Blender 3D: Noob to Pro/Modeling a volcano

Overview

We are going to model a volcano using the proportional edit falloff tool.

You should already know how to delete and add meshes.

Add a plane

Delete the basic cube

Add a plane(Space Bar → Add → Mesh → Plane). In 2.58, hit SHIFT+A then Mesh->Plane

Scale it up by 10.

Rotate it so you see it in top-view (make sure its in Orthographic view too).

Subdivide the plane

Enter Edit-mode and subdivide (WKEY, then select subdivide multi) the plane about 50 to 80 cuts.

More subdividing will give you a "smoother" volcano, but it also needs more CPU power. Note: If you want to you can press WKEY and then subdivide (not subdivide multi) five or six times. This will get you around the same number of vertices.

Sidenote: Since there were a lot of edits about this subdividing I'll try to explain the difference between "Subdivide" and "Subdivide Multi": "Subdivide" just divides every square in the plane into four new squares. So with every time you press "Subdivide" you will have four times as many squares as before. "Subidivide Multi" will make x horizontal and x vertical lines through your existing squares, so the new number of squares is: (squares_old)*(x+1)², whereas x is the number you enter. Hope it's clear now.

Make the mountain

In top view, select one of the points in the middle of the plane. With this point selected change to side view. Press the OKEY, which enables the "Proportional Edit Falloff" tool in the Menu-Panel beneath the 3-D-Window. As seen in the previous tutorial Blender 3D: Noob to Pro/Mountains Out Of Molehills when you move a vertex while edit falloff is enabled, all vertices in a defined radius of the selected vertex will align with the selected vertex when its position is altered. How they are adjusted can be chosen in the tab on the right of the yellow dot. I propose using "smooth falloff".

Now grab the vertex GKEY. You will now see a gray circle. You can change it's size with the mouse wheel. Every vertex inside this radius will be affected by the falloff. Change the size of the circle so almost the whole plane is in it.

Now move the vertex a bit upwards, as seen in the picture. Optionally you can lock the z-axis to make the volcano go straight up by pressing ZKEY.

As you can see all the other vertices will shift upward. We could keep moving this vertex at the same rate, but that would cause the plane itself to rise and bend, and that's not very good. So press LMB to apply the changes, grab the same vertex a second time and repeat the previous exercise as before, except now choose a smaller radius for the circle, about half the diameter of the plane (GKEY → ZKEY → scroll MMB).

Repeat this two or three more times and you will get something like this:

Make the top (crater)

Now we're going to create the "hole" on the volcano. First change the falloff to "root falloff". Grab the vertex one more time, change the size of the circle so it's more or less as seen in the picture.

Grab this vertex down a bit, apply, grab it one more time with a smaller circle. You now should have something like this:

If yours has such a jagged border like mine, you should follow the following steps: First disable the fallout tool with OKEY. Then select a vertex and grab it, then pull it up so it's on the same height as the other. Do this for every vertex till they're more or less the same height.

You can also select the jagged vertices and the vertices around them then press Space → edit → vertices → smooth and this will get rid of some of the jagged edges. (I suggest using this method, since A) this is only a basic volcano, and B) using Subsurf after this will make the jagged edges all but invisible.)

Subsurf

Now TAB to get into Object mode. Add a Sub-Surf Modifier to the Mesh, set at level two ( 'Modifiers' tab → Add Modifier → Subsurf → Catmull-Clark → Levels: 2; Render Levels: 2).

Do not apply these settings yet, first we'll do a test-render. Press F12 to enter Render, after adjusting the camera. If you like your volcano you may apply the modifier, but if you have some rather nasty edges like I do, don't apply the modifier yet. We'll correct this now.

First click on the marked button to disable the subsurf-modifier in Edit-mode.

Then enter Edit-mode. Then select the vertices on the top and pull one after another a little bit outwards, so they form a nice circle.

Once you have done this exit Edit-mode and press the "Set Smooth" Button in the Link and Materials Button. If you Render now again, it should look a lot better. (Don't worry about the color, I know it's not the same, but I think this isn't important for this part.)

Add color

First lets add some "magma". To make it look as if there is magma in our volcano add a lamp (spot). Place it in the crater and adjust the angle and the width so the crater hole is lighted. Choose a red color and adjust the energy so it's bright enough. In the top header: Add → Lamp → Spot. A new lamp will be added with a cone stretching down, if the light cone is not pointing down adjust the angle: Ctrl+Alt+RKEY → adjust the light cone to point downwards. Grab the Spot GKEY and place it immediately above the volcano crater. To edit the light settings press F5 to enter the shading menu. Depending on the distance to the volcano you can adjust the distance of the light-cone in the Lamp-tab under Dist. Suggested energy: 7, Red: 1, Green: 0 - 0.2, Blue: 0. This will give the crater a red or orange glow.

Noob Note: Personally, I feel it looks much better if you use a Area light with an energy of about 10 and a gamma of two. An orange or red works quite well. Place it above the volcano, looking down on it. You should get an effect the looks something like a reddy-orange in the middle and yellowish towards the outside, if not, go to the lamp's Shader properties and adjust Dist until it seems suitable.

A Different Noob Note: I couldn't get the above method to work, and i found a workaround that seems to be a bit simpler for a noob like me. Do the Lamp method like the original writer said, except use a normal Lamp (aka Point Light) instead of a Spot Light. Now, your red color is probably going through the outside of the volcano - that's no good. To fix this, right-click the Lamp and go to the Shading menu (hit F5 or find the button). Underneath Lamp properties, click the Falloff menu. It should say something like "inverse line". Select "Custom Curve" and click on the Custom Curve menu that pops up. Now, without going into a lot of detail, Falloff controls how your light will dim out. Click on the dot in the Custom Curve graph and move to far to the upper right. This gives us a rather sharp (but not perfect) falloff, which is just what we want. Also, set the Light distance to something small, like 3. If you did it right, you should get a similar effect to the picture below. Now, all these methods sound fine, but personally I like this one the most. The Spot Light method was coming up really sharp and jagged, and the Area Light was a complete mess for me. Experiment with different kinds of lighting.

Another N00b Note: Since everyone seems to be adding their suggestions I thought I would add mine: first perfect your view by pressing NUM1 center your cursor into your plain by selecting the volcano and then pressing SHIFT+S select Cursor to Selection, after that press Space->Add->Lamp->Spot, your need to change the total direction of it so press R to rotate, Y to lock onto the Y axis, and finally type 180 to turn it 180 degrees. then you need to move it up to that little hole in the crater. now we need to edit the color a energy, press F5 to go to Shading and click on the little light bulb, click on the color swatch and change it to a orange-reddish color. then tilt your head slightly upward until you find the energy slider instead of sliding, click on the word energy the slider will become a text box; type something in the means of 7 or more... finally to give it the effect look under: shadow and spot; adjust SpotSi to about 120 to 130; switch to wire frame mode with Z, grab the lamp with G limit it to the Z axis with Z and finally move it till the lamp is right in that little bowl that is the crater... try a test render... if it doesn't work then experiment with the position and SpotSi of the lamp...

Tip: The more SpotSi you use, the more deeper the magma will look.

Another Tip: I have actually had best results with the SpotSi at 180 and the position in line with the z axis as well as being right under that hole :)

Good Luck :D

It should now look like this:

Now select the volcano and press F5. Keep Pressing F5 until the Materials Buttons (symbolized by a red ball) is highlighted. Then add a new material. You do this by clicking the Add New button in the Links and Pipeline Panel. Once you've done that, set the settings similar to this:

Now press F6, then add a new texture to the material. Choose a stucci texture, set the noise size to 0.15. Now switch back to the materials-window (F5) and click on the "map to" tab. Deselect the "col" button and select the "nor" button. This will render the texture as a bump-map on the volcano. Set the "nor slider" to 0.5, which should be the default. Switch to the "map input" tab and choose "tube". If you now render you should get something like this:

[Note]: This looks really smooth, like clay pottery. To get a more rough-looking volcano, go into Edit mode, select all Vertices, and use the fractal (set from 15 to 30) to really get things looking rocky and mountainous. TAB (Edit mode) → F9 → AKEY to select all → Mesh Tools → Fractal → 15 - 30 (15-low, 30-high) → OK → TAB (Object mode) In Blender 2.5 you can use the random proportional edit tool: use NUM7 to switch into top view, grab the central vertice of your volcano using a large-radius random proportional edit, and pul it slightly into Z-direction.

(A note: Seems there is no need in subsurf at all since fractal tool will dramaticly increase vertices quantity.)