Blender 3D: Noob to Pro/FAQ

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Please add in any FAQ or answers that you know. Remember it has to be covered by the GFDL if you didn't write it yourself.

Contents 1 After installing I get an error message "A required .DLL file, MSVCR71.DLL, was not found"? 2 How do I print from Blender? 3 How do I export an image to a file? 4 How do I accelerate rendering through a network? 4.1 Now for a quick test 4.2 Now for the slaves 4.3 Something important about the scene files and textures 5 How do I fix the black lines that appear on my mesh when I click "set smooth"? 6 Where is Subsurfacing in Blender 2.4x? 7 How do I change the active camera, and can I change it in animations? 8 How can I give my Blender game to someone running a different operating system?

[edit] After installing I get an error message "A required .DLL file, MSVCR71.DLL, was not found"?

The file is part of the built in Python scripts. It's freely distributable and can be found with a quick search of google. MSVCR71 on dll-files.com

After downloading the file, copy it into your system32 directory e.g. C:\WINDOWS\system32 or C:\Windows\SysWOW64.

[edit] How do I print from Blender?

You can't print from Blender. You can export the image to a image file, e.g. .png or .jpg and print that from a image program, e.g. Gimp, IrfanView or MSPaint. If you want you can also print from a Word document, e.g. Corel or OpenOffice, but the quality is better in a proper image program.

[edit] How do I export an image to a file?

Press [F10] in the far right hand corner there is a drop down menu which allows you to select a file type. JPEG, PNG, GIF, etc. as well as different movie formats such as AVI, and MPEG.

• Select the format you want the resultant image to be in.
• Render the image by pressing [F12] or click "render" in the render buttons.
• Press [F3] and the "save file" window comes up.
• Type your file name and extension and press "save"

[edit] How do I accelerate rendering through a network?

Taken from BlenderArtists and written by Pedro Doria Meunier (pdoria).

Here goes the "quick & dirty" solution:

Requirements: DrQueue

1. Go through the install procedure explained at DrQueue's site.

   Pay extra attention at those environment variables! You have to set them in your .bashrc file. Do whatever procedure you like to activate them (relogin, etc.)

2. Make a NFS share (ex. /mnt/shared/DrqQueue). Chmod it so that you don't have any permission issues. The envirionment variables set in step 1 must match the NFS share! For example if you've created a NFS share /mnt/shared/DrQueue then DRQUEUE_ROOT must be set to /mnt/shared/DrQueue.
3. Compile and install it. It'll get installed in that shared folder. Hold on to your hats! We're halfway through!

[edit] Now for a quick test

1. Execute /mnt/shared/DrQueue/bin/master — This'll start the master
2. Execute /mnt/shared/DrQueue/bin/slave — This'll start a client
3. Execute /mnt/shared/DrQueue/bin/drqman — This'll call the GUI. Check if there's a computer (your own!) listed in that "Computers" tab. If it's there your master computer is set up!

[edit] Now for the slaves

All you have to do is mount that NFS share somewhere, say /mnt/DrQueue.

Tip: Something that helps is to mount the share at boot time. Editing your /etc/fstab and adding the appropriate line will do the trick.

If you've mounted it there then execute /mnt/DrQueue/bin/slave.

Now go back to the master. You should see another computer listed there!

[edit] Something important about the scene files and textures

You must place the scene files inside that shared folder. Same thing with the textures that are referenced inside the scene file. A neat trick is to pack the scene file and then unpack it inside the shared folder. This way all the textures are unpacked at /the/shared/folder/textures. Remember to save the scene file after doing this!

Happy Blending!

[edit] How do I fix the black lines that appear on my mesh when I click "set smooth"?

This happens when the normals of the object get flipped, so what you see in the lines is the inside of the mesh. To fix this problem, first go to edit mode, select the whole mesh by pressing [A], press [Ctrl] + [N] (Recalculate normals outside). It will recalculate the normals of mesh flipping any that is pointing inwards. These lines are not visible when the mesh has been set to 'set solid'. If you would like to see which faces are pointing inwards and which are pointing outwards:

1. Go into edit mode.
2. Under "Mesh Tools 1" click "Draw Normals".
3. If the green line is pointing outwards the normal is facing outwards and vice versa.

[edit] Where is Subsurfacing in Blender 2.4x?

Subsurfacing is now a modifier and is found in the modifier list. This was added in Blender 2.40 and now contains many of Blender's features such as "Array", "Mirror" and "Boolean" functions. When the little diagram next to the word 'subsurf' (same as render buttons diagram) is selected, the modifier will be used in a render. When the diagram next to it (the grid) is selected, the modifier will be used in object mode. When the diagram next to the grid (the square) is selected, the modifier will be used in edit mode. The button with no label which is separate to the other buttons is the same as the "optimal" button in versions 2.37a and before. When you "apply" the modifier, it's the same as converting the mesh ([Alt] + [C]) and deleting the original.

[edit] How do I change the active camera, and can I change it in animations?

To change the active camera, select the camera you want as the active camera and press [Ctrl] + [0] (zero). Then, when you press [0] you will see through the new active camera. This feature does not work in animations. To change to different camera angles in animations, you will need to use one camera and animate the camera using Object IPOs. If you are only using camera angles and no panning or zooming, you could animate the camera normally and convert the IPOs from "bezier" to "constant" (shown in the screenshot), which will make the camera snap from one angle to the next. If you do have panning or zooming and would also like camera angles, you would need to animate in 'bezier' or 'linear' and animate a different way.

If you had the camera at one angle, snaps to the 2nd angle at frame 50, then pans to the 3rd angle at frame 100 you would need to:

1. Set a key frame at frame 1 of the first angle
2. Set a key frame at frame 49 of the first angle
3. Set a key frame at frame 50 of the 2nd angle
4. Set a key frame at frame 100 of the 3rd angle

This will stop the interpolation (moving between 2 different keyframes) of the 1st and 2nd angle, by forcing it to be the same between frames 1 and 49.

[edit] How can I give my Blender game to someone running a different operating system?

You can just give them the .blend file as it's universal to all operating systems, however they would need to have the same version of Blender you used to create your game. Jan Albartus (L0GAN) created a script to export different runtimes (executables). See these 2 URLs for more information.

• http://www.albartus.com/blendstarter/
• http://www.blendenzo.com/faqMakeExe.html

Alternatively, you can export your game as an executable program. This is a very simple process in Linux or Mac OS, but in Windows, several extra .dll's are needed. See this tutorial for details.