Blender 3D: Noob to Pro/Quickie Render

If you haven't completed the "Quickie Model" module, do so now. You will need the resulting model for this module.

Now that you've created your first model, you'll probably want to try rendering it. Your first render, with a single light source and only nine faces, should finish quickly. However, as your 3D scenes become more complex, you'll find that rendering can take a long time.

In this module, you'll render your quickie model and save the result in various file formats. You'll also learn how to aim cameras and create lamps.

Rendering the Quickie Model

1. Launch Blender and load factory settings.
2. To load the house model from the previous module:
   1. Press  F1  or select File → Open. This temporarily changes the active window into a File Browser window.
   2. Navigate to the directory (folder) where you wrote the file, by clicking  LMB  on directory names in the File window. (Clicking on ".." will take you up one level.)
   3. Click  LMB  on the name of the file you wrote.
   4. Click  LMB  on the "Open File" button. As soon as the operation is complete, the window will revert back to its former type.
3. Press  F12  or select Render → Render Image. This opens the Image Editor so you can watch the render progress.

If F12 is in use by the window manager...

• With the new Apple keyboard, use  Fn + F12  to avoid the Mac Dashboard.
• With Macintosh OS X 10.5, use  Alt + Fn + F12 .
• With Gnome, use  Alt + F12  to avoid the Gnome Search Dialog.

You can stop a render in progress by pressing  Esc  any time when the render window has the focus. Bear in mind that this will stop the render completely; you can`t "resume" it by pressing  F12  again.

Aiming the Camera

If you don't get a picture of the house, or if the picture is not framed well, try moving or re-aiming the camera:

1. Press  Num0  to take the camera's viewpoint.
2. Press  Shift + F  to put the 3D View window into camera fly mode.

In camera fly mode, you can:

• Pan and tilt by moving the mouse pointer up, down, left, or right.
• Accelerate by  SCROLL  forwards.
• Decelerate by  SCROLL  backwards.
• Press any key or button to exit fly mode.

When you're done positioning the camera, try rendering again.

Lighting

If your cube is completely black, you may not have a lamp in the scene. Either the default lamp got deleted, or you're using a version of Blender that doesn't provide a default lamp.

To add a lamp:

1. Make sure Blender is in Object Mode.
2. Place the 3D cursor where you want the lamp to go; or add the lamp then immediately grab it, and move it somewhere else.
3. Press  Shift + A .
4. In the popup menu, select Lamp → Point.

Saving the Render

Saving the scene (with  F2 , for instance) does not save any renders. Saving renders is a separate step.

To save your current render:

1. Make sure you are in the Image Editor
2. Press  F3 . This temporarily changes the active window into a File Browser window.
3. Navigate to the directory (folder) where you want to write the file.
4. Type a filename in the text box (to the left of the "Cancel" button).
5. To the left of the window, choose your preferred file type.
6. Click  LMB  on the "Save as Image" button. As soon as the save operation is complete, the window will revert back to its former type.

Image File Formats

JPEG is a lossy image format. For best image quality, you'll want to use a lossless format such as PNG.

To change the render file format:

1. Click the camera icon on the top of the Properties panel to display the render options.
2. Find the Output dropdown menu.
3. Click  LMB  on the popout menu with the current file format (probably JPEG).
4. Select your preferred format. If you're doing an animation, then select one of the Movie codecs (such as AVI or MPEG).

Additional Resources

• the "Output Formats" module
• Tutorial on Using Multiple Cameras ← Pictures are missing from this tutorial
• Ira Krakow's Basic Blender Camera Positioning (Rigging)