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[edit] Beginner Tutorials

So you've come to learn the Blender, eh? You've made a great choice. This is one of the most powerful 3D animation and 3D creation tools out there, especially if you're short on cash. Learning how to use Blender can be a daunting task, so don't give up! But with the help of this wikibook, you can someday become a power user and put those Maya folks to shame.

If you ever get stuck for some reason in a tutorial, there are a number of places you can turn for help. The best way to get help is with an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) client such as X-Chat. Connect to irc.freenode.net and talk to blender users in the following channels.

• #blenderwiki
• #blender
• #blenderchat
• #blenderqa
• #gameblender

If you can't get help there, click the "discussion" tab at the top of the page that you're having trouble with, and explain your problem on that page. Wait at least 24 hours for some help.

If you're still not getting help, try asking for help in the BlenderArtists.org forums.

[edit] Tutorial Syntax

As you go through these tutorials, you will find yourself running into cryptic codes quite often. These codes refer to keys you need to press on the keyboard and buttons on the mouse you need to press. They are pretty standard throughout the Blender community at this point. You may wish to print this page for quick reference throughout this book.

[edit] Keyboard

There is a big difference between the numbers on the number pad of your keyboard, and the numbers along the top of the keyboard: In Blender, they're actually different keys! There is no relation between the two and confusing them will be largely unpredictable. If you don't have a Numerical Keypad (numpad) see Blender 3D: Noob to Pro/Non-standard equipment. There you will find further information on emulating that functionality.

(If you don't understand the manual, please e-mail your request to: Blender-easy@live.co.za)

[edit] Mouse

If you don't have a three-button mouse, see Blender 3D: Noob to Pro/Non-standard equipment. That includes those with an Apple one-button mouse. There you will find further information on emulating that functionality.

[edit] Path menu

SPACE → Add → Mesh → UVsphere

means:

hit SPACE, and, in the menu that comes up, choose Add, then Mesh, then UVsphere.

[edit] Footnotes

1. ^  On an Apple keyboard, the key with the Apple logo, and on a Windows keyboard, the key with the Windows logo on it. These are also called the "Super" key in other manuals.
2. ^  FN is generally found only on laptops, and often in the lower left corner of the keyboard. (Some "ergonomic" keyboards use the laptop-style pseudo-numpad to reduce the distance between the normal keys and the mouse. On these, the FN key is often in the top row.)

[edit] Become Familiar with the Blender Interface

[edit] Learn the Blender Windowing System

[edit] Before You Begin

Most readers will run Blender while reading this book, and the book is intended to be used this way. You may be surprised the first time you run Blender, it runs in full-screen by default. It's not strange that most experienced users prefer this mode, having a large working area is a must. However, while becoming pros we need an easy way to switch between Blender and browser windows. You can use OS keyboard shortcuts to switch between applications: ALT+TAB (Linux&Windows) CMD+TAB (Mac); or to bring up your desktop: CTRL+ALT+D (Linux), WIN+D (Windows), F3/F11 (Mac), but keep reading if you find them non-productive.

Fortunately, Blender is provided with some command line arguments/parameters that will be helpful at this.

• -w results in Blender window opening non maximized, but this is not enough because the window is still at full size.
• -p <sx> <sy> <w> <h> where sx and sy are the values for the position the lower left corner will start at, w is width and h is height (all in pixels).

For Example: Blender -p 0 68 1255 956 results in Blender opening in a 1255x956 window aligned to the top left corner of the screen and leaving a 25 pixels margin at right and 68 pixels at bottom. This is ideal for a 1280x1024 screen resolution setup. Put your browser aligned to the right side of the screen and switching between the two applications is as easy as clicking the lower right corner of the window you want to bring to the front. Tweak the values until you find a comfortable working setup and be aware that the -w switch could be required or not depending on the OS you are using. Now working with Blender and reading the book are both at a single click of distance from you.

[edit] An Interface, Divided, Will Surely Stand

The Blender interface can be a bit intimidating at first, but don't despair. We will explore the power and flexibility of the Blender windowing system, and how to adapt it to suit your needs, one step at a time. First, we're going to talk about manipulating the 3D Viewport and the Buttons Window.

The 3D Viewport's grid represents Blender Units (BU). A BU can be as large as you would like it to be: an inch, a centimeter, a mile, or a cubit. Blender lets you decide the scale.

[edit] Window Headers

Every window has a window header. The window header can be at the top of a window, at the bottom of a window, or hidden. Let's take a look at the window headers for our 3D Viewport and our Buttons Window.

The active window is the window that will respond to what you type on the keyboard when you're using keyboard shortcuts. One of the windows in Blender will be active at all times.

Making another window active is simple: simply move the mouse over one of the windows to make it active! Try changing the active window by moving your mouse rapidly between the 3D Viewport and the Buttons Window now. You'll notice that the window's header lights up when it becomes active.

[edit] Changing the Window Type

There are many window types other than the 3D View and the Buttons Window, and you can easily switch any window to any other window type at any time.

[edit] Resizing Windows

Resizing windows is easy^[1].

You'll notice that as you increase the size of one window, you decrease the size of the other. Blender does not allow the windows to overlap, as they may in other programs. This is why Blender's interface is known as a non-overlapping window interface....

1. See related FAQ at bottom.

[edit] Splitting Windows

Splitting windows is just as simple as resizing them, and will give you two windows of the same type.

Splitting a window on a vertical division will give you two windows side-by-side vertically. Splitting on a horizontal division, as we have done, will give you two windows stacked horizontally. While in step 3, to switch between vertical and horizontal division, just use the TAB key. To exit without splitting a window, press the ESC key.

[edit] Joining Windows

Rejoining two split windows is just as easy as splitting them. We'll rejoin the window we just split.

Joining to the left means that the window on the left will be erased, while joining to the right means that the window on the right will be erased. Keep this in mind when joining different window types.

Note: If you right-click on a border and it doesn't give you the option to join, it is because that border touches more than 1 other window. You'll have to cover the window you want removed using a different handle.

[edit] FAQ

[edit] The Buttons Window

[edit] What's with all the buttons?!

[edit] Mini-Windows

[edit] Button Types

[edit] Logic Buttons

[edit] Script Buttons

[edit] Shading Buttons

The Shading button set allows you to apply and manipulate colors and textures on your objects, and control lights and world settings. When you press this button (or the F5 key) you will see five additional buttons appear. These are for lights, general material settings, textures, radiosity, and world settings (handy for giving your renders a quick background). Pressing the F5 key will cycle through these buttons.

[edit] Object Buttons

You can press F7 to cause the Object Buttons to appear. It should be noted that these are not the same buttons that appear when you choose Object Mode in the 3D Window. Some tutorials may refer to pressing the F7 key to change to "Object Mode," and some will say you should press the Tab key to change to Object mode.

The Tab key changes from Edit Mode to Object Mode in the 3D Window, and F7 changes the Buttons Window to show the Object Buttons.

[edit] Edit Buttons

These are buttons used to edit objects in edit mode. You can press F9 to get the edit buttons. To get to edit mode (in the 3D View window) press TAB.

[edit] Scene Buttons

Basically these are for rendering (taking pictures) and animating (making movies). You can press F10 to get the scene buttons. We'll get back to these later.

[edit] The 3D Viewport Window

Blender's 3D Viewport Window (3d Viewport) gives you total control of how you visualize your world. You'll spend most of your time in this window, so here are a few things to know about the 3d Viewport.

[edit] Rotating

Here you'll be able to fly around your 3D scene, rotating the planes as you see fit. You'll see that the default object is actually a cube, and half of it lies above the X-Y plane, and half below it.

Make the 3D Viewport active by placing the mouse pointer anywhere inside it.

• To free-form rotate (any way), while holding down the MMB, move the mouse
• To rotate around a vertical axis (sideways), leaving objects' vertical orientation unaltered, use CTRL+ALT+SCROLL, or using the keyboard, NUM4 and NUM6
• To rotate around a horizontal axis (upward), leaving objects' horizontal orientation unaltered, use SHIFT+ALT+SCROLL, or using the keyboard, NUM8 and NUM2

If you have your own setting for the MMB in mouse configuration, you must reset this to use the MMB as a real Middle Mouse Button (no Doubleclick or something else). Otherwise you must use the alternate ALT+LMB for the same effect.

It's a cube! Holding down the MMB is the quickest and easiest way to rotate your view and get a new perspective on things. Right now you're looking at the cube in what's known as Solid Mode. Pressing ZKEY (yes, on your keyboard, the 'Z' key) will toggle back and forth between Solid Mode and Wireframe Mode. Pressing NUM5 while NUM LOCK is on will toggle between Orthographic and Perspective (perspective looks more natural). This does not affect how your final product will appear, only the way you see your scene while you're creating it.

As you move the view around, you will see the following three objects:
Camera, Lamp, and Cube.
We'll get into more in depth details about these later.

Object Icon	Name	Description
	Camera	The camera location and rotation will determine what you will see at render time. To see in your 3D viewport what the camera will see, activate that window by pressing the NUM0 key. (Remember the 0KEY is different.) You may need to make sure NUM LOCK is on on your keyboard. To switch out of the camera view, drag the MMB. Or press NUM0 and then SHIFT+F to enter "camera fly mode" to position the camera interactively from the viewport using the mouse. Press LMB to finish positioning the camera.
	Lamp	A lamp is simply a light source. It will not be rendered, but the light it provides to the scene will be rendered.
	Cube	This object will be rendered. The camera should be pointing at the cube so that you will see it at render time, if the camera is not pointing at the cube, or if it is somehow partially out of frame, the picture will reflect this.

Here is a table of some simple key combinations that will result in a perfect view.

Perfect View key combinations

Key Combo	View	Key Combo	View
NUM7	top	CTRL+NUM7	bottom
NUM1	front	CTRL+NUM1	back
NUM3	right side	CTRL+NUM3	left side

The object the viewport orbits around (the object you see) can be changed to a new object by first selecting it with the RMB and then pressing NUM. (the period key on the numpad) or NUM, (the comma key on the numpad) on some keyboard layouts.

[NOTE: selecting an object with the RMB will only work if your viewport is set to 'Object Mode.' Press the TAB key to toggle between 'Edit Mode' and 'Object Mode.']

In Blender there is a big difference between the number keys on your numberpad (numpad) and the number keys along the top of the keyboard. For example, NUM7 refers to the number 7 on the numberpad, while 7KEY refers to the number 7 that's above the YKEY and UKEY on the standard US keyboard.

If you accidentally pressed 1KEY, 3KEY, or 7KEY during this step and it appears that everything disappeared, you have been changing the layer that you are viewing instead, press the ~key (tilde key) to return to viewing all the layers, or press the 1KEY to get back to viewing layer 1 which should have been originally active. The 1KEY through 0KEY and ALT+1KEY through ALT+0KEY switch layers.

[edit] Panning

To pan is to move the camera on its X axis or Y axis. This results in the user being able to view more, or more aptly, to view something else. Think of a side-scrolling video game, such as any classic Mario or Sonic, the effect that your character's avatar always stays on the viewable screen while giving you the illusion it's running off the screen is because the character runs at the same pace the camera pans. This is evident in the background's continuous motion relative to the static avatar and camera which remain relatively synchronised.

To pan in Blender press SHIFT+MMB. Make sure to press and hold shift before the MMB, or your view will rotate instead. If you have a scroll wheel you can use SHIFT+Scroll to tilt up and down, and CTRL+Scroll to pan left and right. If you do not have a scroll wheel or trackpad or a middle mouse button, press SHIFT+ALT+LMB to pan.

You also have a choice of keyboard alternatives:

          CTRL+NUM8                NUM:      Up
CTRL+NUM4           CTRL+NUM6          Left      Right
          CTRL+NUM2                         Down

Panning is an important skill to master; try it now.

[edit] Zooming

Blender offers you several ways to zoom in and out:

• If your mouse has a scroll wheel, scroll it.
• CTRL+ALT+LMB and move up and down (not left or right)
• CTRL+MMB and move the mouse up and down (not left or right)
• NUM+ and NUM- zoom in and out.

[edit] Placing the 3D cursor

As with an ordinary text cursor (the vertical line that indicates where the text you type will appear), the 3D cursor is the insertion point for new objects. It is represented by a red and white circle which indicates the location of your editing point in the 3D environment.

Try clicking the LMB in empty space to the right of the cube. The red and white circle (the 3D cursor) moves to where you clicked. Orbit the view and notice that the 3D cursor marks a point in 3D space. "So I can move the 3D cursor, but what if I want to put it back in its original spot?" you may be asking. To do that, just press SHIFT+C and the cursor will jump back in place.

In any given view of the 3D environment, the set of possible 3D points where you can place the cursor is determined through and limited by what is viewable through your screen. If you were to move the 3D cursor again while looking at your screen straight-on, the cursor would be placed at an unspecified distance beyond (or "behind") the screen, regardless of the view or where you clicked. This brings us to a problem common to all 3D design programs: "How do we work in a virtual 3D environment through a 2D screen?"

To illustrate, try to put the 3D cursor inside the camera (the pyramid-shaped object), then try to put the cursor back in the cube. Be sure to view the scene from different angles to make sure you have succeeded in placing the cursor inside each. If you try and put the cursor back in the cube, you select the cube instead unintentionally. So, while the cube is still selected, try going to the 3D view header and clicking on the menu options Object > Snap > Cursor to selection; this will snap the cursor to the cube you just accidentally selected. But try your best just to move it in the cube only using the mouse to place it, just for experience's sake.

Are you finding this difficult? That is because we need to clearly specify the 3 coordinates for the desired cursor location in the 3D environment. Try this: Make sure the 3D View is in "Orthographic" mode by clicking View > Orthographic (or pressing NUM5). Press NUM7 to get the top view and click on the position where you want to place the 3D cursor. This will set 2 coordinates of the cursor precisely (X and Y), but what about the third (Z)? Press NUM1 to get to the front view and click again on the desired location to position the cursor. With these two clicks, Blender will have all 3 coordinates of the cursor position and you will have placed the cursor exactly.

[edit] Layers

In the 3d viewport window, both in edit and object modes, everything you create is assigned to a visibility layer. This system has several uses:

1. Divides up different elements of a scene, so you can put scenery, characters, particles and lights all in different layers. They can then be viewed separately or in various combinations to simplify your screen.
2. When rendering, only the currently visible layers will be included. You can use this to render your scene in separate bits to review how they look.
3. Lights can be set to illuminate only objects that are in the same layer as they are, giving you more control over them. (This can also be done with grouping, but layers are faster to use at this stage).

To control layer visibility, the number keys on a standard keyboard will switch you to viewing the layers numbered 1-9 and 0 (0 being the rightmost layer). Holding ALT while using the keyboard numbers will give you access to the second row of layers.

Alternatively, there is a grid of buttons at the base of the viewport that does the same thing.

Note to azerty users : standard number keys are &é"'(-è_çà keys (do not use SHIFT unless you want to toggle visibility as explained below).

Holding SHIFT while selecting a layer (by keyboard or mouse) will, instead of making only that layer visible, toggle the visibility. You can use this to select combinations, or to disable individual layers from your current view.

To select all layers at once, press the [' for UK keyboards, ` for US, ö for Swedish and German, æ for Danish, ù for AZERTY, ø for Norwegian, ò for Italian`] key on your keyboard. Holding SHIFT and pressing the key will return you to the last set-up you had before making them all visible.

An object you create will automatically be assigned to the layer you are currently viewing, if only one is selected, or the last layer you added to your selection. To move a selected object to a different layer, press the MKEY and select the new layer from the pop-up box.

[edit] Exercise (3D space in 2D output)

Follow these simple steps to get a feel for a 3D representation of space in a 2D output device (your monitor):

1. Change to "Object mode" using the pull down option in the 3D viewport's window header bar. Or, hit TAB to toggle between "Object mode" and "Edit mode".
2. Disable the "Use 3D transform manipulator" option by using the icon located on the 3D viewport's window header (shaped like a pointing hand). Or, hit CTRL+SPACE to toggle.
3. Hit NUM7 to change to top view. This can also be accomplished through the view menu.
4. Click a point somewhere between the cube and camera using the LMB.
5. Choose a different view by hitting NUM1 (front view), or NUM3 (side view). ^[3]
6. Click between the cube and camera with LMB again.
7. Rotate the view around to see how it turned out.

For the part where you are to get your cursor into the middle of the cube, just follow steps 3 through 6 again. Except this time, you'll of course be LMB clicking inside the cube, instead of between camera and cube, during step 4 and step 6.

Notes

^  Because we are working in a 3D space you'll need to have two different views that intersect each other. For instance, viewing from top and then from bottom wouldn't be of much help in specifying the height or depth of the 3D cursor. These views can also be selected through the view menu.

[edit] Adding and Deleting Objects

Make sure you are in Object Mode. If not, press TAB. (When an object is selected in edit mode, the TAB key switches between the edit and object modes. If you are in another mode, TAB toggles between that mode and the edit mode.) A status bar at the top-right of the user preferences window will indicate the current mode by displaying 'Ob' or 'Ed' depending on the currently toggled mode. Another way to check which view you are in is to check the bottom of the 3D view.

Also, remember to reactivate the '3D Transform Manipulator' if it's still toggled off from the previous step.

Make sure you have your cursor in the center of the cube. See the previous section (in the reader's notes) if you don't know how to do this.

Click RMB (Cmd+LMB on Mac) on the cube to be sure it's selected. Press the XKEY or DELKEY to delete it. A window will prompt you to erase object. Click "Erase Selected" (or "Erase All").

The reason for having your cursor in the center of the cube is that any object you add to the scene will be located where your cursor is.

To add an object, use the Add menu located in the menubar above your 3D View window, or press the Spacebar to access the same menu. Why not add a monkey? Choose Add > Mesh > Monkey. [If you prefer the monkey to be facing frontwards, make sure to be in FRONT view (NUM1) before adding the mesh - note: in Blender 2.48a, it's complicated. If Blender is in Object Mode, the monkey is always facing up. If it's in edit mode then the direction the monkey faces depends on the view (top, side or front)]

A new object will be added, and you will be in what's known as Edit Mode. Press TAB to get out of Edit Mode, then CKEY to center the screen on the cursor (where the monkey appeared). Press the ZKEY to toggle the 3D Viewport between solid and wireframe modes. Zoom in and out for a closer look (SCROLL, NUM+, CTRL+MMB, or ALT+CTRL+LMB).

[edit] Non-standard equipment

Further information: Blender 3D: Noob to Pro/Non-standard equipment

[edit] Mice lacking MMB

For simply rotating around the object, enable the "Emulate 3 Button Mouse" option in the View & Control Preferences, and press Alt+LMB and drag.

[edit] Tablet PCs

In the Viewport, holding the ALT key while dragging your pen around will achieve the same effect as MMB.

[edit] Other Windows

Just when you thought that you were getting the hang of the Buttons window and the 3D Viewport window, there are several more windows to learn about. Have no fear; we will gently guide you through this book and teach you about these windows as the need arises. For now, you only need to know one of them to be aware of your many options.

In the 3D viewport window, you'll see a button on the header all the way to the left that has a grid on it (if not, click on a window separator with the RMB or MMB and choose "Add Header"). That button allows you to switch window types. Click on it with the LMB and you will see a number of different window types to which you can change. Try some of the different window types; you will learn about their relevance in time.

Change the window back to the 3-Dimensional Viewport before moving on to the next tutorial.

[edit] Learn to Model

The most fundamental part of 3D development is modeling, because this is where you create content, or 'models'. Creating 3D models is fun and sometimes challenging. To start with, we'll go over a concept called "mesh modeling".

[edit] Mesh Modeling

Mesh modeling is the most common type of modeling in all of Blender-dom. A mesh is simply a collection of three core components; vertices, edges, and faces, that define a three dimensional object. This exercise will further help explain these components, and how they relate to mesh modeling.

1. Get a piece of paper and a pen or pencil.
2. Draw three dots that are no more than 2.5 cm (about an inch) apart from each other
3. Each one of these dots is called a vertex. (The plural of vertex is "vertices")
4. Now connect two of the dots with a line segment. The line segment is called an edge.
5. Draw two more edges so that the three vertices are all connected. You should now have a triangle drawn on the paper. Fill the triangle in. This is called a face.
6. Now draw another vertex (dot) on the paper. Connect it to two of the vertices (dots) you previously drew. You have another triangle. Fill it in to create another face.

Could you imagine doing this same sort of activity in 3D space? Essentially, mesh modeling is just that. The details are on subsequent pages in this tutorial.

You can keep filling up the paper with more vertices, edges, and faces if you want. You may want to try and create something interesting with your triangles. Blender also supports faces with four vertices (called quads), but faces with five or more (so-called N-gons) cannot be created.

Look closely at a 3D video game character some time. Believe it or not, every part of the character is created from little triangles joined together (of course, the triangles are much harder to see in newer games using more detailed technology).

When you're creating your models, remember that the whole point of having edges and vertices is so that you can have control points in 3D space for your faces. When the scene is rendered, only the faces will be seen. Any edges or vertices not connected to a face will not appear.

On the next page, you will take the first step in learning how to model inside Blender. If you're excited, great! But if you're scared, don't worry; it starts out very easily. Give yourself time and patience; Pixar and Dreamworks will still be in business when you're ready for them!

[edit] Beginners Tips

These are some basic tips that are often asked for in one form or another. Sometimes it is in reference to something completely different, but the basic methodology will work.

[edit] Starting with a box

Tutorials will often start with the default cube you see right after opening Blender. Here are two ways to reset the scene without quitting the application:

• Ctrl-X (while holding the Ctrl key, press the X key);
• or select File -> New from the menu.

Then, you will see a prompt box asking OK? under your mouse pointer. You can confirm that you want to erase your current scene by clicking Erase All (or move the mouse around to dismiss it).

The cube is shown as a square in the 3D viewport. If you rotate the view while holding down MMB (middle mouse button), you'll see it is actually a cube. It is selected by default (pink outlines color). Also, you can hold down the Alt key and Left Click to simulate the Middle Mouse Button. Another way to do this for mice with only two buttons is by holding down both buttons at the same time. Navigating in 3d space is assumed. Please see the excellent tutorials on Blender about User Interface Tutorial [4] , The Blender Windows[5], and Navigating in 3D Space[6] which are located on the Blender Quickstart page here: http://www.blender.org/education-help/quickstart/

You can change the default scene (and return to a personalized one when pressing Ctrl-X). Just modify the scene and arrange dialogs to suit your needs, then click File > Save Default Settings. Your current scene will now be used as the default when you click File > New. This is very handy indeed. To return to factory defaults, you can delete the file which contains those settings: .B.blend in your home directory. Starting from version 2.44, a new Load Factory Settings item is available from the File menu.

[edit] Subdivision Surfaces

Subdivision surfaces, or subsurfing, is a common technique in 3D modeling. It uses a mathematical process of simulating a curved plane in space according to the placement of control points, or vertices. What this means is that you can create an object with a smooth surface that is easily controlled by relatively few vertices.

[edit] Adding a Subsurf modifier

First, select the cube by clicking RMB (right mouse button) on the cube in the 3D window (pink outlines indicate the selected objects). In other versions of Linux you accomplish this by clicking LMB (left mouse button). Now choose the Editing panel set in the "Buttons" (bottom) window:

• click on the icon in the panel list:
• or press F9.

If you're not seeing a bunch of windows in the button view panel, such as Link and Materials, Mesh, Multires, Modifiers, Shapes, then there's a good chance you haven't got the cube itself selected or you are still in object mode.

In the Modifiers window, click on the Add Modifier button and select Subsurf. Click on the arrow to the right of Levels:1 to increase the subsurf level. With each increment the cube becomes more smooth, and more planes are added. If you hit apply the original form of the cube becomes lost. If you don't apply the changes they remain on the cube as if it was a filter, of sorts.

In order to complete the rest of this tutorial successfully, it is vital that you do NOT click apply within the Subsurf modifier tab.

[edit] But I want a box!

Often, you will want to render with your model having some sort of subsurf turned on. Face it, most things in real life just do not have super sharp edges. Unless the object is a knife edge, an object in the real world will have some sort of softer edge on it. It is just this fact that is often overlooked by people starting out in 3D: CG can sometimes look too perfect, resulting from impossibly sharp, clean, and well defined edges.

This effect can be fixed by telling Blender that we want our cube to retain more of its original shape. We'll do this using a tool called Edge Creasing. Each edge in a Blender model has a crease value associated with it, which is used to tell the Subsurf modifier how sharp we want that edge to be. By default, all edges have a crease of 0, which is why our cube has lost all its sharp edges.

[edit] Show subdivision surface's cage

Now, remember what we said about the Subsurf modifier remembering our original cube shape? Press TAB to go into edit mode and you'll see that the original cube has come back to haunt us as a wire frame around the smoothed cube. (unless you're using version 2.45 of Blender)

Before we fiddle with the creasing, set the Subsurf Levels up to "4" so you can see the effect more clearly.

[edit] Choose an edge to crease

Enter face mode by either:

• Placing the cursor in the 3D View → changing to Edit Mode ^[7] → CTRL+TAB → choosing Faces (or pressing 3KEY)
• Changing to Edit Mode → clicking (Face Mode Icon).

Select one of the sides of our wire cube with RMB by clicking near the dot in the centre of the face. You'll know when it's been selected because the other faces will change colour to grey, and the face you've selected will be highlighted.

Note that, although we are in Face mode, it is really the edges that we are creasing; selecting a face is just a quick way of selecting its four edges.

[edit] Crease selected edges

Now crease the edges of the selection by either:

• Press SHIFT+E and slowly move the mouse observing the result of Crease operation on the selected face.

• In the 3D Viewport's header select Mesh → Edges → Crease SubSurf. Your mouse will be tied to the cube with a dotted line. Move it gently left and right to see the effect it has on the mesh. Mesh will change when pulling the dotted line on the opposite side of the creased face.

In the style of Blender, click LMB to apply the changes, or RMB to cancel creasing.

[edit] Finally build a real box

Either cancel the above edge crease or start from scratch to get back to our simple subsurfed cube. (To get the same result as the picture on the right, set the subsurf to 3 or 4.) Then press the A key twice to select all faces. Crease them with SHIFT+E like before, until your cube looks like the image on the right.

Note By a Nooby: If you are looking for a bevel effect that doesn't require so many polygons, try (in Edit Mode) pressing the W key then selecting Bevel.

Click LMB to apply the changes then press TAB to cancel out of edit mode. Behold: your smooth cube.

[edit] Footnotes

1. ^  You can change to Edit Mode by selecting it from the drop down list on the 3D Viewport's header. Or, you can toggle between the current mode, and Edit Mode by using TAB.

[edit] Quickie Model

Your first model is easy.

[edit] Selecting objects

Start with the default scene. It has three objects: a cube, a light source and a camera.

The cube is selected: pink outlines indicate the selected objects. With the mouse pointer in the viewport, you can select or deselect all objects by pressing the A KEY (the letter "A" on your keyboard). Select a single object by right-clicking on it (RMB or CMD+LMB on Mac).

A KEY - Toggles between selecting and deselecting all objects in a scene

RMB - Selects a single object

[edit] Edit Mode

Right now you're in what's known as Object Mode. In Object Mode you can move the cube around the 3D environment in relation to other objects. With the cube selected, hit TAB. This puts you in what's known as Edit Mode.

Note: If you've selected the lamp or the camera instead of the cube, you won't be able to go into Edit Mode (Cameras and Lamps are edited differently).

In Edit Mode, you can change the shape and size of the cube. You could turn the cube into a puppy… or at least soon you'll be able to.

TAB - toggles in and out of Edit Mode of the selected, active object.

[edit] Selecting vertices

Now that you're in Edit Mode, you have access to the individual vertices. Vertices are control points that you can connect to create edges and faces. Edges connect two vertices, and faces connect three or more vertices.

Vertices show up as pink dots when they're not selected, and yellow dots when they are selected. If you change the G.U.I. theme, these colors may change. For example, the Rounded theme uses orange and white for unselected and selected vertices respectively.

If all the vertices are yellow (selected), press A KEY to deselect all vertices (as seen above, this key toggles selection depending on the current mode). Go ahead and hit RMB over one of the vertices and you should see it change to yellow, which means that it is selected. (Mouse button actions can be changed under View & Controls in the User Preferences window.)

If all you see is a big blue dot:

• Make sure the 3D transform manipulator is off; if not: depress the hand button on the header; alternatively use the menu that appears when you press CTRL+SPACE. You'll know it's off when the icon showing the 3D axes disappears.

If you cannot select a vertex:

• Hit the ZKEY and make sure you are in transparent (wireframe) mode.
• If you can't get the cursor over the vertex, adjust your mouse/trackpad's tracking speed to minimum.
• Make sure you're in vertex select mode: if you can only select faces or edges, either press CTRL+TAB to select Vertices or click on the Vertex select mode icon as shown below.

Now try rotating the view to see what's actually going on. You can hold ALT key and drag (while holding the left mouse button, move the mouse) to rotate your view. If instead, it moves the Blender window, drag with the MMB (without holding the ALT key).

ZKEY - Toggles between drawing the scene in wireframe and solid mode.

SHIFT+RMB - extend selection (add or remove vertices from selection).

CTRL+TAB - Opens the selection mode menu.

ALT+LMB or MMB - Rotates the view

SHIFT+MMB - Pans the view.

CTRL+SPACE - Opens menu for toggling the 3D transform manipulator.

[edit] Moving vertices

With a vertex selected, use the grab tool:

• Mesh > Transform > Grab/Move,
• click and hold LMB on an empty space and draw a line,
• or just press GKEY.

Move your mouse around: you should see the selected vertex moving with the pointer! Click the LMB to drop the vertex at the current spot, or press ENTER or SPACE key. While moving, you can cancel the move and drop the vertex back where it came from by pressing RMB or ESC key.

You can also grab a selection using the mouse by holding RMB and dragging it around: release the button at the desired spot. Then, clicking on the same button cancels the move.

Now use the MMB to rotate the view around to see the incredible impact your small change has undoubtedly made.

GKEY - "Grabs" the current selection and allows you to move it around with the mouse. Use LMB, ENTER, or SPACE to drop it in place. Use RMB or ESC to cancel the move.

[edit] Creating Vertices

While in mesh edit mode, simply hold the CTRL key while left clicking where you wish to create a vertex. Subsequent left clicks while holding the CTRL key will create a series of vertices with connected edges.

[edit] Extra Practice

• A Video Tutorial on Edit Mode

[edit] Quickie Render

If you haven't completed the previous tutorial, (the Quickie Model tutorial), do so now. Keep the same file open from that tutorial because we will be using it here.

A render is the creation of a picture from the camera's point of view, taking the environment's effects on your scene into account, and generating a realistic picture based on your settings. This first render will finish very quickly, but you'll find that as your 3D scenes become more complex, the rendering can take a very long time.

[edit] Rendering the current scene

Now that you've created your first model, undoubtedly you'll want to render it. Make sure you're in object mode (press TAB if you're not), put the mouse pointer in the 3D view window and press F12! On Macintosh OS X 10.5 use ALT+Fn+F12. On Gnome you can use ALT-F12 to avoid the Gnome Search Dialog. On the new Apple keyboard, use Fn+F12 to avoid the Mac Dashboard.

If you have more than 1 processor, you can speed up rendering. (This is done automatically in Blender 2.46.) Hit F10 to go to the render settings tab and in the bottom left corner, there is a threads button. Adjust the number of threads according to the number of cores in your processor (e.g. a dual core processor would be two threads, one for each core). Now, try re-rendering and you should get much faster results.

You can also use the menu in the User Preferences header: Render > Render Current Frame.

You can interrupt the rendering at any time by pressing ESC while the rendering window has the focus.

If you've put the render window behind the main window, you can get it back several ways: you can use the Windows taskbar or, under Windows and most other operating systems, you can use ALT+TAB (CMD+TAB on Mac).

This is a relatively quick render. It can be cleaned up a bit but it will give you a good idea of what your model currently looks like.

Note: If your cube is completely black, you may not actually have a light source in the scene. Some versions of Blender don't create a lamp (source of light) by default, and you'll need to add one. To add a lamp, enter object mode (TAB) and then press the spacebar while your mouse is over the 3D window. Select Add > Lamp which will give you a choice to add several different types of lamps. Remember to place the lamp in position where it is not inside the cube. This can be achieved using the RMB and pressing G.

F12 - Starts the rendering from the active camera.

[edit] Saving a render

At some point you will probably want to save your renders. In the User Preferences header, select File > Save Image… or just hit F3. A menu with a directory list will appear; the upper text line denotes the directory and in the lower one you type the name of the image, like "myfirstrendering.jpg". Note that earlier versions of Blender (before 2.41?) will not add the ".jpg" extension automatically if you leave it out.

JPEG images, as opposed to PNG images, will contain unwanted artifacts (imperfections around edges)¹. You can change the format by going to Render -> Render Settings or F10. Then under the "Format" panel, change the Type from Jpeg to PNG and hit F3 again to update the file type in the file selector.

F3 - Opens the Save Image dialog (if an image has been rendered).

• 1 - alternatve route is to change the JPEG quality setting - just under the format selection list from the same "Render Settings" panel.

[edit] Extra Practice

Tutorial on Using Multiple Cameras

the Extra Practice on the linked tutorial images were removed, only explanation on procedures, please note.

[edit] Mesh Modeling

Mesh modeling is the most common type of modeling in all of Blender-dom. If you did the Quickie Model tutorial, then you've already participated in mesh modeling. A mesh is simply a collection of vertices that define a three dimensional object. This exercise will further help explain mesh modeling.

1. Get a piece of paper and a pen or pencil.
2. Draw three dots that are no more than 2.5 cm (about an inch) apart from each other
3. Each one of these dots is called a vertex. (The plural of vertex is "vertices")
4. Now connect two of the dots with a line segment. The line segment is called an edge.
5. Draw two more edges so that the three vertices are all connected. You should now have a triangle drawn on the paper. Fill the triangle in. This is called a face.
6. Now draw another vertex (dot) on the paper. Connect it to two of the vertices (dots) you previously drew. You have another triangle. Fill it in to create another face.

Could you imagine doing this same sort of activity in 3D space? Essentially, mesh modeling is just that. The details are on subsequent pages in this tutorial.

You can keep filling up the paper with more vertices, edges, and faces if you want. You may want to try and create something interesting with your triangles. Blender also supports faces with four vertices (called quads), but faces with five or more (so-called N-gons) cannot be created.

Look closely at a 3D video game character some time. Believe it or not, every part of the character is created from little triangles joined together (of course, the triangles are much harder to see in newer games using more detailed technology).

When you're creating your models, remember that the whole point of having edges and vertices is so that you can have control points in 3D space for your faces. When the scene is rendered, only the faces will be seen. Any edges or vertices not connected to a face will not appear.

[edit] Modeling a Simple Person

Now, we will create a simple character, learning about selection and extrusion along the way. Extrusion is one of the most widely used modeling tools available.

[edit] Creating a New Project

Start with the default scene (as explained here). You should have your default beginning cube.

Reminder:

• Select the cube with RMB (CMD+LMB on one button Mac mouse).
• Drag with the MMB (ALT+LMB on one button Mac mouse) to have a look at the scene from different angles.
• Press NUM7 to go back to the top view.
• Toggle between Edit Mode and Object mode with TAB; the option button shown on the image below tells what mode you are in at any given time:
  

  Mode button/indicator

[edit] Selection Methods

This section proposes six methods for selecting the default cube's top four vertices. The image on the right shows the view rotated a bit with the correct vertices selected.

Before we start, make sure the Limit selection to visible button is on (in Blender 2.46 this button is called Occlude background geometry).

You'll only be able to find this button when you're in Edit Mode. Additionally, it is not available in Wireframe Mode: hit ZKEY if you cannot find it. It'll appear on the bottom of the 3D View window, far right, just left of the Render button.

Note: In Blender 2.42 for Mac OS X running on a MacBook, there is a display problem with the box and circle selections: the selection box and circle do not appear on screen (this is valid for both the Intel and the PowerPC versions).

The default is Object Mode. The cube should be selected; switch to Edit Mode then proceed.

[edit] 1. Box Selection

This tool draws a square that you resize to frame the top four vertices (or dots).

1. Deselect all vertices by pressing the AKEY;
2. Press the BKEY to activate what is known as the Box Border Select Tool (it starts as two dotted lines).

Now, when you click and hold LMB and move the mouse cursor, a selection border will appear. When you release the mouse button, the vertices that are inside it will be selected. Select the top four vertices. If you made a mistake, you can start again after hitting AKEY to deselect the selected vertices. Make sure all the vertices are deselected (pink, not yellow) before trying the next method.

BKEY - Activates box-select tool.

[edit] 2. Circle Selection

1. Deselect all vertices by pressing the AKEY;
2. Press the BKEY twice to activate the Circle Border Select tool.

A circle appears around the mouse cursor. You can resize the circle with SCROLL (the mouse wheel) or alternatively use the NUM+/NUM- or PgUp/PgDn keys.

• Select vertices either by dragging with LMB or clicking at several places.
• Deselect vertices by clicking or dragging with the MMB (or ALT+LMB).

To adjust your selection, note that SHIFT+RMB toggles a single vertex selection.

Note: If ALT + LMB moves the current window, then to deselect a vertex use CTRL+ALT+LMB or MMB instead.

The Circle Border Select tool will be active until you press RMB, ESC or SPACE.

BKEY+BKEY - Circle Select. If you press BKEY a second time after starting Border Select, Circle Select is invoked. Use NUM+ or NUM- or MW to adjust the circle size. Leave Circle Select with RMB or ESC.

[edit] 3. Lasso Selection

Like many graphics programs, Blender 3D has a lasso selection tool.

1. Deselect all vertices by pressing the AKEY;
2. Hold CTRL+LMB and draw a circle around the vertices you want to select. Release the LMB when you're done.

To deselect with the lasso, use CTRL+SHIFT+LMB.

[edit] 4. One By One Selection

You can also select the four vertices one by one.

1. Deselect all vertices by pressing the AKEY;
2. Select a single vertex with RMB (CMD+LMB on one button Mac mouse);
3. Select additional vertices by holding SHIFT while pressing the RMB. Clicking again on a selected vertex deselects it.

[edit] 5. Face Selection

In addition to those vertex selection methods, there is yet another option: on the right of your viewport header you can see selection modes. Choose the Face select mode (the triangle with a dot inside) and select the top face of the cube with the RMB (CMD+LMB on one button Mac mouse). Then switch back to Vertex select mode (the four dots in a diamond formation). As you will see, all four vertices forming the top face are selected (this is also called "selection transformation"). To select additional faces, hold SHIFT while pressing the RMB. Alternatively, with the mouse pointer in the 3D viewport, you can hit CTRL+TAB and select Vertices or Faces mode from the popup menu.

You can de-select a face by hitting AKEY

[edit] 6. Edge Selection

In addition to those vertex selection methods, there is yet another option: on the right of your viewport header you can see selection modes. Choose the Edge select mode (the two parallel lines) and select the left edge of the cube with the RMB (CMD+LMB on one button Mac mouse). Then SHIFT+RMB on the right edge to add it to the selection. Then switch back to Vertex select mode (the four dots in a diamond formation). As you will see, all four vertices forming the two top edges are selected (this is also called "selection transformation").

[edit] Learning Extrusion

Note -latest version of Blender does not act completely as below, clarification please!

The pictures below are in orthographic view. Depending on Blender's version, the default view is either perspective or orthographic. If you need to switch to the orthographic view, press NUM5 (or choose it from the VIEW menu, as shown in the picture). Now press NUM1 to switch to front view.

[edit] Region extrusion

With the top four vertices selected (which will appear like the top two in your screen), hit the EKEY. Choose Region from the popup menu, then move the mouse: four -new- vertices attached to the four that were previously selected are moving around with the mouse pointer. You can drop them in place with LMB, SPACE, or ENTER.

Notes:

• In Blender 2.42a and 2.43a, you may not have the Region option; so just ignore choosing region and continue.
• If the menu doesn't popup, you are probably in face selection mode. Move back to vertex selection mode by clicking the right icon.
• If the popup menu only presents the Only Edges and Only Vertices choices, you probably have not selected four vertices that make up a face. (It can also happen when some of the vertices are doubled: try selecting all vertices while in Edit Mode and hit the WKEY to display the Specials menu. Then choose Remove Doubles; it can also be accessed through the Rem Doubles under the Mesh Tools tab).
• In some versions of blender, you may find that, by default, the extrusion is performed along a different axis than the ones used here. You can set set the axis along which the extrusion is performed. To do this, first press the EKEY, choose region, and then press MMB until the correct axis is selected.

EKEY - Extrude selection

[edit] Starting with a simple leg

Wherever you attempt to extrude the vertices, they do not end up at the right spot for this tutorial. Use your UKEY or CTRL+ZKEY (CMD+ZKEY Mac) to undo your last edit. You should see just your original cube with the top four vertices selected and then try what's next

Press the EKEY again. Again, choose Region. Now this time, as you're moving the extruded vertices around, hold the CTRL key down and you'll see that the extrusion will only move to certain spots. This is called snapping. The vertices snap to predetermined positions that allow you to better work with the extrusion.

We'll talk more about snapping later. For now, set and release the vertices at the spot that makes it look like two cubes of equal size to the first one, stacked one on top of the other.

Then, repeat that same process until you have five boxes of equal size stacked one on top of each other. And that, my friend, is a very simple leg!

Hint: Don't stretch one box all the way to make the desired shape - You must create all stacked boxes in sequence, or you won't get the nodes (a more detailed mesh) that will be required to create the leg in this tutorial.

[edit] And now, the pelvis

Hit AKEY to deselect the current vertices. Select the four vertices on the right face of the top cube. You may want to rotate your view a little with the MMB to see them all. Alternatively, with Limit Selection to Visible off, a simple box selection (BKEY) over the two visible vertices will also select the ones behind them. Extrude twice to the right.

[edit] Drawing the other body parts

The same trick is repeated over and over to build the rest of our simple body.

You may want to switch to Face select mode to select the four vertices of a face with a single click. This way the extrusion tools will automatically extrude a region, so you won't have to choose the Region option each time you extrude a face.

At this point your model might get too big to fit in your view. You can pan the view by:

• either holding CTRL and pressing NUM4, NUM8, NUM6, NUM2,
• or holding SHIFT and dragging with MMB.

Left/Right leg

Torso

Arms

Now, check that all is well: toggle on solid mode by hitting the ZKEY and examine every body side. If some faces are missing, it's easy to fix. To create a face from four vertices, select them and press the FKEY (or choose the Mesh → Make Edge/Face menu from the viewport header). You need to remove any doubles by hitting the WKEY and select Remove Doubles from the menu.

[edit] Adding the head

Important note: make sure you're still in Edit Mode (pictured) when adding the head. If you're not, the head and the body will not be part of the same object and changes on the body won't affect the head, which is required in the next section.

Select a point just above the top of the neck using the LMB: the red and white circle is the cursor. To adjust the cursor's position, switch between the top, front and side views (using the NUM7, NUM1, and NUM3 key respectively). You can also use the snap tool: press SHIFT+S to bring up the snap menu and select Cursor → Grid.

Once you're happy with the position, press the SPACE key to bring up the popup menu. Select Add → Icosphere. In some Blender versions you may have to choose the subdivision number. Just click OK. You should now have a small sphere at the top of the body. To make it more proportional to the body, resize it with the scale tool:

• select Mesh → Transform → Scale from the viewport menu,
• while holding LMB, draw a triangle on the screen,
• or just press the SKEY.

If you deselect the head and then decide that you want to move it or resize it again, select one vertex of the head, then click Select → Linked Vertices (or use CTRL+L). All the head's vertices will then be selected again, and none of the body's. Then press GKEY to grab and move the head, or SKEY to resize it. Hold down CTRL as you move it around if you would like it to snap to the grid.

Don't forget that you are in 3D; use the MMB to move your point of view around to make sure that the head really sticks in the neck.

[edit] Summary: Keys & Commands

These are the keys and commands used on this page:

Key	Mode	Description
RMB or CMD+LMB (Mac users with one mouse button)	Object	Select an object
NUM1		Go to front view
TAB		Toggle between Edit Mode and Object Mode
BKEY then LMB and drag (RMB to deselect)		Box selection
AKEY		Toggle between Select All and Select None
BKEY BKEY (pressed twice) then LMB and drag		Circle selection
CTRL+LMB and drag		Lasso selection
RMB then SHIFT+RMB		One-by-one selection
(click the vertex/edge/face selection buttons)		Change the selection mode
CMD+TAB (CTRL+TAB in Windows/UNIX)		Change the selection mode
select vertices then EKEY		Extrude
CTRL	while extruding	Enable snapping
	while moving	Enable snapping
	while rotating	Rotate in 5-degree intervals
MMB or ALT+LMB		Rotate the 3D view
ZKEY		Toggle wireframe/solid view
FKEY		Make Edge/Face from selected vertices
NUM3		Side view
SHIFT+SKEY		Snap cursor or selection to the grid
GKEY		Grab the current selection and move it
ZKEY (or XKEY or YKEY)	grab mode (GKEY)	Constrain motion to the Z (or X or Y) axis
SKEY		Change the scale (size) of selection
SPACE		Brings up the menu
WKEY		To choose Remove Doubles; it can also be accessed through the Rem Doubles under the Mesh Tools tab

[edit] Detailing Your Simple Person I

This tutorial uses the simple person model from the previous tutorial. If you didn't do it, go back and do it now---or find it pre-made just for you here.

If your model does not appear to be solid, it is currently being drawn in wireframe mode. For this tutorial, you need it to be drawn solid. Return to Object Mode (TAB) and press the ZKEY to see the model in solid mode.

[edit] Subsurfaces

You should already have the Editing Panel displayed in the Buttons Window. If not, click on the Editing button (shown pressed in the image on the right) or press F9 to have the Editing Panel displayed. On Macintosh OS X, use CMD+F9 to avoid engaging the Exposé window effects. Note that the Editing panel is a different thing from edit mode; don't confuse them. Depending on whether you're in edit mode or object mode the Editing Panel will display different tabs. With the object (your man) selected (RMB) press TAB to view how the available buttons in the panel change (but make sure you are in Object Mode before continuing).

First of all select the model. We're going to turn on subsurfaces, or Subsurf.

To enable Subsurf, you must go to the Buttons Window → Editing Panel(F9) → Modifiers subpanel → click Add Modifier → Subsurf from the list. You should immediately see your model change to look more round and less edgy. New options for Subsurf are now shown in the Modifiers subpanel. You may also perform this action by pressing SHIFT+O while in object mode.

Note that the Modifiers subpanel will be displayed in both edit mode and object mode.

What just happened? Each face was just divided into four smaller faces that are progressively angled, which has helped soften the sharp edges of the model where faces touch each other. Click the horizontal bar labeled Levels and change the value to '2'.

The model will change again because each of your original faces is now divided into 16. If you change the value to '3' each plane will be divided to sixty-four smaller planes, but don't do it unless you've got a computer that you're sure can handle it (newer computers should be able to handle it pretty easily). Blender v2.48a is able to do this with much greater ease than previous versions, so if you are running this version go ahead and set the level to 3. Note that subdivisions work with base 4, i.e., Level: 1 yields 4¹ = 4 divisions; Level: 2 yields 4² = 16 divisions; Level: n yields 4ⁿ divisions.

[Troubleshooting: If one or two of your sides don't subsurf, press AKEY to select all vertices while in edit mode. Then, click Rem Doubles under the Mesh Tools tab in the buttons window. You can also change the Limit of how far Blender should look for vertices that are close together. If you prefer keyboard shortcuts, press WKEY to display the specials menu, and select Remove Doubles. ]

Notice the other bar labeled "Render Levels" below the Levels bar? That controls how many subdivisions to do at rendertime, while the value we've been changing handles the number of subdivisions while working in Blender. Before moving on, set the first subdivisions ("Levels") value to 2 and the rendertime subdivisions ("Render Levels")to 3.

A Modifier is defined as the application of a "process or algorithm" upon Objects. They can be applied interactively and non-destructively in just about any order the user chooses. This kind of functionality is often referred to as a "modifier stack" and is found in several other 3D applications. The x in the upper right of the subsurf modifier will remove the modifier from the modifier stack. The arrows at the left of the x will move the modifier (and its effects) higher or lower in the modifier stack.

The Optimal Draw button removes the extra wireframe lines which display as a result of having additional geometry. This button is especially useful to clarify and speed up the display of densely subdivided meshes.

In Edit Mode, hit the AKEY once or twice so that all the vertices are selected (if you're not in Edit Mode, select the object and press TAB). Then press the blank roundish button towards the top of the Modifiers panel, just to the left of the up and down arrows. This button applies the modifier to the editing cage. Notice how it transforms the translucent, boxy cage to a more rounded one. Take note of this function for future reference, but for now press it again to return to the boxy version. You will need this boxy version for the next few lessons.

The Apply button applies the modifier to the mesh. While this is useful for some modifiers, for Subsurf this will add many extra vertices and is generally not needed.

Remember, you can undo any accidental modifications by pressing CTRL+Z to go back a step. If you need to, you can go back several steps and then repeat the process correctly.

For a complete modifiers documentation go to http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual/PartII/Modifiers

For a complete subsurf modifier documentation go to http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual/PartII/Modelling/Modifier/SubSurf

For a complete subsurfaces documentation go to http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual/Subsurf_Modifier

If your Blender crashes when you attempt to subsurf a large object, you need to look in to upgrading or possibly even downgrading your video card drivers. Blender doesn't work well with certain drivers of new videocards, but having the right one can save a lot of headache.

[edit] Smooth Surfaces

Subsurfaces do a good job of smoothing out objects and creating good curved surfaces. However, even with subsurfaces the model does not appear completely smooth; at this point it even appears scaly.

If your person is in wireframe view, hit ZKEY to change it to solid view. In Edit Mode, hit the AKEY once or twice so that all the vertices are selected (if you're not in Edit Mode, select the object and press TAB). Find the button that says "Set Smooth" and click it (the bottom-middle button inside the Links and Materials subpanel in the Editing [F9] panel). Note: If you can not find the button, try switching from edit mode to object mode.

You will see the Blender smooth out the rough edges where faces were touching before. Next to it is the button labeled "Set Solid." Click it as well. You will see the simple person go back to the solid rendering. The simple person looks better smooth, so click the Set Smooth button again. (more information about this at [8] and [9]).

You need to keep this file open for the next several tutorials. Move on to the next page.

[edit] Detailing Your Simple Person II

This tutorial uses the simple person model from the previous page. If you didn't do it, go back and do it now or find it pre-made just for you here.

[edit] Starting with the right modes

Up to this point, you've been selecting vertices and manipulating them. In the first chapter, we touched on selecting faces. In fact there are three selection modes: vertices, edges and faces.

Make sure you're in:

• Edit Mode (TAB),
• Solid Mode (ZKEY),
• and Edges select mode: press CTRL+TAB, a menu will come up where you can choose Vertices, Edges, or Faces, then choose Edges. The three selection modes can also be selected with the statusline buttons shown on the right.

Note for KDE users (not 3.5.6): CTRL+TAB changes the desktop so you will have to use the statusline buttons instead. But also you can configure KDE hotkeys for blender window. (Older versions of Blender do not have this feature. Instead, just select all vertices connected to the edge you want to select).

It is important to remember that depending on the selection mode you're in (vertices, edges, or faces), moving or otherwise manipulating your selection will cause connected vertices, edges, and faces to be moved as well. This is because you cannot separate faces from edges or edges from vertices.

[edit] Scaling with axis constraint

We want to position the 3D cursor between the hips of the simple person, then use that cursor for scaling.

First, make sure:

• everything is deselected (AKEY or Select → Select/Deselect All from the viewport's menu),
• you're in perspective mode (NUM5 or View → Perspective menu),
• the 3D transform manipulator is on (switch on the hand button ; this may appear as a hand with an index finger).

Our goal is to place the cursor as it is shown in the picture below, that is at the center of the two selected edges (instead of snapping it to the grid as we did when adding the head):

Troubleshooting: if you do not see the cubes around your person, make sure you are in Edit Mode as explained in the introduction. In case you played with the Subsurf modifier, you may have to uncheck the Apply modifier to editing cage during Editmode box, just on the left of the Move modifier up in stack button (^). If it still doesn't work, try deleting the Subsurf modifier (the X on the right, above the Apply button) and adding it again (Add Modifier -> Subsurf). Or you may have to redo it. (the entire model) or you can keep pressing Ctrl+Z until you undo the smooth command.

[edit] Selecting two hip edges

By default, when editing in solid mode, the vertices, edges and faces that are on the back side of the model are not visible or selectable. This can be toggled by clicking the Limit selection to visible button (pictured on the right). Toggle it on and off a few times and observe how the edges of the wire cage appear and disappear as you click. Disable it for now, to show the hidden edges. (Note that this button is called "Occlude background geometry" and behaves slightly differently in V2.46.)

Now, select one of the edges just above the hips of our person, where the legs connect to the torso: an edge of one of the cubes to the left or right of the model's pelvis (RMB). Notice that the 3D transform manipulator jumps to the edge you selected. Now select the edge on the other side of the pelvis (SHIFT+RMB). The 3D transform manipulator should jump halfway between the two edges.

Once you have both edges selected as in the image, press SHIFT+SKEY to bring up the Snap Menu and select Cursor->Selection.

Troubleshooting: If, instead, it jumps to the second selected edge, change your Rotation/Scaling Pivot to Median Point.

[edit] Scaling the hips

Choose the scaling manipulators: CTRL-SPACE and select Scale (or use CTRL-ALT-SKEY). Since the Transform Orientation is set to global, the manipulator's orientation is the same as the world's orientation shown in the lower left corner of the 3D View pane. Make sure Proportional Edit Falloff is set to Off. The axes are colored R-G-B for X-Y-Z, i.e. the X-axis is red, the Y-axis is green, the Z-axis is blue.

It's important to note that in addition to the global XYZ axes, each individual object has its own XYZ axes. We'll get into that in the next section.

Grab the red cube-shaped handle and drag it with LMB to symmetrically widen up the selection along the selected X-axis.(For some people who get mixed up you might have to grab the green cube-shaped handle to widen up the person, remember you dont want to make the persons pelvis longer you want it wider.) While scaling, press CTRL to snap to the grid or ESC to abort the current manipulation. When it comes to scaling in Blender, 1.0000 means 100%, 0.6000 means 60%, and so on. Scale up to 2.

Note: you cannot scale along the Z-axis, as the current selection's Z-dimension is zero — if you want to symmetrically lift the hips, switch back to Translate Manipulator Mode (CTRL+ALT+GKEY).

[edit] Drawing the armpits

We'll now use the 3D cursor instead of the selection's center: bring up the Mesh → Snap menu (SHIFT-SKEY) and select Cursor → Selection (KEY4). This will move the 3D cursor to the location of the manipulator.

Troubleshoot: If the joints seem to jump into the center, pulling the edges towards them, remember to select Cursor → Selection, not Selection → Cursor

Now, set the 3D Cursor as Rotation/Scaling Pivot. Since the 3D Cursor was positioned to the selection's center, the manipulator's behavior stays the same.

Select the two edges under the arms where they connect to the torso. This time, the manipulator does not jump to the selection but stays at the 3D cursor. Make sure you are in Scale Manipulator Mode (CTRL+ALT+SKEY) and form the armpits using the square handles on the manipulator: say 2.0 along X and 1.1 along Z.

Notes:

• It is easier to select the edges by rotating the view around the world's X-axis with View → View Navigation → Orbit Down (or NUM2).
• For better visual comparison to the width of the hips, switch to View → Orthographic (or NUM5) before scaling along the X-axis (the red one). You can now scale along the Z-axis (the blue one), as there is a distance along Z between the selection and the pivot.

[edit] The belly and the chest

Now, deselect all and select the belly cube (use one of the methods described here). This time, use the Scale Tool instead of the scaling manipulator:

• press the SKEY to choose the scale tool;
• and then SHIFT-ZKEY to lock the Z-axis. Now, the scale tool is constrained to the X and Y axes (i.e. the selection is not scaled along the Z-axis) and those axes are drawn through the pivot in a bright color;
• scale the belly using LMB.

Continue with selecting different sections of the torso and scaling them to your liking, exercising above scaling methods.

Note that just as you can constrain scaling to the X, Y, or Z axis by pressing XKEY, YKEY, or ZKEY, you can constrain movement to an axis as well. Press the GKEY and then press the appropriate axis key. As you work on the arms, be sure to use the different viewing angles so everything is correct (MMB to rotate, NUM1 for front view, NUM3 for side view, NUM7 for top view). Also, be sure to use CTRL+ZKEY to undo if you mess something up. If you undo too many steps press CTRL+YKEY to redo what you just undid.

[edit] Modeling the arms

When you've got the basic shape of the torso, move on to the arms. We'll start by making him holding his hands up.

First, make sure you're in Edit Mode; if not, select the figure and press TAB. Also, make sure you are in Vertex select mode (CTRL+TAB). Now, select the 8 vertices at the end of one arm (the hand cube).

Press the XKEY, and choose Vertices in the popup menu. Suddenly the box disappears, and at the end of the arm, there's a hole! Don't panic. We'll fix that in a moment.

At this point, your person should look like the image below:

Select the top four vertices of the last "arm box" (by pressing BKEY and dragging the box around the 4 vertices of the cube) and extrude them up three times by pressing EKEY and CTRL to create three boxes the same shape.

If everytime you try to extrude it puts a weird angled section on the back right side of the extrusion then you
may be still in Perspective mode. Select Orthographic mode View → Orthographic (or NumPad5)

Note: this looks more natural if you extrude 1 square using Rotate Manipulator Mode, and 2 squares using Scale Manipulator Mode.

Rotate manipulator mode is the double circle to the right of the 3D Manipulator hand (or CTRL+ALT+R) Scale manipulator mode is the small blue square to the right of the 3D Manipulator hand (or CTRL+ALT+S)

We'll now fix the hollow elbow. Simply select the four vertices at the gaping hole (turn on Limit Selection to Visible mode to make it easier), and press:

SPACE → Edit → Faces → Make Edge/Face (or FKEY)

Notice that the hole was covered by a face. Now to make it a smooth face, choose the option:

SPACE → Edit → Faces → Set Smooth

Do the same with the other arm. Make sure to deselect all the selected vertices from the first arm (AKEY). It is important to follow the steps in the same order to end up with identical arms. If you're having troubles with the other arm, you can undo all the arm work and redo every step simultaneously on both arms.

Troubleshooting: if the surface of the model swells out where you added the face to cover a hole, use CTRL-Z to undo the face. Try selecting all the hole vertices (or even select the whole figure) and choose: Mesh → Vertices → Remove Doubles from the viewport menu, and try to add the face again. If it still looks strange, then without undoing it, select the whole figure with the AKEY and use CTRL-N to recalculate the normals.

[edit] Modeling the legs

First switch to the Face select mode (choose from the CTRL+TAB menu, or click the triangle icon).

Select the two bottom faces of the feet (the soles): use RMB and hold down SHIFT when selecting the second one. Each face comes with a small square denoting the face center that turns orange when selected, while the outline is highlighted in yellow.

Then, subdivide them: SPACE → Edit → Edges → Subdivide (or, from the viewport menu: Mesh → Edges → Subdivide).

Now, switch to the Edge select mode (CTRL+TAB) and clear the selection (AKEY).

Select the bottom front edges making the toes (RMB, then SHIFT+RMB). You should end up with four edges selected.

Switch to the side view with NUM3 and press the GKEY. Now move the selected edges away from the legs as far as you like: drag with MMB for orthogonal movement and drop them with LMB.

Pressing the YKEY will also restrict movement along the Y-axis only, however orthogonal movement can be easier.

Congratulations! We now have feet!

[edit] Modeling the head

When you've got an acceptable shape for the legs, you should do something about that head. A little too spherical, isn't it?

• Press the AKEY to clear your selection.
• Place the mouse cursor over the head and press the LKEY: this selects the closest edge, face, or vertex, as well as all edges, faces, or vertices that are linked to it. The faces for the head and the faces for the body pass through each other; however, none of the vertices in the head are linked to any of the vertices of the body via an edge or a face.
• Place the 3D cursor in the middle of the head (SHIFT-S, Cursor → Selection) or just set Median Point as Pivot (CTRL-,). Then press CTRL+ALT+S and scale on the Z-axis (blue handle of the 3D manipulator) in order to get a better shape. I think 1.5 is enough. Without using the 3D manipulator, remember that you need to press the ZKEY to restrict the scaling to the Z-axis only (in both cases, CTRL snaps the values).
• After elongating the head, you may find that it is too low or too high. To fix this, press the GKEY (to move it) and the ZKEY (to restrict the movement to the Z-axis). Play around with it a little until you like the result.

Note: another course of action would be to put the cursor (and thus the 3D transform manipulator) at the underside of the head. That way the neck will keep the same length, while you can scale the head at will.

[edit] Creating a Simple Hat

This tutorial uses the simple person model from a previous tutorial. If you didn't do it, go back and do it now---or find it pre-made just for you here. Alternatively, if you just want to make the hat without putting it on a person at the end, you can go ahead and do that without having completed the other tutorial.

[edit] Adding an object

The first step to hat-making is editing a simple mesh circle.

[edit] Setup

• use the orthographic view (NUM5);
• get a sideways view of the model (NUM3);
• if you're starting with the simple person model, pan the view (SHIFT+MMB) to place the scene center a good distance above the simple person's head;
• make sure you're in Object Mode (TAB) to add the hat as a separate object. (Note: It will cause problems if you do not switch into Object Mode)

Now, place the 3D cursor on center of the view (LMB) and snap it to the nearest grid node (SHIFT+SKEY then Cursor → Grid).

[edit] Create a circle

Do SPACE → Add → Mesh → Circle, with 12 vertices. In the latest Blender version the default is 32 vertices but you may use the arrows to set it back to 12: click the arrows to change, or click and drag left or right, or click on the number and type a new one. Change the radius to 1.41. Click on OK. We now have a selected circle. In the bottom left corner of the viewport, you should see the name of the selected object: Circle.
If all you see is a line, then you are looking at the side of the circle. Rotate it around to see it from a different angle, or switch to Top view(NUM7)

[edit] Deleting a selection

Make sure you are in Edit mode, then switch to Edge select mode (CTRL+TAB) and have only the three edges selected as seen in the picture (AKEY to deselect all, then click RMB; hold down the SHIFT key when selecting the second and the third ones).

Delete these edges by pressing XKEY → Edges.

[edit] Creating the hat profile

Now make sure you're in edit mode and switch back to Vertex select mode (CTRL+TAB → Vertices), and try to make the line to look something like what's shown to the right:

• AKEY to select/deselect all vertices
• RMB to select/deselect a vertex
• SHIFT+RMB to select/deselect multiple vertices (or BKEY to use the Border select tool)
• GKEY to move a selection (hold down CTRL while moving to use snapping)

Notice: Be sure that the Proportional Edit Falloff button is off (orange is on; gray is off). You can toggle this control with the OKEY. We'll learn more about proportional edit in a later tutorial, but for this step, it should be off, meaning that you have full control on each vertex separately.

[edit] Spinning the hat

To make a hat out of this curve, we'll use the Spin tool to create a surface of revolution.

Note: the Spin tool, like some other Blender operations, works differently based on the rotation of the 3D view you are on: it will rotate the polyline around the axis that is perpendicular to the plane of the active 3D view and that passes through the 3D cursor.

[edit] Setup

This will make sure the 3D cursor is placed exactly at the rightmost vertex:

• select the rightmost vertex (RMB),
• then choose SHIFT+SKEY and Cursor → Selection.

Then select the curve to spin and choose the rotation axis:

• select all the curve vertices using your favorite method (AKEY, BKEY, etc...),
• choose the top view (NUM7).

[edit] Spin the curve

Switch to the Editing panel (F9, or CMD+F9 for Mac users). In the Mesh Tools tab, locate the Spin, Spin Dup and Screw buttons and fill the fields as indicated below:

Degr: 360
Steps: 12
Turns: 1

Noob Note: There are 3 similarly named tabs [Mesh], [Mesh Tools] and [Mesh Tools 1] (in Blender 2.46, [Mesh Tools More]). Look under [Mesh Tools], which can be found in the editing tab.

Now hit Spin to create a surface of revolution around the Z-axis.

Troubleshooting: in case you have more than one 3D window open, your mouse cursor may change to a "?" sign: additionally click on the window in which you want to perform your rotation (the top view window).

Note: the rotation axis is parallel to the Z-axis because we chose the top view.

[edit] == BIG UPDATE ==

After much struggling to follow many tutorials based on older versions of Blender, I have downloaded multiple versions to discover why the tutorials based on versions such as 2.43 don't work when attempted on updated versions such as Blender 2.48a and above.

Newer versions such as 2.48 have added a new option to /not/ have added objects rotated to the current viewpoint. With older versions, being in top, front or side view would cause any newly added objects to face different directions on creation. Newer versions of Blender introduced the ability to force all objects into the same global orientation; even worse, they set it up that way BY DEFAULT! This means that unless the user deliberately changes the settings in the new versions, many older tutorials will act as if they are broken.

Here is how newer versions of Blender can be set to act in the same way as the older versions: resolved by simply setting the (i): USER PREFERENCES menu in the right way. Newer versions of Blender (such as version 2.48) can be made compatible with older tutorials by changing some important settings:

1) Find the "(i): User Preferences" window 
2) Select the [EDIT METHODS] tab
3) Under the header "Add new objects", click the "Aligned to View" button.
4) Optional: For some tutorials it may also be helpful to click on the "Switch to Edit Mode" button.

Making these simple changes will "unbreak" tutorials written under Blender version 2.43, by allowing new objects to be automatically oriented to whatever viewscreen orientation is selected in the active viewscreen. Any time object rotations, lattices or whatever else end up completely out of alignment with what older tutorials say should happen, these steps are your first best fix for almost every such situation.

[edit] Final touches

We'll now extrude the hat front to make an eyeshade:

• use the top view (NUM7),
• choose Edge select mode (CTRL+TAB),
• then select the four frontmost edges of the hat (RMB for the first one, and SHIFT+RMB for subsequent ones),
• finally extrude the selection (EKEY → Region): drag them down; you can press the YKEY to limit the extrusion to this very direction.

[edit] Now it's time to subsurf

In the Editing buttons, from the Modifiers panel choose: Add Modifier → Subsurf. Rotate the view around and you will notice that your hat has a "split at the seam". Because of the Spin tools options we chose, there are several pairs of vertices that share the exact same spot in 3D space which produce those subdivision seams. To solve this issue: in Edit Mode select all vertices (AKEY) then choose WKEY → Remove Doubles.

Now all our seams will display correctly, since you've removed the unnecessary overlapping vertices in the mesh. Whew! You now have a lovely new hat! Pat yourself on the back, good work! You can neaten it up a little more by hitting WKEY → Set Smooth to give it a nice smooth finish.

If you do not remove doubles, your hat will look like this:

Keep this simple person/simple hat file open because you'll need it in the next tutorial.

[edit] Putting Hat on Person

This tutorial uses the simple person model and hat from a previous tutorial. If you didn't do it, go back and do it now---or find it pre-made just for you here.

Once you have created the hat, and are satisfied with the 'form' of it, now it's time to change the rotation, location, and size of the whole object in 3D space. Switch to Object mode and select the hat.

[edit] Rotation

First, change the rotation of the object. To change the rotation of the hat, press RKEY. Now you can move your mouse around to change its rotation. It will rotate on a different axis depending on what viewpoint you are rotating it from. The rotation axis will always be perpendicular to your viewpoint, so it looks like you're rotating a 2 dimensional image. Press the RMB, or ESC, to bring you back to the original rotation.

When you press the RKEY, you are actually entering a rotation mode that can be altered by further key strokes. For instance, pressing the YKEY after the RKEY will rotate the hat about the Y-axis. Pressing the ZKEY will rotate it about the Z-axis, and the same goes for the XKEY.

If you press the ZKEY, YKEY, or XKEY just once, you will rotate the object around the global X, Y, or Z axis of the scene. If you press the same key a second time, it will rotate around its local axis instead. This will only make a difference if the object has been rotated before, because inititally its local axis will be the same as the global one. So rotate an object a few times to see the difference between local and global rotation. This effect is most dramatic if you select multiple rotated objects and try to rotate them around their individual local axis together.

Also keep in mind that you can select which pivot point to rotate around. If you did the previous exercises it is probably set to the 3D cursor. If so, set it back to Median Point.

Important to note is that the shape will rotate around its origin, or center point, indicated by a small, pink dot that was created when you created the shape. It should be in the center of your vertices, but if it isn't, there are a couple of ways to get it back. One is to go into edit mode, select all vertices, and move them around the center point. Another is use the LMB to put the cursor where you would like the center point, go into object mode and press the "center cursor" button in editing panel (F9). Or you could hit SHIFT+SKEY, select Selection → Center. The final method is to click on the Editing button (F9) and click either the Center or Center New button in the Mesh panel. The Center button will automatically move the object's vertices to the dot, and the Center New button will move the dot to the center of your vertices.

Hit the NUM1 on the numberpad to get the front view. Hit the RKEY, followed by the ZKEY and move your mouse. This will rotate the hat perfectly around the Z-axis. Hold down the CTRL button so it only rotates in 5 degree increments and click the LMB when you come to the correct position. (Do this with the X- and Y-axis if needed).

Alternatively, you can click and drag the LMB in a circular motion around the object, to "draw" an arc. This is called a mouse gesture and has the same effect as pressing the RKEY.

[edit] Location

After you have the hat in proper rotation, you will want to move it to the proper position. You do this the same way you move an individual point. Press the GKEY (for "grab") and move the mouse. Pressing the X, Y, or Z key will have a similar effect as it did with rotation, restricting the movement to the X, Y, or Z axis. Pressing the MMB while moving will also restrict the movement. Pressing the RMB will reset the object to its original position, without making any changes.

Alternatively, you can click and drag the LMB in a straight line to activate moving the object. This is another mouse gesture and the same as pressing the GKEY.

[edit] Size

You may notice that the hat is a little big for the person we created. No problem, we'll just change the size. You do this by pressing the SKEY, for "scale". You can scale the object just along its X, Y, or Z axis, making it thinner, shorter, fatter, or wider.

Alternatively, you can click and drag the LMB back and forth from the object to scale it. Start at the object, move your mouse a little away from it, then drag back to the object to draw a line and go back over it. This is, you've guessed it, a mouse gesture as well and the same as pressing the SKEY.

So, just remember:

• SKEY is for Scale
• RKEY is for Rotation
• GKEY is for Grab (Move)

[edit] Putting it on

Once you have the hat in position, you will want to "put it on". To do this, we make the man the 'parent' of the hat. What this means is that, when we move the hat, we just move the hat. However, when we move the man, we move the man AND the hat.

Save your work before continuing with this exercise! The program may crash and be unusable if you accidentally press PKEY instead of CTRL + PKEY. (Note: PKEY starts the Blender game engine. If you do accidentally press PKEY, ESC should stop it and bring you back.)

Make sure that you are in object mode and the hat is selected. Hold down shift and select the man by pressing the RMB. Both the man and the hat should now be selected. Hold down CTRL and press PKEY and select "make parent" in the confirmation box to make the man a parent to the hat. Now when you move the hat you will see a line from the hat to the man, indicating that the man is the hat's parent. If you move the man, the hat will move along with him. Otherwise, if you only move the hat, the man will stay at its place. Don't forget to pay attention to the order of your selection. The first selected object becomes the child of the second one.

[edit] Mountains Out Of Molehills

Now that we've created our simple person, it's time to give him somewhere to go. In this tutorial we'll create a mountain range using a few simple, and handy tools. First we need a clean area to work with. Either:

• Start off with a new project, using File → New, or hit CTRL+XKEY. If you have a default cube or plane just delete them now (select them with RMB and press XKEY).
• or you may change to a new layer by pressing a number from 2 to 0 on your keyboard or by selecting one of the twenty little gray boxes grouped together in the header of the 3D window.
• Pro tips for layers: 1-0 selects layers 1-10. ALT1-ALT0 selects layers 11-20. Hold shift to de/select multiple layers.

[edit] Creating a simple plane

Our first step is to create a large plane that we'll use for the ground and grow our mountains out of.

• Press on NUM7 to enter top view. This way our plane will be lying flat when we create it.
• Click LMB where the axes cross. This will be the center of the plane we will add.
• Now add the plane with SPACE → Add → Mesh → Plane. This will be our canvas.
• Scale the plane up by about 15. First put the mouse close to the center of the plane and press SKEY and drag the cursor away and watch the numbers in the bottom left of the 3D Window. Hold CTRL to increment by 0.1 for a more precise measurement. Alternatively, to enter the exact amount yourself press SKEY, then simply type 15 and hit ENTER.
• Now we need to add some vertices to work with. In the buttons window, make sure we have the Editing buttons open (or hit F9 in the buttons windows to switch there).

[Noob Note: You also seem to need to go into edit mode before 'Mesh Tools' shows up as a tab under Edit - at least in 2.4.6 and later]

• Under Mesh Tools hit the Subdivide button 4 times. Alternatively, in the 3D View window you can press WKEY and select Subdivide

(Or just hit ENTER, because Subdivide is the first option under WKEY).

Note: As in many of the next tutorials, you may choose to add a grid instead of adding a plane and then subdividing it to have vertices throughout the plane. Adding a grid has the added advantage of allowing you to select the number of vertices along the x and y axes (the two edges) of the grid at the instant of creating the grid, so there is no need to make further subdivisions.

[edit] First mountain

Now that we have the ground, it's time to start growing our mountains.

• Make sure you have nothing selected (AKEY).
• Select a random vertex with RMB. I usually start at the one that is 4 down from the top, 4 in from the left (the 4th vertex if you count the edges).
• Change to the side view with NUM3.

• Press OKEY to change to proportional edit mode or use the button which shows a grey ring on the header of the 3D View. The button will change its color to orange. You can also use SPACE → Transform→Proportional Edit
• Once you've turned proportional edit mode on, another button appears to its right, the falloff button. Select Smooth Falloff here. Alternatively you can use the menu on the header of the 3D View (Mesh → Proportional Falloff → Smooth) or, using SHIFT + OKEY will switch between Sharp and Smooth Falloff (in versions prior to 2.37) or cycle through all 6 falloff types (in versions 2.37 and up) while using the Proportional editing tool.
• Press GKEY to grab the vertex. We should now have a circle surrounding the vertex, this is our radius of influence. Basically any vertices inside this circle will be affected by any changes to the vertex itself.
• Use the Mouse Wheel or PAGE_UPKEY and PAGE_DOWNKEY to adjust the radius of influence to include just over 2 vertices on each side of our selected vertex. (Depending on your version of Blender, you may need to use ALT + NUM+/ PAGE_UPKEY and ALT + NUM-/ PAGE_DOWNKEY and may need to hold down the LMB while using the Mouse Wheel to adjust the radius of the influence.On Mac, hold the "fnKey" down and hit "page-up" or "page-down"). In 2.41 you must 'grab' the vertex first - only then can you alter the sphere of influence (in my version, 2.42a, the 3D cursor had to be snapped to the selection before the wheel appeared).

Noob Note: To change the radius on a Macbook press "fn"+ up/down. OSX uses function + arrow keys as replacements for windows "home", "end", "page up" and "page down" keys.

• Move the vertex up about 8 units on the Z-Axis. Do this by dragging the cursor up a little, and press the MMB; this should restrain the movements along the Z-axis. Now use CTRL to move it precisely. Alternatively you can use ZKEY to restrain movements to the Z-Axis and type 8 and hit ENTER. In older versions of Blender you may need to hit the NKEY before typing the number 8.

Congratulations, we just created our first mountain. Now it's time to see what other things we can accomplish with the proportional editing tool.

[edit] Peaks vs. hills

The 2.37 and onward releases offer at least 6 types and 2 modes of proportional editing. The previous release only has 2 of these types: Smooth and Sharp Falloff. We'll take a look at the difference between these two now.

• Change to top view again with NUM7. You'll notice that now your "mountain" looks like a few differently shaded squares in the grid; you're looking down on shaded tiles, but in the Z axis, they're all still perfectly aligned with the original grid.
• Select another vertex away from the first. Let's say 4 from the bottom 4 from the right (counting the vertices on the edges).
• Change back to the side view with NUM3
• Select Sharp Falloff from the menu on the bar of the 3D View. Alternatively, using SHIFT+OKEY will switch from one to the next of the 6 proportional editing modes while using the Proportional editing tool.
• As before, move the vertex up 8 units on the Z-Axis (Note: The radius of influence will still be the same size as when we last used it).
  • GKEY
  • ZKEY
  • Type 8 and hit ENTER

Now we can see the differences between the sharp and smooth falloff. The same number of vertices are affected in both cases; only the degree to which they are affected is different.

The different proportional editing modes can be selected from the box immediately to the left of the proportional editing type box. The mode box contains three options: Off, On, and Connected. "Off" means that proportional editing will not be used. "Connected" means that only vertices linked to the selected vertices will be affected by the radius of influence. "On" means that all vertices will be affected.

[edit] Shaping the world

Now that we've created a couple of Mountains, it's time to see how we can use proportional editing to shape them.

• First make sure we're in side view (NUM3).
• Then on the smooth falloff mountain, the first one we created, select the vertex that is immediately down and left from the topmost point.
• Press RKEY to rotate, scroll the MMB to change effective radius so it includes other points, and hold CTRL and rotate everything by -90. Alternatively, use RKEY, NKEY, and type -90 and press ENTER

Feel free to play around with scaling or rotating from different view points (don't forget that you can also use GKEY to move vertecies vertically or horizontally).

[Noobie Roy says: Huh??? I don't understand what I'm supposed to be achieving here. What is supposed to happen when I rotate? As far as I can see, nothing at all happens. Can you maybe show us a before and after screenshot? Or maybe explain in more detail? Thanks!] [Noobie Sean says: Roy, you made the mountains by using proportional editing with grab/move. Moving one vertex moved its neighbours, within the proportional circle. Rotate and scale also use proportional editing to rotate or scale about the selected vertex much like the grab/move operation.][noobie larry says i tried rotating just that one point but nothing happens] [One thing to watch out for is the range of affected vertices. If the range is too small, then rotating will affect just the selected vertex. If the range is too large, it will rotate everything together. You can adjust the range by scrolling.]

[Dusty says: To answer Noobie Roy, the reason nothing may happen, is that the circle of influence may be only including the vertex that you have selected when you first hit R. After pressing R scroll the mouse wheel to increase the circle include the other vertices next to the one selected, then type 90 and you'll see the effect. Scroll the mouse wheel further more (to include more vertices) and you see the effect spread out.]

[Another newbie says: two things to keep in mind here: really weird things will happen here if you set the rotation/scaling pivot to "3d cursor" at this point (I assume the intention is to rotate around the single selected vertex, so the other pivot modes will all work, I think), and (as Dusty says) you must increase the effective radius quite a bit (use the scrollwheel after pressing RKEY, just keep going until you are affecting half the plane to see what's going on). What makes it a bit confusing is that some vertices seem to be inside the initial affected region (with the radius you used to create the previous mountain) in the two-dimensional side view, but that affected region is actually a three-dimensional sphere, so you cannot tell from just that side view what vertices are inside the affected region. I am not explaining this very well, but it helps to have more than one 3d view open so you can see that every vertex is outside the affected radius in at least one view (try splitting the main view into 4 equally sized parts so you can have a top, front, side and "free" 3d view open all at the same time).[Yet another noob says: if you are following the tutorial exactly, your proportional edit falloff will be at sharp at this point. This makes the effect of the rotation hard to see unless your circle of influence is quite large.]

[Dbproguy mentions: From what I am seeing, this effects the texture of the mountain, so it's not so plain.]

Try viewing your world from top view while rotating with a large effective radius.

[edit] Smoothing things out

Now that we have a couple of budding mountains, you probably think they look kind of choppy. Sure they would be good if we were making an 8-bit console game, but we're working with 3D here, we want things to look sharper (or maybe smoother) than that. There are a couple of approaches to this. The first is to use more vertices when we create our plane. And I won't lie, it works. But it's also a HUGE resource hog. It would take your home computer hours of work just to keep things updated, let alone run it. So instead, we fake it. The easiest way to do this is to turn on SubSurfaces (we saw this in Detailing Your Simple Person 1.) For our purposes, let's set the subdivision (Levels) to 2. Also, ensure our SubSurf algorithm is set to Catmull-Clark (this is the default setting).

Now, you'll notice that with SubSurf on, we lose a lot of hard edges that we had, essentially we have no sharp corners any more. I don't know about you, but to me that doesn't make for a very interesting mountain range. So to restore our corners, we are going to use Weighted Creases for Subsurfs.

• First turn off proportional editing with the OKEY , and ensure we're in side view with NUM3
  • Noob note: That means, the letter O key, not the zero key. Also, NUM3 means "3 on the numeric keypad," not on the top row of the keyboard.
• Next, while still in edit mode, change to Edge Select mode with CTRL+TAB and select Edges. Alternatively press Edge Select Mode button at the bottom of the object window.
• Under the Edit buttons under Mesh Tools 1 (Mesh Tools More in versions 2.46 and later) ensure that Draw Creases is selected. (Mesh Tools 1 may be off the screen, if so, use the scroll wheel when over the Edit Panel to reveal it. Alternatively, you can pan the buttons window by dragging with the MMB; or you can collapse some of the panels by clicking the arrow next to their names.)
  • Noob note: "Mesh Tools 1" is a separate panel from "Mesh Tools" and from "Mesh". By moving the mouse cursor over the buttons window (remember this 'activates' windows) and using the mouse wheel, you will cause the tabs to scroll from side to side, revealing some you couldn't see before. If the one you need still isn't there you should check to make sure you're still in edit mode, or make sure it isn't 'minimized' which is done by clicking the little white arrow at the top left of the tab.
• On our Sharp Falloff mountain, the second one we did, select the two edges on the right. (see image below)
  
• Press SHIFT+EKEY or SPACE → Edit → Edges → Crease SubSurf, then move the mouse away from the edge until the edge Crease reads 1.000 in the 3D viewport header. If moving the cursor there seems to be impossible, just hit 1 and enter.

As you move the cursor away from the edge you will notice two things. The first is that the edge becomes thicker as we move from it; this is showing how much of a crease we have (with Draw Creases turned on). The second is that you will notice the subsurfed mesh moving closer to the edge as the sharpness increases.

Noob Henry: What I do is take the mountain, and then set a subsurf level of two. Then, I hit the 'set smooth' button, and use the individual vertices to make it look authentic.

[edit] Naturalness

Press CTRL+TAB and select vertices. then go into front view NUM1 and select the second vertex from the top in the centre, then go into side view NUM3. Push GKEY and drag the vertex inwards, not too far or your mountain will come out of itself on the other side. Just bring it in enough to make a small indent.

Then grab the top vertex and pull it down a small amount. You will notice that there is a small "crunch" in your mountain.

Don't forget to select all, press WKey and hit the set smooth button to smooth everything out.

OK, so your mountains are starting to shape up. But they still look a bit too neat. You could spend time moving each individual vertex but the chances are your model will still lack the natural feel. What we need is some chaos. Thankfully this is quite easy to accomplish. Firstly select the vertices that make up your mountains, all of them and a few around the base (box and circle select will make this easier). Select a few vertices between the mountains too. Next we use something called fractals. Fractals are chaotically (ie randomly) generated variables. In short you can use these variables to give your mountains a "wobbly" look.

Fractals are located in the Mesh Tools section of your edit buttons (next to Noise, Hash and Xsort). Click it and you'll be asked for a value. This value is the strength of the fractal. 1 is very low and will barely change your model. 100 is very high and will twist your models into very odd shapes indeed. Have a play with different values until you find one that you like. Around about 15-30 should do it. Hit OK and hey presto, your mountains have been transformed from clinical neatness, to lumpy chaos.

• If you make too many fractals, your computer will slow down. However, the more fractal you add, the more bumpy and realistic it looks!

Noob Note: Repeatedly using the fractal tool seems to rapidly multiply the amount of vertices on your canvas. I suggest using the tool once, and if the result isn't satisfying, undo the result (CTRL + Z) and try it again with a different fractal strength. Even after undo, your selected vertices remain selected.

Noob Note #2: If you have a new enough version of Blender (2.49 and up definitely has it, not sure about lower versions), there is a setting called Random in the Proportional Editing settings. Using this with a high radius may give a desired result for you without adding more mesh.

 (Under Construction [TO DO: finish me])

[edit] Adding your guy with the hat

If you changed to a new layer-- press (SHIFT) select the layer with your guy on it or (SHIFT + 1). This will display both layers. If you would like to move the landscape from the second layer to the first then with the landscape selected, press (M), and select the layer(s) you would like it on. note- make sure you're in object mode. If you started a new project-- To insert your guy with a hat, you can simply go to file > append or link(shift+F1).

• Then select the file from the previous tutorial.
• You will then see a list of objects you can insert or ‘append’.
• First go into the 'Object' folder. Unless you renamed him/her, your person will probably be named “cube.” Select it.
• Make sure that 'Append' button is pressed; otherwise you will not be able to scale or translate, or edit your model at all. (The 'Link' button will link a copy of your object into the current scene, and will update any changes when you reload the file. Unfortunately, this includes location and size, so we will not use it right now.)
• Press 'Load Library' to place your guy into the mountain scene. Please note, the Load Library button is top right. Confusingly, there is some text bottom left that says Load Library as well, but isn't clickable.
• Repeat the process to get the hat (probably named “circle”). To reset the parental relationship, see the instructions at the end of the previous tutorial. To scale them to the appropriate size, go to object mode by pressing TAB (unless of course you are already there). Select the object you want to resize, then press the SKEY and use the cursor to scale as you see fit. To undo any mistakes, use CTRL+Z.

Noob Note: To import the file once you have the list select the item, i.e. cube, and in the bottom right select "Active Layer" that will append it to your current proj when you click "Load Library" your work should be visible now.

Noob Note: Multiple items may be appended simultaneously. For instance: both 'cube' and 'circle' objects can be appended at the same time by highlighting both object names within the file browser by means of a RMB Click. RMB on object again to deselect.

[edit] Creating Models With Photo Assistance

The first tutorial is about using guide images to place vertices in their proper places in 3D space. The second tutorial is on how to take good reference pictures. These tutorials assume that you have completed all previous tutorials.

[edit] Making A Pyramid

Note: This section may be incredibly frustrating to new Blender users. If you are starting out it is recommended you go over the earlier modeling tutorials first before going through this section.

First we are going to create a pyramid the easy way. Then we are going to show how to use different viewpoints and images as a guide to place vertices correctly in 3D space.

You should have the default cube, if not, press CTRL+XKEY to start a new project.

• Go into Edit Mode (if in Object Mode, press TAB).
• Select side (right) view (NUM3).
• Make sure no vertices are selected by pressing AKEY.
• Ensure the "Limit selection to visible" ("Occlude background geometry" in Blender 2.46 and later) icon is disabled so we can select all four of the top vertices, even the back two which aren't visible.
• Go to Box Select mode (BKEY) draw a box around the top vertices of the box
• Merge vertices by pressing ALT+MKEY → At center and the top of the box is merged to a single point
• Unselect all vertices (AKEY).
• Box select (BKEY) the bottom 4 vertices
• Hollow out the bottom of the pyramid by deleting the bottom face XKEY → faces (remember that if you want to change to face select mode press CTRL + TAB → faces)

  note: with versions 2.46 of Blender and later, you just have to select merge at center after the merge vertices step to create a pyramid, the last 3 steps aren't needed.

  note: you can do this easier by making the top vertices closer to each other (SKEY)

and then use Remove Double (in editing buttons/Mesh tools tab)

Now that we have the pyramid the easy way, let's learn how to use photos as references to build models. First, unselect all the vertices by pressing AKEY. Next, select the bottom four vertices of the pyramid and delete them with DEL or XKEY. The only vertex left will be the vertex which makes the tip of the pyramid. This will be used later.

note: in Blender 2.48 you can go to edit mode face mode select top face and size it down.

[edit] Window Layout

To make things easier, open the user preferences window and in the "View & Controls" sub-menu, turn on the "View Name" option. The window names will be used for reference inside the rest of this tutorial.

Split the Main 3D view window in to 4 windows.

Reminder: to split windows, move the mouse to the border of the view, when the cursor transforms into arrow, right-click and choose "Split Area". (Explained in the guide: Noob to Pro/Blender Windowing System.)

Change the point of view in each window so that they end up like this:

NUM1	NUM7
NUM3	NUM0

And if you click on View, you can see that these windows are respectively:

Front	Top
Side (Right)	Camera

By knowing which view you are looking at you may find that you quickly get the idea of what you are doing and can proceed somewhat intuitively in this section on your own without following all of the step by step instructions.

[edit] Reference Pictures

Make a picture of a white square and of a white triangle in the GIMP, Paint :) , or some other image editor.

Read the following section carefully: Make sure that the drawing of the square is square and not just rectangular. Make the triangle the same width and height as the square. Make sure the apex of the triangle is directly above the midpoint of its baseline.

Suggested method of construction#1: Make the square. Save it, but keep it open. Delete everything except the bottom line. Make the triangle from the lower corners (ends of the baseline) and make sure the two new lines meet exactly above the midpoint of the baseline. Make sure the triangle is visible against a black background as shown in the image. Save as a new file.

Suggested method of construction#2: Download the black and white triangle image on the right of the screen and use that, make a square by filling it white and resaving it.

Suggested method of construction#3: (if you are using Photoshop): make a square selection of "n by n" size, remember the value of "n". Fill it with white color and save. To create a triangle of needed properties make a rectangular selection of same (n by n) size, on a new layer, click RMB on your document, choose "Transform selection" option in the pop-up menu. Once you are in "Transform selection" mode, right-click the blank image again. This time the pop-up menu would be different. Choose "Perspective" from it, and with LMB drag one of the two top vertices toward the other. Once the vertices meet (in the top-center of the image), exit the transformation mode, and fill the resulting triangular selection with white.

Note for Gimp users: turn on the grid (View->Show Grid, View->Snap to Grid), use the rectangle select with a fixed aspect ratio of 1:1 (in the tool options panel) to select a square that you can flood fill. For the triangle, use the node tool to draw a triangular path, convert to selection (Select->From Path) and fill it. Or you could just use Inkscape...

Save the files to a place that is easy to access. Blender only supports the TGA, PNG, and JPG image formats.

[edit] Background Images

Load the white square into the top (NUM7) window by going to the 3D view window and pressing View → Background image → (click on the icon of a file) find your file and click "select image"

Load the white triangle into the front (NUM1) and side (right or NUM3) windows.

If necessary, zoom out so that you can see the whole picture.

Now you have a guide for making a pyramid.

If you can not see the picture, switch to Ortho view by hitting NUM5

[edit] Side One

The vertex that is left will be the topmost point of the pyramid. Use the GKEY to move the vertex around. To get it in the right spot, line it up at the top most point in the front (NUM1) and side (right or NUM3) windows. If you look in the top (NUM7) window the vertex should appear to be in the center. Make sure to keep the vertex highlighted for the next step.

(note: it might be helpful at some point to zoom in and use the X,Y and Z movement restriction)

Now, we are going to place more vertices in the scene. Since we want to have the new vertices connected to the first one, we will make sure the first vertex is selected and hold down CTRL and click LMB to create a new one. In the side (right or NUM3) window, place a vertex on the lower left edge of the triangle by holding CTRL and clicking there. This should create a line between your 2 points. If needed, use GKEY to line it up in that window and also at the lower right point in the top (NUM7) window.

Next, with only one of the vertices selected, in the front (NUM1) window place a vertex on the lower left edge of the triangle using the same method. Line it up in that window and at the lower left point in the top (NUM7) window.

Now, select your 3 vertices (use AKEY) in the front (NUM1) window and press the FKEY. You should see a triangle appear.

[edit] Side Two

Press AKEY to deselect all vertices and select the vertex at the top of the pyramid again. Repeat the process from Side One to make the next side. Place a vertex in each of the other corners of the square using CTRL and LMB. Line them up in two different views with the corners of the triangle and square. Make sure only the top vertex and the two new vertices are selected and press FKEY. This will fill in a face opposite of the first face in the pyramid.

[edit] Sides Three and Four

To fill in the other two sides, select the top vertex and the two corner vertices on a side where there is no face yet. Again, use FKEY to fill in a face. Repeat this for the last side to have all four sides created.

[edit] Bottom

In the top (NUM7) window, select all four corners and make a face. You should have a solid pyramid! Now, select all 4 faces, hit XKEY, and choose "faces".

[edit] Taking the Best Reference Photos

Remember what I said about turning a cube into a puppy? We'll do that now.

[edit] Step One: Get the pictures of the model

Tip: The images here do not line up. Some need to be rotated and others do not match in size. They will be kept so that you can get the "real feel" for this project.

If you have a puppy and a digital camera, take three pictures of the cute little rascal and upload them. If you don't have a puppy, any object or small animal will do. Ideally, the photos will be looking straight down at the top of the puppy, a side view, and a front view. It's important that the puppy be in the same pose in all three photos! Or at least close to the same pose...we all know puppies don't stand still very long.

You could use two mirrors. One is placed next to the puppy at 45 degrees to the camera and 45 degrees to the puppy. Another is placed above the puppy, also at 45 degrees to the camera and 45 degrees to the puppy. This produces three images, one of the puppy (front \ NUM1), one of its reflection seen 90 degrees to the right (side \ right \ NUM3)), and one of its reflection seen from overhead (top \ NUM7). Take the photo from a long distance away with a zoom lens to get close to an orthographic projection.

Or how about pictures of a toy wolf taken from 6 views points?:

• Left view
• Right view
• Front view
• Back view
• Bottom view
• Top view

Using your favorite image editor, such as PhotoShop or the GIMP, down-scale the images need to a reasonable size (I made mine 512x384), and then match them to each other. To match them, draw construction lines (pulled from the rulers above and to the left) on the left view for example to pick out key features. I picked the tail, the front of the back foot, eye level, tip of the ear, and the front of the nose:

I found when I picked out these features that this first image needed to be rotated slightly. That completed, I proceeded to scale, rotate and shift the other two views (top and front) until they matched fairly well as layers on top:

Once I had the proper results I saved the resulting images, and these are the ones we will use in Blender.

The results are the files you'll need for Step Two:

Just right-click and save them some place where you can find them to load them into Blender for Step Two. You may notice the photos aren't perfect, but we'll use them just to show how you should deal with your real photos. When you are creating your own pictures to import, note parallax. In this example, parallax is present, and we'll attempt to compensate.

Reader note: I used Paint Shop Pro 7. I used layers and played with transparencies to be able to see where the views fitted best with each others and align them better.

[edit] Step Two: Get the Picture into Blender

Getting the image into blender is the easy part. The more difficult part will be creating the mesh, but first things first. Create a new file (File → New) to see the familiar default objects. Don't bother deleting the cube, we'll end up using it in the tutorial. Just as was done in the "Making A Pyramid" section, split the 3D Viewer into four views and assign them the following view ports. Note that the arrangement is different than that used in the previous tutorial.

NUM7	NUM3
NUM1	NUM0

Each window will show you different XYZ coordinates with the NUM0 view being what your object will look like to the camera object.

Now that the screen is set up, let's load the images. In the top left viewport (XY), click View on the viewport's header (the menu at the bottom). From the menu provided, select Background Image .... A small window will appear.

Click the Use Background Image button and several more buttons will appear. Now click on the folder icon located to the right of Image:. A new full-viewport window will appear. Explore this window a bit and end up selecting the image file of the wolf from the top view. What you should get is the picture of the toy wolf from above with the default cube on top of it. Rotate your view of the cube. The picture disappeared! But don't worry - the picture is still there. Press NUM7 to realign the viewport and see the picture again.

Tip: Be sure to be in orthographic view Num 5 or else you won't see the picture.

Now load the front view of the wolf into the NUM3 viewport (YZ) as you did the top view. Repeat the procedure and load the side view of the wolf into the NUM1 viewport (XZ). As a note, each picture is specific to the viewport it was loaded into. When you switch between axes views, the picture will not change. Try this out by changing the top left viewport to NUM3 and NUM1. Return the viewport to NUM7 before continuing.

The pictures are now loaded into the Blender viewports. If you look at the pictures on the grid, you may notice that the front view of the wolf isn't quite center. That is okay, Blender has a way to fix it.

Move your cursor over the NUM3 viewport and press Shift + SpaceBar, this expands the current viewport (NUM3/front view) to a fullscreen view, then open the Background Image window for the front view again. Notice that there are picture manipulation options available. One of these includes picture offsets. Click on right side of the 'X Offset: 0.00' to increase the offset to 0.20. The picture will be shifted over slightly so now the wolf is more centered. Press Shift + SpaceBar again to return to the four viewport view you created earlier.

Figure 2.2.1 Viewport picture setup

The setup work is now done! Let's start on actually making the wolf model.

Reader Note: If you, like me, weren't paying that much care to how your "wolf front view pic" was aligned from left to right earlier on during the gimp editing phases, then you may need to use a different 'X Offset: ' value than '0.20' that the author recommends. If that is the case, then just use some appropriate alignment value to center it visually as best you can. Hopefully this helps with avoiding some potential confusion for other readers.

[edit] Step Three: Rough Model Fitting

This is a brute force model creation using techniques discussed previously in this book. This section is meant to help you explore and become more comfortable with them. Do not try to follow the example to the tee. Your wolf and my wolf will probably not look the same since you may want to add more or have less detail.

[Note: If you are following this book all the way through, and are just getting started with blender, the following step (step 3 as a whole that is) may likely take several hours to complete. The best strategy is to take breaks, be patient, and with time you'll figure out the best way to go about this step.]

The rough fit stage requires either some planning or on-the-spot decisions. Think about where the wolf will have parts of its body flex or require parts jutting out.

The first step is to create a blocky wolf. Start out with a column of blocks using the extrude face command (select face, EKEY). Don't worry about snapping the vertices to the grid since we are working with an organic figure.

Figure 2.3.1 Body column formation

The next step is to split the ears and legs off of the body. Do this by subdividing the appropriate faces. Save often, and if you make a mistake, go ahead and use the undo option (CTRL ZKEY). Also, if you find yourself looking at redundant faces, combine them (FKEY).

Figure 2.3.2 Appendage formation
]

If you are having trouble with this, try mousing over the perspective window (the one you designated with NUM0) and using the MMB to rotate the view so that you are looking at the underside of the wolf. Click on the face underneath the wolf that is alongside his front legs (use the side view to check this). We are going to subdivide this face in order to grow legs off the new faces. To subdivide, press the WKEY and choose subdivide. You will see that the face has been divided into four. Take one of these faces and extrude it as many times as is necessary to make the right leg. Then do the same again for his left leg. (NOOB NOTE: Be sure to extrude each leg and ear separately exactly as it says here. I multiple-selected both faces to extrude the rear legs from simultaneously and they ended up sharing common vertices at the corners where they meet, making the legs difficult to separate.) Use the pictures as a guide.

Doing the ears is similar, except instead of working underneath you will start with the face on top of the wolf which is directly over the ears. Select this face and subdivide it once. Deselect everything using AKEY, then select one of these four faces and extrude it upwards once to make an ear. Do the same for the face alongside it to make the other ear.

Finally, extrude the tail end of the wolf one more time, so that your wolf has as many divisions as the picture above.

Let's start refining the model starting with the tail. Try putting your viewports in wireframe mode by pushing Z, it may make things much easier. Line up the vertices over the wolf in each viewport by lasso selecting multiple vertices (CTRL LMB, Drag). then move to the right location with grab (GKEY).

Figure 2.3.3 Working on the tail

Continue onto the hind legs of the wolf. It is trickier to manipulate the legs so keep rotating a viewport to look at the model from multiple perspectives. Remember that we are working in three dimensions.

Figure 2.3.4 Working on the hind legs

Continue working up along the wolf fitting the blocks to the pictures. If you have problems seeing the picture because the model is in the way, let's hide the model. In Edit Mode, select the entire model by AKEY or by pressing LKEY when you have the cursor over the model. Simply pressing HKEY will hide the selected items. To unhide the view, use ALT+HKEY. By hiding and unhiding the model, or parts of the model, you should be able to keep using the picture as a guide.

Once you have the first pass done, you'll notice that the model just won't fit all three pictures correctly. This is due to parallax. The most obvious example is the side view. The four feet should be level, as they are all standing on a flat surface. Since they are not, we'll just ignore some of the aspects of each picture and continue with the model. (This is a helpful example to show what you need to consider when taking your own pictures.)

Figure 2.3.5 Completed rough fit

Attention: The top right Viewport is said to be "NUM3 - Side" but the Picture shows the wolf from the front! So care and change the picture with the left window at the bottom or change the Viewportsettings

Reader Note: this is because for the pictures to line up correctly the front has to be in the side viewport and the side has to be in the front viewport.

Reader note: The author realizes that he can't line up the images this way in Blender but forget to explain why after changing the position of the wolves. If you put the TOP wolf in a window set up for a TOP VIEW (NUM7) you'll have a VERTICAL looking down wolf. In the same way if you put a SIDE VIEW of the wolf (looking right) you'll have an error in the FRONT VIEW because SIDE VIEW (NUM3) is planed to receive a LEFT SIDE VIEW of your object, the result is that in FRONT VIEW You'll have the ass o the wolf.

Put in your SIDE VIEW (NUM3) an left looking wolf and in TOP VIEW a looking down wolf and all will be in order, or use the side view to represent front and front to show the side as he does at last, wich is much more complicated and difficult to explain.

[edit] Step Four: Refining the Wolf Model

Now that the rough fit is done, let's smooth out the wolf. Add a Subsurf modifier and set the Levels to 2. The wolf will now be smoothed, but we want to add some of the hard lines back into the model. This may be accomplished with creased edges.

First, turn on the view creased edges by toggling the Draw Creases button in the Mesh Tools 1 window. Enter Select Edges or Select Faces mode (CTRL TAB). Highlight the edge or face you want to crease and press SHIFT + EKEY. Use the mouse and pull away from the center until the Crease value is close to what you want. A value of +1.000 will give you the sharpest look and is useful for places such as the bottoms of the paws. When an edge has been creased, the edge will be highlighted in yellow (positive crease) or black (negative crease). These highlights are shown due to the 'Draw Creases' button being turned on.

In this example, I creased edges along the paws, tail, ears, and nose to give them some sharpness.

Figure 2.4.1 Creased edges

The last step is to refit the model to the pictures. You may have noticed that when the model was smoothed, the result didn't quite fit to the pictures. Now is a great time to tweak the vertices to fit to the pictures or add to/modify the model.

And here is my basic wolf based on three pictures!

Figure 2.4.2 Final toy wolf model

[edit] Alternative Wolf Modelling

(user comment) I was doing this tutorial and though I´m still a noob at this I thought I could contribute a little to this. I decided only to do half a wolf and then mirror it to create a complete wolf. I started out with creating the silhouette of the wolf body in the side view, and then in front view I started to shape the wolf head, tail and legs...

User Note: If you are attempting this method, I read in a much later tutorial that it is best to avoid using triangles in rounded areas of a Mesh, because they tend to cause artifacts in your model (artifacts are protruding edges or other things that don't look realistic). Apparently, using quads is a much better alternative. Triangles should only be used on flat areas of your mesh if they cannot be avoided.

And at any rate this is what I ended up with. Not the best wolf ever, but as I said before I´m still pretty noobish.

From this point forward there are multiple ways to do the exact same thing, however for simplicity's sake and so that I can be more detailed I will be using one method (the one which I use) and be using GIMP.

I found it best to size all the photos to a known width, with an easy to find center. (Mine happened to be 850x638 pixels, I don’t recommend that but you can choose any size you want really, as long as all of them are the same size). Then drag the construction lines to form a crosshair in the middle of the photo. To do this, click on the top ruler, and drag down to the middle (Exact middle) of the photo, then click on the side ruler and drag across to the middle (Again exact middle) of the photo.

If you are having troubles finding the exact middle of the photo, move the cursor to the very bottom left of your photo and the height of your photo will be listed at the bottom left of the GIMP interface. The numbers are listed in an (x,y) format so you want the first number to say 0 and the second to be the largest you can make it by dragging your cursor. The second number is the height, and half of that is the middle of your photo. You can do the same with the top ruler to find the vertical middle of your photo. Only this time the co-ordinates at the bottom left of the GIMP interface should list the second number (y) as 0, and the first number should be as large as you can make it by moving your cursor (to the upper right of the photo).Once you have your width again half of that will be the middle of your photo.

Then using construction lines put one at the top of your object, and the bottom of your object. Find the "height" of your object by the distance between them. Remove the construction lines from the top and the bottom, and place a new construction line above the horizontal center line by the half of the "height"(of your object). Now place a construction line on both sides of your object and find the “width” (distance between the new vertical lines), then remove those construction lines and place a new construction line vertically half of the "width"(of your object) to the right of the vertical center line. Now cut the object out, and drag it so that the point you used as the "top" is on the horizontal construction line that is above the middle. Then Drag the photo left or right until the right edge of the object is on the vertical construction line you put in right of the middle construction line.

Now the center of your object is at the center of your photo. This is a very important thing because when blender loads in the picture you will need this so that all of your pictures match up with each other 3d. You should repeat these steps with all 3 photos. I also dont recommend doing it in GIMP's "layered mode" as that caused more pandemonium for me. I recommend opening each photo in a new window .

Taking your pictures is the most important part, because if the pictures are not all in the same scale (object size to photo size) then your photos will not line up and you won't be able to place a dot on the same location from front view, side view, and top view.

As a recommendation I would recommend making your first model from a Lego man. That is what I did and it is very simplistic easy practice. To take my photos I took about 10 minutes to construct a photo platform for my object. It consisted of a cardboard box with two sides cut out. I covered the inside area with computer paper. I then used a 2”x4” and a ruler to make sure that the box stayed the same distance from the camera for all shots, as well as marking where the Lego man’s feet were positioned inside the box with a pencil. This will provide good pictures, providing you keep the camera at the same distance and zoom for all three photos.

[edit] Modeling a Gingerbread Man

In this tutorial you will learn how to make a simple gingerbread man. In a later tutorial you will be able to make an animation with this gingerbread man.

In this tutorial we will tie together everything we've talked about up to this point, including extruding, subdividing and rendering, and throw in basic lighting.

[edit] Modelling

First, start Blender. You should see a cube in the 3D View. (scroll with the MMB or press CTRL+MMB). Make sure you are in orthographic mode : press NUM5 to go into orthographic mode.

• Select the cube by clicking RMB on it. To review, when an object is a pinkish color, it is selected.
• Now press TAB. When you press TAB it will switch you between Object Mode and Edit Mode. If you pressed TAB you will see pinkish dots. The pink dots are called vertices. (You will know if you are in Edit Mode if you can see those dots.) When you select vertices with the RMB, they will turn yellow.
• Select all the vertices (AKEY once or twice) and then click on the editing tab in the header of the buttons window (or you can just press F9) to go to editing.

• Once you are there you will see a new menu at the bottom of the page, click on the subdivide button in the section called Mesh Tools (while all the vertices are selected). You will see that your cube now has more vertices. This tool is used for dividing an object so that you can do more complex models. [Note] In newer versions, you can also hit SPACE and, in the menu that comes up, Edit → Edges → Subdivide. [Note] You can also press the WKEY, and click subdivide

• Now press AKEY to unselect all the vertices, go to the front view (NUM1) and press BKEY and drag a square around the top left and middle left vertices or press BKEY twice and you will see a circle around your mouse - all the vertices in the circle will be selected by pushing LMB.

• Take a closer look on the selected vertices by viewing the model from a different angle (remember that you can use MMB to achieve this). If you find that you have only selected two vertices and not six, there are 2 ways of solving your problem.
  
  You could hit the ZKEY to toggle between wireframe mode and solid mode or you could hit (and deactivate) the "Occlude Background Geometry" button ("Limit selection to visible" in Blender 2.45 and earlier) in the selection mode buttons (note that this button is shown only if you're in solid mode). Repeat the previous step and see the difference.

• After selecting the 6 vertices press EKEY and select Region. This will extrude the selected vertices. Put the new vertices on the adjacent gray line of the grid one unit to the left (press CTRL to snap to grid). Do this two times so that it looks like below (the snapshot has been taken in a front view (NUM1)) :

• Clear your selection (AKEY).

• Now select the other two vertices (six in 3D again) on the opposite side and do the same there as explained above. Now the arms are complete, as you can see in the illustration below.

  

Now we will do the legs.

• First, unselect all the vertices : use AKEY.

• Select the bottom left two vertices, extrude it and put them in between the gray line (the gray lines in the grid representing the Blender units) and the second gray line below. If holding down CTRL you will notice that the two vertices snap to the grid in the background and you won't be able to select in between them, but jump between one and two of them. Press SHIFT as well and you'll be able to go in tenths of the units. (You can also just enter the number 1.5 to extrude it 1 1/2 units out. On Mac, enter the number 1, press fn with the key that is right under Lkey and Mkey on Azerty (the one with /:,), and press the number 5)

  

• Extrude it again and put it on the third gray line (or, once again, enter 1.5). It should now look like this:

• Use the BKEY to select the bottom 4 vertices (12 in 3D) of the leg, and use the GKEY to pull it out to the left by half a square so that it looks like this

  

• Do this again for the right leg.

• Use BKEY to select the vertices at the groin (where the two legs join)

• Press GKEY and pull it down by 1/2 a square (type GKEY, ZKEY and write -0.5 - in older version you have to type type GKEY, ZKEY but also NKEY and write -0.5 then)

(I had some problems here, trying to move the vertices. There were too many vertices in the same place, and that creates strange forms. To erase the duplicate vertices on top of each other, you can either select the entire model, or just the vertices you want to clean. Then press WKEY and choose Remove Doubles.)

  

• Click RMB on the object to select it then press SHIFT + SKEY and select Cursor → Selection. This will make sure the cube you'll add next will be near where you want it.

• Return to Object mode

• Press SPACE and put your mouse on the mesh option and select cube. In others versions, you can also hit SPACE and , in the menu that comes up, choose Add → Mesh → Cube.

• Press GKEY and put your new cube about 1/3 of the way down the neck (to achieve this, you can press GKEY and ZKEY : enter 1.33).

Now we will make it look more like a ginger bread man by making it thinner.

• Go to side view with NUM3.

• Press SKEY for scale and press YKEY for Y-axis and then move your mouse to the middle until it is about 0.3 (use CTRL for fixed values).

• Remember X-axis is the Red arrow/line, Y-axis is the Green one, and Z-axis is Blue (like RGB video mode).

• In OBJECT mode, use RMB on the body and press SKEY and then YKEY and make it as flat as the head.

• Use the MMB to spin the view around and examine your handiwork.

At this point, it doesn't look entirely like a gingerbread man, does it? It's a bit too ... chunky. For the last bit, we'll smooth it out.

• Make sure you've selected the body in object mode.

• Select the editing panel in the buttons window (or hit F9).

• In the Modifiers tab, Add a "Subsurf" modifier. You can also push SHIFT + O

• Set the level of the subdivisions to 2, and the number of render levels to 3.

'Noob question: When i add the cube for the head, it stops me from being able to edit the body - it will only select the head to apply subsurf to, even if the body looks like its selected!! Any ideas why???

'Answer: When you created the cube you made a second object. To select a different object, press tab to enter Object mode. Select the body. Then enter edit mode again if you want to edit the body.

• You can press the ZKEY to switch back and forth between wire-frame view and solid view.

• (Noob Note: Easiest way to really get a feel for what is going on in the 3d world is to split into four screens and setting each one to NUM7, NUM3, NUM1, and NUM0 to see all angles and what it will look like at render.)

• In the 'Link and Materials' section, select 'Set Smooth'.

(Note that here I had the same problem as before, with superposed vertices. Select all vertices, then press WKEY and select Remove Doubles to clean your model. You will see that it will look much better after removing the extra vertices with Remove Doubles)

• Press the ZKEY to return to wire-frame view.

• Now repeat the process above to smooth the head.

Looks a lot more like a gingerbread man, now, doesn't it?

[edit] Camera Positioning and Rendering

This guide will show you how to intuitively get the best frame of your 3D scene with no effort!

• Press TAB for Object view mode.
• Press NUM0 to get the Camera View.
• Select the camera by clicking RMB on the outermost rectangle.
• Press GKEY and move your mouse to adjust the position of the camera (XKEY, YKEY, ZKEY and CTRL may be useful here).
• In addition, you can press NUM7 to get the Top View and press RKEY to rotate the camera to the best angle.
• After you are happy with the position, press F12 to render it.

If your render comes out a little dark, try moving the lamp closer to the gingerbread man.

[Note: Another way to move around the camera is pressing SHIFT + FKEY after pressing NUM0 to enter Fly mode. The keys for fly mode appear in the header of the 3D view pane.]

[n00b note: Ctrl+Alt+NUM0 "teleports" the camera to your 3d view]

[Noob Note: By pressing X, Y or Z twice you will use a local base of the space, with those it's much easier. For example if you are facing the Z axis from 45 degree, and you want to go left 1 unit, using the global base, you will have to go 1.72 (around sqrt(2)) along X and the same along Y, instead moving by 1 in the local frame of reference]

[edit] Die Another Way (dice modelling)

[edit] Video Tutorial

A high quality video tutorial (1020 x 746 pixels) has been created for this chapter in Blender 2.48a.

It is compressed and packaged in the .ogv video format and requires a player that is able to decode this codec in order to play it, such as the VLC player which is available as a free download for Windows, Mac, and the Ubuntu flavor of Linux.

For best results, it is recommended that you save this file to your computer for viewing, rather than streaming it inside your web browser.

[edit] Introduction

In the following tutorial you will be creating a die. You will use:

• polygon mesh
• face loop cutting
• subdivision surfaces
• subdivision creases
• bevel
• set smooth
• multiple materials
• extrusion
• merge vertices
• remove doubles
• constraints

There are two methods to create the circles for the die: subdivide first and manual sizing. In either case, start with the default Cube.[pic1.png]

[edit] Subdivide First

The die needs to have a 3x3 matrix for the coloured dots (pips). A quick way to do this is to simply Subdivide the cube twice before doing anything else. The disadvantage may be that the spaces for the pips may not be exactly the size that you want. If not, see the next section: Manual Sizing of Pips.

[edit] Manual Sizing of Pips

[edit] Step 1

Hit tab to go into edit-mode and select all faces to prevent bevel messing up normals. Hit WKEY → Bevel, Recursion → 1 (you'll see why later) then choose bevel size (hit spacebar for manual input). Bevel of 0.150 is ok.
Note: If you have chosen to subdivide the die twice, jump to Section "Creating Pips" and put bevel of 0.17 in order to have pip's edges length 0.34

[edit] Step 2

In editmode, go to the Editing tab (F9) and look at the Mesh Tools 1 panel (Mesh Tools More in some versions). Turn on Edge Length and note the length of one of the sides of the square faces. This should be 1.7 if the above settings were used.

Button "Edge Length" may be outside the screen so you may need to close another set of buttons before you can get to it.

Or, you can use MMB to scroll over to see the Mesh Tools 1 panel (in later versions: Mesh Tools More) with "Edge Length" button on it.
Or, you can zoom in and out in the menu window with CTRL and NUM+ or NUM-

[edit] Step 3

A typical die has a grid of 9 possible positions for the pips and the gap between the pips is the pip radius (or half the diameter). So, there are conveniently 10 units on each edge of the square faces, where the gaps use 4 of the units and the 3 pips use two each. This means the gaps are of size 1.7/10 = 0.17 and the pips (1.7x2)/10 = 0.34.


File:Medidas.jpg

[edit] Step 4

Now it's time to subdivide the surfaces of the die according to the mathematics above. We'll do that using "edge loops" - additional edges you can add to existing objects.

• Select axis aligned view: NUM1
• Enter loop cut mode: CTRL+RKEY (OR KKEY→1KEY OR KKEY→Loop Cut OR CTRL+EKEY→Loopcut OR CTRL+EKEY→NUM5)
• Select loops' placement: move the mouse around until you see a purple line going the right direction.
• Enter the number of loops: 9KEY (OR NUM9 OR SCROLL up 9 times OR NUM+ 8 times)
• Add the loop: LMB (OR ENTER etc.) on one of the big faces

Noob: What's "the right direction?" What should this thing look like after applying the loop/cut? HELP!

Another Noob: It sounds like you have version 2.44 or later. You should do the tuturial "Die Easy"(seriously, it is).

Now we just have to get rid of the 2nd, 5th and 8th loops to make the undivided spaces for the marks.

• Select edge select or vertex select: CTRL+TAB→NUM2 (OR CTRL+TAB→Edges OR CTRL+TAB→NUM1 etc.)
• Deselect all edges with AKEY
• Choose a loop to remove (using the BKEY to enter box selection mode and drawing a box around the one you want; this will get the whole loop, all the way around the cube).Spoiler: you can also use Alt-RMB on an edge to select a loop (or select the edge and click Select --> Edge loop).

Noob: It seems that I could not remove multi loops at the same time, since the error message kept bumping out. Another Noob: That happened to me when I tried to remove them all at once, but it worked fine when I removed one at a time.

• Remove loop: XKEY→7 (OR XKEY→Edge Loop)

Change views with NUM3 and NUM7 and repeat steps as necessary. When you're done, your die should look like the one pictured to the right.

[edit] Creating Pips

The die needs the pips added. Everyone knows how the pips on a die look, right?

[edit] Extrude and Merge

(Note: This is Step 10) Select one of the faces where a pip would go and extrude the face by hitting EKEY and then ESC. Do not click after hitting EKEY. This actually replaces the first face with another one even though it looks like nothing has happened. Merge the second face by using ALT + MKEY to merge the 4 corners into the centre. It will tell you Removed 3 vertices. [User Note: To clarify, pressing ESC when extruding does in fact extrude the face as per usual, but by a distance of zero. This creates four new, infinitely narrow faces around the original square face. These four faces then get 'dragged' into the middle when the four vertices of the original square are merged into one. Test this by extruding by say, 0.01 (instead of pressing ESC), and you'll see the result is almost the same.] You should get the following:

 Do this for the configuration of the dots on that side. So for example, 5 would look like this:

Notes :

• You could create this pip spot on all 9 spots and copy this side of the die to the other six. The amount of time spent doing all of that may be just as long as doing each side individually. You would need to delete the other 5 faces, copy the dented face 5 times, place each face precisely by rotating and moving, and remove doubles.
• (User comment) I accidentally selected some pip faces from the opposite side of the die (the side behind the side I was looking at). To prevent this, I selected Limit selection to visible (Occlude background geometry in 2.47) : which should be the second button from the right in the header of the 3D View.
• Noob, 19th Oct 2008: You can save time by selecting all the 'pip faces' and extruding them simultaneously, ESC-ing immediately after you do so, like above. You'll still need to merge the four corners of each extrusion one-by-one, though, or you'll get some odd results.
• Noob, 28th Dec 2008: You can save more time be extruding all faces simultaneously, as above, and then selecting "Collapse" rather than "At Center" while merging.
• Noob, 02/02/09: I tried with the "Collapse" trick as well but all I got were just black squares.
• Noob, 19/02/09: I got the black squares as well, but it is just a display problem. Press Tab twice (going to Object mode and back to Edit mode) and they are gone.

[edit] Create Pips

(Note: This is Step 11) Select one of the edges of the pips to check the size is 0.34.

Remember the pip radius was 0.17. We need to use this value to lower the centre point of the pips. Select all the 5 centre points at once to save time and move them inwards by 0.17. The side I put the 5 pips on here was the top so I move the vertices inwards by pressing GKEY, ZKEY, -0.17 and hitting ENTER. I then get this:


(user comment) According to step 4 we are still in front-view (NUM1), but then the ZKEY modification gives undesirable result, changing view to top (NUM7) does the trick! This applies to blender version 2.44.

• (response) Actually, at the end of step 4 it states to change to side and top view (NUM3 and NUM7) as necessary, so really there is no official view the tutorial left the user in. Also, in this step, the writer mentions they put 5 pips on the top.
• (user comment) using YKEY instead of ZKEY is also fine.
• (user comment) Depending on which axis it's supposed to be moved, use the ZKEY,XKEY and YKEY after the GKEY accordingly.
• (user comment) Pressing ZKEY twice should move them along the normal, which should work no matter which faces are selected.
• (user comment) I noticed a shortcut: When you extrude, extrude by -0.17 and then do the Merge -> Collapse. Then the point is already inside.
• (user comment) I just noticed something different. If you extrude and collapse, after applying the subsurf, you got sharp edges of the pips than the pips I got in this tutorial way.

[edit] Smooth Out

TAB out of Edit Mode. If you haven't done this already, hit Set Smooth in the Editing panel and turn on subdivision surfaces
It should look something like this:

File:DieAnotherWay12a.png
File:DieAnotherWay12b.png

In present versions, you just need to use "Add Modifier" on the Modifiers tab (in Edit-mode), to add a SubSurf modifier. (Or press SHIFT+OKEY)
In the image below Levels is set to 3.

[edit] Make Sharp Edges

On a die, the edges of the pips are usually sharp so we'll use subsurface creasing to do that.

Go back into editmode and with the edge select mode on, select all the perimeters of the pips like so (it may help to turn off subsurf for the moment):

Press SHIFT+EKEY to enable creasing and move the mouse until the display says crease is at 1. (to see the effect, you must have the subsurf modifier turned ON).  After pressing SHIFT+EKEY, you can then set crease values in the information box that you get by pressing NKEY when objects are selected. This can be useful to check if all the edges have the right crease because it gives you the average crease value and if it is less than 1, there is an edge wrong.
Newbie Note: Trying to crease all 6 sides of the die at once using SHIFT+EKEY and moving the mouse doesn't crease all sides of the die. Better to use NKEY, or do one side at a time.

[edit] Repeat

Repeat steps 10, 11 and 13 (that is Extrude and Merge, Create Pips and Make Sharp Edges) for all the sides of the die. REMEMBER, a die is numbered so that opposite sides add up to 7. In my example, that means I put 2 on the bottom etc. Once you finish, if you turn on subdiv level 2, you will get something like this:
[User Note: Do you mean subsurf instead of subdiv?]

• Noob note: On the side with 6 pips, I had a hard time getting the creases to work. It turned out to be because I selected in vertex mode when I selected the edges for creasing, and I tried to crease all 6 pips at once. This put crease values on the short vertical edges between the pips, which messed things up.

• User Shortcut: To do them all at once with no repeating. However, order of operation has to change to make it work:
  • In Face Select mode, select all pip faces on all sides.
  • SHIFT+EKEY to crease the edges. (needs to be done before extruding, since extruding changed the selection)
  • EKEY -> Individual Faces then type -0.17 to extrude all faces inward.
  • ALT+MKEY -> Collapse will merge all the extrusions to their respective centers.

[edit] Camera Setup

You can make a test render now to see that the pips are the right size and that the bevel is right. So, turn the subdivision level for the rendering up to 3. To help position the camera so that you centre the die, you can make the camera look at the die by adding a track-to constraint to it. I prefer to track an empty though, because it is more flexible.

Make an empty by going into top down view (NUM7) and hitting SPACE → Add → Empty. (Noob note: If you can't find "empty" in the list, make sure you are in Object mode.) It's always best to go into one of the set orthographic views so as to align new objects to the axes. If you add something misaligned, just go to the object menu then clear/apply > clear rotation (or ALT+RKEY). Because the empty was created at the origin, you might not be able to see it as it is inside the die. Hit ZKEY to enable wireframe mode and select the empty. Just move it outside the cube until we get the constraint set up.

To add a track-to constraint, select the camera first then SHIFT+RMB the empty and press CTRL+TKEY and choose "TrackTo Constraint" from the list. Move the empty back inside the die. You can edit constraints in the object tab (F7). Add a couple of lamps (both intensity 1) to get the scene like this or feel free to experiment with a more advanced lighting setup:

Another way to position the camera is by selecting it and then looking through it as you move it. Look through the camera by pressing NUM0. Use the GKEY to pan across and rotate around the local axes of the camera by pressing say RKEY,XKEY,XKEY to rotate in X-axis. To zoom in and out press GKEY, ZKEY, ZKEY and then move your mouse forwards or backwards. Another useful keystroke (for pre-2.43 especially) to know is that when you are in camera view, pressing Gkey and then MMB, movement will be constrained to the way you are facing. The mouse wheel zoom moves your view towards and away from the camera, without actually moving the position of the camera.

You can also move the Camera in free "Fly" mode by going into the Canera view (press NUM0) and then Shift+F. Now you can "Fly" through the scene and use this setup the camera angle. Make sure that you keey the flying veliocity very low by using the scroll wheels or -/+ buttons or the camera will be simply out of cntrol.

[edit] Render

To render, set the size of the image you want. 800x600 is a decent size so put these settings in the format panel in the Scene tab (F10). In the render panel, make sure 100% is selected. If it's 50%, the render will come out as 400x300. For preview renders, don't turn on OSA, which is anti-aliasing because it slows your renders down significantly. Try to only use it for a final render.

Another important point is to set the image format. This is done in the format panel. The listbox has a number of image types. I find that png is generally the best because it is lossless and offers the highest compression among the lossless formats. It also supports an alpha channel for transparency. When rendering an animation, it is better to render as an image sequence than as a movie because it is easier to edit these and repair broken frames. Quicktime supports loading of image sequences and you can save as a movie using a wide range of compression formats.

To save the render, go to the file menu → save image (Or press F3) and type in the full name of the image including the extension e.g. die.png.

The output should now be looking something like this:
File:DieAnotherWay16.png

[edit] Color

[edit] Multiple Materials

. .
To give it some colour, we will need to use multiple materials because a typical die has pips that are a different colour from the die itself.

In the Buttons Window go to the Editing panel (F9) again and make sure the die is selected. In the Links and Materials subpanel there is a section for materials (the right; the left one is for vertex groups) and the box left of the question mark should read "0 Mat 0" (the first number is the number of material links for this object; the second number is the number of the currently selected material link).

The die may have more than zero materials if you had assigned materials to the object already. By pressing the New button add enough materials to make 2 in total.

Go back to the Shading panel (F5) and there is a box at the very top of the Links and Pipelines subpanel with the number 2 beside it. If there is no such subpanel select Material buttons (cycle shading buttons using F5 too). Click this number and select Single user in the dialog to make the two materials you've just created independent. Use the arrows on the left side of the box to switch materials.

Note: If you do not see a 2 to the right of the material name, that means the material is already a single user material. To change it back you can click the button labelled F, but for this example, you do not want to do that.

Note: There should be at least two materials now. One has the materials initial name the other has a number appended to its name (e.g. Material and Material.001).

Use the Material subpanel to make material 1 bright red by just picking red in the colour picker (the rectangle to the left of the Col button) or by setting the RGB sliders (right of the Col button). Make material 2 white by doing the same. Or pick whatever colour you prefer and material settings.

--MSK61 (talk) 11:27, 17 March 2008 (UTC): The colour picker is to the left(not right) of the Col button, while the the RGB sliders are to the right(not left) of the Col button.

Note: It is possible that the two materials were not automatically linked to the material links of your die. If so use the Links and Pipeline subpanel to link the materials to the respective material links. First select the link then the material.

Note from noob: Using white as a colour will not let you spot a change in colour, since the default colour is white. For test purposes I recommend you choose another colour (e.g. blue), so you can avoid getting confused.

[edit] Assign Materials

These colours need to be assigned to the right parts of the die.

Go into Edit Mode and turn off subsurf to make selecting easier. Do this in the Editing panels (F9) Modifiers subpanel. Right after the subsurf modifiers name there are three buttons (darkgrey). Press the rightmost to deactivate the modifier in the edit mode.

[edit] To make the die red

• Select the entire die (AKEY).
• Click the Editing button (F9).
• In the Link and Materials panel, on the right-hand side you will see "2 Mat X" where X is either 1 or 2. Click the left/right arrows until you see the adjoining square to the left turn red. As you click on the arrows, notice that the label above "2 Mat X" changes from "Material" to "Material.001". These are the names of the materials that you created in the Shading (F5)->Links and Pipeline panel.
• Click the Assign button (in the Material column, not the Vertex Groups column). The Assign button associates the selected faces with the selected material.

The entire die should now be red.

[edit] To make the pips white

Use the same method as above, but with only the inner faces of the pips selected and with the colour white.

There are a variety of ways to select the inner faces of the pips:

[edit] Pip Selection Method 1

Note: Here you may find Lasso Select useful.

• Make sure you are in Edit Mode (TAB)
• Select Face select : CTRL+TAB→3KEY
• Select Limit selection to visible : should be the second button from the right in the header of the 3D View
• Go through the axis align views and select the faces:
  • Align view: NUM1 (CTRL+NUM1, NUM3, CTRL+NUM3, NUM7, CTRL+NUM7)
  • For each view, lasso select the pips' faces: hold CTRL and drag LMB around the pips' middle vertex (no need to press SHIFT, Lasso Select automatically adds the new faces to the previous selection).
• If all went well you should be able to read Fa:84-449 in the User Preferences right after the Blender version number. (84 = 4*(1+2+3+4+5+6))

[edit] Pip Selection Method 2

Press CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+3KEY and every triangular face will be selected.(Every pip + The 8 corners of the dice. Just deselect the 8 corners and you're good to go!) ;-) Similarly, you can select quad faces using the 4KEY.

[edit] Pip Selection Method 3

You can also use circle select to easily select the desired faces. Enter circle select mode by hitting BKEY twice. The circle can be made bigger or smaller by using the scroll wheel. Drop out of the mode (RMB) to rotate the cube and drop back in as above. Selected vertices are added to those already selected like with lasso mode but without the need to keep holding the control key or draw an accurate lasso)

Turn subsurf back on (Modifiers panel→subsurf modifier→enable in edit mode) and render F12 with OSA (only put it up as high as you need for the resolution of the image you are rendering).

(Note: in Blender 2.44 you should use the Assign button in the editing panel (Link and Materials))

(another noob says: don't be fooled (as I was!) by the fact that there are TWO Assign buttons in this tab, you want the big one on the right under materials, not the small one on the left under Vertex groups!!)

[edit] Headline text

[edit] Extra

The reason I modelled the die this way is because it is also very easy to change the sizes of the components e.g. the bevel and the pip size. You do this by selecting the vertical or horizontal segments and just scaling them in one axis. Here we will reduce the pip size and the bevel by half.

Go into front view (NUM1), turn off clipping (i.e., allow selection of invisible vertices) and select a line containing pips (i.e., Select vertices mode (CONTROL+TAB NUM1), and box select a thin vertical line of vertices to the left of a row of pips, then box select another thin vertical line of vertices to the right of that row of pips, making a total of 64 vertices). Then just scale in one axis e.g. SKEY, XKEY, 0.5. Remember to have your pivot point set to median:
File:DieAnotherWayE1.png
Do this horizontally and vertically around the die. You should need to scale 9 times for the pips and 6 times for the bevel:

(Noob note: I find this confusing. what is a line containing pips? does this mean a loop line? Using alt-RMB no longer works to select a loop, but selects a single edge.)

(Noob response: he meant a pair of loops of vertices adjacent to a row containing pips. alt-RMB no longer seems to select complete loops - it works until it hits a pip and then it stops - but the box selection can be used.)

(Another Response: Any time you change the geometry of a shape you effect how the automated tools will work. Many dont work at all once you get to complex organic shapes, so its best to not rely on them too heavily.)

File:DieAnotherWayE2.png
You may need to add extra geometry once you are satisfied with the sizes of the dots and the bevel so that the edges of the die don't look warped due to the subdivision. You can use face loop cut again for that and add extra lines in the middle of the gap segments.
File:DieAnotherWayE3.png

(user comment) at the top it says that this page needs to be edited to address 2.42 users. I say if you are going to edit this page, edit it for a more up to date version of blender, namely 2.44

[edit] Edit Mode HotKeys Review

[edit] Edit Mode HotKeys

The Period Key

• .KEY (on the number pad) - centers the view around the current selection or active object.
• .KEY (on the alphanumeric pad) - changes the pivot point to the 3D cursor. The pivot point is the point where all things meet when scaled to 0, and the point of 0 translation during a rotation transformation. See the menu on the 3D view header, located immediately to the right of the Viewport Shading menu.

The Comma Key

• ,KEY - changes the pivot point to the bounding box center.

A

• AKEY - Toggles between selecting all or selecting none.
• ALT+AKEY - changes the current Blender window to Animation Playback mode. The cursor changes to a counter.
• ALT+SHIFT+AKEY - the current window, plus all 3DWindows go into Animation Playback mode.
• SHIFT+AKEY - brings up the toolbox.

B

• BKEY - Activates box-select tool.
• BKEY+BKEY - Circle Select. If you press BKEY a second time after starting Border Select, Circle Select is invoked. Use NUM+ or NUM- or MW to adjust the circle size. Leave Circle Select with RMB or ESC.
• ALT+BKEY - Select portion of viewing area to only be visible.

C

• CKEY - Centers the 3D View where the 3D cursor currently is.

D

• DKEY - Brings up a Draw Type menu.
• SHIFT-DKEY - Duplicates an object

E

• EKEY - Extrude selection

F

• FKEY - creates segment/edge/face. If two vertices are selected, create an edge connecting the two vertices. If three or four vertices are selected, or two edges are selected, create a face connecting the vertices or edges. If two co-planar faces are selected, join the faces to create an FGon, or dismantle a previously created FGon.
• ALT+FKEY - Beauty Fill. The edges of all the selected triangular faces are switched in such a way that equally sized faces are formed. This operation is 2D; various layers of polygons must be filled in succession. The Beauty Fill can be performed immediately after a Fill.
• CTRL+FKEY - Flip faces, selected triangular faces are paired and common edge of each pair swapped.
• SHIFT+FKEY - Fill selected. All selected vertices that are bound by edges and form a closed polygon are filled with triangular faces. Holes are automatically taken into account. This operation is 2D; various layers of polygons must be filled in succession.

G

• GKEY - "Grabs" the current selection and allows you to move it around with the mouse. Use LMB, ENTER, or SPACE to drop it in place. Use RMB or ESC to cancel the move.
• GKEY XKEY - Grabs the selection and locks it's Z and Y position. In this mode it will only move along the global X axis.
• GKEY XKEY XKEY - Grabs the selection and locks it's Z and Y position on the local axis. In this mode the selection will only move along the local X axis.
• GKEY YKEY - Grabs the selection and locks it's Z and X position. In this mode it will only move along the global Y axis.
• GKEY YKEY YKEY - Grabs the selection and locks it's Z and X position on the local axis. In this mode the selection will only move along the local Y axis.
• GKEY ZKEY - Grabs the selection and locks it's X and Y position. In this mode it will only move along the global Z axis.
• GKEY ZKEY ZKEY - Grabs the selection and locks it's X and Y position on the local axis. In this mode the selection will only move along the local Z axis.

H

• HKEY - Hides the currently selected vertices, edges and faces. They will be hidden only while in Edit Mode.
• ALT-HKEY - Unhides vertices, edges, and faces that were previously hidden. Vertices, edges, and faces that are unhidden will be added to the current selection.

I

• IKEY - inserts a "key". Keys are used for animation.

J

• ALT+JKEY - converts triangular faces to quads.

K

• SHIFT+KKEY - knife tool.

L

• LKEY - Select connected vertices under mouse pointer. (by Noob Lucio Renovato)

M

• MKEY - Brings up Mirror Axis menu.
• ALT+MKEY - Merge selected points.

N

• NKEY - brings up a Transform Properties mini window.

O

• OKEY - toggles proportional edit mode

P

• Enter the Blender Game Engine

Q

• QKEY - prompts if you would like to quit the Blender.

R

• RKEY - allows rotation of the selection. Move the mouse after pressing RKEY to rotate it. Press LMB, SPACE, or ENTER to confirm the rotation. Press ESC or RMB to cancel the rotation.

S

• SKEY - begins scaling (resizing) of the selection. Move the mouse to scale larger or smaller. Press LMB, ENTER, or SPACE to confirm the scaling. Press RMB or ESC to cancel the scaling.

T

U

• UKEY - Opens UV Unwrap Menu
• SHIFT+UKEY - N/A

V

• VKEY - Rip - for example, select one edge of a cube, and press VKEY to separate and drag it away from the edges it's attached to.

W

• WKEY - Boolean Tools menu in Object mode. Specials Menu in Edit mode.

X

• XKEY - delete the selection.

Y

• CTRL+YKEY - redo previously undone edit

Z

• ZKEY - Toggles between drawing the scene in wireframe and solid mode.
• CTRL+ZKEY - undo last edit
• SHIFT+CTRL+ZKEY - redo previously undone edit

TAB

• TAB - toggles in and out of Edit Mode of the selected, active object.

F1-F10

• Nothing Really

F11

• F11 - Shows/hides the window with the last render.

F12

• F12 - begins a single frame render based on the Scene settings in the Buttons Window.

LMB

• LMB - places 3D cursor where you click
• CTRL+LMB - places a copy of what is selected at the place clicked.
  • if a single vertex is selected or vertexes on a non-enclosed object are selected, a copy will be created and will be joined to any previously selected vertices by an edge, or edges.
  • if an enclosed mesh (a cube, etc.) is selected, an unconnected copy will be created under the cursor.

RMB

• RMB - selects vertex, edge or face, depending on select mode.

[edit] Object Mode HotKeys Review

[edit] Object Mode HotKeys

The Period Key

• .KEY (on the number pad) - centers the view around the current selection or active object.
• .KEY (on the alphanumeric pad) - changes the pivot point to the 3D cursor. The pivot point is the point where all things meet when scaled to 0, and the point of 0 translation during a rotation transformation. See the menu on the 3D view header, located immediately to the right of the Viewport Shading menu.

The Comma Key

• ,KEY - changes the pivot point to the bounding box center.

A

• AKEY - Toggles between selecting all or selecting none.
• ALT+AKEY - changes the current Blender window to Animation Playback mode. The cursor changes to a counter.
• ALT+SHIFT+AKEY - the current window, plus all 3DWindows go into Animation Playback mode.
• SHIFT+AKEY - brings up the toolbox.
• CTRL+AKEY - prompts to "Apply Changes." Size and rotation changes to the model object become permanent.
• CTRL+SHIFT+AKEY - prompts to convert dupliverted objects to real objects.

B

• BKEY - Activates box-select tool.

C

• CKEY - Centers the 3D View where the 3D cursor currently is.
• ALT+CKEY - brings up the convert menu.

D

• DKEY - Brings up a Draw Type menu.

E

• ALT+EKEY - Start/stop EditMode. Alternative hotkey: TAB.

F

• FKEY - In the 3D View, switches to UV Face Select Mode if selected object is a mesh. Pressing FKEY again will bring you back to Object Mode.
• CTRL+FKEY - Sort Faces. The faces of the active Mesh Object are sorted, based on the current view in the 3DWindow. The leftmost face first, the rightmost last. The sequence of faces is important for the Build Effect (AnimButtons).

G

• GKEY - "Grabs" the current selection and allows you to move it around with the mouse. Use LMB, ENTER, or SPACE to drop it in place. Use RMB or ESC to cancel the move.
• GKEY XKEY - Grabs the selection and locks it's Z and Y position. In this mode it will only move along the global X axis.
• GKEY XKEY XKEY - Grabs the selection and locks it's Z and Y position on the local axis. In this mode the selection will only move along the local X axis.
• GKEY YKEY - Grabs the selection and locks it's Z and X position. In this mode it will only move along the global Y axis.
• GKEY YKEY YKEY - Grabs the selection and locks it's Z and X position on the local axis. In this mode the selection will only move along the local Y axis.
• GKEY ZKEY - Grabs the selection and locks it's X and Y position. In this mode it will only move along the global Z axis.
• GKEY ZKEY ZKEY - Grabs the selection and locks it's X and Y position on the local axis. In this mode the selection will only move along the local Z axis.

H I

• IKEY - inserts a "key". Keys are used for animation.

J K L M

• MKEY - move selection to a different layer.

N

• NKEY - brings up a Transform Properties mini window.

O P

• PKEY - starts the game engine.

Q

• QKEY - prompts if you would like to quit the Blender.

R

• RKEY - allows rotation of the selection. Move the mouse after pressing RKEY to rotate it. Press LMB, SPACE, or ENTER to confirm the rotation. Press ESC or RMB to cancel the rotation.

S

• SKEY - begins scaling (resizing) of the selection. Move the mouse to scale larger or smaller. Press LMB, ENTER, or SPACE to confirm the scaling. Press RMB or ESC to cancel the scaling.

T

• TKEY - brings up a Texture Space menu. Allows translation and scaling the Texture.

U

• UKEY - brings up Make Single User menu.
• ALT+UKEY - opens undo history menu.

V

• VKEY - enters Vertex Paint Mode. Pressing VKEY again will switch back to Object Mode.

W

• WKEY - Brings up Boolean menu. Choose Intersect, Union or Difference.

X

• XKEY - delete the selection.

Y Z

• ZKEY - Toggles between drawing the scene in wireframe and solid mode.
• CTRL+ZKEY - UNDO Note: If Blender claims there are no more steps to undo, hit tab to switch to object mode and try again.

TAB

• TAB - toggles in and out of Edit Mode of the selected, active object.

F1-F11 F12

• F12 - begins a single frame render based on the Scene settings in the Buttons Window.

[edit] Curve and Path Modeling

Frighteningly enough, we know what you're thinking. You're thinking that mesh modeling is cool and all, but what about if you want to make an object that has smooth curves in it? Ok, so maybe you weren't thinking that, but in case you're curious move on to the next page to learn more.

[edit] 2D Image (logo) to a 3D Model

[edit] Using Bezier Curve to Model a 3D logo from a 2D logo

{Construction on hold, feel free to complete}

The image to the left is used in this tutorial. However, the tutorial is easier to follow using letter/numbers, or simple shapes/curves. Basically we will be using the graphic as a template for a 3d logo, tracing it, then discarding the 2d image.

[edit] Set up

You need a 2D logo similar to mine (preferably in JPEG format as Blender understands jpegs fairly well). If you haven't already done so, open blender and select one of the orthogonal view angles by pressing NUM7, NUM3, or NUM1.. At the bottom of the 3D viewport on the left, there are some menus, click View-->Background Image

A small window will appear containing just one button marked use background image; click this button. A few more buttons will appear. One of them says image: and has a small button with a picture of a folder on it; click this button. You are now presented with a file selection screen. Using the navigation techniques from the previous tutorials, find your 2D jpeg image on your computer, click the file in the list once then click the Select Image button at the top right of the screen.

Blender now displays this image in the background of the 3D view for you to trace its outline. The image is only displayed in orthogonal view. If perspective view is enabled, toggle to orthogonal view by pressing NUM5. The image will not be rendered as it is not part of your scene.

Once a background is selected you'll have a dialog like this one. (Note: This tutorial was originally generated from Blender v2.37. v2.43 has been added - older versions may differ.) The background dialog buttons are described below:

The is a toggle button that turns display of the image on or off. Turning the button off will not clear the settings; it just hides the image. When you turn the button on again, your previous settings are back. Try it - click the button a few times. In v2.43 the equivalent button is the button.

Image selection is controlled on the row labeled . There are 2 buttons, a text box, and a final button. The first button is used for browsing for an image. The 2nd button is for selecting an image from a history list. (This will be empty for the first time. Selecting it now will display the image you currently have selected.) The text box allows typing in the file directly. The button removes the current background image. Version 2.43 is the same with the addition of the button that refreshes the image or movie, and the button which shows the number of users of the image block.

The third row is called Texture and will not be used for this tutorial.

The fourth line, labeled blend controls the transparency of the background image with a slider. A setting of 0 is completely solid and 1 is completely transparent. You can adjust it by clicking left or right of the knob for gradual changes, clicking and dragging on the slider for rough settings or clicking directly on the blend text for numeric entry.

The use of the blend function will become obvious once we start tracing our logo. For now, play around with it, see how it changes the image, and put it back to the 0.500 default.

The fifth line, size, controls the size of the image. This size setting is independent of the zoom for the 3D view window. To see how the size works move the default cube off to the side so that you can see both the cube, the background dialog and the background image. Now watch both the cube and image as you change the size. Notice how the image changes size but the cube doesn't? Now press NUM+ and NUM- to change the view's zoom. Now both the cube and image change size.

The final row controls the X and Y offset for the image. These controls move the image up and down (Y) or left and right (X). These settings can be useful if you need to reposition the image from the default position. Like the size, these offset values are independent of the view. As you change the offset values the cube you added earlier won't move. Now scroll the view using by clicking and dragging the SHIFT MMB and notice how the cube and image move together?

Once you start tracing the image you won't be using the size or offset setting. Delete the cube (select it, press XKEY and select All from the Erase menu), and set the size so that the entire image is viewable. Then set both the X and Y offsets to 0. Finally minimize the Background Image dialog. You'll only need it to adjust the blend setting until you finish tracing.

[edit] Introducing the Bezier Curve

The Bezier Curve allows drawing graceful, complex curves and only requires a few control points. Specifically, it only requires 4 points for a curve. Two end points and two control points.

For the moment set the blend to 1 on the Background Image dialog. With the center of the 3D view still selected, press SPACE -> Add -> Curve -> Bezier Curve. Alternatively you can use the Add menu at the top of the screen or press SHIFT -> AKEY to jump directly to the add menu. You should now have something like this:

Unlike the traditional Bezier Curve each Bezier vertex has 3 points. I've labeled the 3 points for the left vector: A, B and C.

Point A is an end point. The curve will always go through this point. Points B and C are control points. These points influence the path of the curve as it leaves Point A. Because the path stops at A, Point B has no real effect on the path. Instead B is currently locked with C. (If you move either B or C, the other will move.) We will fix Point B to move independently a little later.

The control points have 2 effects on the path exiting the end point: direction and distance (these are termed slope and magnitude in math circles) from Point A. The direction will provide the direction that the path will follow when it leaves A and the distance will determine how long the path follows that direction before it starts making its way to the curve's next point.

The example to the left shows how the control points influence the path of the curve. In the top picture, we see three curves. The top curve is the default curve. In the next curve down, C has been moved to give a drastically different direction. Notice how the path leaving A moves away from the other end point. The third curve, the distance was changed dramatically. Watch the path move much higher than the other two curves.

In the bottom example, I've built a heart shape using just the points shown. Dragging the bottom end point down will make the shape closer to a leaf. You'll be able to do the same at the end of this tutorial. Go ahead move around the points for the curve and see how they all interact. Get a good feel working with the curve and when you're ready we'll move on to tracing.

Now that you know how to work with a bezier curve set blend back to 0.5 on the Background Image dialog so we can start tracing.

[edit] Rough Tracing

The first step in tracing is to click the Polygon convert button on the curve tools panel. You'll find this in button on the Buttons Window. You may need to select the Edit Panel. Press F9 if this panel isn't visible. If you don't already have a curve add one now. It will help to move the curve to the center of the yellow lightening bolt if you must add a new one.

User's Note: The 'Curve Tool' panel will not appear if you don't have a bezier curve already placed. I learned this the hard way.

Next, move the vertices of the curve to the points shown in the image to the left. This is called Rough Tracing because you don't need to exactly trace the image. You only need to approximate the image. Moving the vertices should be done using the instructions from the Creating a Simple Hat tutorial.

Note: Selecting the best place to put a vertex is a bit of an art that you'll acquire as you work with curves. For now follow the arrows along the cutouts and place each of the vertices as shown.

This tracing uses all the vertices of the polygon. Other cases, you'll need add or remove extra vertices. Adding and removing vertices as shown in Turning a Cube into a Puppy tutorial (Note: To add a vertex select the end point of your curve press CTRL and click LMB. At the place you clicked a new vertex will appear connected to your curve.).

After moving the last vertex, we finish the rough tracing by pressing the CKEY to close the polygon. You should see an image similar to the one on the right. (If you only have an outline switch your view port shading to solid by pressing the ZKEY for now.) Notice how the polygon doesn't cover all of the yellow of the bolt and how in some places the polygon fails to conform to the shape of the bolt. This is expected and should not be a cause for concern. We correct this in the next section.

Once you've finished several logos you should begin to get a feel for the required placement of vertices. Until then, here are some general guidelines to keep in mind:

• A gradual curve may only require a single vertex.
• Tight curves will likely require two closely placed vertices.
• Curves may not require a vertex at all - you can define some curves using the control points of the adjacent vertices. We did this for both of the inside curves of the bolt above.
• Corners require a single vertex placed where the curve bends. A square, for instance, requires four vertices - one at each corner - to be modeled properly.
• The end point of a curve will always be on the curve. So should all of the vertices you place.

We are now ready to move onto the next step modeling the logo. Press ZKEY to return to wire frame mode and prepare for the next step.

[edit] Polishing the Tracing

First, press the Bezier convert button to convert the polygon back to a curve. This will convert your polygon back into a curve. Nothing obvious will happen. If you look close, you should notice the number of points on the curve tripled. When you converted the curve back to a Bezier curve, Blender changed all of the polygon vertices to Bezier vertices. While the polygon vertex is a single point the Bezier vertex is made of an end point and 2 control points. So the extra points are the control points of the Bezier vertices. These control points are placed along the curve to produce the same shape as the converted polygon.

Our job is to move the control and end points so that the curve follows the edge of the bolt. The trick is to move the 2 control points between adjacent end points to bend the curve to the edge of bolt. First, move the right control point of the top-left vertex. This should pull the curve from its end point to more closely match the line of our bolt. After placing this point, we move to the next control point following a clockwise direction around the bolt. Use the RMB to select the point you want to change and move it with GKEY to place it.

As you move the second point notice how the curve exiting the first end point is drawn away from the edge of the bolt being traced. We now have to adjust the first control point again to get that line back on track. This quickly turns into a balancing act adjusting each set of control points. The trick is to make smaller movements for each iteration of adjustments. Make a game of it and move the control points all along the bolt. Always move along the clockwise direction. This practice is not just for consistency, it keeps your place and ensures that moving a control point doesn't change a portion of the curve that you've already completed. In time you learn to move the first point only part of the way. Then moving the second brings the curve for the first into correct alignment.

If you have some trouble aligning the curve to the edge of the bolt, consider adding a new point. There are two (at least) ways to accomplish this:

• Select 2 points that surround the problem spot where you want a new vertex and click the Subdivide button on the Curve Tools 1 tool panel.
• If near an end point, Select it, press the CKEY to open the curve, then Control+LMB click to add a new point beyond the end of the selected final vertex. Press the CKEY to reclose the curve.

The new end point should be positioned and then you have to adjust the curve on both sides of the end point you move. Any time you move an end point be sure that the curve going into both adjacent (clockwise and counter-clockwise) end points still aligns with the edge of the bolt.

Once you've made the complete circuit around the bolt, you're ready for the final polishing of the edge of the curve. Press the TAB to switch to the object mode. This makes the polishing easier as Blender hides the points and lines for editing the curve. Now zoom in on the bolt's edge using the NUM+ or Control+LMB drag. Use Shift+MMB drag the screen so that you closely observe the entire edge of the bolt while zoomed in closely. Look for places where the curve pulls away from the edge. Also look for sharp bends at each of the end points that should be smooth. You can see several defects that I found in my project after tracing the bolt. Switch back into edit mode to fix the curve and then go back into object mode to look for more defects.

Sharp end points are adjusted by decreasing the angle between end point and the control points. For Blender specific case that I know of, sharp points have a tendency to show to the side of the end point. This typically requires adding a new vertex between the two end points to smooth out the curve. Places where the curve pulls away from the edge can be resolved by moving the control point closer to the edge. In the above image the curve was found to have been pulled away from the edge. This was fixed by moving the control point a little to the left.

Here's the final polished curve for my project. It is shown in both edit mode and object mode so you can clearly see both the control and end points on the left and the curve to the right.

Note: If you have never worked with Bezier curves before, try it with a 2D paint program such as Inkscape or Paint Shop Pro. It might be quicker and easier to learn proper placement of control points in a program where drawing the curves is quick and simple.

Helpful Tip: In blender 2.37 and later (not sure of earlier versions) pressing the HKEY toggles the control points between free and aligned (Edit Mode). Free Control Points are good for sharp angles, and aligned are good for smooth curves. This shortcut is in the Space>Edit>Control Points menu.

This concludes the tracing of the bolt. All that remains is making the curve 3 dimensional, applying a material and positioning the final object. Before doing that, we will trace the circle in the next part of the tutorial. Save this project if you want to take a break before continuing. You'll need it on the next turorial.

[edit] Adding a Third Dimension

First, give the object some depth. Leave editmode, go to the editbuttons screen, and under the "Curve and Surface" tab, set the following values:

Extrude: 0.2 (the height of the extrusion on either side)

Bevel Depth: 0.02 (the radius of the round bevel applied to the exruded edge)

BevResol: 4 (the number of subdivisions on the bevel curve)

(Note: In previous versions, Extrude and Bevel Depth were Ext1 and Ext2.)

Also, if you have a simple logo go ahead and increase the DefResolU value to 25. If you have an extremely complicated image this is totally overboard but looks nice when you are just tracing text or numbers.

Now you can use your knowledge from earlier in this book to change the material and/or add texture to your logo. Feel free to rotate, add lighting, or whatever floats your boat. Don't forget to press ZKEY to toggle wireframe mode.

-=< Tutorial under Construction, ready soon, thanks for input spiderworm >=-

[edit] Continue tutorial using bezier curves

- This continues the tutorial, finishing up the sample logo from the image in the tutorial using bezier curves. These instructions make the assumption that you completed the first part in front view with NUM1. An alternative method for doing this using mesh circles has been presented below.

First, to make the lightning bolt distinct from the second part of the logo, it may help to apply a yellow material to it before getting started.

[edit] Adding the circle

Switch to object mode by hitting TAB if you aren't already there. Press space -> Add -> Curve -> Bezier Circle to add a closed bezier curve with four points forming a circle. If you are in solid draw type, switch to wireframe with ZKEY so you can see the underlying image better. Hit SKEY to scale the bezier circle to fit over the circle in the image. You will probably find that the bezier circle is not dead center on the sample logo so you will need to move it with GKEY to center it. You may need to scale it and move it several times to get it right. You will also find that the circle in the sample image is actually a slight oval, so scale and position the bezier circle so that it touches the circle in the image on the left and right sides. Normally, you could then scale the circle and constrain it on the z axis by hitting SKEY then ZKEY, but it turns out that the oval isn't regular anyway, so just select the point on the top and hit GKEY then ZKEY to move it down until it touches the top of the oval in the image. Then do the same for the bottom point and you should have a pretty good fit.

Just to understand what's happening in the next steps, switch to solid view with ZKEY. As you can see, you now have a circle, but it's filled in the middle where you want to be able to see through it. To cut a hole out of the circle, hit space -> Add -> Bezier Circle while you still have it selected in edit mode. A new circle will appear inside the larger circle. As you should be able to see in solid mode, the new circle actually cuts its shape out of the larger circle surrounding it. Switch to wireframe mode with ZKEY so that you can see the underlying image again. Scale up the smaller circle so that it approximately fits the inner part of the circle in the image. Don't worry about getting it exact since you'll be manually moving all four points anyway. Move the bottom point of the bezier circle to the top left corner of the bar that crosses the circle.

Move the right point of the circle to the other corner. When you create a Bezier Circle, Blender by default sets the alignment of all the control points to aligned. To make the diagonal bottom edge you need to break the alignment on the two lower sets of control points. Hitting the HKEY will toggle between free control points and aligned. Once you've selected the two lower bezier points and hit the HKEY to make them free you can move each of the inner control points to create a nice straight edge.

Then move the other two points and adjust their control points until you have a pretty good approximation of the rest of the inside curve. Next step is to press space -> Add -> Bezier Circle again and repeat the same steps, but for the lower opening in the logo. Once you've completed both openings, switch back to solid view with ZKEY and examine your work. Make any adjustments you need to swithing the draw type back and forth as needed.

The next step is to make this part three dimensional like you did with the lightning bolt. Go to object mode with TAB, then select the editing buttons. Under curve and surface, set Extrude/Ext1 to 0.2, Bevel Depth/Ext2 to 0.02 and BevResol to 4. You can also set DefResolU to 25 as suggested for the lightning bolt. Looking at the results, the bevel effect may not be enough, so try increasing Bevel Depth/Ext2 to something like 0.15. That should look better, but there will be a problem. Switch back to wireframe mode with ZKEY and you'll see that the bevel has widened everything so that the circle no longer matches the original image. This can be fixed fairly easily by reducing the width parameter under curve and surface until it fits again.

For final steps, select the lightning bolt again and switch into sideview with NUM3 and hit GKEY and then YKEY to move the bolt backwards. Move the bolt back so it no longer intersects with the circle and bar. Apply a red material to the circle and bar portion. Finally, you can go to view, then to background image and hit the background image button to hid the image now that it is no longer needed. At this point, you can add any finishing touches for lighting and camera angles and render the logo.

[Noob Note: I'm new to Blender but have been dealing with bezier's for a long time, and this method of creating the slashed circle seems excessively complicated (whereas the other alternative presented bypasses the point of using curves altogether). The inside of the circle is just 2 half circles cut out from the original larger circle and would only need 2 points to draw out (for each half). Here's what I did.

Another noob note: I found that instead of doing all of this, just insert the inner circle, rotate by 45 degrees, and scale and grab along y and x axis and you will have a much better looking circle

After placing the large circle as instructed above, add a Bezier curve space -> Add -> Curve -> Bezier Curve.

Select the individual points and use to move them to the ends of the half circle. grab the control points and pull it up and away from the actual vertex points until the shape of the curve fits the image.

Select the vertex points again and hit HKey to change the control points to Free mode.

Now adjust the remaining two control points so they are pointed right at each other (so it will draw a straight line when we close the shape). Then CKey to close the shape and there is a Bezier half circle.]

note added 12/08..... all these methods produce something that is "LIKE" the logo jpg but all end up different. Look at the picture..THE TOP PART OF THE LIGHTNING BOLD IS ON TOP OF THE RED CIRCLE... only the body and bottom tip of the lightning bolt are underneath it. The lightning bolt must be rotated on the x axis to correctly finish the logo.

[edit] Johnos Addition (the tutorial on the next page does this too)

- The following tutorial assumes that you were creating a logo from the one above, and that you are willing to listen to an idiot. :-)

I am new to Blender3D but I will try to finish this tutorial, and leave you with this:

[edit] Adding The Circle

OK, what you have so far is a lightning bolt, which is great. It's also nice and rounded which is even better. However, what we are missing at the moment is the outside circle. This is probably not the best way of doing it, but it is one way. Instead of using the Bezier Curve, I am using Circles.

Here are two ways of doing this:
Easy way:
Place two vertices (CTRL+LMB), one on the inner circle and one on the outer circle so that they form a line. This line has to be perpendicular to the circle you are tracing. Then place the cursor on the middle of the circle. Then just use the spin tool under the Mesh tools tab (360 degrees and 32 steps). This creates a circle made of 32 adjacent squares. Give it more steps to increase the quality of the circle.

Detailed way:
Go to the top view (NUM7), and press SPACE -> Mesh -> Circle. Accept the 32 vertices, you can make it less but it won't look as good.

Move it into the center of the circle, if you don't then I advise you have wireframe on for the moment (press Z). Then press S, for scale, and make it the correct size for the inside of the circle. Once you have that in the correct place, like so:

You may notice that I needed to stretch it sideways a little; you will too. OK, press 'E' to extrude (choose Only Edges), press 'S' to scale and another sized circle will appear, size this appropriately then click LMB.

If you don't read this carefully, then you may not get the wanted end result. Deselect the second circle, then select four vertices that are near each other and that form a square.

Once you have that, press F and a face will appear, i.e. the box will be filled (turn off Wireframe, press z). Now do this right around the circle. To do this, hold down Shift and Ctrl, then draw a circle around the two vertices you wish to deselect with the Left Mouse Button. Then draw a circle around the next two vertices while holding down Ctrl and LMB, NOT SHIFT. Shift changes the control from selecting, to deselecting. This might take a while, sorry. Once you have got right around the circle it's time to make the line through the middle... this is easy!

To make the crossing line however, you need to move 4 of the vertices slightly; example below:

Once you do this, highlight the 4 you moved, then press F.

Making the circle 3D

Highlight the full circle by pressing A either once or twice. Go to Side View, and press E for extrude and drag it down so that it is the same thickness as the lightning bolt (you'll see why). Now this bit is purely for art's sake, you won't probably learn anything here but it's good practice.

Now look at what you have made... it looks nice enough but where the lightening bolt goes through the circle it looks a bit odd so we will make it look like the circle is lying on top of the bolt. Where the bolt goes through the circle, note the edges and the vertices. Move them so that the lines are just either side of where the bolt goes through. Then make new edges using CTRL+R on the outsides of these edges. Like so:

Now you have squares where the lightning bolt hits the circle. Change to Wireframe (z) if you are not already in it then highlight the 16 vertices of these boxes and raise them. Now do the same for where the center line crosses the bolt but create 4 lines instead of two. To explain why, I've done a diagram.

Now we can make the finishing touches, add subsurf and set it to 2 or 3 and add color! Then you are done :-) I won't go over subsurf and adding color because people have covered that better than I could in previous 'Noob to Pro' pages. I think that's everything. I did this and ended up with the first screenshot so I'm sure you will as well. Sorry about any spelling mistakes, and I'm sure I didn't use the easiest methods but I've only been doing this kind of stuff for 3 days :-) Good luck

[edit] Extra Practice

An Alternate More Difficult Tutorial

[edit] Simple Vehicle

[edit] Overview

The idea of this tutorial is to learn to face a complex project. A vehicle is a nice object to use to test yourself and find new problems.

First, we must understand that a project does not reproduce the real world; a project shows an idea or thought and will result in a final image or video. Whatever does not appear in the final result is unnecessary to include in the model.

What vehicle should we make? Let's go with the classic jeep. This will allow for a lot of doodads.

Let's decide what objects of the jeep model will need to be made - body, wheels, seats, and a rocket launcher for good measure. Objects we can ignore include the engine, which remains hidden under the hood. There are many additional objects you can make such as seats and steering wheel to customize your jeep.

[edit] Modeling a picture

[edit] Modeling a picture

Ever seen an awesome looking picture you wanted to turn into a 3D model? Like a logo or a symbol? Well, it's actually pretty easy... it just takes some time to do.

• First off, you're going to need a picture to trace. I'm currently doing a project for a friend to do with devils and demons, so I chose a demonic looking face for this tutorial: Demonic Face

• Now open Blender and start a new project. Delete the default cube. Before you start tracing the face, you need to set the face as the background image. To do this, click 'view', then 'Background Image'. A box should pop up with only one button in it (Use Background Image), click it. Now some settings appear, we're only interested in one of them for this tutorial. Click the small button with a picture of a miniature folder on it (it looks kind of like a feather pen). It's the first one under the Use Background Image button. From there, select the picture you want to trace. Like this: Background Selection

• OK, now for the long part. Zoom in to the new background image just a little bit. Now, add a Bezier curve, and size it down a little. Hit F9 and, in Curve Tools, find and click the Poly button. Now there should be a few more vertices to work with and the curve should be just a bunch of joined lines. Select one point at a time and using the GKEY move it to a point along the background image(or face in this case). Do the same for all of the rest of the vertices, making sure you only have one vertex selected at a time or you'll move more than just the vertex you want to. Once this is done, select one of the end vertices of the curve (it doesn't matter which end) and use SHIFT+DKEY to copy that vertex. Move the newly copied vertex to a point along the edge of the face a small ways away from the vertex you copied it from. Continue doing this until you have a complete outline (of the whole face or just one part, like the ear). Here's what it should look like (I did the left ear): Tracing. You can't see it in the picture, but six of the points on the right side of the ear are connected, while the rest aren't. In order to get the effect we're looking for here, we need to connect all of the points around the edge to make an outline (make sure not to connect the points across the picture or you'll have a messed up outline).

(user note: hitting CTRL-LMB instead of SHIFT-DKEY will add a vertex that is already connected.)

• To get the outline for the whole face, just do the exact same thing around all of the edges. We still have a problem though: most of the points aren't joined by a line, so all we have is a bunch of dots. This is easily solvable. Using the BKEY or the right click of the mouse, we select a bunch of vertices at a time (somewhere between 5 and 10), and hit the FKEY a few times. Every time you hit the FKEY it should connect two of the points. Do this until all of the selected points are connected, then deselect them and select another group and use FKEY to join them. Keep doing this until all of your points are connected. To connect the last two points, select all the points and press the CKEY, to close the polygon.

[edit: A better option would be to select a vertex on one of the ends of the whole line, hold down the CTRL and left-click on a certain point on the image. This will create a new vertex, immediately connected to the vertex you selected.]

• Now that we've got the entire face traced (or outlined if you want to call it that), we can make it 3D. Hit F9 again and find the Ext1 and Ext2 properties, shown here: Ext1 & Ext2. Change the values and see what happens. They correspond to the depth of the outline. Try changing them around until you find what looks good. Now, you'll notice that the lines just stick out straight. I'm still investigating how to actually model a head from the outlined face ... so if anyone has any ideas, feel free to add them to this page.

• In order to make it have depth you should make the outline out of mesh points instead of a curve. Add a primitive mesh and delete all the vertices in edit mode, then ctrl click to all point outline. Add depth to the surface in a side view (split views so you can see what you're moving). It helps to have 2 or more reference images, but you can wing it. Usually the final result has to be subsurfed.

(USER EDIT: I accidentally started it with mesh instead of curve. You can do the same thing with extrude, but I have no idea how to go on after that) (USER EDIT LATER: If you subsurf it, it creates a relatively 3D looking image. Its really cool)

(Another user, even later: If you want to turn your curve into a mesh, hit Alt-C while in Object Mode. Note that this is NOT reversible.)

(user edit: You can delete one vertex of a plane, in order to get a line. You may find easier to outline the picture extruding and moving points of the line you created.)

(user edit: you can use this tracing technique to make solid and symmetric models, else, you would really have to use normal modelling)

[edit] Printing a Rendered Image

Render your image. Exit or minimize the "Blender:Render" window. In blender, go to File -> Save Image... Then save your image. Then you can print it as you would print any other picture, using The Gimp, Paint, Microsoft's Photo Editor, or many others.

[edit] Using Bones

Bones are used for shifting models and making them posable. If you are not ready for this yet and wish to continue simply modeling, please skip this tutorial to the next section.

[edit] Bones

Bones are a modeling tool that are especially important for animating chracters. Bones allow you to move characters' limbs in a way that is much simpler than trying to re-arrange the vertices every time.

Basically how it works is that a bone will be associated with certain vertices, which will move along with the bone when the position is changed in pose mode. Using bones is fairly simple once you get the hang of it, but, like many things in Blender, can be a little daunting at first sight. Never fear - that's what tutorials are for!

[edit] A model

Bones don't do much on their own - in fact, they turn invisible at render time! So, we'll need a model to use them with. If you haven't already, use an earlier tutorial to create a simple model, and we'll be on our way!

For this tutorial, we're going to use a model with human proportions, but bones can be used with just about any body type. The same idea can be applied to cats, spiders or whatever!

[edit] Laying down bones

Note: This just shows the basics of adding bones to an object. Go to the advanced animation page for a more comprehensive guide on this.

First of all, we'll need a model to put some bones on! For this tutorial, we're going to use a humanoid model. I'm using a quick model that I made based off of the Blender 3D: Noob to Pro/Modeling a Simple Person first tutorial. It's rather blocky, but this isn't a detailed tutorial. ;)

Okay, first of all, here's our setup, with Block Dude standing on the plane.

Now, let's put some bones on Block Dude! In Object Mode go to Space Bar -> Add -> Armature.

What we are looking at is an armature. This is a single bone. Now, we need to put the bone in Block Dude! Move and rotate the bone so that it's in the middle of Block Dude's chest. If your bone does not have the correct length, then change the size of the bone by moving one of the ends of the bone : switch to Edit Mode, select one of the ends of the bone, then move it using GKEY (You might be tempted to scale a bone, but this will mess things up). You might need to toggle wireframe mode if you have solid mode enabled - simply press ZKEY to toggle between them.

To create a second bone starting from one of the ends of the first bone, make sure you are in Edit Mode, select the end of the first bone, then press EKEY. The second bone appears, with its start point on the selected end of the first bone. Move the mouse to position the end point, then press LMB, ENTER, or SPACE. Now, extrude (EKEY) and scale the bone as needed to put the bones in his body! Make sure that you are in Edit mode, and click the pink dots at the end of the bone to do things like extrusion. These operate much the same way as vertices, you can extrude, rotate, move, and even subdivide. Your finished result should look something like this:

Now, just to make things easier, we're going to name the bones. For example, my bones are named RT_Forearm, Left_Forearm, RT_Upper_Arm, etc. Select the bone and press F9 to display the Editing panel. In the "Armature Bones" sub-panel click the top left box to edit the name, indicated with a red arrow in the screenshot below. (noob note: when you are naming the bones remember that if you are looking at the person from the front, your left is the person's right. To make the naming easier switch to viewing the person from behind using CTRL+NUM1.)

Now, we need to parent the bones to the mesh. Go back into Object Mode and select Box Dude. Now, select the Armature as well, and press CTRL+PKEY (noob note: the selection order is important in defining which object is the parent, so you cannot select both objects at the same time). A menu will pop up, select Armature, then Create From Bone Heat (Create From Closest Bones before blender 2.46). Select the armature, and enter Pose Mode (CTRL+TAB) (you need to select the armature for this option to appear!). Try moving a bone around. If you've done everything correctly, your mesh should move when you move the bones! If this doesn't happen, scale the bones up so that they fit better in the mesh, and scale up the bones until they do what you want (read comment below on adjusting the bones envelopes if you do not get an effect while moving/rotating the bones). With the bones now, you can put Box Dude into a lot of different positions without moving individual vertices.

Note: Create From Bone Heat creates vertex groups within the parented object that are associated with armature bones. This is done automatically, according to the bones' position and size. Alternatively, choose Name Groups instead of Create From Bone Heat if you don't want Blender to assign groups automatically, and do it manually. To manually change vertex groups go to Edit Mode (Edit Mode, F9, Links and Materials tab) and use the Assign and Remove buttons. 'Assign' adds vertices to the group (without removing any members that are not currently selected) and 'Remove' obviously removes them. Vertices can be assigned to multiple groups.

In response to the previous comment, if the vertices are properly assigned to the bones they will move regardless of whether the bones are inside the cylinder or not (HOW they deform WILL be affected however). I'm guessing that your mistake was creating and (more importantly) parenting the cylinder to the armature while it was outside the cylinder, which caused Blender not to assign vertices to any bones at all. You can check this by editing the cylinder, selecting a vertex group in the Links and Materials tab, and pressing select. This will highlight the vertices associated with the bone. If none are selected, it means none were assigned in the first place - in which case you need to assign them manually as explained above.

If there is no effect, select in Edit or Pose mode that bone (or bones) and choose Envelope display mode (F9 -> Armature -> Envelope), then press Alt+S and increase its area of influence to cover all faces that should be influenced by the bone.

Finally, here's an example of how you can move Box Dude with the bones:

[edit] Materials and Textures

[edit] From Red to Blue and Everything In Between!

Materials and textures are nearly as important to any great 3D Design as the model itself. Without the coloured design, or the vibrant texture, to whom will an animation targeted towards children appeal? How will that "Grassy-Hill Scene" look without the vibrant greens, gentle blues, and dazzling colors reflecting off a clear, shining pond? It would be a fairly boring scene if all your objects were.....gray.

This is why it is very important that you learn to use the Blender 3D Material-Windows as much as possible. The vast scope of functionality and customization that the material system in Blender offers will allow you to create the most dynamic scene possible. The next few tutorials will have you go over the entire spectrum of options in Blender's material system. Once you finish them, the tutorials after that will help you develop your skills and imprint the system into your mind until it is almost second nature.

[edit] Quickie Material

This tutorial was created using Blender v2.49

[edit] Your First Material

If you open the default scene in Blender, the cube has a material already. All material settings are made in the Shading buttons, the basic material settings are done in the Material buttons.

The default material has a simple grey color. It is linked to the Mesh (Me button), not to the object directly. You can see that the mesh has only one material in use, and that you are editing this material (1 Mat 1).

Delete a material

Click the next to MA:Material in the Links and Pipelines panel to delete the link to the datablock. This removes the material from the mesh, removes several tabs from the Button window, and removes a lot of information from the Material panel and replaces it with an Add New button. You could click that to create a new material, but what we want to do is reapply the old material to it.

Apply an existing material

Click the button that looks like this:. You'll see a drop-down list and you want to choose "Material". This nifty drop-down will list all of the materials you've created thus far and let you apply them to any mesh or object in the scene. Choose the one called "O Material" (which is the same material that was originally on the cube). The "0" in front shows that zero users are using this material.

Note: Unused materials in the Material List (those with a 0 in front of them) are deleted once a Blend project is saved and reopened. Hence, if you wish to delete a material from the Material List... save and re-open the project.

[edit] Meaningful Names

"Material" isn't a very creative name for a material. What is worse than the lack of creativity is the difficulty of finding a specific material in a large scene using dozens of materials with names like "Material.001, 002, 003 ...". There are a couple of different ways to rename the link to a material.

1. Press the automatic name button that looks like a little car . This will automatically give your material the name of the color currently assigned to it. For example: if the color of the material is currently grey, which is the default color, the word grey will appear in the material name space. If you have changed the color, the name of your chosen color will appear. This is a quick option for when you don't have time to give the material a unique name.
2. Press LMB over the material name, and the existing name will be highlighted. You can now type a new name for the material, or Press LMB again to place the text cursor and add to the existing name. Rename the material to "Green Ooze".

Note:Your materials will be much easier to find, and manage later when you give them brief, descriptive names you can recognize at a glance.

[edit] Setting the Color

Obviously, just changing the name of the material doesn't make the material green. We have to do some work on it still.

• You set a color with the RGB color sliders (Img. 2a).
• You can also LMB click on the number and type in the value directly.

• The most comfortable way to change the color is to LMB click on the color itself (Img. 2b), where you get a full fledged color selection panel including a sample Pipette to choose colors from any Blender window, including the rendering window (Img. 2c, 5).

• Set the R value to 0.149, the G value to 1.000, and the B value to 0.446.

R, G and B of course stand for red, green and blue respectively. By mixing these values, any color can be achieved. The Col value is the basic color of the material. Spec(ularity) is the faked reflection of a light source (like a lamp bulb) on an object. Mir is the mirror color for true reflections.

Physically most materials don't change the color of reflected light, so Spec and Mir may normally be left at their default values (white). A notable and important exception is metals. They do change the color of reflected light. We're not doing a physics course here, so we're going to set the Spec color to what we like.

• Click the button marked Spec.

The color dialog can now be used to adjust the specular color. Keep your eyes on the Preview of the material and start messing with the R, G, and B sliders.

• Set the specular color to R = 0.640, G = 0.990, and B = 0.566.

With this value we should be able to get a good ooze down the road. The colour preview and settings should now look similar to this:

There are a lot of other material buttons. We will discuss some of them eventually. For examples on how to achieve a certain effect see Every Material Known to Man.

• Keep this file open and go to the next tutorial, where we will perfect the ooze.

[edit] Quickie Texture

This tutorial was created using Blender v2.49

Textures are laid on top of materials to give them complicated colors and other effects. An object is covered with a material, which might contain several textures: An image texture of stone, a texture to make the stone look bumpy, and a texture to make the stone deform in different ways. This tutorial uses the file from the previous tutorial. If you didn't do it before, go back and do it now.

A texture may be an image or a computed function. What the texture does and how it is mapped onto your object is set in the material buttons. Some commonly used texture types are shown on the page Using Textures.

[edit] Adding a texture

The file we're working with has a texture already, but if you add a new material to an object, it hasn't got a texture by default. Then add a texture:

• In the Texture panel of the Material buttons click on Add New to add a new texture, or select an existing one with the Drop-Down button.
• Select the Texture Buttons with the spotty square icon (or by pressing F6).
• Select the texture type Clouds from the drop-down list. You can also change the texture's name, as we have did for the material.

A preview appears, as well as some parameters to experiment with. A Clouds texture provides some irregularities.

• Head back to the Material Buttons (Click the red sphere or press F5) and a colored preview of the texture appears. It is purple! All new textures default to this colour.

On the right hand side of the material buttons window there are three tabs: Texture, Map Input, and Map To. Since we want to change a material property that is affected by the texture we have to look at the Map To tab. This means: map the value that a texture provides to a material property. A texture may provide different values:

1. RGB color (all images, Magic, every texture with a colorband)
2. Intensity, either as grey scale or/and an alpha value (most of the procedural textures, image textures with alpha, textures with a colorband)
3. Normal values (Stucci, normal maps)

If you want to use textures you always have to be aware of the value a texture provides and the Map To settings for the material.

• Select the Map To panel.

The activated Col button in the top row shows that the texture affects the color of the material. A Clouds texture provides an intensity value, ranging from 0 (where the texture is black) to 1 (where the texture is white).

The RGB (Red, Green, Blue) sliders here adjust the target color of the texture. This is mixed (Mix) with the material color, where the intensity of the Clouds texture is 1 only the target color is used, where the intensity of the Clouds texture is 0, only the material color is used.

• Set the target color to black.

Procedural textures are not shown in the 3D window (only if you would use excessive amounts of vertices), even if you use GLSL materials. This means that we have to render the image to see the texture properly.

• Render the image (F12), or use the preview to judge the result of the texture.

Next we will add a Stucci texture to make our clouds look bumpy.

[edit] Adding a Stucci texture

• Go back to the Texture Buttons and select the next texture channel (one of the blank buttons under "NewCloudTexture").
• Add a new texture here and set the type to Stucci.
• Back to the Material Buttons, and click the "Map To" tab.
• Turn Col off and Nor on.

Col means the texture affects the colour. Nor means it affects the rendered normal, i.e. the angle the renderer treats the surface as - creating fake shadows on the surface.

• Play with the Nor slider, but leave it on about 4.

Render to see the effect. A texture changing the surface normal is called a "Bump" map or "Normal" map. Since that is fake 3D, you don't see it under every circumstance, you will get a greater effect on smoothly curved surfaces with high specularity, only a little or no effect on flat surfaces with low specularity.

[edit] Procedural Textures

Procedural Textures

Texturing objects can be broken down into two categories: procedural and image texturing. Procedural texturing makes use of mathematical formulas to generate textures. This is nice because it can be used to make relatively nice looking textures without external images which are very temperamental where you put them. Procedural Textures are all stored in the .blend file. These textures are obviously generated within Blender itself. Image texturing uses images created or captured outside of Blender, either from an image manipulation program such as the Paint.NET GIMP or Photoshop, or captured on a camera. We have already learned about image texturing, so move on to the next tutorial to learn about procedural texturing.

Current Procedural Textures

Blender currently supports many procedural textures, including: Clouds, Marble, Stucci, Wood, Magic, Blend, Noise, Musgrave, Voronoi and DistortedNoise.

[edit] Creating Basic Seawater

75% of the Earth's surface is covered with water. In homage to this great fact, we will develop your materials skills first by creating basic seawater.

First we create a new file in Blender and delete the default cube by pressing XKEY and confirming the popup dialog. Now switch to top view with NUM7 and enter SPACE > Add > Mesh > Plane to create a plane. Then scale it up to 30 its original size with the SKEY the way you've already learned in one of the earlier tutorials.

Now off to the actual texturing work. Press F5 to bring up the Material Buttons in the Buttons Window. You will probably find two new small windows appearing here: one called Links and Pipelines and the other one Preview.

Click the 'Add New' button in the Material window to create a new material named `Material.001'. To make life easier we'll rename it to something meaningful like 'Seawater' by simply clicking it and typing in the letters, as shown here (SHIFT+DELETE in field to clear):

Now, on the same tab, give the seawater material a color of RGB (0.0, 0.139, 0.400). Find the Alpha slider and move it until it reads approximately Alpha 0.100.

[edit] Texturing Basic Seawater

Disclaimer: This tutorial is for those of you who have installed the yafray external renderer! The texture will NOT look like waves (or much of anything at all) with the internal renderer of Blender.

[Note: Since version 2.42 (or maybe earlier) you can use the internal blender render]

[ed. note: Need a much more basic introduction to what materials, textures, maps, and all the accompanying terms are with illustrative examples before diving into a specific sea-water example. Much more effective learning when you know what you're changing.]

Now we'll add a procedural texture to our seawater, which will give it a "wavy" look. Click the Texture button (looks like bricks) or press F6 to view the texture buttons subcontext. Click on the knob to the left of the texture name and select the "Add New" button. This creates a new texture named "Tex.001". Click on the name and change it to "Waves".

Go to the Texture Type pull-down (F6) and select 'Stucci'. On the Stucci tab click 'Wall Out' and 'Soft noise', and change 'Noise Basis' to 'Voronoi F1'. Our Waves texture is ready; next, we will refine how it is applied to our Seawater material.

You might be wondering what these parameters do.

• Plastic uses the default method of texturing
• Wall In creates dimples and depressions, but it's not much different from Plastic. It makes the texture appear like some parts are lower than others.
• Wall Out creates ridges and elevations and makes it look like parts are higher than others. This is essentially a negative of Wall In. With Stucci set on Voronoi F1, you can see the spheres somewhat sticking out (to see it better, make sure you have set Soft Noise).
• Soft Noise blends the intensities and reduces the contrast. Makes a mellow effect, like soft waves.
• Hard noise creates a high contrast, and brings out individual 'shapes'. With the Stucci effect on Vornoi F1, it makes it look like there are spheres floating around (like bacteria in a bloodstream).

Other options are Noise Size and Turbulence. Noise Size increases the size of the noise (duh), in this case, the spheres. Turbulence adjusts the roughness of the scene. You can see it best with either Wall In or Wall Out. You'll need to change the value by at least 20 to see the slightest difference. You can experiment with the value if you want, but make sure you switch from Wall In to Wall Out and from Soft Noise to Hard Noise to see what exactly it does.

Left click on the Materials button (looks like a red sphere) to return to the material buttons subcontext. Look at the Texture panel, and you'll see that the "Waves" texture has been automatically associated with the Seawater material.

Select the 'Map To' tab. Click the 'Nor' and 'Spec' buttons so they're selected and have white text (the white text indicates a positive mapping). Click the 'Hard' button twice so it's selected and has yellow text (the yellow text indicates a negative mapping).

Select the 'Map Input' tab. There, look at the X, Y and Z scaling. The values to use here depend on the size of your water plane (you can see and edit the size of the plane by going to Object, Transform Properties or by pressing 'N'. With a plane size of X=3, Y=3, Z=1, a reasonable map input scaling is sizeX=5, sizeY=20, sizeZ=25. One important consideration, if you're mapping to a flat surface, is that the X and Y scalings shouldn't match (or Y and Z or X and Z for a vertical plane). This is part of what gives the Stucci/voronoi a good "wave" look.

[Note: for the subsequent step you may have to change the Texture Blending Mode to subtract or multiply, instead of mix or add, to get a fine rendered image. Since version 2.42 (or may earlier) use F5 -> MapTo -> drop down list select Subtract or Multiply and continue with this tutorial. This also works for the yafray renderer, later you can change it back to Mix after you applied a second texture with 'Col' enabled.]

Now do a render (F12) and look at the result. If you just get a big blue-green looking plane, you are probably using the internal blender renderer. Install YafRay if you haven't already. To render with it, press F10 to view the Scene context. On the Render tab, beneath the huge 'Render' button, change the Render Engine from 'Blender internal' to 'YafRay'.

[User note: I have blender 2.41 and I have just clicked the colorband button inside the Color's Tab from Texture, and it looked like this image.]

[Note: You have to have your light a good distance away from the plane, and have it set very powerful to see more than a black square.]

This looks okay, but a bit too jagged. To smooth things out, we'll add a second texture. Go to the Texture subcontext (F6) if you're not already there. In the Texture tab, click the first empty rectangle beneath the "Waves" texture. Click 'Add New'. Rename the new texture "Clouds", and change its texture type to 'Clouds'. In the Clouds tab, set NoiseSize to .2 and NoiseDepth to 2. Switch back to the material buttons subcontext, select the Texture tab, and verify that the new Clouds texture is checked and selected. Click on the Map To tab and select 'Nor' ('Col' should already be selected).

Render (F12), admire your water, and maybe drink a tall glass of something refreshing!

[edit] Extra Practice

This tutorial might also help you make even more realistic water: Link

[edit] Mountains Out Of Molehills 2

[noob note: I just got a flat gray plane when i did this, I believe you have to press Nor on and increase the Nor value to something relatively high, I used 11.37.]

(another noob's note: In my current version (2.46) I don't think Nor is what you want. Nor will affect the bump-mapping effect (normal values). You want to have Nor unchecked, Disp checked and the slider for Disp set to something like 0.200. Though I'm not clear on the difference between Nor and Disp.)

Nor (normal) only changes what direction the point on the plane looks like it's facing. Disp actually moves the points on the plane up and down

By adding some Mist in the World buttons, adding a Cloud Texture to the World and make it blend from white to gray we could get something like this:

[edit] Basic Carpet Texture

[edit] Goal

I am using a basic scene that I quickly set up before I started to create the carpet material. It shows a monkey (suzanne), a plane, camera, 3 area lamps and 1 spot lamps.

The purpose of this tutorial, is to highlight the power of blenders built in shaders and procedural textures to create a carpet material to use in your scenes.

NOTE:  For those of you needing help getting a similar scene to the one above, here are some axis positions,etc to help out:
(Spot-Lamp)-X=1.62,Y=0.86,Z=6.74;rotation-X=37.26,Y=3.16,Z=181.34;
(Area-Lamp-1)X=4,Y=3.27,Z=4.12;rotation-X=54.67,Y=-18.59,Z=-109.47;
(Area-Lamp-2)X=-2.07,Y=-2.08,Z=4.85;rotation-X=29.37,Y=-28.98,Z=355;
(Area-Lamp-3)X=0.315,Y=-2.89,Z=4.29;rotation-X=49.23,Y=-10.63,Z=6.68;
(Monkey)X=0.05,Y=0,Z=0.42;rotation-X=58.61,Y=-16.07,Z=23.245;DIM(dimensions)X=2.734,Y=1.969,Z=1.703;
(Plane)x=0,y=0,z=0;(no rotation);Dimensions: X&Y=14.30,z=0.

[edit] The Basic Material and Shader Settings

For the basic material for the carpet set the colour settings of your material as follows -
Col (R 0.714) (G 0.134) (B .134) Dark Red
Spe (R 0.590) (G 0.210) (B 0.084) Redish Brown
Mir (R 1.000) (G 1.000) (B 1.000) White

Change the specular shader to ('phong') and leave the default lamert diffuse shader as it is. Change the ('spec') to [0.13] and the ('hard') to [12]. Lastly click the ('Full Osa') button to enable it. If you render now you will notice that the plane looks like a ugly pastel colour (if not, you have a different lighting setup to mine and the shader will not look the same as the images in this tutorial.) Dont worry about this ugly looking plane it will soon be a beautiful carpet.

[edit] Cloud Texture 1

Press 'F6' on the keyboard to bring up the texture panel. Click the bottommost of the long boxes to create a texture in the bottom channel. Create a new texture and rename it something like 'Red Clouds 1'. From the ('Texture Type') pull down select clouds. In the 'Clouds' settings panel change ('NoiseSize') to [0.210] and ('NoiseDepth') to [4].

Now select the Colors tab which will bring up the ColorBand for the texture. Press the orange ('Add') button to add a cursor on the colourband. Next make sure the 'Cur : 0' is showing next to the add button and change the colours as follows - (R 0.770, G 0.168, 0.168). Now click on right side of the 'Cur : 0' so it shows 'Cur : 1'. Change 'Pos' to 0.6. Set Alpha to 1 and change the colour to (R 0.732 G 0.243 B 0.243).

Now go back into the material settings and change the settings in the Map To tab as follows. Click ('Spec') twice so the text becomes yellow do the same for ('Hard'). Now select 'Subtract' for the texture blending mode. Change ('Col') to [0.188].

At this stage if you render you might find it hard to notice the difference, it is apparent only where there is low light levels on the plane, don't worry about this at the moment. It means if you render with Ambiant Occlusion you get a nice carpet effect of slightly varying colour.

[edit] Cloud Texture 2

Go back to the texture panel and create another texture, call it 'Clouds' and put it in the channel above 'Red Clouds'. Change ('NoiseSize') to [0.054] and ('NoiseDepth') to 4. Select 'Improved Perlin' from the Noise Basis pull down. Finally change ('Nabla') to [0.031]. Do not change any more settings here.

Now in the material panel, under the Map To tab change the following - Click ('Nor'). Click ('Spec') and ('Hard') twice so as they are yellow.

As you can see the material is starting to look a bit better, only 2 more textures to go.

[edit] The Final Cloud Texture

Switch to the texture panel once again and create a new Clouds texture in the next channel up. Change ('NoiseSize') to [0.010] and ('NoiseDepth') to [6]. Now click on the 'Colors' tab and change the colour of the left cursor ('Cur : 0') to (R 0.713 G 0.262 B 0.223) and Alpha to 0. Switch to Cursor 1 ('Cur : 1') and its colour settings (R 1.000 G 0.363 B 0.000) and Alpha to 1.

Now in the materials panel under the 'Map To' tab Click ('Nor'). Click ('Spec') and ('Hard') twice so as they are yellow. Leave the blending mode as 'Mix'. Change ('Col') to [0.464] and ('Nor') to [1.00].

[edit] The Last Texture

Finally, go to the textures panel one last time. Create a new Stucci texture in the next channel up. Change ('NoiseSize') to [0.006] and ('Turbulence') to [10.94]. Click on the 'Colors' tab. The first cursor 'Cur : 0' should be black with alpha 0. 'Cur : 1' should be red (R 1.000 G 0.000 B 0.000) with alpha 1.

Now go to the materials panel. Under the 'Map To' tab Click ('Nor'). Click ('Spec') and ('Hard') twice. Change the Blending type to 'Subtract'. Change ('Col') to [0.056] and ('Nor') to [0.50]. And that's it. When you render now, you should have a nice-looking carpet material. By tweaking with the colours you can create any colour of carpet.

[edit] Image Textures

Procedural texturing is very powerful; however, sometimes it is difficult or impossible to generate the desired realism with them. Image texturing is there for you when you need it. To review, the basic idea is to take an outside image and wrap it around your model. Now move on to the next tutorial to learn how to do this.

[edit] Free Image Texture Editors

• Wood Workshop A free utility (Requires Operating System: Windows 2000/XP) that generates surprisingly high quality tiling wood texture images. These textures can be exported as standard image files for use within Blender.
• The GIMP GIMP, a free image editor that has many of the same functions as Photoshop.
• MapZone A free utility for Windows that generates node based procedural texture maps. Mapzone can export diffuse, normal and alpha texture maps as standard image files. It can also import SVG regions created with Blender's UV mapping tools.

[edit] The Rusty Ball

Making objects with image textures is not really hard for simple objects like balls, cubes, and tubes. I'll show you how to do this:

• Make a new Scene in Blender and delete the default cube (XKEY).
• Make an object you want to have the image on (I recommend a Mesh plane, sphere or tube).
  • if you are making a Mesh Plane, change your view to above, by pressing NUM7

To make a rusty ball i suggest an icosphere with a size of 2 wich will fit nicely in the camera wiew.

• Sequence is: spacebar, add, mesh, icosphere.
• Go to the materials (F5) and select "O Material" from the popupmenu by the "Add new" button. (the little arrows)
• Now go to the textures (F6) and choose "Texture Type" A drop down (or up) menu appears and you will get many options, the one we need is "Load image". Click it, then select "Load" and navigate to an image you want to use. (Note: JPGs, PNGs or TGAs are recommended for Blender. Bitmaps tend to get all screwy.)
• After this, you'll have to specify how your image should be applied to your object. To do this, go to the materials again, where you'll have to find the "Map input" tab (near the textures tab). If you have selected it, you'll see four buttons: Flat, Cube, Tube and Sphere. Select the option which meets your object best. You can see a simple preview of the different options in the "Preview" window and try the different modes.
• Render your object. If you can't see your picture well, you can try to rotate your object or select another option in the "Map input" tab.

You can also render videos onto objects using this method. Just select a movie in the "Load image" dialog and enable the option "Movie" at the textures buttons. NOTE: Blender ONLY works with Full Resolution video, not video which has been compressed using a codec. Most video software will allow you to export video as "full frames" or "no compression". Experiment a bit!

[edit] UV Map Basics

[edit] Intro

In case you're wondering, UV mapping stands for the technique used to "wrap" a 2D image texture onto a 3D mesh. "U" and "V" are the name of the axes of a plane, since "X", "Y" and "Z" are used for the coordinates in the 3D space. For example: increasing your "U" on a sphere might move you along a longitude line (north or south), while increasing your "V" might move you along a line of latitude (east or west).

You can watch a good video tutorial from the main Blender site. It is called LSCM UV Mapping or (Least Squares Conformal Map UV Mapping) and it is located on this page: http://www.blender.org/education-help/video-tutorials/modelmateriallight/

[edit] The Basics of UV Mapping

[edit] Add an icosphere

We'll use a sphere for this demonstration. So, create a new model, delete the initial cube, and create an icosphere. (SPACE → Add → Mesh → Icosphere) Leave the settings at default: subdivisions 2, radius 1.0

Make sure you are in top view like in the picture before you create it. Otherwise the equator of the sphere is probably not parallel to the x/y-plane and unwrapping will give strange results.

[edit] Mark a seam

In side view, select a ring of vertices on the icosphere. (Like an equator). This can be done easily by going to a side on view (NUM1 or NUM3) and drawing a selection box around the middle row of vertices (BKEY + click&drag). Make sure Limit Selection to Visible is NOT enabled first.

(Limit Selection to Visible appears to be labelled "Occlude Background Geometry" in 2.48. It is the cube button that appears toward the right of the 3V View header)

Press CTRL+EKEY and select Mark Seam, or select Mesh menu → Edges → Mark Seam. This tells the UV unwrapper to cut the mesh along these edges.

[edit] Unwrap the mesh

Next, create a window for the UV mapping: click the MMB (RMB works as well) near the top border of the 3D View window and select "Split Area". Set its window type to "UV/Image Editor" with the drop down box at the bottom left corner of the new window or with SHIFT + F10.

In the 3D View window, select all your vertices, and hit UKEY and then LSCM. For Blender 2.42 or later select all the faces, and use UKEY → unwrap or Face menu → Unwrap UVs → Unwrap to use LSCM.

Noob Note: I use Blender 2.45 and UKEY doesn't work for this. It seems to be an undo key. Is there another way to bring up the Unwrap menu? Same Noob: The tutorial doesn't say, but you have to be in UV Face Select mode for UKEY to work for this. Yoshi: For Blender 2.48a there is no LSCM but you can use Unwrap.

NOTE: Make sure you switch to the UV Face Select Mode in 3D window. Then "UKEY" does not work as a shortcut for Undo, rather it serves the purpose.

LSCM is one of the algorithms for unwrapping a mesh onto the 2-dimensional UV space, acronym for Least Squares Conforming Map. It is a very useful unwrapping method because it attempts to preserve the shape of each face, much like unwrapping the cloth of a garment.

[edit] Make a template image

When you have tweaked a nice layout and intend to make the texture image yourself, you may ease the texture drawing by saving an image of the UV layout. This image can then be opened in your image editing program of choice to make a basis for the UV texture by showing where each surface goes. In the UV/Image Editor window, select UVs menu → Scripts → Save UV Face Layout... (User note: for pre 2.43 versions, use UVs menu → Save UV Face Layout). '<<Noob note: I use Blender 2.48. UVs menu → Scripts is empty. There's no Save UV Face Layout... option... What to do?>>'Yoshi: I also use 2.48, make sure all the vertices are selected then hit UVs -> Scripts -> Save UV Face Layout. New Blender User: This is because you don't have the proper Python software installed. It is this software that provides all the scripts for Blender, so it is important to have the proper software. Note: Blender 2.48 requires Python 2.5.2, which is NOT the newest version. Python 2.6, the newest version, doesn't work with Blender, so make sure to get Python 2.5.2 (2.5.4 that is available at the Python site works too). There is another way to export the images, however, that does not require scripts. Go to Image -> New, and this will create an image of the net. Then go to Image -> Save As, and save the image to where you want it.

With Wrap selected, the layout will maintain its proportions, which is best for general purposes. Not selecting it will scale your layout into square proportions which is mostly useful for Blender's game engine where textures should preferably be square. Choose the location of the image file as desired (the default name is the name of the object to be textured) and press Export. Tip: if your image painting program supports layers, try putting the UV layout in a locked, transparent layer above the actual painting. If you do not alter the dimensions of the exported UV image in any way it will fit perfectly with your UV layout when the image is loaded back into Blender.

[edit] Apply an image

Save the following image:

Load it in the UV/Image Editor window by clicking Image menu → Open... (or Image menu → Load image in older Blender versions). Then with the very basic operations, grab, rotate and scale, adjust the unwrapped mesh so that it fits nicely on top of the image.

[noob note: when i downloaded this image it did not load correctly, try copying it into paint if you have this problem -> or better click in the link and it's send you to the correct link]

[edit] Admire your new creation

Back in the 3D View window, select Object mode. The next drop-down menu to the right is the Draw Type menu; use it to set the Draw Type to Textured. (Greybeard calls it "potato mode" because of the icon that the menu shows.) Hit TAB a couple of times to refresh your object, and admire your new picture mapped onto your object!

To make the texture visible in renderings, you also need to add the texture to the icosphere as a new material. In the Buttons window, switch to the Shading buttons by clicking the small shaded-sphere button or by pressing F5. Create a new material by pressing Add New in the Links and Pipelines mini-window, then turn on TexFace in the Material mini-window:

To finish your work, switch to Edit Mode and select all vertices. In the Buttons window, switch to the Editing buttons by clicking the small four-vertices-in-a-square button or by pressing F9, and then click Set Smooth in the Links and Materials mini-window. In the Modifiers mini-window, click Add Modifier → Subsurf and set Render Levels to 3. Switch back to the Shading buttons (F5) and activate the World buttons by clicking the small "Earth" button in the second button group. Enable Stars in the Mist/Stars/Physics mini-window. The scene is ready! Render it by selecting Render menu → Render Current Frame.

[edit] Some notes

All this relates to the UV/Image window.
If you are going to edit the layout of your unwrapping (so you can make a better picture), make sure Select->Stick Local UVs to Mesh Vertex is on. You can "pin" vertices when they have been unwrapped with PKEY. If you do, make sure you put at least one pin on every island. You can remove all pins with alt-p. LSCM works by trying to maintain the angles between each vertex. If an unwrapping should be symmetrical and it's not, try putting one pin in the middle of the outside edge of the big side and one on the small side, and unwrapping again with EKEY.

IMPORTANT:

• Remember to set your map input with the UV and Flat buttons enabled.
• As said before, to make the texture visible in renderings, too, you also need to toggle on TexFace from the Material buttons.

[edit] Questions

1. Question: I can't get the image to load in blender v.2.44, thought I did everything you said. What to do?
   
   • Answer: In v.2.44: click 'Image' button on the bottom of the UV/Image Editor view port. There is the 'Open' option for loading an image file.
     
   • Answer 2: There appears to be a bug in Blender. If you still don't see an image, try cropping your image to dimension that are power-of-2, like 256x256, or 512x512, or 1024x1024.
   • Answer 3:Make sure to select the image in the file browser with both the right AND the left mouse button
   • Answer 4:Undo (Ctrl + Z) one step also helps to refresh the window and makes the image visible again.
     
2. Question: Whenever I press U in the step above everything is deselected and nothing appears in the UV window. What to do?
   
   • Answer: First you select the circle on the icosphere (the 'equator'), ctrl-E, mark seam. Then where it usually says Edit Mode or Object Mode, click that and select UV Face Select, THEN Press U.
   • Elaboration: I'm experiencing the same thing even if I hit ctrl+E and mark seam. And AFAIK on 2.48a there's no UV Face Select mode. Well after hitting UKEY->Unwrap there's no projection of the sphere on the UV window. Update: I found the problem. In the 3d window you have to select all vertices in edit mode. Then the projection will show up.
3. Question: My image won't load and is there a way to load images other than typing in it's entire address? (I.E. is there a 'browse' button?)
   • Answer: While there is no visual list of common shortcuts, if you type in the crude location of your file and double click on directories to get to the fine one containing your file.
4. Comment: I selected "Save target as.." instead of "Save picture as.." in my browser, so tried loading a save