Blender 3D: Noob to Pro/Building a House
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This tutorial is based on Bart Veldhuizen's "Building a House" from Tutorial #01 published by NaN in 1999 which is also available in a PDF at http://download.blender.org/documentation/BlenderTutorialGuide1.tar.gz (a tar.gz containing BlenderTutorialGuide1.pdf) or http://download.blender.org/documentation/BlenderTutorialGuide1.zip (a ZIP file containing the same PDF).
Permission was asked to use it and Ton Roosendaal said "Be assured that everything that was produced by NaN now is open and free content for everyone to reuse, including the tutorial “Building a House”."
Contents |
[edit] Setting the Scene
Start a new scene (CTRL-X) and leave the default cube which will become the body of the house.
Split the window into two side-by-side windows: move the mouse to the line between the 3D window header and the Button window where it becomes an up-down arrow.
Press MMB and select "Split Areas" from the menu. Move the line which appears to the middle and click LMB.
Now move the mouse to the line separating these two windows, click MMB again and split the lefthand window into top and bottom windows. Do the same to the righthand window to get four windows.
Move the mouse to the lower lefthand window and press NUM1 to put it into Front view; move it to the upper lefthand window and press NUM7 to put it into Top view. Move the mouse to the top righthand window and press NUM3 to put it into Side view and then to the bottom righthand window, pressing NUM0 to get the camera view.
[edit] Making the roof
Now, in the Front view window (lower left) press SHIFT-DKEY to duplicate the cube: grab mode is automatically selected, press ZKEY to restrict the move to the up-down axis and move the cube to rest on top of the original one — pressing CTRL while moving will snap it to the grid and make it easier to position accurately. Press ENTER when it is in place.
You can see how useful this four-paned window is, it shows you exactly what's going on.
The top cube is going to become the roof and needs to be made into a triangle: select the top cube (if it is not already selected) by clicking RMB on it, press TAB to go into Edit Mode (check the box in the middle of the 3D window header), press AKEY to deselect all the vertices and box select (BKEY) the top four — you will be able to see that they have been selected in the camera view (lower righthand) window.
Now press SKEY for scaling and XKEY to limit the scaling to the X-axis (left to right) then either move the mouse to bring the top vertices together or just type in 0 followed by ENTER to set scaling to zero. (In order to activate the dot you must point to the object click left, then hold right click and then release, in this way you can change the shape of the object moving the dot up and down, left and right).
(Note: It's easier to choose 2 vertices and merge them at Center (ALT+MKEY, choose Center and click the Window). Repeat this with the other 2 vertices and you'll have the same result.)
The roof also needs to project over the walls of the house: this can be done in two ways: either scale the whole roof making it taller as well as wider and longer front-to-back or it can be left the same height but just scaled (in two separate actions) left-to-right and then front-to-back.Or you can scale it and press SHIFT+ZKEY to keep the height the same while scaling the rest.
The first way is simple: press AKEY to deselect everything and then box select the roof. Scaling the whole roof to 1.1 looks about right. Zoom in if needs be.
To change the roof leaving the height the same: in the Front view (lower left) window press AKEY to deselect everything and then box select the roof. In the upper left window (Top view) press SKEY and XKEY and scale to 1.1; press SKEY again but with YKEY this time and scale to 1.1 again. [User Comment: you can even press SHIFT+Z to restrict scaling to X and Y axis without affecting roof height, instead of scaling separately X and Y. SHIFT+Axis also works the same way with grabbing]
It is helpful to change the names from the default names to ones which describe the objects: for instance, you could change the name "Cube" to "House" instead and "Cube.001" to "Roof".
However, there is an object called "Cube" and a mesh called Cube which is linked to it so there are two names to change. There is also a material linked as well.
To change the name of the house object, go into object mode (TAB if not already there), select the original cube, select the Editing panel from the Button window header (F9 or click on the icon) and, in the panel "Object and Links", you will see
Note: The correct name for the panel that should be used is "Link and Materials" as it appears in the image, not "Object and Links" as explained in the text above.
"ME:Cube" and "OB:Cube". Click on "Cube" and it will change to a red background, type in your new name, for instance "House" and press ENTER. Do this for both.
Now select the roof cube in the 3D window and go through the same procedure renaming it from "Cube.001" to "Roof".
The roof now needs to be given a different colour to the default grey. Select the Shading panel from the buttons window (F5 or click on the icon) 
In the "Links and Pipeline" panel, click on "MA:Material" in the box under the "Link to Object" title. [User Comment: In v2.45 you will not see any MA:Material box because the program does not assign any material to a new object. You will first have to click the Add New button to display the material info.] "Material" will appear on a red background, rename it by typing "RoofRed" and pressing ENTER. You can now go to the second panel with two tabs "Material" and "Ramps" ("Material" should be showing, otherwise click on the Material tab to get it to show).
Now go to the second group of buttons and the line with "Col" in the second column and click on the grey bar to its left. This will bring up a colour selector, select a suitable red and press ENTER: lo and behold, the whole house turns red. If nothing happens you are probably in wireframe mode: press ZKEY in all four windows to change to solid mode.
To change the house colour to something more appropriate, go back to the lower left window and select the house cube: in the "Links and Pipeline" panel the object will change to "House". At present, both cubes share the same material, so, to colour the house cube differently, a new one has to be created. Click on the up-down arrow to the left of "MA:RoofRed" in the "Links and Pipeline" and select "ADD NEW". The text to the right of this arrow now changes to "MA:RoofRed.001". Click on "RoofRed.001" as before and change it to "HouseSandy". Now click on the bar coloured red next to the word "Col" in the "Materials" panel and you will get a colour selector, choose a suitable colour for the house, press ENTER and the house cube will now take the colour chosen.
Note: I am no good with colours so I cheated: there is a file rgb.txt in the X Window System which contains about 750 colours represented as R, G, B triples. If you can access this file, you can convert the RGB triple into hexadecimal and enter it into the box called "Hex:" at the top right of the colour selector. I chose "eedd82" LightGoldenrod for the house and "cd5c5c" IndianRed for the roof.
[edit] Adding a chimney
Go into Object mode (TAB) and in Front view (lower left window), click LMB on the righthand side of the roof, this will select the spot where the chimney will be created. Press SPACE and select Add > Mesh > Cube from the popup menu — a bit large, isn't it.
Scale it along the X-axis (SKEY,XKEY) to about 0.2 and along the Y-axis (SKEY, YKEY) to the same amount. Now grab it (GKEY,XKEY) and move it into position looking at the front view (lower left window).
When this is correct, move it into position along the Y axis (GKEY, YKEY) looking at the top view (upper left window). You can check the side view (upper right window) and the camera view (lower right window) to see that it looks OK.
You will see that the "Links and Pipeline" panel in the buttons window has no material selected and is showing "Add New". You can now choose to have the chimney a different colour to the roof or the house or reuse one of these colours.
If you want a new colour, click LMB on the "Add New" button and select it as you did for the house and the roof. Rename the material.
If you want to reuse the same colour, you can click LMB on the up-down arrow to the left of MA:Material and select from the choices "RoofRed" and "HouseSandy".
You can also change the name of the chimney object and the mesh linked to it to "Chimney".
[edit] Adding a Window and a Door
To add a window: go into Object mode, move the mouse into the Front view window, click LMB to place the 3D cursor where you want the window to go and add a plane (SPACE Add > Mesh > Plane). Scale it down to 0.4 and then again by about 0.8 along the X-axis.
Important: After switching to Object mode, make sure nothing is selected(press the AKEY if necessary). If any object is selected before adding the new plane, the new plane will be part of that object causing problems later when you try to move the window plane.
Move it into position (GKEY) on the lefthand side of the house a little higher than midway. Move the mouse to the Side View window and move the plane along the Y-axis (GKEY, YKEY) until it is just in front of the house — you may want to zoom in (SCROLL-MMB) to see better.
Now, still in Side View, extrude the plane towards the house (EKEY, "Region", -0.07) until it is embedded in the wall.
To make this box into a window frame will require a larger view: move the mouse into the Side View window and press NUM/ and then CTRL-UPARROW, you will now see only the window.
Deselect all (AKEY) and select the outer (leftmost) vertices using box select (BKEY), press EKEY, select "Region" and immediately (without moving the mouse) press ESC.
Scale the newly created vertices (it will be along the Z axis) by 0.9 (SKEY, 0.9, ENTER). Extrude again inwards to most of the depth of the box (EKEY, "Region", -.06, ENTER).
Now press CTRL-UPARROW and NUM/ to get back to your original four views.
To change the name of the object and the mesh to "WindowFrame": go into Object mode, select the Editing panel (F9) and, in "Links and Materials" change "ME:Plane" and "OB:Plane" to "ME:WindowFrame" and "OB:WindowFrame". Under "0 Mat 0" click on the "New" button to assign a material to the window frame: when this changes to "1 Mat 1", click on the grey bar to the left of it and select white from the Colour Selector which appears.
Select the shading panel (F5) and change the name of the material ("MA:Material") to "WindowFrame".
To make the window glass, deselect all (AKEY), create another plane, scale it to the dimensions of the window frame and move it in front of the frame. In Side view, move it to the front of the window frame.
Go to front view again, go to full screen (CTRL-UPARROW) and adjust the position and size so it fits within the frame.
Go back into Object mode (creating a new object automatically puts you into Edit mode) and change the mesh and object names to WindowGlass. Add a new material for the glass and colour it light blue (I chose "87ceeb" SkyBlue).
Add the door using the same method: in Object mode, deselect all, create a plane, scale the plane down by .7 and then again by .5 along the X axis. Move it into position using Front view and then move it against the wall of the house in Side view. Change the Object name and the mesh name to "Door", create a new material for it, change the material's name to "Door" and chose an appropriate colour for it (I chose "a0522d" sienna).
[edit] Building the Fence
The way to build the fence is to create a paling and duplicate this as often as necessary.
The upright is made from a plane, scaled to 0.4 and then 0.1 along the X axis in Front view. To give it some thickness, go into Side view and extrude it to 0.05. The pointed top is made by going back into Front view, selecting the top vertices and extruding them by .07 (along the Z axis is selected automatically), scaling them to 0 along the X axis and then removing the doubled vertices (WKEY, "Remove Doubles": it should say "Removed 2 vertices").
(If the pointed end extrusion is done before the paling is given thickness, the top doesn't move with the duplicated paling).
Change the name of the object and the mesh to "Paling", create a new material for it called "Paling" and make the colour white.
In Top view move the paling to the intersection of two grid lines a suitable distance from the house.
In Front view again, check that the bottom of the paling is level with the bottom of the house.
Duplicate the paling: Bart suggests using ALT-DKEY instead of SHIFT-DKEY as it creates a new instance of the paling — if you wish to make a change to the paling, you just need to change one and all the other instances will change too.
Starting in Front view, the flat face of the paling is along the X axis and it is easier to create the front fence first.
Change to Object mode, select the paling and press ALT-DKEY and "0.2", ENTER to move the duplicate into position along the X axis 0.2 units away from the first one.
Continue until you have the lefthand half of the front fence complete, there should be a gap between the lefthand and righthand halves for a path up to the front door. You can make this by increasing the gap at this point to 1.4 — this number will vary according to where the palings either side of the front door are placed.
The fence needs horizontal bars to hold the palings in place: in Front view click below the middle of the lefthand fence, create a plane and scale it to the length of the fence. Scale it again to 0.05 along the Z axis and move it into position — if you keep CTRL pressed while you move it, it will snap to the grid. In Side view move it so it is against the back of the fence and extrude it by -0.04 along the Y axis. Go into Object mode, duplicate it and move it (keeping CTRL pressed) along the Z axis (ZKEY) to make the bottom bar.
To make the bars on the righthand part of the fence: in Front view duplicate the lefthand top bar and move it along the X axis (XKEY) to the top of the righthand fence. Scale it to the width of the righthand fence. Duplicate this top bar and move it down (ZKEY) to become the bottom bar of the righthand fence.
It is a bit tedious creating each paling individually so, now that you have a few ready made, you can just copy them to make the fence at the back of the house.
In Top view, deselect all (AKEY), select the whole front fence, including the gap, duplicate it (ALT-DKEY again) and move it to the back.
Go into Back view (CTRL-NUM1), select one of the palings on one or other side of the gap and duplicate that to close it. Select one or other of the horizontal bars (in Top view, it is going to be the upper one of the pair), duplicate it (ALT-DKEY), move it to the new palings and scale it to fit. Duplicate this bar and move it into position as the lower bar.
The back fence has the horizontal bars on the outside so must be rotated: in Top view select the whole of the back fence, press RKEY and type in 180 followed by ENTER. Move the fence back into position with CTRL pressed to snap it to the grid.
The back fence is already selected from the rotation, duplicate it (ALT-DKEY), press ENTER as it is not going to be moved and press RKEY to rotate it and type in 90 followed by ENTER press GKEY to move it into position as the righthand fence and ENTER when it is there. Duplicate it, rotate it and move the copy to the other side of the house.
- Note:I found it easier to make the upright by subdividing the plane(after it was scaled down) and then moving the middle three verticies near the top. Then i merged the top three verticies and merged them at the center. I found this way much less confusing and easier to do.
- Note: I made the fence out of a cube, extrude up once and merge the top vertices.
[edit] The Ground plane and a Path
In Top view put the 3D cursor somewhere near the middle of the plot, (click LMB) create a plane and, keeping an eye on the camera view (bottom righthand window) scale it to extend just past the boundaries of what the camera sees — 10.0 seems a good number. Go back into Object mode and change its (object, mesh) name to "Ground", create a new material for it, rename it "Grass" and select a suitable green from the colour selector ("00cd00" green3). Check in Front view that it is level with the bottom of the house and fence and move it (along the Z axis) if necessary.
For the path, go into Top view, create a plane, scale it to fit the gap in the front fence with some space on either side and position it just outside the fence. Check, in Front view, that it lines up with the door and is level with the bottom of the house. Extrude it along the Z axis by 0.01 to give it a little bit of thickness. Scale it along the X axis to the same width as the door.
In Top view, extrude the top edge of the plane to the door and then the left and right edges to a suitable distance to the left and right to make the path passing the house.
