Blue) socket disconnected from the Combine RGB node?
  - Interestingly enough, the Red+Green color channels actually have enough information about the Normal Map:
  - Normal Map Texture (No Blue)
• But to make it Blender-friendly, we can create an artificial Blue channel that affects the entire Normal Map texture:
  - Manually change the B (Blue) channel value to 1.00, as shown HERE.
  - Normal Map Texture (Red+Green+Blue) - This is how Blender will interpret it

• Blue channel information is not lost?
  --> Yes you are right. In fact, the blue channel is also important on the normal map. This is a much better way to determine depth and height. (Bump like the map.) But the normal map works without the blue channel.
  Now many game companies do this. They're ignoring the blue channel. And they're adding another map instead of the blue channel. So instead of creating two different maps, they form a single map. in this way, fewer files are created and reduced in size. - TSelman61

Other game engines may have different requirements for their Normal Maps.
You may need to convert the Normal Map texture.
Try 1 of the options below to get your Normal Map working.

• Option 1.
  - In the Node Editor, change the Color Space of the Normal Map Texture Node to Non-Color Data.
  
  - Example: [Color Data] [Non-Color Data]
• Option 2.
  - In the Node Editor, select the Normal Map Texture Node, open the Properties Shelf (N key), and then uncheck 'Use alpha'.
  
  - Example: [Alpha Enabled] [Alpha Disabled]
  - You can try disabling alpha on other Image Textures too, if necessary.
• Option 3.
  - XnaFreak's Tip: Different Game Engines have different Normal Map requirements.
  - comments.deviantart.com/1/7568…
• Option 4. [This changes bump direction]
  - Invert the image color.
  - Example: gfycat.com/WideeyedScentedCoyp…
• Option 5. [Not Recommended]
  - Change the Blue layer of the image to White.
  - Example: gfycat.com/HealthyNegativeIndi…
  - Take a look at Option 3.
• Option 6.
  - Invert the green channel of the normal map by adding a Invert Color Node between the Texture Map Node and the Normal Map Node. - tip by Starbrain
  - Example: i.imgur.com/FcxGLoZ.png
  - More Info: wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Normal…

Normal Maps - RGB Channels

If you look closely at the bright Red and bright Green, you can see the "handedness" of the Normal Map texture:
X = + (Red is on the right side)
Y = + (Green is on the top side)
Z = + (Blue is the predominant front view)

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12. Help! I can't Import FBX model into Blender! (Unsupported version/ASCII FBX)

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• ** Option 1. Noesis [Recommended]
  
  - You can use Noesis to convert FBX to DAE (Collada).
  - You may need to enable Flip UV's.
  - Import DAE into Blender.
  

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• ** Option 2. Autodesk's FBX Converter
  - You can use Autodesk's FBX Converter to convert unsupported FBX files to the latest binary version of FBX.
  
  - There is still a chance that some rigged character models may appear incorrectly in Blender.
  

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• ** Option 3. Bos FBX add-on for Blender
  - The add-on will allow you to import some ASCII FBX models or other unsupported FBX versions.
  - There is still a chance that some rigged character models may appear incorrectly in Blender.
  
  - The Bos FBX add-on is no longer being supported.

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Ton Roosendaal (Blender Founder):

I had a meeting with the guys (Autodesk) about FBX, because FBX is the standard, right, for a lot of artists to move animation data from one application to the other, especially the games industry. Everybody is using FBX, but it's a locked-in format, and Autodesk is frustrating everybody who tries to reverse engineer it by changing the format every year, just for fun.

Full Interview: www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJEWOT…

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13. The textures on my 3D model are Pink/Purple in the 3D Viewport Render.

Two reasons for why a texture may turn pink/purple:

• 1. Corrupt texture or poorly supported texture format
  - Example: You may find some variant of DDS textures that may not play well with Blender.
  - You may need to convert the image texture to a different image format (TGA, PNG, JPG, etc).
  - Possible Workaround: Pack the image texture file into the .blend file.
• 2. Missing texture
  - If the blend file is referencing an image texture file from outside of Blender, it's possible that the texture file or its folder may have been accidentally deleted, renamed or moved. [If moved, go to File -> External Data -> Find Missing Files]
  - When a blend file is saved, Blender will not save any unused textures/materials (external or packed).
  - If you let a friend open that blend file, those unused textures/materials will not be available within the Blender session.
  - If you want Blender to protect/keep the unused textures/materials, press the Fake User button (F or Shield button) before saving the blend file.

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14. My 3D Model is missing faces (see-through) or has completely black texture!

• 
  In order to make the changes, as shown in the demo above, the render engine needs to be set to Eevee.
  Blend Mode: Opaque (For objects that need to be solid)
  Blend Mode: Alpha Hashed or Alpha Clip (For objects that need transparency)
  - Alpha Clip gives the user more control of alpha clipping with Clip Threshold.
  - Alpha Hashed appears to do some automatic calculations on its own.
• 
  For the cartoonish outline, apply Backface Culling to the black Mesh Object.
• 
  Sometimes the 3D cartoon model and it's black mesh outline are within the same Mesh Object.
  You can either separate the black mesh outline as its own Mesh Object, or you can assign the black mesh outline to a separate Material.

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[Below will be moved to a Rigging Tutorial in the future]

I just had a thought about the weird placement of the pelvis bones from the Rigify's Human (Meta-Rig).


I don't think I've ever seen a tutorial address how to use the bottom tips of the pelvis.L and pelvis.R bones.

Then I thought, why not try using them as butt bones. It kind of makes sense.

Before

After


If you're working with Automatic Weights, it requires some experimentation.

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EXTRAS:
Why You Should Never Model with Subdivisions Active - 3D Modeling Fundamentals

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Change Log:

Oct 13, 2019
Minor Update: Help! My selection is Rotating or Moving incorrectly!
- Added Video - Blender 2.8 - Pivot and Orientation Points
- www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3ECvX…

Oct 12, 2019
Updated: The textures on my 3D model are pink/purple in the 3D Viewport
- Added tip about opening blend files with pink/purple textures (missing textures).
- Added tip about the Fake User button to protect/keep your textures/materials from being deleted from blend file.

Sep 17, 2019
Minor Update:
Added Backface Culling tip for checkered meshes.
- i.imgur.com/qebvylt.jpg

Sep 11, 2019
Added - My 3D Model is missing faces (see-through) or has completely black texture!
- gfycat.com/mintylatehen
- gfycat.com/waterloggedbriskjen…
- gfycat.com/piercingdeliciouski…

Aug 27, 2019
Minor Update:
- Added Demo: Set Normals from Faces - gfycat.com/elegantlastingcrayf…

Aug 16, 2019
- Added a video to show Face Orientation (See the direction of faces/normals).
- www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z--dnY…

Aug 15, 2019
- Added how to use Old and New versions of Blender at the same time.
- Added more Normal Map Texture tips by TSelman61 and XnaFreak.

Feb 25, 2019
- Added: Help! I can't Import FBX model into Blender! (Unsupported version/ASCII FBX)
- Added tips to import unsupported FBX files into Blender.

Oct 15, 2018
Added 2 more tips to fix Normal Map problems:
- Disable Alpha on Normal Map Texture Node
- Invert Color Node between the Texture Map Node and Normal Map Node.

Aug 26, 2018
- Added: Help! I installed a Blender addon, but nothing happened or it doesn't appear to work.
- Added: The textures on my 3D model are turning Pink (or Black) in the 3D Viewport Render after few minutes or hours in Blender.

Aug 13, 2018
- Added info about converting yellow Normal Map textures to blue ones.
- Added info about shading issues or dark edges on 3D models.