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Apart from the higher signal to noise ratio, and the format difference previously mentioned, I find that the Stack Exchange format is a lot more friendly towards people seeking information but not participating in the discussion.
e.g. drawing from my personal experiences with programming, before there was StackOverflow, researching a topic requires one to ...
38
The recording software
The top two are by far the most used (on this site):
LICEcap Windows and OSX installer
GifCam Windows only, but no install (yay)
ScreenToGif Newer app, looks very good, Windows only, no install (yay)
peek Linux only
Do note that these all can be run on linux using Wine.
There are many other ways, such as recording your screen, and ...
32
Per suggestions and discussions, those that should definitely be off-topic are:
1. Requests for tutorials and lengthy HOW-TO's1
Can anyone make a tutorial on doing X?
How can I animate a short film in Blender?
Please recommend links to tutorials.
2. Package or software comparison questions
Which is better for doing X, Max or Blender?
Which is better for ...
28
I certainly have, and in the past have said that more people should vote.
I 100% agree that as a whole our site should be voting more.
However, I can not agree with your reasons for UVing or DVing.
After reading the voting pages:
Why is voting important?
vote up
vote down
It is abundantly clear the voting should not be based on some whim, or whether or ...
26
Think of the OP as your immediate target, then the rest of the blender users in the world.
At first the reaction will be from the OP, over time more people will see it, and you very likely will get more positive comments.
Now because the OP is the first target, the OP is the one that dictates the response you get - good bad, or none.
Keep in mind what kind ...
25
IMO questions that are related to blender and have an answer should be answered, regardless of how basic it might seem to experienced users. We all started somewhere and having a resource like the stack exchange makes learning easier.
Yes there is documentation available but, well is sometimes old, poorly written or does not apply to current versions. Video ...
22
Blender is a visual application, words will go a far way but a picture is worth a thousand words or so the saying goes.
The recommended current workflow is to either use as many images as needed to illustrate the issue or to submit the problematic file for inspection.
Solution 1
A well worded question can trump all, provided you describe the steps that ...
22
I don't see any reason not to allow these, but I suggest that it be limited to render engines with blender integration (i.e. usable directly from blender's UI).
Using external render engines seems like a fairly common thing among blender users, and I think it definitely fits under our current scope:
The Blender Stack Exchange site is for people who use ...
22
In addition to posting a sample image or a link to one, it is very helpful if you describe in the title what you are trying to do, and then add more detail in as part of the text in the question.
"How do I do is this?" questions have many problems.
Other users may not see exactly what you mean. It's best to be clear about what you're wondering about. ...
20
You can use Blend-Exchange or PasteAll, both are externally offered services, the former of which is run by me. It was designed specificly for this purpose:
See here
The reason to use Blend-Exchange over pasteall is that the files are kept permanently - they expire in around 5 months on pasteall.
With the user script, you can have a upload button right ...
20
I saw this story made in MS paint, how to do it in blender?
One fine day the colorful hills of Stackexchangia were just as calm
and peaceful as always.
Tardises were making, Novices were disguising, X was 27, and the
M.O.D. team was still busy deciding the meaning of their acronym.
All was right in this corner of interland.. Until ...
20
19
We now have
an unofficial solution... built to solve exactly this problem!
Built just for this site
Stores files on google drive
Files don't get deleted
Open source
see more
19
Proposed FAQ questions
Feel free to edit:
Where can I find links to learn blender
Resources for blender
Black artifacts / Strange shadows / Some faces are black or darker than others
Z fighting caused by overlapping geometry, remove doubles (Alternative answer here)
Normals are flipped
Not enough transparent bounces when using transparent materials in ...
19
18
I think questions focusing on interactions between applications are fine like "How do I prevent texture corruption when exporting to application x's format?" are fine. I think comparing performance in general is a can of worms that should stay firmly closed.
18
Documentation
Manual 2.6
Blender Wiki
Python API 2.6
General Tutorials
Tutorials on official site
Noob to Pro
Blender Cookie (Jonathan Williamson)
Blender Guru (Andrew Price)
Blender Nerd (Greg Zaal)
Blender Diplom
KatsBits Blender tutorials & Blender training
Blender Modifier Series
Spastic Kangaroo (CharlesL)
Blender Hints and Advice: A General ...
17
Short is good.
But clear is better.
Really long answer:
It is not the length of the text, but clarity what matters.
A few potinters:
Think hard of a clear title.
Vague titles help no one. Avoid "how do I fix this?", "Issue with textures", "Problem with render please help!"
A clearly stated question is the first and most important step to reach ...
16
There are several variables involved but the major one is publicity. Even in our commitment phase which took nearly a year, I myself had no idea of it until I randomly stumbled across it. What we need is publicity. IIRC every Blender release totals around at least 200k downloads which means that there are lots of people out there, people who want to learn.
...
16
Short answer: nope.
You will probably never see a "flag the DV" type of thing for a number of reasons.
All votes up or down, are completely anonymous. So it is not as if a mod could do anything to a user who casts a "bad" DVs.
Votes are very subjective; and most of the time* there is no way to say definitively that a vote was "bad". What may be helpful ...
16
Speaking for myself I don't upvote question very often. It's not because I'm bitter, or in some personal vendetta to withhold points from other users; nor because I don't read them or don't care. I just think upvoting a question should be reserved for actually good questions.
Most questions that show up here show absolutely no effort from the user, no ...
15
This happens from time to time,
If the questions are really different but the answers the same, suggest not to close as duplicate because.
This may change over time (as Blender changes, the answer may no longer be a duplicate for both).
You can always give a brief answer to one that links to the answer from another. (to avoid too much copy-pasting text).
...
15
I have no idea how this design process thing works, so I'll just blurt out stuff until the ball gets rolling :)
This site is all about Blender, so it seems logical to me that the site would in some way be themed around that.
What reminds me of Blender?
Blender colors
The logo is of course made up of three colors:
http://dummyimage.com/660x75/f5792a/...
15
What kind of program cuts off the head of its monkey?
HI, I'm not new to blender, but I have no idea what I'm doing.
I started blender because it appeared to be the only 3D program that included a prebuilt monkey. WHERE IS THE MONKEY??? I have only found the monkey's head in my program. yet I KNOW the whole monkey exists LINK TO WHOLE MONKEY!!!
HOW DO i ...
15
IT CAME TO MY ATTENTION THAT THIS CRITCAL IMPORTANT OFFER WAS STILL VALID. HURRY WHILE IT LASTS.
15
@Dontwalk I know what you mean (and what users you mean...) But that is not the issue really. The bottom line is that is up to us to raise the bar and to keep this site useful.
You see some bad info?
Make it better!
Be it by answering with the correct information, editing, flagging, commenting or DownVoting (and leaving a comment as to why you are doing ...
15
Even the most mundane detail or seemingly non-related action can help you get a concrete reply (installed program X yesterday etc) as opposed to commented suggestions and followup questions so I'd recommend to provide as much detail as possible when asking. Not saying you should always try to avoid the latter but being preemptive can save everyone time.
...
14
If you don't have the wherewithal to optimise an image prior to upload, here are a few tips on doing so directly on SE.
After embedding an image to your post using the upload feature on the site, you should see an imgur URL similar to http://i.stack.imgur.com/FOSov.png (just using this as an example). This should result in a large image (190KB, a relatively ...
14
Update
Following Dan the Man's suggestion of doing something similar to blender.org, I've created a proof of concept stylish theme:
Install it from userstyles.org to use it live (it covers the entire site) :)
Tested on Firefox and Chromium. There is a strange issue in chromium where it doesn't render properly when refreshing the page, but clicking on ...
14
Here is a userscript which allows for blendfiles to be uploaded to Blend-Exchange from the editor on blender.stackexchange. Written by @GiantCowFilms and myself and based on the kbd script.
It's quite simple to use:
It's still in a bit of an alpha state, so come back for updates if you try it out now!
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
