Blender 3D: Noob to Pro/Cheat the 3D
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[edit] Ways to Improve Performance
In 3D Graphic Design, there are many issues to consider. First, consider how the project moves, how the project performs. Next, consider how you create objects in your project, especially when working with meshes and lighting.
[edit] Mesh
Modifying an object's properties
When you add a modifying property to an object, the computer has to calculate that property every time it moves in the animation. These modifying properties include soft bodies, particles, or mirror textures. They can significantly slow down the computer.
To make things move faster, pre-calculate and "bake" the modifier into the object. To bake a modifier, such as a soft body movement, save the modifier as a permanent animation. That way no matter how the object changes, it moves the same way. As a result, your computer does not calculate how the object moves. The move is already set.
There is a drawback. If the object moves and hits another section with different slopes, it will continue to move as if it was in the original baking site. You will have to calculate and bake the section again to get new results.
Making 2D backgrounds
Scenes will have a foreground, background, sky, and more.
Your computer will take more time to render a scene that is big, open, and filled with modeled objects. This wastes time and memory, especially when modeling an object far in the distance. I'm guessing however, you do not want to make a quick, plain model. So what do you do?
That is easy. You make a 2D background.
- Put the distant image or background on a plane .
- Verify that everything on the plane around the image is black.
If it is not black, set the Alpha to 0 if the image was not saved in a format that supports Alpha. This will retain the detail but reduce the number of faces the computer must count in the scene.
- Set the image to Billboard to prevent the image from skewing by perspective.
[edit] Lighting
Faking Shadows
You can make a shadow that isn't a shadow at all! Simply model the shadow yourself.
- Set the material to a shadeless, black, slightly transparent material.
- Make the model's shadow very thin, but not completely 2D.
- Set the model onto the plane opposite the light source.
This is the most memory-friendly shadow possible. However, keep in mind that if the light source or object moves, you must also animate the movement of the shadow.
[edit] Materials
Using UV maps
For those who do not know the term, a UV map is an image applied to a 2D plane. The 2D plane is then applied to the mesh.
Here is how to create a UV map:
- Spread out the image onto a 2D plane.
- Apply the 2D plane over the face of the mesh using the 3D view.
Many people never consider this alternative. Instead, they create memory-exhaustive scenes that need many computer calculations to work. The UV map method takes fewer resources. You can then apply those resources to more important areas of the scene.
