Blender 3D: Noob to Pro/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  X .

• 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 which will fit nicely in the camera view.

• Sequence to add the Ball 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.)

(Noob Note: Do a search for Rust Textures if you do not have one handy.)

• 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!