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[edit] Table of Contents

[edit] Beginner Tutorials

• Beginner Tutorials
  • Tutorial Syntax
  • Become Familiar with the Blender Interface
    • Learn the Blender Windowing System
    • The User Preferences Window
    • The Buttons Window
    • The 3D Viewport Window
    • Other Windows

[edit] Learn to Model

• Learn to Model
  • Beginning Tips
  • Quickie Model
  • Quickie Render
  • Mesh Modeling
    • Modeling a Simple Person
    • Detailing Your Simple Person I
    • Detailing Your Simple Person II
    • Creating a Simple Hat
    • Putting Hat on Person
    • Mountains Out Of Molehills
    • Creating Models With Photo Assistance
    • Modeling a Gingerbread Man
    • Penguins from spheres
    • Die Another Way (dice modeling)
    • Die Easy (dice modeling — revised Die Another Way)
    • Model a Silver Goblet
    • Simple Vehicle
      • Simple Vehicle: Wheel
      • Simple Vehicle: Seat
      • Simple Vehicle: Rocket Launcher
      • Simple Vehicle: Body
      • Simple Vehicle: Some Assembly Required
    • Model a Low Poly Head
    • Edit Mode HotKeys Review
    • Object Mode HotKeys Review
  • Curve and Path Modeling
    • Intro to Bezier Curves
    • 2D Image (logo) to a 3D Model
    • 2D Image (logo) to a 3D Model Part 2
    • Modeling a picture
    • Using Bones
  • Materials and Textures
    • Quickie Material
    • Quickie Texture
    • Procedural Textures
      • Creating Basic Seawater
      • Mountains Out Of Molehills 2
      • Light a Silver Goblet
      • Basic Carpet Texture
      • Procedural Eyeball
    • Image Textures
      • The Rusty Ball
      • Creating Pixar-looking eyes
    • UV Map Basics
    • Every Material Known to Man
  • Modeling Keyboard Shortcuts
  • Beginning Modeling Final Project

[edit] Lighting

• Beginning Lighting
  • Adding Lamps

[edit] Rendering

• Render Settings
  • Output Format Options
    • OSA
  • Looking All Around - Panorama Settings
  • Other Important Render Options
  • Yafray Render Options

[edit] Animation

• Basic Animation
  • Lattice Deformer
  • Bouncing Ball with Lattice
  • Creating Basic Water animation

[edit] Particles

• Particle Systems
  • Making Fire
  • Furry
  • Rug

[edit] Soft Body

• Soft Body Animation
  • Simple Cloth Animation

[edit] Blender Game Engine(BGE)

• Game Engine Basics
  • Your First Test
  • Build a skybox
  • A simple basic mouse pointer
  • How to make a .exe

[edit] Other

• Match Moving
• High Dynamic Range imaging (HDRi)
  • Creating a Light Probe
• Create a Clayman
• Organic Modeling
• Blender FAQ

---

[edit] Beginner Tutorials

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.

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

Most keyboards have number keys in two different places: in a row above the letters and in the numeric keypad on the right of the keyboard. While many computer applications use these two sets of keys interchangeably, Blender does not: It assigns a different set of functions to each set. If you don't have a numeric keypad ("numpad") see Blender 3D: Noob to Pro/Non-standard equipment for information on emulating the keypad's functionality.

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

[edit] Mouse

Blender uses all three mouse buttons. If you don't have a three-button mouse (a one-button Apple mouse, for example), see Blender 3D: Noob to Pro/Non-standard equipment for information on emulating a three-button mouse.

[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.)

Become Familiar with the Blender Interface

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. In Linux, running Blender in a separate workspace provides access using a single click of the mouse. Similarly, in Mac OS X you can switch on "spaces" and either use the mouse key to switch between them, or cmd and the directional arrows.

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

Splitting and Joining Windows Youtube Video

The User Preferences Window

[edit] Showing the User Preferences Window

[edit] Configuring and Saving Your Preferences

[edit] Setting Up Auto Save

[edit] Adjusting The Theme

As with other programs with a graphical user interface, Blender has a way to customize or modify many aspects of the user interface itself. Each collection of customizations is called a theme. Clicking LMB on the "Themes" button will show a drop-down menu in the top left of the user preferences window which can be used to select different themes. Below this are buttons labeled "Add" and "Delete" that can be used to (surprise!) add and remove themes. Note that the delete button does not appear for the default theme. The other controls that appear in the user preferences window while the themes button is active are to adjust the parameters that are specific to the current theme.

This book presents all screen shots using the default theme. If you are new to Blender, you should continue to use the default theme as you progress through the book.

[edit] More Undo Levels

[edit] Emulating the Numpad

By default the Numpad keys control the 3D viewport, while the normal numeric keys change the view layers. Emulating the Numpad, in effect, allows the user to control the 3D viewport using the normal numeric keys on the keyboard. This replaces the default function of the keys, but does not affect the Numpad.

This is useful for computers/laptops where there is no physical Numpad available.

[edit] Saving Your Preferences

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.

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 pan 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 only illuminate 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 in the 3d View header 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.

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

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 easy. Give yourself time and patience; Pixar and Dreamworks will still be in business when you're ready for them!

Beginning 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. Don't do the following, but if you were to 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.

Noobie asks: I did this, and I cannot change the "Level". Why not? Noobie2 responds: Make sure you didn't hit multitires by mistake. Noobie3 responds: Maybe you accidentally clicked something else. Noobie4 responds: Maybe you overlooked the level "gague"

[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.

Quickie Model

Your first model is easy.

[edit] Selecting objects

Start with the default scene. (CTRL+X or File -> New) 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 , (in newer versions ), 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.

To create an edge, select two unconnected vertices and press FKEY.

To create a face, select three or four unconnected vertices (no more than four) and press FKEY.

To delete vertices, select one or more and press DELETE. A menu will pop up asking you what you would like to delete.

[edit] Extra Practice

• A Video Tutorial on Edit Mode

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 <---- Pictures are missing from this tutorial

Basic Blender Camera Positioning (Rigging)

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.

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 and above 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. Edge Selection

In addition to those vertex selection methods, there are two other options: on the right of your viewport header you can see selection modes. Choose the Edge select mode (the middle mode showing 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"). NOTE: -The picture on the right is wrong. Should be edge selection.

[edit] 6. Face Selection

The second alternate option to the vertex selection method is also available. On the right of your viewport header, choose the Face select mode (the right button with a 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] 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. For latest versions of Blender, using the SHIFT+DKEY works as well.
• 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 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

If you attempt to extrude the vertices but 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, then hold LMB and drag the mouse.

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

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.

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 an edge of one of the cubes to the left or right of the model's pelvis just above the hips, where the legs connect to the torso: (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 Rotation/Scaling Pivot to 3D Cursor. 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)

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: WKEY, Subdivide, or, 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.

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)
• EKEY to create another vertex attached to the one selected

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 (find it by dragging down the user preferences window)
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.

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 initially 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.

User contributed edit:
With Blender 2.49b (and possibly other versions?) repeatedly pressing an axis constraint key as described above will in fact toggle through 3 modes of constraint. RKEY will start rotate mode around the view axis. The first press of a constraint key places rotation in global mode and the second press places rotation in local mode. A third press returns you back to view axis rotation.

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.

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.

Noob Note: If you're having trouble seeing or changing the radius of influence, try saving your scene and restarting Blender.

• 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. Your screen should look like this:

You can see the size of the proportional editing circle, and that there is only one vertex on the mountainside selected.

• Next hold CTRL and rotate everything by -90. Alternatively, use RKEY, NKEY, and type -90 and press ENTER. Your mountain should now look like this:

Notice that the vertex itself did not move; since it is at the center of the circle it had no effect. The adjoining vertexes within the edit circle were rotated around it in decreasing amounts the further from the center they are. Try doing it again with a larger proportional editing circle. 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.]

[hendric: Newbie, but I think I got the tutorial demonstrating what it should be doing. I added screenshots of my full workspace and changed the wording to explain a little better. I am wiki-illiterate so any changes to prettify it are welcome.]

Try viewing your world from top view while rotating with a large effective radius. You will see the nearby vertexes move close to the full amount while vertexes further away move less.

[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. Select the second vertex from the top in the centre of our Sharp Falloff mountain, 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.

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: If you delete all of your mesh objects in Object Mode (and remaining vertice), then you'll be stuck in Object Mode. You can however, add a new mesh object as a base, or an empty mesh via a python script (Add → Mesh → Empty Mesh) [Blender 2.49]. Once an empty mesh object has been created, select it (right click on it or AKEY), and then change to the Edit Mode. Now you can begin to create individual vertices with CTRL + LMB.

(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. 2nd Note: Actually it's fine to extrude both, just make sure to select "Individual faces" in the extrude popup menu, rather than region) 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.

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.)

  

• Return to Object mode

• 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.

• 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.

• Select all with AKEY.

• 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).

• 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.)

Noob Question: How?

Answer: To split an area move the cursor to an area between two current areas (e.g. between the 3D view and the buttons), when you see the double ended arrow (used to move the divide) click RMB and select Split Area, you will then see a line appear dividing the area in two. Move this to where you want the divide and click LMB.

• 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] Applying Textures

This builds on the previous guide: Modeling a Volcano.

[Note: It seems that textures can only be applied to one object at a time, so this must be done twice (i.e. The head and body are two separate objects.) The settings that were chosen can successfully be applied to each object for a consistent result. Some settings can not be applied equally for consistent results.]

• In "Object Mode," select the body (or the head.)
• Press F5 to open the shading panel or use the shading panel button. [Note: This page will be updated with images shortly.]
• In the "Links and Pipeline" panel, under "Link to Object," click "Add New."
• Press F6 to open the "Texture Buttons" panel or use the textures button.
• In the "Texture" panel, click "Add New."
• Change the "Texture Type" to "Stucci."
• In the new "Stucci" panel, change "Noise Size" to something near 0.025 and leave the "Turbulence" at 5.00.

[Note: When finished with this section of the guide, come back to this panel and try different combinations of "Plastic," "Wall In," "Wall Out," and "Soft Noise" / "Hard Noise." Press F12 to render after each change to see the effect.]

• Press F5 again or use the use the "Material" button directly on the left of the "Texture" button. Then look for the "Map To" panel.
• In the "Map To" panel, deselect "Col[or]" and select "Nor[mal]." and change the "Nor" Value to approximately 1.30.
• In the "Map Input" panel, change the texture coordinates to "Object" by clicking the corresponding button.
• In the "Material" panel, change the "R[ed]" slider to approximately 0.400 and the "G[reen]" slider to approximately half that, about 0.200. Blue can be set at 0.00.

The steps in this section give a nicely textured, brown surface to the "Gingerbread." Now all you need to do is add eyes and gumdrop buttons! [Pictures will be added soon.]

Penguins from spheres

[edit] Setup

Start with the default scene: it should contain a selected cube. Delete this cube by pressing the XKEY and clicking on Erase selected Object(s).

Put the 3D cursor at the scene center: click near the center and snap the cursor to the grid (SHIFT+S and Cursor → Grid).

Note: after deleting the cube you must be in Object Mode. If not, switch with TAB.

[edit] Creating the body

• We start by creating our main body from a sphere. Press NUM7 to switch to top view, and then SPACE → Add → Mesh → UVSphere, then choose 16 segments and 16 rings from the pop-ups.
  • Note: You have to manually switch to the Edit Mode after creating the sphere; do this by pressing TAB (In older versions of Blender before 2.45, Blender automatically switches to the Edit Mode. This is OK, since we will start editing the mesh now.)

We're going to make it look like a penguin body:

• press NUM1 to switch to the front view,
• with all the vertices selected (if not, AKEY), choose the scale tool (SKEY),
• restrict scaling to the Z-axis (ZKEY),
• and move the mouse away from the 3D cursor while holding down the CTRL key (this snaps the scale values to whole numbers),
  • Note: Make sure the mouse cursor is not too far away from the sphere when hitting the SKEY or else you may not be able to reach a 2.000 scale value. The scaling steps are proportional to the distance from the 3D cursor when calling the scale tool.
• the current scale shows in the lower left corner of the viewport, click when you've reached 2.000 (LMB).
  • Note: You can also do this by typing in 2 after starting the scale and restricting movement to the Z-axis

This is our main body!

[edit] Shaping the head

We’re going to shape the penguin head from the top of the sphere.

Start by selecting the top two smallest circle segments.

Note: selection has been explained in a previous tutorial. Here, the easiest methods are either box selection (BKEY) in the front view (NUM1) and Limit selection to visible off, or lasso selection (CTRL+LMB) in the top view (NUM7) and Limit selection to visible on. Don't forget to deselect all first (AKEY).

Reminder: make sure the Limit selection to visible button is in the right state each time you select vertices, edges or faces. When it's off, selection affects any item, visible or not.

[edit] Building the neck with the 3D transform manipulators

To turn on the 3D transform manipulator, either push down its button or use CTRL+SPACE and choose Enable/Disable.

[edit] Moving the two selected circles up

Choose the Translate manipulator (red triangle). Go to the front view (NUM1). Drag the blue arrow while holding the CTRL key down to move the selected vertices 0.3 units up.

Note: you may not be able to snap the extrusion lengths to tenths of units. CTRL snaps to the grid size by default: if you can only translate by one unit (1.0), zoom in until the grid divides itself into tenths (SCROLL). Some Blender versions allow to snap to one tenth of the current step by holding both the SHIFT and CTRL keys while moving the mouse.

Note: instead of the Translate manipulator, you can use the GKEY and constraint the movement to the Z axis (ZKEY).

[edit] Rotating the neck

Now switch to the side view (NUM3) and make sure that the rotation/pivot point is set to "median point" either by selecting it from the third drop down menu right of the "Mesh" menu, or by pressing ";". Choose the Rotate tool (RKEY). Move the mouse with the CTRL key down to rotate the selection 30 degrees counter-clockwise. Use LMB to validate the rotation.

Select an additional ring of vertices by expanding the selection (CTRL + NUM+ (Note: NUM+ Refers to the addition symbol on the NUM Pad, KEY+ will not do.). You can contract the selection by pressing CTRL + NUM-. Move these vertices an additional 0.3 units up, then rotate them as previously 30 degrees counter-clockwise in the side view.

Repeat those steps (selection expansion, translation and rotation) two more times and you'll end up with the body seen in the left picture.

That doesn’t really look like a penguin, yet!

Now move all of the selected vertices to the left 0.4 units by pulling the manipulator's green arrow (and of course holding the CTRL key down). This straightens out the neck as seen in the next picture.

Note: you can also use the GKEY and translate the selection by -0.4 as displayed in the bottom left corner of the viewport. Still do this in the side view (NUM3).

[edit] Creating the beak

Switch to the front view (NUM1), and select the frontmost vertex (the one that originally was the top vertex of the sphere) with the RMB. Then switch to the side view (NUM3) and translate this vertex to the left by 1.2 units using the manipulator's green arrow or the translate tool.

Note: some Blender versions allow moving the vertices from the keyboard with the following sequence: GKEY, YKEY, -1.2, ENTER.

The main body of the penguin is now finished. The next step is to create some flappers for our poor little guy.

[edit] Extruding the wings

We are going to create the wings by extruding faces on each side of the penguin.

Choose the side view (NUM3) and switch to the Face select mode (CTRL+TAB → Faces, or click on the triangle in the toolbar).

Now, select two faces that will make up the penguin’s shoulder as shown on the left (either select the first one with RMB and the second one holding SHIFT, or use box selection (BKEY) to select them both in a single operation). Wing extrusion Then switch to front view (NUM1) and extrude the selection: choose EKEY → Region, constrain to the X axis (XKEY), hold CTRL to snap, and move the mouse to extrude the shoulder by 0.3 units. (User Comment: I find the final product looks better if you only extrude it by 0.2) Bottom face selection We'll now extrude the bottom face of this new extrusion. Rotate the view to show it with: a MMB drag, or several presses on NUM2, or CTRL+NUM7 (bottom view). Press the AKEY to deselect all, and select the bottom face (RMB), switch to front view (NUM1), extrude by 1.4 units down (EKEY and CTRL). Now do the same on the penguin's other side: use CTRL+NUM3 to view the back side (you can also rotate with MMB, or press NUM4 several times). User comment: I really need to do this by hand? Is there no way to tell Blender to do the same on the other side? reply:You can select CTRL+SPACE->scale and while in front view, use the red square. Just make sure the cursor is between the wings. After you select the faces to extrude, just SHIFT+SKEY->Cursor->Selection. User reply: Modifiers-> Add Modifier -> Mirror. Use the X-axis. Click "apply" when done with the symetrical stuff. User response: adding a mirror modifier resulted in the surface of the penguin looking corrupt (response to self - because the penguin body was being mirrored on top of itself, but even when half of the penguin vertices are removed an unsightly seem is left). Final user response: You can fix the 'corruption' by pressing Ctrl+W and choosing "Remove Doubles" after mirroring. Appendix to Final user response: "Remove Doubles" will only get rid of the distortion if you select half of the faces in Front view (NUM1), hit (XKEY) and select "Faces" in the delete menu on the side to be mirrored, then the mirror modifier won't leave a seam, or distortion due to overlap. Another User reply: Or you can select the bottom faces on both sides, and only then extrude.

[edit] Smoothing the wings

We’re going to smooth out the shoulders and improve the wings. Though this can be done in many ways, we'll only use the merge tool.

Rotate your penguin so that you can see one shoulder from above. Then switch to Vertex select mode (CTRL+TAB → Vertices). Press AKEY to deselect all, then select the two shoulder vertices with RMB and SHIFT.

Press ALT + MKEY, choose At Center from the popup in order to merge the two vertices at their center. Finally dismiss the message saying Removed 1 Vertices.

Repeat the steps with the two other vertex pairs shown on the left picture, and smooth the other wing. I’m leaving the middle segments for now, else the wing tips will be too pointy.

Note: if you have troubles merging vertices, it comes from vertex duplicates in your mesh. You probably chose Individual Faces instead of Region when extruding the wings, which creates duplicate vertices and neighbouring faces. To clean up your model: select all vertices (A) and choose WKEY → Remove Doubles.

I finish off the wings by selecting the two backmost vertices of the wings, and moving them up using the blue arrow by 0.1 unit.

(User comment on grid snapping: If you hold CTRL+SHIFT while doing a manipulation, it allows you to use smaller fractions as grid snap than with CTRL. With translation this is 1 for just CTRL, and 0.1 for CTRL+SHIFT)

(User comment on using the arrows: I mentioned earlier that the grid snap seemed inconsistent. It now seems that when I’ve got the 3d manipulators enabled (the arrows), the grid size is 1.0 units. When I have them turned off, the grid size is 0.1 unit. I don’t know why, and I haven’t found where to change this. The previous picture shows where to turn the 3D manipulators on/off, and which arrow to drag (using LMB) to achieve Z-axis movement.)

(User comment: if you spin the view it becomes 1.0 snapping, go back by pressing NUM1 and you should get 0.1 if not make sure View → Orthographic is checked and not Perspective this can also be done with NUM5)

(User comment: I've had trouble with the three axis arrows. When I click on the 'hand' icon, the three lines come up but with little blocks instead of arrows at the ends, which I believe means that they will scale instead of move. So, I have had to use GKEY for 'grab' and then ZKEY or YKEY or whatever to move along an axis.)

(Note from another user: Next to the hand click the triangle to go to Moving Mode).

(Another user comment (not from the first): Whenever I try using the arrows I always find that I click on something else, so I have to change angle and after that, it's not really worth using it anyway)

(Reply to previous comment: You can change the size of the 3d manipulator arrows in the preferences area so that they are easier to click.)

[edit] Culling the underside

We're going to cut the penguin's lower end, for it to stand up! Select the bottom vertices (bottom vertex and the first ring above it) as shown in the picture. There are many ways, this is left as an exercise.

Once they're selected, delete them (XKEY → Vertices). Now our penguin is hollow: select all the vertices around the hole, and fill it using SHIFT+FKEY.

Note 1: Instead of using SHIFT+FKEY to make a zigzag surface, you could extrude the circle of edges (EKEY), constrain the extrusion to the Z-axis (ZKEY) and enter 0 (0KEY + ENTER) as the distance. This effectively duplicates the circle. Then do a merge (ALT+MKEY → At Center) to create a nice surface.

Note 2: Press CONTROL+NUM7 to view the penguin from the bottom. Now, without deleting anything, select four vertices, top, bottom, left, and right in the second ring out from the center vertex. Then snap your cursor to the selection. SHIFT+SKEY → Cursor -> Selection This places the cursor at the center of those vertices. Finally, select the center vertex, expand the selection to include the first ring (CONTROL+NUM+) then merge as above (ALT+MKEY) but at cursor rather than at center. This achieves the same result but without having to delete or extrude anything.

Alternative Method - Extrude & Scale: From a side view. Box select (BKEY) the bottom vertex & the 2 bottom most rings, then delete (DELETEKEY or XKEY → Vertices). Now box select (BKEY) the remaining bottom most ring. Initiate an Extrude (EKEY → Region) command, and escape terminate (ESCAPEKEY) said command. It will appear as if nothing has happened, but you have created a new (overlapping) bottom ring and is currently selected. Change the view to Orbit Down (NUM2KEY). Now Scale (SKEY) the selection, press the number 0 to close, then press the Enter key to commit. The bottom should have closed with a number of triangles, all pointing to a common center vertex. As a good practice, you should now remove doubles' (WKEY → Remove Doubles).

(User comment: To quickly select all the vertices around the hole, you can enter edge mode (CTRL+TAB->Edges) and then select one edge that goes around the hole. Now press CTRL+E and select Edge Loop Select which should select all edges around the hole. Now go back to Vertex select mode and continue with SHIFT+FKEY.)

[edit] Adding the feet

The next step is to provide the little guy with feet. To do this, we’re going to extrude two of the front faces:

• choose the front view (NUM1),
• switch to Face select mode,
• turn on Limit selection to visible
• and select the face to the left and right of the middle two faces of the penguin.

Then switch to the side view (NUM3) and extrude the selection by -0.6 units (EKEY → Region, restrict to the Y axis: YKEY).

Keep the selection and look for the Mesh Tools in the Buttons panel. If you can’t see it, press F9 to switch to this panel. Then click on the Subdivide button (at the top, between Short and Innervert). Or press WKEY and choose Subdivide

Switch to "Vertex Select Mode", Now select the three middle vertices (or two edges) vertically at the tip of each foot, and drag them along the Y axis by 0.3 units towards the penguin Note: if something goes wrong here, you may need to remove double first. As always, to move the vertices, either use the manipulator or GKEY and YKEY sequence.

You should end up with what's shown in the right picture (minus the selection).

The feet look too thick, let's flatten them a bit. Switch to the front view (NUM1) and select the two bottom vertex rows (Limit selection to visible off, use either the lasso or box selection).

Then choose the scale tool (SKEY), limit its action to the Z axis (ZKEY) and scale down by a factor of 0.4.

The feet still look rather peculiar, so please go ahead and move the vertices around on your own as you like.

Reminder: you can use the GKEY and restrict movements to the X or Y axis using the XKEY or YKEY. Try not to move vertices along the Z axis to keep the penguin's bottom flat.

[edit] Extruding a tail

Back view	Side view	Tail complete

To complete the penguin, we have to add a tail (the end of the tuxedo):

• go to the back view (CTRL+NUM1),
• make sure you're still in Vertex select mode,
• and that Limit selection to visible is on.

Select the three middle vertices in the second row up from the bottom. Then, switch to the side view (NUM3) and extrude the edges 0.3 units away from the penguin and 0.08 units down (EKEY → Edges), so that the end of the tail is at the same level as the bottom of the penguin.

Press CTRL+WKEY to save your work!

• Note 1: I found it easier to select the center most, lowest vertex, and move it along the Y axis only. This creates a crude but very effective tail (that doesn't look all that bad when subsurfed).
• Note 2: to do this correctly (if I've properly understood the previous user) you can also select the two faces in the bottom row (CTRL+TAB→Faces), which are connected to the three middle vertices and their projection on the bottom line, then split them into triangles (SPACE→Edit→Faces→Convert To Triangles or using CTRL+TKEY), then select the right two of them (it was the right quad face before) and flip the triangles' orientation (SPACE→Edit→Faces→Flip Triangles Edges or using CTRL+FKEY). So, there will be the five edges connected to the middle point in the second row from the bottom and only three to the vertex, mentioned by previous user. Then just move this lowest, center most, vertex by Y on 0.4
• Note 3: don't do that extruding of the tail with only the edges or you will get an so called 'non-manifold mesh', cause you will have an edge with outgoing three faces, so blender can't recalculate the surface and you can't use the decimate modifier. this can be very nasty if you're modeling more complex things later. better select the whole two faces at the back end and extrude that and then shrink it along the z-axis.

[edit] Subsurfing

Go to Object Mode (TAB), and make sure the penguin is selected. Then check for the Modifiers toolkit in the Buttons panel. Press Add Modifier → Subsurf (or Press SHIFT+OKEY).

Look at the penguin now, he’s much smoother. You can alter the levels of the subsurfing if you like, but I’ll settle for level one. Under the Links and Materials toolkit, you can press the Set Smooth button as well, which makes the penguin really slick.

Note: you may see some weird effects at the bottom and the tail after subsurfing the penguin. If so, there is an issue with normals: they have to be all pointing outwards. This can be achieved by selecting all vertices in Edit Mode and recalculating the normals outside (CTRL+NKEY). Click on the message to confirm. Note that CTRL+SHIFT+NKEY will turn the normals inwards and that WKEY → Flip Normals flips them.

[edit] Extra

The penguin can be colored or textured, but that will be part of later tutorials!

This is what the penguin (sans tail) looks like, textured and ready. Orbisonitrum

The eyes are there, just not easily visible in the thumb. At the top of the white part, two faces on the chest were subdivided to give the white more of a curve at the top. The faces were selected that were going to be white, and the I used separate (P) to make them a different mesh. I used a white material for the chest, black for the body, and grey uvspheres for the eyes. Apparently, an easier way to colour the chest can be found at Multiple Materialsplease feel free to replace this with your own image of the penguin you made, with comments on how you put your own style into it --Most recent is Bnty 11:35 PST, 19 May, 2006

A pretty basic picture of a penguin. I subdivided the stomach and eyes, but then I also added some eyeballs by making a UVSphere, cutting the top of it off, and then placing it inside of my penguin's head. All the colors have specular colors, giving the penguin a slight blue glow under the black.

Die Another Way (dice modeling)

[edit] Video Tutorial

A video tutorial has been created for this chapter in Blender 2.48a.

It is compressed and packaged in the Theora (.ogg) 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 most Linux distributions. Firefox 3.5 is also able to stream Theora video.

For best results, it is recommended that you save this file to your computer for viewing, rather than streaming it inside a web browser, since it is 1020 x 746 pixels.

[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.

[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.

(noobie) Some of my pips are square and I tried everything. What should I do?

[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 subsurf 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 Camera 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 velocity very low by using the scroll wheels or -/+ buttons or the camera will be simply out of control.

[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] Pip Selection Method 4

That's the easiest way: 1- select one of the triangles (the face) 2- Shift+Gkey, then choose perimiter or press 4NUM.

[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 (CTRL+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

Die Easy (dice modeling — revised Die Another Way) Blender 3D: Noob to Pro/Die Easy

Model a Silver Goblet

[edit] Basic Shape

On first pass, the goblet looks like it is composed of a cylinder(s). While it is possible to model the goblet with a cylinder mesh, we can just use a cube. What is the benefit of using a cube? It is faster to make and there are fewer vertices to track.

--Chuey 14:22, 6 June 2007 (UTC) (Noob) Fastest way I use to make any cylindrical object is to first create a cross-section of half the goblet using vertices connected by edges. Then place the curser on the center vertex and revolve around the center axis (Editing – Mesh Tools – Spin Button) 360 degrees. This allows you to create complex geometry very easily. The earlier Creating a Simple Hat tutorial explained how to do this.

--note that if you use the above method, the goblet is made of 2d faces, so the actual "cup" part doesn't have a 3 dimensional feel to it. (I'm sure there is a way to correct this, but it seems beyond the scope of this tutorial). It is a great method for making completely solid objects with no hollow parts.

Starting with the default cube in NUM 1 view and Edit Mode, extrude the top face three times. Scale each extrusion vertices to create the first knob. This example scaled E1 and E3 to 0.300 and E2 to 0.700.

Note that it would be extremely difficult to scale later extrusions in this tutorial if you scaled the first 3 extrusions(the ones you've just made) now because later extrusions will be based on the scaled areas of the first 3 extrusions(precisely the third extrusion). A better approach is to extrude 12 times subsequently, then scale every extrusion individually(after making all extrusions)"I dont belive that i did it your way and found it harder" . Noobie Jon says: You can scale/extrude as the tutorial says; just scale the vertices that are supposed to be .700 after the initial 3 extrusions to 2.333. It's not difficult, just basic math. "Noobie Dave says: This pic shows how i think the extrusions should go http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c366/1h23/Blender/Goblet.png This is before you re-size them, now follow the rest of the tutorial. I hope this helps

Continue extruding up. This design will take 12 total extrusions - 3 to make the first knob + 1 for the stem + 4 to make two upper knobs + 4 for the cup.

After moving and scaling the first 10 extrusions, select the top 8 vertices (shown below). Scale these in along X and Y to 0.900. This will make them only slightly smaller than what will be the outside of the cup. Pull E11 down so that it is level with E10. This makes the rim. Finally, pull E12 down inside of the cube to form a container.

Noob Note: Because this section is really a bit vague I will try to explain it step by step: first select the top 4 vertices of the cup then extrude (EKEY) them by e.g. 1 in Z-direction -> then scale (SKEY) them to 0.9 -> hit GKEY and -1 in Z-direction (back to the top of the cup) -> now hit the EKEY and bring those 4 vertices back to the bottom of your cup (good to know how deep your cup is...) HTH

(Yoshi says Note: This section is vague so try experimenting, the main thing to do is to make knobs by making a small box, then a big one, then a big one, then a small one. (If you follow the tutorial: small = scale to 0.3, big = 2.333). Then at the end of the cup make a box the same size than hit G then Z and pull it down.

Alternative Method: The following is an outward scale & extrusion from the cube.

Looking blissfully at a 'new' cube, in Edit Mode. Move to the side view (NUM3KEY). Box select (BKEY) the top edges of the cube. Extrude (EKEY → Regions) upward about one grid square. Hold down CTRL while extruding, for incremental movement, and press the ZKEY to restrict movement to the Z-axis. Repeat 2 more times. Now Extrude a longer piece, for the Goblets stem, of approx. 10 grid squares. Next we will define the area for the 2 top knobs & the bottom of the glass, by Extruding upwards 5 more times at 1 grid square each. The glass itself will consists of another upward Extrusion of about 10 grid squares.... resulting in a tall rectangle, with several horizontal edges... minus the E11 & E12 extrusions as seen in the image provided below.

Now, lets begin to inflate the glass. First, clear all selections by hitting the AKEY, once or twice. Starting at the base & still in the side view (NUM3KEY). Box select (BKEY) the original cube, at the bottom. Then expand it outward by scaling (SKEY), followed by 'SHIFT+Z to lock/prevent any scaling in height along the Z-axis. Repeat in a similar manner for the ornate knobs (what would be E2, E5, & E7), 1 below the stem & 2 above, just use you imagination. Then expand the top, Goblet (vessel) rectangle, until it is about 12 grids in width.

Last is the cups interior. Once again, you should still be in the side view (NUM3KEY). Box select (BKEY) the very top most edges of the Goblet. Once selected, get a better view by changing to 'Orbit Up' (NUM8KEY). With the top surface selected, initiate an Extrusion (EKEY → Regions), followed by a termination with the ESCAPEKEY. It will appear as if nothing has happened, but new (overlapping) edges have been created & are now selected. Next Scale (SKEY) the selected edges to create the inside lip of the cup. You can eyeball it, or just type .8 and press the ENTERKEY as a thickness. Almost finished. Extrude (EKEY) the interior lip, along the Z-axis (ZKEY) downward to create the bottom interior of the Goblet. Finish off with a 'Remove Doubles' (WKEY → Remove Doubles), for good measure.

Note: If the thickness of the vessel sides or bottom is too thin. The Goblets interior faces may 'bleed through' affecting the exterior of the Goblet, when you apply a subsurf.

You many want to try modeling the inside/bottom of the Goblet (sim. to "Die Another Way" tutorial). Turning on "Occlude Background Geometry" will be helpful, as it turns off the ability to see & select through the model. Although, there is currently no Hotkey for it (shoud be CTRL+TAB+4... but it's not). The button icon is that of a "ISO Cube" located with the 3 select mode buttons (4 dots, 2 lines, & a triangle) of the 3D Toolbar, in Edit Mode.

[edit] Smoothing and Defining

Time to take the mesh and turn it into a proper goblet. Add a subsurf level 2 to the mesh. Change to Object Mode (TAB) and select the Set Smooth button under Links and Materials. The cube-looking mesh will now look like an object that was created from a cylinder. This has removed all our crisp edges, and our globlet is looking very unstable! Let's rectify things by flattening the bottom.

Noobie Jon says: If your goblet has a bulge in it after applying the subsurf, go to edit mode (Tab), select all (AKEY), press WKEY, and select "remove doubles".

[Noob Question: The Newer version (2.49b) of blender uses WKEY for boolean operations, what would I press then??] -answer- you must be be sure to be in edit mode before using WKEY.

Select the four edges that surround the small circle at the very bottom (the very lowest set of edges) and press SHIFT + EKEY to enable creasing. Now drag the mouse up and down to select the level of the crease. When you're satisfied, hit LMB. Repeat the process for other edges you want to be sharp. I've turned on Draw Creases under Mesh Tools 1 to illustrate which edges have been creased (highlighted yellow) in this example.

Note: Due to the vagueness of this tutorial I had problems trying to follow what was wanted. I got around it by beveling the goblet (for the cup-edge/thickness), and then merging necessary vertex. Here is how it turned-out:

GobletRender

That concludes the creation of the goblet. Save the scene for use in the lighting tutorial. To jump to the relevant lighting section, go to Blender 3D: Noob to Pro/Light a Silver Goblet

[edit] Transparency

Okay, this is pretty much just because I wanted to show off my work, but also because transparency was really hard to find and really easy to actually do. I don't know if there's a lesson on transparency in this, but I really wanted glass, and I'm impatient. This little bit is for anyone else who's interested in modeling the goblet as glass and is impatient like me. If you try this, first keep the non-transparent goblet saved somewhere, it is used in the "silver goblet and lighting" follow-up tutorial linked above.

Hit F5 to go the texture context and then click the red ball icon to open the material buttons.

The following images show the settings needed, and the final render of my green glass goblet.

In Materials is an Alpha slider- goes from 0.00 (invisible) to 1.00 (opaque). It needs to be pretty low, less than .25, I'd say. Also in the Edit buttons (F5) is a section called "Mirror Transp", for me it's a tab between "Shaders" and "SSS". In here the "Ray Transp" button must be on. The IOR value is refraction rate- the value of glass is 1.51714. Next to that is Depth, determines how deep to apply transparency. I recommend maxing it to 10, to play it safe.

• Tilescreen's addition

Ray transp stands for Ray Tracing Transparency, this basically involves shooting light out from the camera and bouncing it about your 3d scene. The depth value of the ray tracing settings determines how many times a ray of light can 'mirror' (reflect off a surface) or 'transp' (refract through a surface, just like at school with prisms and the light bends). It is possible to work out how much depth you need as each time it enters or exits a surface you will need +1 level of depth. So for this you should need about 4 or 5 depending on how complex you have made this goblet. If you don't have a sufficent depth it will just come out a solid colour with no transparency.

More on Ray tracing. Samples refers to how many beams of light will be fired out of the camera to calculate the refraction and reflection. higher numbers = better quality but also increase render time, but the real killer is the depth. Increasing it by one means it has to work out an (in my case) an additional 18 bounces. Also try adding a filter to slightly blur your reflections and refractions but only a tiny one.

To get a softer shadow then click on the lamp, press F5 and increase the samples (found in Shadow and Spot) this will shoot out more shadow rays and give you softer shadows.

• End of my addition

• Yoshi's addition:

Try experimenting with the colours. The easiest way I know to do this is:

Select the goblet in object mode. Go to the textures tab (next to the red ball), and under 'texture type' pick 'blend'. Then click 'colours' next to the textures subwindow, and hit 'colorband'. You can change the colours by click on the left of the bar, then double clicking the coloured bar under it. Once you pick the darkest colour (left), click the far right of the checkered bar and do the same as before.

• End of Yoshi's addition

If you want a shadow, you'll need to create a plane and go into the "Shader" settings for it. Turn on "TraShado", otherwise the shadow will be a flat black one and look all wrong.

Noob says: Even when I turn on TraShado, the shadow is flat black... I can't get those lighter edge shadows. Solution: Make sure that TraShado is applied to the plane rather than the cube and that Shadow is also selected.

Reader note: If the ray tracing transparency does not work for you, make sure that the ray tracing is enabled in the Scene (F10) menu. It's the Ray button in the Render panel.

Noob says: No matter what I do, my goblet stays opaque and my goblet has no shadow when on a plane. Do I have to somehow link my goblet to my plane?

   noob answer:adjust the alpa press (f5)look in the material 

and adjust the (A)slide under RGB slides (bottom right) to somthing like .250

Here's the final result:

Noob Note: If you have problems with a sandy texture showing up (like in the picture above) your cup is clipping through the plane, just move it up a little bit on the Z axis, and it should go away

Simple Vehicle

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.

Simple Vehicle: Wheel

[edit] Techniques

You should already know how to:

• Make a mesh
• Navigate the viewport
• Extrusion
• Create, edit materials

This section will recap and introduce:

• Forming faces
• Subsurfing
• Merging vertices
• Object naming

[edit] Pre-constructed

For our premise, envision jeep tires. They're not too sleek but rather rugged for all kinds of terrain. We need a tire that can handle any obstacle in its way.

If you want to skip making a tire from scratch, take an existing model you can find the tires at :"http://www.e2-productions.com/bmr" released under the Blender Artistic License.

Choose one, reduce the hole and enlarge the bump.

do not click it the link above, it'll upload viruses

[edit] Model from Scratch

Start with the viewport in XZ coordinates (NUM1). Add a cylinder (SPACE > Add > Mesh > Cylinder) use 32 vertices, set the radius to 4, depth to 3, and un-click the "Cap Ends" button.

--MSK61 (talk) 12:08, 5 May 2008 (UTC)Don't forget to delete the default cube. Simply select the cube in the object mode and press XKey and confirm deleting the cube. (I think these details are no longer necessary since the reader is supposed to start the tutorial from the beginning).

I am using Blender Version 2.47. I Start with Num1 XZ axis, but my Cylinder is Lying down and the Y axis goes through the Cylinder Walls, same thing in all positions Num7 and Num3.

If you add an empty mesh and then go into edit mode, the cylinder will be aligned properly (248.1)

Change to NUM7 view and make sure you are in Edit Mode. With all the vertices selected, extrude EKEY the individual faces into the circle (Make sure to select INDIVIDUAL FACES not Region). Hold SHIFT CTRL while extruding the faces until the sides come in -1.200 units, or just type in -1.2 and hit enter (in older versions of blender hit NKEY first)

To input a number, simply type in the numbers with your numpad (It needs to be the numpad, as the numbers on the top of the keyboard are treated differently), to make it negative, simply put a dash in front of it.

Note: I'm not sure if this is possible in older versions, but if at any time when typing in an exact number, if you have already typed the number and decide you want it negative, hit NUM-. This will reverse the polarity of the number, even if typed in the middle of the number. This also works if you want to make a negative number positive.

Rotate around the model and you'll notice the outside of the tire doesn't yet exist. Let's remedy this. Go back to NUM1 view.

(A Noob: Note that this looks exactly like a fan rotor or a paddle wheel, or even a car air filter. Something to remember if you ever need to model one.)

• Tiltlesceen's Comment

Just be careful at this point, it you look closely you can see that at the inside of the tyre there are multiple overlapping faces. Now this won't be a huge problem for this tutorial but when you come to make your own work and if you leave the mesh like this you will have problems. It might be worth merging the verticies on the inside rim of the tyre. Also consider removing any unnecessary internal geometry (faces inside the tyre that aren't needed and won't be seen) as this will increase file size and render times.

Invert selection (SPACE > Select > Inverse)

Press FKEY to create the missing faces

Select auto

(A Noob: I'm using Blender 2.45, and using the F key and selecting auto doesn't do anything. A little help?)
(another Noob: I'm also using Blender 2.45 and I don't even need to follow this step, as my tire already has an outside. I'm guessing you're encountering the same)

(THE Noob: I'm using Blender 2.46, and i just skipped the SPACEBAR bit, and selected everything with AKEY and pressed F to fill in the missing parts, works fine.

NOTE: In Blender 2.42a pressing F gives a menu with Make and Clear options. Choosing Make says "No faces selected to make FGon". How do I make the faces? Answer: I'm using Blender 2.44 and pressing F gives a menu where you can choose Auto.

(Yet another Noob: I'm using 2.37. Couldn't find any way to use Fkey globally. Deselected all, then selected outer vertices in sets of four, then pressed Fkey to get a face. Repeated many times to complete. Does someone have a better idea for the older versions? )

(Another Noob: In 2.42a the tire looks terrible if one manually selects the outside vertices and then makes faces with F and subsurfs. Better to make a tube, not a cylinder, a tube with 16 vertices, extrude outward, subsurf it, duplicated it with Shift-D and then rotate that a little along the Y axis to fill in the gaps. Looks better. And it's a much faster procedure too!)

(Noob Asking: Is there an easy way to eliminate the double vertexes and the hidden geometry or does it has to be one by one?? )

Now its time to make the tire look like a rugged tire. Apply a subsurf of level 1 or 2 to the mesh. The tire will now look like a bead necklace. [Edit:] If not, remove doubles.) A little creative use of creases will restore our tire.

Turn off the Limit Selection to Visible. Enter select edges mode and bring up the circle selection tool (AKEY to unselect all, then BKEY twice). Use the scroll wheel to change the circle selection size to be in the center of the tire, between the inside and outside edges. This will select all of the inside edges, as well as the triangles on the side of the tire, as in the picture below. Crease these edges to 1.000 (SHIFT EKEY).

(noob note: DO NOT turn the 'limit-selection' tool on for the above selection.)

• Titlescreen says

You could also consider selecting the outside faces on the tyre (the bit that will touch the road) and subdividing them once. Then you can selected a "left face" go down one and select a "right face" etc until you have gone round the wheel. You should have a checkerboard selection on the tyre. Then press E to extrude > Individual faces and pull them out a bit. now press SHIFT + E to crease the edges and you will have a thick and chunky tyre tread.

The tire is almost done. Let's add a simple hubcap to it. In NUM1 view, add a tube mesh (32 vertices) and scale it up a bit to make it easier to work with. Again, if you are using Blender 2.43[edit:2.44], add a cylinder and make sure the "Cap Ends" button is turned off. (noob note: Scale it to about 1.7,I think) (noob note: Scale is closer to 1.9) (Note: If you are using Blender version 2.43 it IS NOT necessary to add a cylinder.) (noob note: Change back to vertices select mode Ctrl+Tab>vertices) (noob: How do you add a tube?)

Set the view to NUM3 and pull the tube out of the tire along the Y-axis. Reduce the length of the hubcap to about 0.5 unit. Select the left half of the hubcap vertices and return to the NUM1 view.

Noob: How do I do this?

Another Noob: That depends. Are you talking about how to select the left half of the vertices, or how to reduce the length of the cylinder, or is it the whole thing?

Noob: If you select the whole hubcap-to-be and scale it along the axis you want to shorten it by, it will work. I scaled it to about .2. If you have lines where it used to be, select the edges you want to get rid of (circle select [B,B]), and erase them (X, Vertices). That should work. If it doesn't, then it is my error.

Scale these vertices and pull them inward. Keep the vertices selected.

Use extrusion (Only Edges) and then press ESC. This will duplicate the vertices and place them at zero, which in this case happen not to be on top of each other.

We'll merge these vertices together to create a flat surface. ALT MKEY will bring up the merge window. Merge the vertices at center. Blender will reduce the 32 vertices to 1. Keep the 1 remaining vertex selected, enter NUM3 view, and pull it along Y into the hubcap.

The final mesh editing is to select all of the hubcap vertices (easiest in the side view), scale up to slightly larger than the hole of the tire, and move back into the tire along Y. (Noob Note: Hold the cursor over the hubcap and press LKEY to select all vertices easily)

The last thing to do is to rename the wheel so we can find it easier later. Enter Object mode and select the wheel only. In the Link and Materials subwindow in Editing (F9) you'll see the Active Object name box. It should read OB:Tube in the grey box. This name was created because we started with a tube mesh. Click on the button and rename the object to something like 'wheel'. Save your file where you'll find it later and continue to the next step.

Noob: I cant seem to select just the wheel in object mode. Once I've moved the hubcab into the wheel they are both selected as one...

Noob Answer: Split objects in edit mode with P (seParate) or join objects with CTRL+JKEY in object mode (can cause side effects). Don't forget to apply the subsurf modifier before joining the hubcab and the wheel.

Resulting jeep tire:

[edit] Optional

Change the materials to make it look like a tire. One object can have multiple colors/textures. Refer to the materials section for an explanation on how to do that, or to the Blender manual: Multiple Materials

Simple Vehicle: Seat

[edit] Techniques

You should already know how to:

• Make a mesh
• Navigate the viewport
• Extrusion
• Subsurf
• Crease edges

This section will recap and introduce:

• Loop subdivide
• Small, consistant vertex movement

[edit] Basic Structure

The design will be a allterrain bucket-type seat. Start in NUM 1 view of the default cube and rename it. Extrude the cube multiple times to make your basic shape. In this example, a 3x3x1 block composes the body with one cube coming out the top for the headrest. The seat is the bottom cube's front faces extruded out.

To add a little texture to the mesh, we'll add some cushion seams. Use Loop Subdivide (CTRL R or K > Loop Cut) and you'll see the pink selection loop. You can use the NUM+ key to increase the number of loops made at the same time. Use mouse wheel or press NUM+ 3 times to form 4 loops and LMB the center column of blocks. You may also find it easier to add them one at a time in the correct place, than inserting them and then moving them.

(To get multiple Loops instead of pressing + just press the number of loops you want in this case "4", this is a fast easy way to achieve this.) You can use a mouse-wheel as well.

• Noob note: You should remove doubles at this point (TAB to edit mode > WKEY > Remove Doubles). When I removed doubles before adding the loop cuts, I found that they did not loop around the bottom of the seat correctly, and when I did not remove the doubles at all, I had trouble forming the seams in the next few steps.

• Noob note: Also you could try deleting faces and edges which are unused inside the object (seat) this way there are no edges to cut up the loop into lots of different sections, so now you will have one clean loop :)

• Noob note: If the loop comes up with green lines rather than purple you have gone one step too far, just press esc (escape) and try again. When you see the purple lines use your Mouse Wheel or the NUM+ button.

Go into ZX view (Num 1) and make sure the view is orthographic (Num 5 to activate/deactivate orthographic view). Place the 3D cursor on one of the sides of the head rest (SHIFT+S to move cursor). Set the pivot to 3D cursor and select the two closest loop cuts. Scale it down on the X axis to 0.3. The goal will be to have the loop closer to the cursor to go into the cushion to become a seam. Now, do the same thing for the other side of the head rest.

In overhead view (NUM 7), select the vertices in vertical parts of the two seams, grab them (GKEY), move only along the Y axis (YKEY), and type in a small number using the NUMPAD. For example, type in .05 ENTER. This will truly create the seams embedded into the back.

Switch to NUM 3 view and move the vertices in the horizontal parts of the same two seams, grab them and move them down by moving them -0.05 along the Z-axis.

Add a subsurf modifier to the object. Select the edges between the back and seat and crease them. Crease any edges you feel like to create your perfect jeep seat.

Noob note: a subsurf level 2 looks best

• Noob note: If your seat is noticeably misshapen after adding the subsurf modifier, you may just have to delete internal faces in your model. TAB into edit mode, and hit ZKEY to get into wireframe mode. Click the face select button and look for faces that are totally inside the model. There will probably be a couple vertical faces (in YZ-plane) under the seams in the seat. I found a few elsewhere, also. Deleting all these cleared everything up.

--MSK61 (talk) 16:20, 12 May 2008 (UTC): In blender 2.45, I tried getting into the wireframe mode, but didn't find any internal faces. Maybe they don't exist in all cases.

• I also use Blender 2.45 but I managed to find some internal faces (in the loops) and deleting these really did clear everything up. I was already wondering why my model looked so wrong.

• Viewer: Selecting all(AKEY)Pressing WKEY and selecting "Set Smooth" helped me a lot in the looks.

Yoshi's Addition-

After subsurfing to give the seams a leathery cord look. Hit A to select all then W and Subdivide Fractal and just keep the defaults and the seams will look like a bunch of vines until you render it and they look like leather seams .

Next, resize the seat height and widths.

As a final touch, the seat can be made slightly more concave to look like it would hold a person better.

This final seat renders to:

Simple Vehicle: Rocket Launcher

[edit] Techniques

You should already know how to do:

• Previous Simple Vehicle techniques

This section will recap and introduce:

• UVspheres
• Changing object's center

[edit] Overview

Two assumptions are going to be made here. One is that the rocket will not be launched in the future (use separate objects if you want to do that). The other is this is going to be a simple, simple design.

If you want to add options to your gun (think sight, trigger), go for it!

[edit] One Tube, a Rocket & a Launcher

• Noob note: I see no reason why this can't be done with cubes, subsurf, and creases. Wouldn't that make for a simpler model?
• Noob answer: It could certainly be done, but it would be much more difficult. This method is the most direct, simple way.

Start a new file and delete the default cube. In NUM 1 view, add a cylinder mesh with 24 vertices with EndCap option on. We'll use 24 because the default 36 is overkill and will only increase rendering time. Rename and elongate the cylinder along the Y axis. This will be the length of the launcher (minus the rocket).

• Noob note/question: For some reason, even when I add the cylinder in front(NUM1) view, it is always placed so that the open ends are on the z axis. It is easily fixed, just rotate it 90 degrees, I know, but is there a way to make it appear the right way in the first place?

• Another noob: I have the same problem. Maybe it's just one of those things you can't fix.

• • Go to User Preferences, in the Edit Methods tab, and click the button that says Aligned to View. This will make things spawn facing you.

Select the vertices at the right end. Extrude them as region and press Escape to create a copy of the vertices.

• Noob note: I didn't have the option of extruding as a region, but I did it using edges and it worked out fine. I have version 2.46.
• Answer: The same problem exists in 2.45. Follow the example as shown, extruding edges instead of region. Then follow the instructions provided afterward.
• Simple explanation: You both had a cylinders with the End cap option turned off when creating it. You had no region to extrude. Which means there'd be no end cap at the end of the barrel (which you'd never notice anyway).

Then scale them by 0.7. Then extrude them as region toward the left. This will make this end of the rocket launcher look like a tube.

For newer versions, keep the previously extruded edges still highlighted. Then press extrude them, and then escape (EKEY + ESC). Then, merge the vertices at the center (ALT + MKEY). If you did this correctly, 23 vertices should be removed, and all come together to form a group of triangles inside of the tube.

Now work on the left end side. Make it look like a tube as before:

Extrude the face twice and scale the two new faces by 0.8. Extrude the face twice again and scale the two new faces by 1.5. Extrude it one more time and scale the new face by 0.2. Move the vertices along Y to create the shape of rocket you desire.

[edit] The Mount

Having a launcher is nice, but we'll need to affix it to the jeep somehow. Let's add a mount to the tube. Think easy. Add a cylinder, scale, and move it to the bottom of the tube.

The easiest way to have a wide range of motion for the launcher is to use a ball joint. We can simulate one by just adding a UVsphere. The default 32 segments and 12 rings will be fine. This creates a smooth sphere. You can think of the number of segments as being the wedges visible when the sphere is viewed as you added it. The number of rings then could be described as the depth of the sphere from that same view.

Resize and place the sphere at the new cylinder arm.

This next step will be important for continuing the tutorial. Get the 3D cursor to as close to the center of the sphere as possible. While the sphere is still selected after creation, you can press SHIFT + SKEY and snap cursor to selection, putting it in the exact center of the UV Sphere.

Tip: If you have already deselected the sphere, press LKEY while hovering your cursor over the sphere. Make sure not to include any vertices from the attached cylinder).

Switch to Object Mode. Under either the Object menu or SPACE go to Transform > Center Cursor. This should move the large pink dot where the cursor is located. This will give it a new center of gravity around the ball joint, making it easy to manipulate later.

Apply materials or additional items to the object and save for later use.

Do not forget to name the rocket for later use.

• Noob note: This would be a perfect place to explain how to make that cylinder and that rocket smooth, but still have crisp edges on the ends of the pipe and on the creases on the rocket. A subsurf with creases just doesn't entirely do it, unless you use a large number of levels, and that slows everything down. What I did was to create a subsurf, set the object to smooth, and then I selected the edges I wanted straight, and used YKEY to split them. I did this on the ends of the tubes and on the rocket. However, somehow I have the feeling that there might be a better way. I am sure a future tutorial will explain this, but I think this is really the place where it should be explained, or a reference should be put in.
• Noob note: By selecting the faces on the sides (but not end) of the pipe and pressing the smoothen button in the edit window (just like you would for an entire object, but for your selection) to achieve such an effect on the barrel. This does not work when selecting lines, however, so I don't know how to do the same thing for the rocket itself.

Yoshi's Note: The way I did this was to higlight it all then hit set smooth. Then go into Face Select and select the faces edges of the rocket tube and hit solid. And for the rocket leaving it solid and adding a subsurf (level 1) gave it a nice look.

Oh and I found the best way to make the rocket separate was to create a cone, rotate it and then extrude and scale to get the rocket shape.

A noob's way: I made the rocket seperate by starting with a scaled-along-Y-axis cylinder, then extruding one side,scaling to about 1.3, then extruding two more faces, scaling the first about 0.3 and merging the vertices of the second at center.

• Noob's note: What i did was set everything to smooth, then used different textures to get the launcher to look as crisp as i wanted. I used a brushed titanium look for the launcher (since i couldn't get an iron color to look nice), a green rocket with black rubber looking band around the center, and a white tip.

Here is my Example launcher

• Noob's note: the easiest way to do this is simply know which edges you want to be crisp, subsurf the entire thing then go back to those edges. Select them then crease them with Shift+EKEY. Type in +1 or move the mouse untill the number is positive one. The rocket will have a smooth look and still have sharp edges.

Simple Vehicle: Body

[edit] Techniques

You should already know how to:

• Make a mesh
• Navigate the viewport
• Extrusion
• Form faces
• Name objects

This section will recap and introduce:

• Deleting and creating edges
• Subdividing
• Merging vertices
• Loop subdivide
• Adding unconnected vertices in one object

[edit] Planning

Think about what you want your jeep body to entail. As always, consider where the major sections will need to be made so that you don't have to backtrack later to accommodate your idea. Feel free to make your own body design; here is one I made up.

[edit] The Basics

Start a new file. Take the default block and extrude it into your sections along the X axis (NUM 1 view). In this design, the sections are being designed to include the back, flatbed, doors, dashboard, window, and hood, left to right. The window is extruded straight up (older jeeps' windshields aren't slanted), and I decided to add a lower back to later hold the bumper/lights if you wanted to add them.

Widen the jeep body. Use the proper views to make each step easy. The picture examples are not necessarily meant to provide the correct view you should have when editing your mesh. They are meant to show how the mesh should be turning out.

Addition: As a newbie, this step confused me. What it fails to mention is that instead of just widening the body, you need to perform a couple of extra steps to get the basic jeep to look like the pictures:

First, switch to (NUM 7 view). This is a top down view. Use the 'B' key to highlight the top row of vertices, and then reduce the width of the jeep to one square. You then need to extrude this revised jeep twice along the Y axis; once for 4 squares, and then extrude again for one square. This should give you the figure that is shown in the pictures.

(User Addition:PaulJC): I am including images illustrating the above mentioned steps. Since this Wikibook is intended for those starting out with Blender3D the above instructions can be confusing for new users of Blender3D.

I created the jeep body like this [I use Blender3D 2.48a for Ubuntu Linux]:

• Starting with the basic square in (NUM 1) view. Turn "Occlude Background geometry" OFF (So the square is NOT greyed).

××× Line the basic cube up with the grid. This will help in ensuring you do the extruding properly.

××× For my instructions a GRID SQUARE is comprised on the four squares on the grid that make up the default cube.

××× A (HALF GRID SQUARE) is two of these squares, and (1/4 GRID SQUARE) is just one of these squares.

Defining UNIT and GRID squares

• Go into (VERTICE Mode) (Press the button with four dots, until it's greyed out).

• Press (BKEY) to select the vertices on (RIGHT SIDE) of the square.

• Extrude ONCE by ONE GRID SQUARE. Then Extrude again, by the same. ((EKEY, X, drag RIGHT one grid square, repeat))

• With the vertices still selected, extrude them again by ONE SQUARE UNIT (1/2 a GRID SQUARE), twice. This one will be where to place our windshield.

• Now extrude once by one GRID SQUARE. This final cube will be the engine.

• Press AKEY to unselect the vertices. Now press BKEY to select the vertices on the LEFT side of the cubes.

• Extrude these vertices by ONE UNIT SQUARE (Half a GRID Square actually).

• Press AKEY to unselect them. Press BKEY to select the bottom vertices of the half cube YOU JUST EXTRUDED.

• Extrude down by (1 UNIT SQUARE). This will serve as our bumpers.

• Unselect the vertices (AKEY). Now the last square, as mentioned will be the hood/engine part. The 1/2 square jusy before it will be our windshield. Select the two vertices on top of this square, and extrude up on the Z-axis by two UNIT SQUARES.

• Switch to (NUM 7) view and select only the vertices on ONE SIDE of the model.

• The first extrusion will be to scale the model DOWN by ONE SQUARE UNIT, on the Y-axis. (EKEY, Y, drag DOWN)

• The next extrusion will ONE SQUARE GRID UP on the Y-axis. (EKEY, Y, drag UP)

• The final extrusion will be ONE SQUARE UNIT UP on the Y-axis. (EKEY, Y, drag UP)

Here are images showing the steps I took and the final result.

This will give the jeep in the original images below. --PaulJC (talk) 19:26, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Delete the proper edge along the top of the mesh where you want the cab and flatbed to be (XKEY). This will also remove the faces on the top. In vertex select mode, select two vertices (SHIFT RMB is the easiest here) and create an edge (FKEY) to make edges on the inside of the flatbed. The next step is to create faces using the new edges. In this example, 5 faces were made.

Noob observation: You can select the top two boxes where the pickup bed should be and delete them; then you will need to create edges inside the bed and fill them with faces. Alternately, you can select the top two boxes and extrude them into the body of the truck, and then you won't need to do any edge creation. Guess: You need to create four vertical edges and then use them to make the inside faces.

--PaulJC (talk) 19:26, 4 April 2009 (UTC)--: I've wanted to show how I created the flat bed and cab of the jeep, since this was the one part causing more confusion in the original author's instructions - it may cause you to re-think creating the doors, using the "edge method" below.

• Go to NUM 7 Top view, and enter Faces Mode. Select the two faces in between the bumpers and windsheild (SHIFT RMB).

• Now delete both faces (XKEY).

• Switch to vertice mode, and select the the FOUR vertices that will make up the new faces inside the jeep body. You must select two topside vertices and two bottom vertices that are parallel to the top ones.

• See images of which vertices to select. Then press FKEY to create the face. Proceed around the jeep until all new faces are created.

• Here is a video showing the whole face deletion, and creating the inside faces process

I use Blender3D for Ubuntu Linux, therefor, during the capturing of this video I had the ComPIZ Desktop Effects Manager active, as such there are occasional "red-outs" (red dots against a black background).

Adding the door: our jeep design will have somewhat of a cheat - no actual door. Before crying foul, many jeeps didn't have doors to facilitate quick entry and exit. To cut out one door, select the four vertical edges where the door will go. Use the subdivide command (WKEY) to cut the edges in half. You'll notice that the subdividing will also affect the adjoining faces. Do the same thing you did when the flatbed was cut out - removing/adding edges and creating new faces.

This is not a necessary step, but if you want to clean up the look of the model, we'll get started. In face select mode, select the faces that are going to be combined. Press FKEY and a little window will appear titled 'Make Faces'. Click on 'Make FGon' to merge the faces. As you may have guessed, if an FGon face is created and you want to later undo it, select the 'clear FGon' option in the Make Faces window. (Noob Question: what exactly is an Fgon? It doesn't seem to truely merge the faces, as now in face select mode the 'square' that designates a face is off-center.)

Go ahead and resize the widths of the bed and windshield. Always move as many vertices or edges at the same time to not only work faster but to make sure they are moved equally. The use of SHIFT while moving vertices is very helpful in fine movements.

If you want an object to come to a point such as a wedge from a cube, merge vertices. In this example, the lower back area will be modified. Select two vertices to join together and press ALT MKEY. Select the option for your merging. 'At First' or 'At Last' will probably be the option that will work here. Play around to see what each merge option does. After the merging, Blender will tell you how many vertices were removed.

Noob, 20th Oct 2008: I found Mesh ==> Vertices ==> Remove doubles is just as good when you bring one or more vertices into contact with one another, like he's done with the tailgate/wheelarch here.

Extrude the bed surface upward. This is only useful in hiding the tires that we'll add later in the tutorial. Alternatively, you could make two boxes to hide them.

[edit] A Touch of Detail

Let's add some detail to the model - how about the hood? First thing to do is add some edges to the front of the jeep. Press CTRL RKEY to enter Loop Subdivide. A pink loop will appear around the mesh. Put the cursor over the area to get the example picture to appear. When the loop is in the right place, LMB click. The place to put the actual cut can now be selected. Do this twice - once for each side. Move and align the resulting edges to form an angle to the front and bring the window vertices in.

Newbie: I'm having trouble here. When I try to add a loop it gives me an error that reads "could not order loop" and then subdivides the face I tried to add the loop to. Answer: I had the same problem. For me it was because I changed the jeep design too much so I had deleted and made several faces. Therefore the faces weren't attached to each other so a loop couldn't be made. If that happened then just subdivide the face twice to give you the lines you need and delete all the extra ones and remake the faces. It's more work but I don't know another way to do it.

Extrude the hood surface up a small amount. We don't want it too high, just high enough to catch the light.

Zoom in and select the top-front hood edge created from the extrusion. Drag it out along the X axis. Select the now diagonal face of the hood extrusion. Extrude from it. The result will come out of the surface at a diagonal angle. Take the resulting vertices and move them close to the front of the jeep.
Readers note: I have no idea what the heck this paragraph is talking about, and the pictures don't help, someone really needs to rewrite this that actually understands what is going on. I advise skipping the hood part because it is hard to understand and doesn't look like it changes much.
Other Reader: I hope he talks about shaping the hood with the lines from the Loop Subdivide, and then extruding that profile.
User Note:If you don't know, press e to extrude, then type the letter of the axis.
Noob Note: You're basically "drawing" a trapezoid on the hood and extruding it up. Loop divide works parallel to the axes so you'll have a square on the hood after the two loop-divides. Pulling the two vertices that are on the front edge of the hood inwards (along the edge) will create the desired trapezoid. Now just select the face (Ctrl+Tab Faces) and extrude it (EKEY).

An Alternate method of adding the Jeep hood

Here is a technique that I used to raise the Jeep hood. It doesn’t require loop cuts, so is a bit simpler. FYI, this is my first attempt at a wiki page edit, hopefully it will be clear. No photos yet, can't upload images until four days.

Step 1. Make Inner Square.

Switch to Top-view NUM 7, or slightly rotated off for easier viewing. Face-select the top square of the hood.
Do E-xtrude, then hit <esc>. NOTE: this WILL make a new surface, hitting <esc> doesn’t cancel the extrude, just makes its location to be exactly on the old surface.
Do S-cale and type 0.9 and hit <return>. Now you will see the new surface as a smaller square (or really rectangle) on top of the jeep hood square.

Noob Note: What I had to do is S-cale on Z and type 0.9, otherwise the New Surface For the hood would end up shooting through the Windshield.

Step 2. Shape Hood.

Still in Top-view NUM 7, deselect all.
Box-select the right two vertices of the new square, towards the front of the jeep.
Do S-cale on Y, and type 0.8 and hit <return>. Leave the two vertices still selected.
Do G-rab on X, and type 0.2 and hit <return>.
Face-select the resulting quadrilateral.
Switch to Side-view NUM 3.
Do E-xtrude on Z and type 0.2 and hit <return>. I used 0.2 to exaggerate the screenshot a bit, you probably want 0.1 instead.

Now you should have a raised hood on the front of the jeep.

End Alternate Hood method, we now return you to the original tutorial

The above paragraph briefly explains extruding the Hood of the jeep including a lip that comes over the front. Below are step by step pictures on how I accomplished this;

Step 1: In face select mode (CTRL+TAB-faces), select the top of the hood and press EKEY to extrude it. Only extrude it a small amount.

Step 2: Staying in Face select mode, here is the tricky part. Select the small face on the front of the hood you just extruded. Then, hit EKEY then ESC. This creates a duplicated face on top of the one you selected. Do not click or move the mouse between these two keystrokes.

Step 3: Now deselect the selected face by hitting AKEY. Then enter Edge select mode (CTRL+TAB-edges) and select the top edge of the face you just deselected.

Step 4: Hit NUM 1 to go to the side view. Now using the red X arrow pull the edge out a little further than you pulled up the hood itself then hit LMB.

Step 5: Now rotate just enough so you can see under the wedge you just made. Go back into Face select mode (CTRL+TAB-faces) and select the face on the underside of it.

Step 6: Go back into side view with NUM 1. Now hit EKEY to extrude the face a little with the mouse. When it's a good size hit LMB.

Step 7: Now make sure the "Select only visible" button is turned off and go into Vertex select mode (CTRL+TAB-vertices). Play around with the vertices pulling them a little closer to the front of the jeep. It's best to selct using the box select (BKEY) or the Lasso (CTRL+LMB).

The end result should be an extruded hood with a lip.

Alexwill84 08:23, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

In the topdown view (NUM 7), add a plane. Extrude an edge twice to result in three connected planes.

Pull the sides down to form a trapezoid shape and reduce the width. Once it is in the desired shape, select the three faces and duplicate it. Press SHIFT DKEY and all selected vertices, edges, and/or faces will be duplicated. The copy will automatically be grabbed for moving.

Move the duplicate to the jeep body and repeat the duplication two more times for a total of four fenders.

We'll move on to making a tripod support for the rocket launcher. Add a cylinder mesh with 12 vertices then scale and size it so that it looks like a tube. Once you have it to a size you like, duplicate it twice for a total of 3 cylinders. Rotate two of the cylinders in the NUM 1 view by LMB clicking on the white circle that appears when the cylinder is selected in rotate mode. The picture on the left is an example of the end result.

Change to overhead view (NUM 7) and put together the three cylinders so the tops come close together. Now all three can be selected and moved or rotated accordingly.

Move the tripod onto the jeep flat bed. The final steps are to select your materials and rename the object (described in the wheel section). This will complete our simple jeep model.

[edit] Optional Activities

Feel free to add anything you see fit such as bumpers, guard rails, doors, steering wheel, lights, etc. You can either have them on the same object or separate objects (useful if you want to move them around). Note: If you subsurf the result from this tutorial, you will get a bad looking result, please try not to subsurf the jeep.

Simple Vehicle: Some Assembly Required

[edit] Techniques

You should know how to:

• Do everything discussed in previous tutorials

This section will recap and introduce:

• Append a file
• Duplicate an object

[edit] Overview

The objects for the simple vehicle have been made if you have followed all the previous Simple Vehicle tutorials. Putting it all together will come very easy now.

[edit] Appending the File

If you have the jeep body file open, keep it open. Otherwise, open the file for the jeep body. In Object Mode, go up to File > Append (about 3/4 of the way down the menu). The find file window will appear. Go to the location where the jeep seat was saved. When the .blend file is clicked, you'll go into it as if it is a directory.

Here we have the categories of Camera, Lamp, Material, Mesh, Object, Scene, Text, and World. We are interested in the seat object, so click on Object. Now there are three items: Camera, Lamp, and Seat. That is, it will say Seat if you named your object Seat. This is why it is useful to rename your objects, materials, etc. If you forgot to rename the object, it will be called Cube (default for our starting mesh).

What should happen after selecting Seat and the button 'Load Library' is the seat will pop into our file where the 3D cursor was. It will definitely need to be scaled, rotated, and/or moved to the right position. In my example, I rotated the seat about the Z axis -90 degrees by pressing RKEY ZKEY NUM9 NUM0 NUM-.

(Noob Comment: When I tried this, I was unable to move my seat at all. Said that I could not edit the object.) (This noob either (A) linked the seat instead of appending it. when selecting the file, look at the bottom for the append/link options and make "Append" selected. (B) selected "Append or Link (Image Browser)" instead of the option above it in the File menu. (C) tried to enter edit mode without making a new instance of the mesh. In F9(Editing Panel) -> Link and Materials You will see at the top the mesh name "ME: seat" or whatever you called it. To the right there may be a button that makes the mesh data local. Click that if you want to make a copy of the mesh data.)

After placing the seat in the jeep body, let's make another so we have a seat for the driver and passenger. Still in Object Mode with the seat selected, duplicate it (SHIFT DKEY) and slide it over. After duplicating it, it will automatically go into grab mode. If you RMB or ESC, it will still be duplicated - just sitting on top of the original.

(user comment: When you move the body, the seat will stay in his place. To prevent this you must make the body parent of the other parts. For example the seat: first select the seat, then select the body.(so you have them both selected) Now press (CTRL PKEY) and select make parent. If you move the body, the seat will move with it. if you move the seat, the body won't move.)

[edit] Rinse and Repeat

Append the file again to place the wheel object and rocket launcher in the file. Scale, rotate, move, and duplicate each object accordingly. Depending on the position of your camera, you may or may not have to make all four tires. Remember that the only important parts to draw are those that will be seen!

Noob:I may have done something wrong in the Rocket Launcher tutorial, but when I link to the .blend file each object (launcher, mount, and ball bearing) is listed separately and have to be reassembled in the new file. Any suggestions??

Set the ball over the tripod. The fun part is rotating the rocket launcher since the center of it has been moved to the ball joint.

The last thing is to apply materials to your objects if you haven't already. I'll point you to the materials section for information on that. I would suggest that the window be assigned a transparent material by making the Render Pipeline wire for example.

User request:explain in more depth how to make the windshield transparent

User reply: if you quit out of this tutorial while staying in that section of the book, there is a section called "every material known to man" (its near the bottom of the tutorial list) and there are several kinds of glass there.

Noob:how do you get just the windshield made out of glass?

User Reply: select the faces you want, press f7, (note: it's f9 for me [2.47])then click add under links and materials. Press f5 then add your glass material

Noob:I have 2.4.6, and I don't know how to make just the windshield transparent, everytime I try the whole thing is transparent.

Another Noob:You have to create a new material and assign it to the appropriate faces. In edit mode, select the faces you want (make sure you select both sides of the windshield including: front face, back face, and top face). On the Editing section (F9 in 2.4.7), under Links and Materials, click the 'New' button under Materials then click the 'Assign' button. This assigns the new material to the selected faces. You can then go into the Shading section (F5 in 2.4.7) and adjust the material to be glass. Make sure you are editing the correct material (if you have just the one texture on the jeep, the default name for the new material should be something like "2 Mat 2").

Yet Another Noob:When I append the files, they lose their materials. When I link the files, I can't move or resize them.

Yet Another Noob (the same one as just above):I just figured out that my file is glitching. Append should make it possible to move and resize AND it should keep the material.

The final result of a simple jeep:

[edit] Additional Tutorials

Append and Link Video Tutorial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69ZBlDrOlIY

Model a Low Poly Head

This tutorial is designed to teach users to make a low-poly animesque head in Blender.

All of the pictures were made by me as Blender3D screen shots. They are all free for any form of use. NOTE: Pictures go from left to right

[edit] Overview

What you need to know:

• Basic Blender controls

[edit] Making the Model

Before doing anything, delete the default cube by selecting it in object mode, pressing XKey, and confirming. Go into the front view (keypad 1) and add a plane.

Select the bottom two vertices (Shift + Right-Click) and press W to bring up the vertex menu. "Select Merge", then "At Center".

Now you have a pointed chin.

Select the top two vertices (use the BKEY) and re-arrange them so they make more of a chin shape by pressing the GKEY to move and ZKEY to constrain the movement to the Z-Axis.

Now extrude (EKEY) along the Z-Axis (ZKEY) so that you have another area.

Scale it (SKEY)so that it's not so cubic.

Now extrude along the Z-Axis again (EKEY then ZKEY) and scale (SKEY) it down a bit.

One last time... (E) (Z) (S)

Select the middle vertices (BKEY) and press (WKEY) to bring up the edit menu again. Subdivide it once.

Now select at first the pair of verticies above and subdivide once.

Do the same two times with the pair below.

There!

Select and subdivide here, so you can make the eyes.

And rearange the vertices so they make eye shapes.

Now select the middle vertex here (right mouse button).

Extrude it along the Y-Axis (EKEY) (YKEY) and move your mouse around to change how far it moves.

Now we make the nose. Select these three vertices (Shift + Right mouse button) and press (F) to make a face.

Now do the same to the other side, and you will have the nose's base.

Select these vertices (Shift + Rightclick) and make a face (F). Do this to the other side.

Now you have a nose.

Rotate the camera so you are seeing the back. Press CTL+NUM1. Also, change to face select mode.

Select the faces behind the nose. (Shift + Rightclick) and press (X). This will bring up the delete menu. Selected "Faces" to get rid of these.

Now select these vertices (above and below(user comment: the one at the bottom of the chin, and the one at the bottom of the nose right above the first one), and subdivide them.

And select all the edges on the outside.

Move the vertices back a bit to give the face more smoothness (G) (Y)and rearrange the chin.

Now select the vertices at the back of the head, using (B).

Extrude these along the y axis (E) (Y)

Ta da!

Now select the back vertices and press (F) to make a face.

and so on....

and so on....

now select and subdivide these once (W)

and these points too.

Now select the middle and move it back (G) (Y).

[edit] Finishing it up

And here it is with sub-surfacing. You have finished. Hit (F12) to see the final render.

Using triangles on a subsurfed model may result in "peaks" on to occur in some areas. To reduce this problem, merge as many triangles into squares as possible.

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 its Z and Y position. In this mode it will only move along the global X axis.
• GKEY XKEY XKEY - Grabs the selection and locks its 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 its Z and X position. In this mode it will only move along the global Y axis.
• GKEY YKEY YKEY - Grabs the selection and locks its 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 its X and Y position. In this mode it will only move along the global Z axis.
• GKEY ZKEY ZKEY - Grabs the selection and locks its 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.

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 its Z and Y position. In this mode it will only move along the global X axis.
• GKEY XKEY XKEY - Grabs the selection and locks its 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 its Z and X position. In this mode it will only move along the global Y axis.
• GKEY YKEY YKEY - Grabs the selection and locks its 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 its X and Y position. In this mode it will only move along the global Z axis.
• GKEY ZKEY ZKEY - Grabs the selection and locks its 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.

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.

Intro to Bezier Curves Per request, this page is currently being edited to be more "tutorial like" and user friendly.
The work can be found in its Original Version (which is currently being displayed) and the Edited Version (which could be an option to replace this page).

---

[edit] Bezier curves

You wanted curved lines? Well here is how to get them, using Bezier curves.

• First start a new Blender project, and delete the default cube.
  

  

  It should look like this.
• Press: 'SPACE - Add - Curve - Bezier Curve' to create a new curve.

As you can see, there is a black, curvy curve on your screen, inside what looks like a normal mesh (purple). Well you wouldn't be far wrong with that interpretation, because that is effectively what a Bezier curve is!

• Try selecting the vertices and moving them as we have done previously. You should notice they behave much like a normal mesh does, but with a few important differences. Firstly, there are two types of point here, a 'control' point, and a 'handle' point. The control points define where each section of the curve has to start and finish, while the two pink handles help guide the curve between them.

By now you should have discovered you can drag the points around using the GKEY, and that the handles are fixed in position relative to their control point. This is not the only maneuvre however, so here is a list of things you can do to the curve to modify it:

1. Grabbing: You can drag the points around separately or in groups.
2. Rotating: Using the RKEY, you can rotate a control point around with your mouse. This is different from a mesh, as rotating the control point will move its handles too.
3. Scaling: Using the SKEY, you can scale either an individual handle, or a whole control point at once. This changes how strongly a handle influences the curve's shape, not its direction.

Whatever you do to the defining points, Blender calculates the curve so it flows smoothly from one end to the other. When you leave Edit mode, only the black curve will remain visible, so don't worry about your control points getting cluttered!

Noob note: At any time you can convert a Bezier curve into a mesh by entering object mode (tab if in edit mode), hitting ALT-CKEY and selecting 'mesh' from the menu. You may then operate on the mesh like you would any other. This is great for creating a smooth Bezeir curve, converting it to a mesh, and spinning it around an axis.

[edit] Extending your curve

So far your curve has only two control points, but in order to build up more complex shapes you will need to add many more! There are quite a few ways to do this, but lets start with the basics:

• Extruding: Much like a mesh, you can use EKEY to extrude one end of your curve with a new control point. Select an end control point (not a handle, this will cause you a few problems) and press EKEY, then LMB when it is in the correct location. The new point will have an exact copy of the handles of your old point, so you will have to rotate and adjust it accordingly.
• Note you can use CTRL+LMB to achieve the same effect.

• Subdividing: Instead of adding onto the end of you curve, you can also split up sections of it into more control points, and here's how:

1. Select two adjacent control points using RMB.
2. Press the WKEY, and select Subdivide from the popup menu.

• The segment should now have a new control point mid-way between the first two, that sits exactly on the curve that already existed. Now you can add more shape to this section using the new point.

[edit] Filling your curve

So far we have been working with a continuous curve, with a definite beginning and end. But what you can do is turn this wiggly line into a wiggly shape.

• Select any part of the curve in Edit mode, and press the CKEY. This will connect your last control point back to the first, and fill in the shape.

• If you cannot see any fill, you are probably in wire-frame mode. Press the ZKEY to recover.

• If you have weird results, say fill leaking out from the curve or empty sections, you have probably got a couple of parts of the curve crossing themselves. Curve sections should never cross if you are making them into a filled shape!

[edit] Handle types

Thus far with curves, whenever you move a handle around its partner will move too to make the curve flow smoothly through the control point. This is not the only way to do things however, so here is a list of the different things you can set them to do:

1. Linked rotation (Pink handles): Both handles always point in opposite directions. This leads to a smooth curve.
2. Free rotation (Black handles): The handles can be moved independantly of each other, you can form corners and sharp bends in the curve. Switch between these two modes using HKEY.
3. Automatic (Yellow handles): The handles are linked in rotation, and automatically rotate and scale to form the nicest (mathematically speaking) smooth curve through your points. Use SHIFT+HKEY to switch to this mode. If you try to move a handle, both will default back to Linked rotation.
4. Vector (Green handles): The handles act as vectors, with each pointing directly towards the next control point. This leads to completely straight edges, so you can construct polygons. The hotkey is VKEY. If you move a vector handle, it will default to Free rotation, but the other will stay as a vector.

• Note, each handle from a control point can be assigned a separate type independantly (excluding Auto). Just select only the handle vertex instead of the control vertex.

[edit] Combining curves

As well as having one single filling curve in your object, you can combine several unconnected curves to create more complex shapes.

1. Firstly create a filled shape, as described earlier.
2. Now, stay in Edit mode and 'SPACE - Add - Curve - Bezier Curve' to create a new curve on top of your existing one.
3. Manipulate the new curve so it fits inside the larger shape somehow, this will not work if the lines intersect.
4. Making sure only the new curve is selected, fill it with CKEY.

You should see that the space enclosed by the inner curve is no longer filled. You can continue by adding more curves inside a larger one, or even a larger one around them all.

[edit] Extruding

[Noob: I find that this is much easier to do using Bezier circles instead.] You may have noticed you can only modify the curve in two dimensions, and now its time to explore the third dimension! Extruding is where you define a two dimensional 'profile' shape, and it is 'swept' through space to create a volume.

[edit] Simple Extrude

If you want to make your curve 3d, the fastest way is to use the extrude slider. This simply extends your curve backwards by the specified distance to make a 3d object.

• Make a curve and fill it: Use the steps above to create something simple, and fill it in using CKEY.

• Set the extrude depth: Find the 'Curves and Surfaces' box in the Editing tab of the Buttons window. There is a slider on the right hand side called Extrude. Set the Extrude depth to something other than 0, and probably less than 1.

Behold, your 2d curve has transformed into a neat 3d structure. The great thing is, you can still edit the curve as if it were just 2d, and the changes will update in real time.

[edit] Bevel

Now you have an extruded shape, you should start playing around with some of the other curve settings on offer, so here is a description of how the Bevel depth and Bevel resolution sliders work.

Try setting the Bevel depth to a small value, say 0.02. This will cut off all of the sharp edges, and give a bevelled effect all around the shape.

As you may guess, Bevel resolution decides how many times the algorithm divides up an edge. Higher values than 0 result in smooth curves rather than sharp edges, but dramatically increase the number of vertices in the shape.

Try setting the resolution to 3 or 4, you should see an effect like this:

[edit] Bevel Objects

[Noob: I couldn't understand what this topic was supposed to do. Could someone explain better and include images? Thanks...][2ND NOOB: I couldn't understand this either. Heck, I don't even have a typable field in 'Curve and Surface'... Help on this section would be extremely useful...]

[Noob answering: After you finish making the filled shape exit to object mode. Then add a curve and rename it to bevel or anything under the Link and Materials tap or just use the given name of the new curve. Then deselect the new curve and select your filled shape. With the filled shape selected type in the name of the new curve that you have just created in the BevOb: box. It is under the Curve and Surface tap at the lower right corner. Hope that helps :)]

This technique allows for much more sophisticated extending of our curves into 3d. Basically, we can create a new curve which will be extruded all the way around our main shape.

1. Create a curve: Once again, make a filled shape like our friend the smiley. Noob Translation: In Object Mode, Add a bezier curve, go to edit mode and make a smiley.
2. Create a bevel object: Add a new curve and return to Edit mode, leaving it as the default shape. Noob Translation: Go back to object mode and ad a new bezier curve, then go to edit mode.
3. Assign the bevel to the curve: Type the name of the second curve (Default is Curve.001, or just Curve if you used a circle before) into the relevant box in the 'Curve and Surface' menu. Noob Translation: In edit mode (editing the second bezier curve) under the links and materials tab, on the OB: text field, change the name of the curve to bevel (the name doesn't matter though, it just makes it easy to remember. Go back to object mode and select the smiley and go to edit mode. Under the Curve and surface tab on the BevOb: text field write bevel (or the name you chose for the bevel line).

DON'T PANIC if you end up with a useless mess! This is expected, as we have yet to understand how the bevel object works.

Basically, the curve we created as a Bevel object is used to define the shape of the edge around our filled shape.

• The height of each part of the Bevel object above or below the local X axis is how far in front or behind the filled shape to extrude from the flat curve.
• The distance to the left or right on the local Y axis is how far towards or away from the center of the shape to pull each bit of the curve.

For our purposes, we want very little variation in the width of the bevel. This will hopefully solve the problem of all sorts of bits of the shape overlapping each other.

The default curve also starts and stops on the x-axis, we want to move the start and end points so one is higher than the other. (Preferably either side of the x-axis too, we don't want the extruded shape too far away from its curve).

Assuming you have kept the default new curve for your bevel object:

1. Move the left-most point down a whole large grid-square, and right until it is two or three small squares from the main axes.
2. Move the other point up a whole grid square, and left until it is roughly on the blue center-line.
3. Modify the control handles if you feel it's necessary.

This should leave your shape looking nice and neat, extruded quite a long way with a smooth curving edge. Experiment with the shape, see what works and what doesn't!

[Noob: I had trouble cleaning up the 'useless mess' after assigning the bevel object to the extruded object. What I found was that I needed to keep the bevel object close to it's central point (not sure what this is actually called, but it is the pink dot that you see when you select the curve). The following steps helped me resolve the 'useless mess'.

1. If you are in object mode, change to edit mode, then type A to select the entire curve (you may need to type A twice to first deselect, and then select the curve).
2. Now type G to grab and move the curve, move the selected curve over the pink dot that you see, and you should start seeing your extruded object look more like it was before it became the 'useless mess'.
3. It may still need some work, so rotate (R) and scale (S) the bevel curve until the edges of your extruded curve match the shape of the bevel curve.

• NB: When rotating the bevel curve, you might motice that you can easily invert the bevel by rotating it by 180 degrees.

• NB: The sliders for Extrude, Bevel depth and Bevel resolution are not used once a bevel object is in place.

(To come: Closed shape Bevel Objects)

[edit] Front and Back

I would use wood working analogies to communicate what I expected to see and what I saw instead. Using a bevel object I assumed would be very much like using a Router with an Edge molding bit attached. When you run your wood piece thru your router its edge gets shaped/hollowed out. All those nice decorative edge effects, we see on furniture, and joinery aids, we may not even know exist, are generated by routers.

With that hope in mind I created a bevel curve object making sure it was smaller than the Extrusion depth (about 1/5th of it), it was an L looking curve, hoping it will hollow out my Smiley's edges. What I am seeing instead is quite surprising: The buttom 4/5th of my first filled extruded curve (my Smiley equivalent) is removed, top 1/5th remains. As if only the top surface has remained after all that work.

[edit] ======================================================

Below is some tip from one other user. I was afraid to remove it from my note in case, instead of creating a new note, I ended up modifying an existing one

[edit] ======================================================

1. Create a filled, extruded shape: Follow the process above, for speed just use an extrude depth.
2. Disable Front and Back: Click both 'Front' and 'Back' in the 'Curve and Surface' menu to disable them.

Now you should be able to see right through the curve! Cool isn't it.

• NB: You can disable just one of the faces and leave the other intact if you like.

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:

(*Make sure the Front and Back buttons under the "Curve and Surface" tab are selected, otherwise the logo will be a solid outline lacking a face on the front and back.*)

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

2D Image (logo) to a 3D Model Part 2

[edit] Tracing an Image With an Interior Cutout

n00b note. This is a other way (faster) add a open circle, make it right size, extrude + esc, scale, mark them both and press F for fill, and rotate it so 4 vertexes are the corners of the line over the lightning, make edges with 2 vertex and F, I think u know the rest so ur done now :D

Tracing the No symbol is somewhat more complex than the lightning bolt. The reason is this symbol is hollow and requires additional planning to trace than just following an outline of an object.

I'll be back to explain the difficulties in the near future, so stay tuned.

One way to do this is outlined below:

• The first thing to do is add a mesh circle. Hit SPACE and select 'Add -> Mesh -> Circle'. (This circle is mostly for measuring purposes, and will ultimately be removed.)
• Scale (SKEY) and move (GKEY) the circle so that it's sides are even with the sides of the logo circle, and the top and bottom are an even distance from the top and bottom of the logo circle. (The logo circle is not perfectly round.)

• Make sure you're in object mode (TAB), add a cube (SPACE, 'Add -> Mesh -> Cube') and place it (GKEY) on the right edge of the circle so that it is centered on the right edge.
• Scale (SKEY) the cube so that it is the same width as the wall of the circle and touching each side of the wall.
• Now, we want the 3Dcursor at the center of the logo circle. To do this, go back to object mode (TAB), and select the circle that we added earlier (RMB), then press SHIFT+SKEY and choose 'Cursor -> Selection'. (This is the main reason why we have this circle here.)
• Reselect the cube (RMB) and TAB to edit mode.
• Choose NUM7 for the top view, and use RMB to select only the front face of the cube. (Before this you have to make sure that you are in 'Face select mode'.) In the image below, I've used MMB to rotate the scene slightly so that you can see that only one face is selected (Note: In this picture there are two faces selected. The one you should select is front one in front view NUM1 or the bottom one in top view NUM7 - it's the same face).

• Press XKEY and choose Erase Vertices. This will reduce the cube to a square

(User note: Erase Vertices will erase all the vertices connected to the two faces selected. In this case this is all the vertices in the cube and will completely remove the cube. I think "Erase Faces" would be correct.) (Another User note: Only one face shall be selected, not two as shown in the picture.)

• Press NUM7 to go to the top view then select the Editing panel (F9).
• Press AKEY to select all, and then make sure that the rotate settings are set to degr:360 , Steps:50 , Turns: 1. (Actually, Steps can be whatever number suits your fancy. You may want to play with various values.) This is just like we did for creating the man's hat.
• Click on 'Spin' to extrude the square into a ring.

(Another way to do it is to create a ring with 2 Tubes (SPACE -> Add -> Mesh -> tube). Scale one to the size of the outer border of the ring and one to the size of the inner one. Then in edit mode select 2 Vertices next to each other on the inner and outer tube and made a face (FKEY) which covered one segment of the ring. Then you have to spin it like described above (the number depends on the number of vertices you choose for your tube tube = 32 Verticles -> 632 rotationsteps). Same on the other side. If your faces are not in the right place go to object mode select the tubes an press SHIFT+SKEY and choose 'Cursor -> Selection' to center the 3D cursor.)

Next we will create the bar.

• Staying in Edit mode, hit SPACE and select 'Add -> Cube'. If you haven't moved the cursor since the ring extrusion, it should appear in the middle of the ring.
• Expand (SKEY) the cube so that it just encompasses the inside circle of the ring

• Scale (SKEY) the square in the Y axis (YKEY) so that it is approximately the thickness of the logo bar.
• Return to object mode (TAB), and rotate (RKEY) the ring together with the just designed bar so that it is parallel to the logo bar.
• In Edit Mode (TAB), squash the ring in the Y direction (SKEY, YKEY) so that it fits the logo ring.

• In edit mode, reselect just the bar. To do this, choose 'Face select mode', and do an area select of the face selectors near the center of the bar (use the BKEY, or SHIFT+RMB methods).
• Re-rotate (RKEY) the bar (in Edit Mode) so that it is parallel to, and in the middle of, the logo bar.

• The next thing we need to do is scale the bar so that it is precisely the same width as the logo bar.
• To do this, choose scale (SKEY), and press YKEY twice. This will go to local scale mode (local to the object). This is why we were rotating the entire ring, since the ring and bar are part of the same object.

• We no longer need the original circle now, (it should be sticking out from the top and bottom of the ring), so select it (RMB), and delete it (XKEY).
• If you hit NUM3 You'll see that the bar and the ring are at completely different heights than the lightning bolt. Select and scale them so that they are all roughly the same height (the bar should be slightly higher than the bolt, and the bolt slightly higher than the ring so that all the proper parts are covered.).
• You can use the trick above to select (RMB) only the bar, scale it in the Z axis (SKEY, ZKEY) and then hit SPACE and choose 'Select -> Inverse' to select the ring (all but the bar).
• When done rescaling, press NUM7 to look at your handiwork.

• There is one last bit, which is to slightly rotate the whole ring around the X axis so that it is below the top of the bolt and above the bottom.
• Once that's done, all that's left to do, is color in the ring.

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.

Using Bones

Bones are a modeling tool that are especially important for animating characters. 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:

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.

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.

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 done 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.

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 procedural texturing, so move on to the next tutorial to learn about image texturing.

Current Procedural Textures

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

Creating Basic Seawater

[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.]

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 20 its original size with the SKEY the way you've already learned in one of the earlier tutorials. Go to the side view (NumPad 3) and duplicate this plane two more times using Alt-D (not Shift-D), moving the plane down on the Z axis by two grid spaces each duplicate. This will make the transparency of the water more realistic once we set it.

Now off to the actual texturing work. Select any one of the planes and 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 (0.100, 0.310, 0.435). Find the tab that reads 'Mirror Transp' and click it. Click on 'Ray Mirror' and 'Ray Transp'. For the "Ray Mirror" box, move the 'RayMir' slider to 0.3, the 'Fresnel' slider to 2.5 and the Depth to 5. For the 'Ray Transp' box, move the 'IOR' slider to 1.33, the 'Fresnel' slider to 2.0 and the Depth to 5. This will give the water realistic transparency and reflection. Also click the 'Shaders' tab, change 'CookTorr' to 'Blinn', move 'Spec' to 2.000, 'Hard' to 180 and 'Refr' to 10.000. This will make the water look more glossy.

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 'Clouds'. On the Clouds tab change 'NoiseSize' to 0.050. Our Waves texture is ready; next, we will refine how it is applied to our Seawater material.

Noise Size increases the size of the noise, in this case, the clouds. 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'.

If you want to add more detail to your water, add another texture and rename it to "LargeWaves". Make it a cloud texture like the previous one, but make it's 'NoiseSize' 0.300 and use 'Hard noise'.

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). Click the 'Col' button so it is not selected, this button will show any color in the texture which we do not want. Find the 'Nor' Slider and move its value to about 5.00.

If you created the "LargeWaves" texture, select the "LargeWaves" texture under 'Texture and Input', go to the 'MapTo' tab, deselect 'Col', select 'Nor' and move the 'Nor' slider to 7.00. Do not select 'Hard' or 'Spec' this time.

For lighting press Space > Add > Lamp > Sun. You shouldn't need to move the sun or change any of it's settings. Finally move the camera to the edge of the plain and move it up towards the sky a bit.

Go to the Scene tab (F10), and look for the six buttons next to the big render button. Deselect all these, leaving only the 'Ray' button selected. This will tell Blender not to render some features in our scene that we really don't need. Go and press F12 to render the water, it may take a while depending on your system.

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

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:

Light a Silver Goblet

[edit] Techniques

You should know how to:

• Perform actions discussed previously in the tutorial.

This section will recap or introduce:

• Reflective material
• Positioning camera and light
• Editing the World colors

[edit] Objects in the Scene

Create the goblet discussed in Model a Silver Goblet or load it if previously made. If you haven't already made the goblet, feel free to try the tutorial using a sphere or something else instead and you will still get a good outcome. In Object Mode with NUM 7 view, add a plane mesh. Scale the plane to a very large size and make sure the goblet is sitting comfortably on top of it.

Select the camera and move it so that the goblet, its shadow, and its reflection in the plane will be seen. You can see the numerical location of the camera by bringing up the Transform Properties window by pressing NKEY in the viewport. In my example where 0,0,0 is the bottom center of the goblet, the camera is located at 27, -21, 19 XYZ with a rotation of 63.5, 0.62, 46.7.

Next, move the light so that it will create a shadow on the plane. Again, the location of this example is 9, -15.2, 25.8 for XYZ (rotation does not matter for this type of light source).

The rendering of this scene yields:

Note: You must turn on the Ray button in the Render (F10) buttons. Otherwise no shadows will appear!

[edit] Adding the Atmosphere

[Note: Many of the options here will be different if you have Yafray selected. In order to change to Blender's internal renderer, go to the Render tab (F10). Under the Render panel, click the drop down menu underneath the Render button. Select Blender Internal from the list.] [Note: On my version of Blender (2.49), the yafray button has been removed, so if you don't find it, don't worry.]

In Object Mode, select the goblet and go to the Shading panel (F5). If no material is linked to the goblet, add new material. Rename the material 'cup' or something similar. The area of interest is the Mirror Transp window. Highlighted below are the mirror options we'll be playing with. Press the Ray Mirror button to make the material act like a mirror and reflect light.

Move the RayMir slide to 0.85 or type it in after LMB on the number. This is how reflective the surface will be. A low number of 0.00 means that it reflects little while a high number of 1.00 reflects everything.

Also change the Fresnel slide to 1.4 from 0.0. This will increase the power of the Fresnel function. What this means is the color of the material will be strong because the light source is taken into consideration. If the Fresnel wasn't used, the object would appear dark because the light source isn't directly calculated in the mirror. Also, change the color of the goblet to white. Using a light color will give your goblet an interesting patina if you so choose.

Next, select the plane and modify the material. We want the plane to be dark and shiny. Set Col and Spe to near black for the color. For reflectivity, turn on Ray Mirror to about 0.15 RayMir and ignore Fresnel this time.

The scene will still be quite dark so let's turn up the light. Sometimes you want to add additional light sources and other times you just want what you have to be brighter. Here we'll stick to the one lamp.

Select the lamp object and increase the Energy to 3.000 making it 3 times brighter than before. As always, try changing it to several levels to see how bright or dark you can make the rendering.

There is only one more thing to do before rendering the scene: change the world. Under the Shading panel there is a globe icon that will get you to the world buttons. Here you have Real, Blend, and Paper buttons under the Preview window. And under the World window are options for changing the color of the horizon (Ho RGB), zenith (Ze RGB), and ambient (Am RGB). We're interested in these two windows at the moment.

Using Real and Blend will affect the way the horizon and zenith interact. Experiment with them to see what they do in the preview. In this example, Real and Blend are turned on.

The Paper button works a little differently in that what you see in the preview will essentially be the background of your render. This effect is most noticable when your camera is rotated. Despite the camera rotation, the preview would still be 'wallpapered' on the render.

For our world, set the RBG close to 0.00 for the horizon, zenith, and ambient.

That was the last step! Make sure the camera is in the right spot and render the scene. Here is the output of this example [Note: When i render i see all the brown were i have used "Shift-E" and "G" and i followed everything

Please Remember, the Author did say Play with the Settings a bit, this Tutorial should be used as a Guide. We are learning how to use all the Tools that Blender has to offer, that is the Important thing. It is up to us to Experiment more with the Settings set forth in these Tutorials. If the settings in these Tutorials do not give us the same Results that is o.k., we should be changing them anyway to Express ourselves. Also remember, NEVER Strive for PERFECTION, but ALWAYS Strive for EXCELLENCE. Perfection only leads to Frustration, and it is Frustrating Enough, at times, to Learn something new. Have Fun Learning, I know I am.

(:Noob note)-that was touching and true

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.

NewbyNote: With these settings, I get a big white-out.

[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.

Procedural Eyeball

Level: intermediate
Version: 2.43

Building a better (procedural) eyeball!
Originally created by Jon McKay (Ammusionist) and posted on blenderartists.org/forum
[10] The end result of this tutorial is an eyeball that fulfills the following requirements:

1. Single mesh
   • I wanted to be able to append a single object into any project.
2. Procedural Textures
   • I didn't want to have to rely on image maps that could get lost.
3. Versatile
   • One single model to be used for any type of character, be it human, alien or whatever.
4. Easy
   • Any effects needed to be quickly accessible. I don't want to be wasting time faffing around with colour-band settings at the texture level
5. Impressive
   • This sucker needs to look good any way it goes.
6. One other thing I really wanted was the iris musculature to follow the pupil dilation!

[Total Noob] I found this tutorial both informative and usefull. It's best to download the PDF version with the screen shots if you want to get as much info out of it as I did, and in fact, understand all that's going on in the Tute

New Link (26th May '09): Here is the full tutorial as a pdf file. 9 pages of screenshots and extremely detailed instructions. (2.7mb)

(Noob note: In my blender 2.49, I had to unclick the 'Traceable' setting on the cornea of my eye when following the PDF tutorial, else I ended up with a giant black 'olive', this does not appear to affect ray mirroring, and corrects my problem.)

[edit] Creating the Mesh

[noob note1] Maybe worth to look at this link instead... http://web.pdx.edu/~wlf/tut.html

Note: You might want to check out this video first: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKmHUZroaBA
The objective here is to make a great looking eyeball. That means it may not be anatomically perfect, but there are some things we need to take into account: The eye should consist of a white (white bit with veins); an iris (coloured bit); a pupil (black but in the centre of the iris) and a cornea (clear bit surrounding the whole eye). These may not be absolutely correct, but these are how I'm referring to the pieces of the eye.

• Start with a ball: Go to a front view (Keypad-1) and create a UV sphere. 24 Rings and segments should be sufficient. It'll give us plenty of smoothness and enough verts to work with when we create shapes. NOOB NOTE: If you want the eye to point toward you, you may have to rotate it 90 degrees. Go to side view [num3], click Rkey and rotate while pressing the control key. Return to front view.
• This sphere will become the coloured parts of the eye, but we also need a second sphere for the cornea. Use the Z key to switch to a wireframe view (if you're not already there). Hit the A key a couple of times to ensure all points are selected then Shift-D to duplicate the sphere.
• Press S-Key to scale and scale the second sphere to slightly larger than the first. (Hint: Hold shift while scaling for fine adjustment) or you could also enter a value, 1.01.
• Now that we have a nice confusing mesh, we're going to make our life easier. We're going to hide the outer bit for the moment. Hit the "H" key.
• Don't panic like I did the first time I accidentally hit H, you can bring it all back with Alt-H. (Note: In blender Alt + some key often reverses the effect of pressing the key in the first place!)
• OK Now to create the basic mesh for the inner part. Basically, we need to make a concave iris/pupil section.
• Switch to a side view and use the Border Select (B-Key) to select the first four rings and the tip. Now we're going to flatten these. Press "S" for scale "Y" for Y axis only and "number 0" for scale-to zero.
• Now grab the flattened verts with the "G" key and press Y so that it goes the right way, and drag it a little into the eyeball.
• Now for the cornea. It's not perfectly spherical; it bulges slightly at the front. We're going to use the Proportional Editing tool.
• First, we need to un-hide the cornea. Hit Alt-H
• Usually you would use the O-Key, but this little menu item allows you to to activate proportional editing for Connected vertices.
• Once activated, you can select the type of falloff from the 3D header bar. Select “Root Falloff”
• Press A-Key a couple of times again to make sure no points are selected, switch to a side view (Keypad-3) and right click just to the left of the front-most point. We just want to select that one vertex.
• Now comes some fun. We want to drag that point away from the eye in the y axis, so press “G” for grab and “Y” for Y axis. As you move the vertex, you'll see a circle that defines the influence of the proportional editing. Adjust it so it is about ¼ the height of the whole eye and drag it out until it looks right.
• To clean the model up, we're going to apply a subsurface and apply some smoothing. Go to the editing buttons and find the modifier panel.
• Add a subsurface modifier and set both level and render level to 2.
• Now hit Tab to switch to Object mode and hit the "Set Smooth" button in the Link and Materials panel.
• Now would be a good time to save your work before we go on to textures.

[edit] Adding the Textures

You're going to need multiple materials on this mesh. It's possible to apply materials to selected faces.

• First, switch to editing mode and change the select mode to Face select. (Oh, and switch off proportional editing if it's still on from the last section)

• Press A a couple of times to ensure nothing is selected.

• Press Z to switch off wireframe; this will be easier without it.

• Place the mouse pointer in the centre of one of the faces on the outside layer of the eye and press “L” to select linked faces. If you get a message saying “Nothing Indicated” try positioning the pointer on a different face and try again.

• Once the cornea section is selected, in the “Links and Materials” panel of the editing buttons, click “New”. The counter above it will change to “1 Mat 1” best read as material 1 of 1. Click “Assign” to assign the cornea faces to material 1.

• Hide the cornea faces (H-Key). We'll assign the rest from the outside in. If a face is already assigned to a material and it is assigned to another, it just switches place. Therefore, it's easiest next to assign all the visible faces.

• Press A to select all and, as above, click “New” then click “Assign”.

• Now for the iris and pupil. Hit A to deselect all.

• Switch to a front view and zoom in. Hit “B” twice to enable paint select and select the central faces plus one ring out. You can control the size of the selector by rotating your mouse wheel.

• Again, create a “New” material index and “Assign” the pupil faces to it.

• Finally, click A to deselect all and use paint select again to select the remaining faces on the iris. Assign them to a new material.

• Now we're ready to make the materials. Switch to object mode (Tab). Change to the object editing buttons and in the Draw panel, locate the “Transp” control. Set this on. This means as we go we'll be able to see through the cornea.

[edit] Cornea Material

We'll start with the simplest texture first. The cornea is basically just colourless and transparent. Note that we're using Z-Transparency instead of Ray Trans. This is because some lighting conditions make the eye under the cornea difficult to see. (NOTE: Until I get the images uploaded, you should refer to the pdf version for the settings. Meanwhile, here is how I see them:

Go to the shading buttons (F5)

Under the Links and Pipeline tab, ZTransp is clicked along with Radio and Tracable.

Under the Material tab, col is white and alpha is 0.1 .

Under the Shaders tab, CookTor Spec is 1.674 and Hardness is 333.

Under the Mirror Transp tab, Ray Mirror is clicked, RayMir is 0.4, Depth is 3 --Bonapon (talk) 14:31, 6 October 2009 (UTC))

(Noob note: In my blender 2.49, I had to unclick the 'Traceable' setting on the cornea of my eye when following the PDF tutorial, else I ended up with a giant black 'olive', this does not appear to affect ray mirroring, and corrects my problem.)

[edit] White Material

The white of the eye's a little trickier. The material here includes some red veins that can be seen at the side of the eye, but not from the front. This can be done with two textures, but there's a cheat we can use.

First, the veins:

Switch to Material Index 2 (In the Links and Materials panel, click the right arrow so it reads “4 Mat 2” or Material 2 of 4).

Click the cross or X next to the material name and add a new material.

Go to the texture buttons:

Using a marble texture, copy these settings.

(Here are the settings that I see

Under the Colors tab:

Cur: 0: Pos=0; R=1, G=0.617, B=0.629; A=1;

Cur: 1: Pos=0.340; R=1, G=1, B=1; A=0;

Under the Marble tab:

Sharper, Soft noise and Sin are clicked;

NoiseSize=0.634; NoiseDepth=5; Turbulence=26.04;

--Bonapon (talk) 15:25, 6 October 2009 (UTC))

The two colour band items are shown here separately. This makes a nice marble texture that will evenly cover the eyeball. So how to hide it from the front of the ball? Another colour band trick, but this time in the material itself.

Here they are in all their glory.

(As I see them:

Under the material tab, Col is white and alpha is 1;

Under the Ramps tab:

Cur: 0: Pos=0.690; R=1, G=1, B=1; A=0; Input is Shader; (These settings are not shown in the pdf so I have extrapolated. Please correct if wrong.)

Cur: 1: Pos=0..690; R=1, G=1, B=1; A=1; Input is Normal;

--Bonapon (talk) 15:43, 6 October 2009 (UTC))

The colour band items are both white with one alpha 0.0 and one alpha 1.0. As you can see they are very close together to give a fairly clear line that the veins will stop at. The input setting for the band is set to “Normal” this means the left hand side of the band refers to faces that are parallel to the camera view and the right is faces that are facing directly towards the camera.

I've also added a bit of mirroring so that we get a little scenery reflected!

There's also some colour band fun to be had with the pupil material.

[edit] Pupil Material

I wanted a nice black texture, but I also wanted to get a red-eye effect if a light is shone directly at it from behind the camera. Why? I guess just because I can, and now so can you!

As before move to the next material index and create a new material.

There's no textures in this one. It's basically black and a little reflective with a nice hard specular.

(In the materials button (F5):

Under the Links and Pipeline tab, Ztransp, Radio, Tracable and Shadbuff are clicked;

Under the Material tab, Col is Black, presumably with an alpha of 1, while Spe is white with an alpha of 0.6;

Under the Shaders tab, CookTor spec is 0.594, Hard is 294;

Under the Mirror Transp tab, Ray Mirror is clicked, RayMir is 0.3;

--Bonapon (talk) 18:14, 6 October 2009 (UTC))

Have a good look at the colour band settings though!

Position 1 is black with an alpha of 0 and positioned at 0.97. Trust me on this setting, it took a while to get it right!

(Under the Ramps tab:

Cur=0; Pos=0.970; R=0, G=0, B=0, A=0; --Bonapon (talk) 18:22, 6 October 2009 (UTC))

The second is all the way across at position 1 and is fully red (with no blue or green) and alpha 1. We want the red-eye to respond to light not angle like the white of the eye, so set the colour band input to “Shader”.

(Cur=1; Pos=1; R=1, G=0, B=0, A=1 (The alpha of the second position is not shown in the pdf) ; --Bonapon (talk) 18:22, 6 October 2009 (UTC))

Now the bit you've all been waiting for – the iris!

[edit] Iris UV Map

Save your work and grab a cup of coffee for this part. It's a little involved.

We need the texture to stay glued to the mesh irrespective of the shape of the mesh. This gives the effect of the muscles in the iris expanding and contracting. In a nutshell, we're going to UV map a procedural texture to a single part of the mesh.

OK, here we go. Switch to a material editing window. You'll need to be able to see both a 3D window and an image window. It wouldn't hurt to see a buttons panel as well. My material screen kind of looks like this.

Make sure the window is displaying a front view (Keypad-1) this will be important when we unwrap the bit we're going to use.

Change the 3D window to mesh editing / face select and use the brush select (B-Key twice) to select the iris faces.

Now change to UV Face Select mode. The faces should remain selected. (As of Blender 2.46 the UV Face Select mode no longer exists. It's been merged with Edit mode. All you have to do is select all the vertices/faces/edges in Edit mode and press the U-key.)

With the cursor in the 3D window, press “U-Key” for unwrap and select “Project from View”. The image window should now contain a nice even circle of dots. Put the cursor in the image window and press “A” to select all the points. Scale and move them until they fit nicely in the outer square of the image grid. Now select each ring in turn using brush select, starting from the innermost, and scale them until they cover from the centre to the outside of the image grid as shown.

Now we've got a map, lets get a texture. Switch back to a modelling screen and change to object mode for the next part.

[edit] Iris Material

Firstly, a texture to control the colour blend across the iris. Generally it starts on the outer edge dark and gets lighter as it moves to the centre. Sounds like a job for the blend texture.

The texture itself is fairly straight forward, but again, the colour band is where the magic happens.

I've pictured all three stops in the colour band. Note the alpha values. This blend texture is meant to tint the iris texture so it's lighter in the centre and darker in the outside. (Note: I will have to create my own screen prints as I don't know if the original author has uploaded images or if they are copyrighted. For this to happen, I will first have to complete the tutorial myself.--Bonapon (talk) 20:34, 8 October 2009 (UTC))

Now for that iris texture:

I stumbled over this texture almost by accident when I was working on a different project. Copy the settings as they appear here.

Note: the colour band points are black with alpha 0 and white with alpha 1. This allows the material colour to come through the texture, so we can set the main eye colour in the material buttons.

The main colour is blue which sets the colour of the iris. The centre colour comes from the texture settings:

The blend texture is applied to the UV map input. The green colour is used as a lighten mix to tint the iris near the centre. Using the Stencil option allows the other texture to show through.

The iris texture is applied to UV again and some normal as well as colour is applied. This makes some small shadows in the iris when the light is from the side. Add some lights and have a look at your eyeball so far.

[edit] Pupil Dalation

We're going to use shape keys to create the pupil effects.

We're going to create a normal eye and a cat's eye. Fortunately, the fully dilated eye is the same in both cases so that's going to be our shape key basis.

Go to the edit buttons and select the Shape Key panel.

Make sure “Relative” is selected and click “Add Shape Key” to create the base shape.

Switch to edit mode, point selection. Select just the first loop in of the iris. To select an edge loop in point mode, place the cursor on a line between two points that's on the loop and Alt-Right Click. Shift + Alt-RClick will add the selected loop to what's already selected.

Now scale this to just inside the width of the loop that the iris shares with the white..

Now do the same with each of the other two loops. This should produce a nice dilated pupil.

Hint: If you scale the inner loop out, but the edge of the colour doesn't follow it exactly, drop it and hit Shift-E, then move the pointer to the right. This causes the subsurfaced mesh to closer follow the selected edge.

Now to create the normal (human) pupil shape. Switch to object mode (Tab) and add a new shape key. Name it “Normal Pupil Contract”

Now grab the edge loop between the pupil and the iris. Scale is down so it's just a little bigger than the loop in the pupil. Select all the points in the pupil as well now and scale them all very small.

Now select the next loop out and scale it down, followed by the final edge loop. It should look like this.

Now switch back to object mode and try the shape key slider out. Pretty neat huh?

Let's make a cat's eye now. Switch shape keys back to “Basis” and add a new shape key called ”Cat Pupil”.

Use the same method as before to scale the edge loops. As you scale, restrict your scaling to the X axis (That is “S” then “X”). You should end up with a shape key like this:

That's pretty much it. Try some other things like rotating iris edge loops in the shape keys for spiral eyes, or weird shapes for the contracted pupil.

Don't forget to save – and enjoy!

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 (works perfectly in Wine) 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.

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!

Creating Pixar-looking eyes

Note: This tutorial uses the same modelling and texturing technique described in the well-known MAX tutorial by Adam Baroody (http://www.3dluvr.com/rogueldr/tutorials/eye/eyes.html). The sole purpose of my tutorial is to make this technique more popular among the Blender users by explaining how to achieve the same result with Blender.

The goal of this tutorial is to make a Pixar-looking eye. One of the main reasons that Pixar's characters really convey life is in their eyes. They have depth, you can see how the eye not only shines but it "collects" light. You may think that you can't achieve this effect without raytracing but you're wrong. The secret of this depth is in the modelling of the eye. Let's see how it works!

[edit] Parts of the Eye

In this picture you can see the "ingredients" of the eye model. The blue mesh at the left is the cornea. Its shape allows for a small spot of specular light to appear on it even if the light is in a far side position. The mesh next to it is the iris. Now notice how it's a bit concave. That's the tricky part - the shape of the iris allows for a wide soft specular light to appear at the opposite side of the lamp direction. This fakes refracted light from the cornea and makes the illusion of "collecting" light and creates depth. The next mesh is the eye pupil - a simple circle.The pupil size is the same size as the iris hole. You can position it close to the inner side of the iris. And finally - the eyeball. It's a simple sphere with a hole in it.

I won't go deep into modelling of each element - it uses Blender's subdivision surfaces and it's quite simple as you can see.

Below is a link to the diagram of the eye [11]

[edit] Materials

Now let's look at the materials.

[edit] Eye White

To make the eye white, press NUM3 to go into side view and add a UVsphere with 8 segments and 8 rings. To create the hole at the front of the eyeball, delete the 8 triangular faces that make up one end of the eyeball. Ctrl+Tab+3 to go into face select mode, B for border mode and select the middle 8 triangles as shown below, press Delete or the X button and LMB on Faces.

The resulting hole will be ringed by 8 vertices (which you could subsequently extrude and use to help you model the sections below - just a suggestion for those who feel capable)

The eye white has white color and high values for Spec and Hard (depends on the lighting). Optionally you can use a reflection map to make it look more wet but I usually don't do this.

(User: Make sure shadow buttons are off or it will black out the iris. Spec and Hard are located in the Shaders tab.)

after that jorge

[edit] Iris

~~ Note ~~ I did this tutorial, first the way they said here, and then my way. I inserted a circle, extruded (edges only), but I DIDN'T move anything. I then scaled what I had extruded towards the origin of the circle (middle). It had the same effect, and was much faster, but you had to get it roughly 1/4 of the way for the same proportion. ~~ End of Note ~~

The iris is built from a circle of 8 vertices.

• Select opposite vertices of the circle and join them using FKEY. While creating these lines, subdivide each new edge using subdivide multi with 2 cuts (WKEY then subdivide multi. Check number of cuts = 2. Press OK).

• Select the new vertices two at a time (adjacent ones) and join them using FKEY. This will form a ring which will become the pupil hole.

• Change to edge select (CTRL + TAB) and select the inner edges where the pupil will be. Delete these edges (XKEY then press Edges).

• Change back to vertex selection and select the inner vertices around the pupil hole. Change to a front view and pull the vertices back a little to form the concave shape. (Select vertices, then press G to "grab", and drag LMB away from cornea opening.)

• Scale the iris to the same size as the hole in the eyeball and position it behind the cornea. (Press S, then drag)

• Create a new material and add the iris texture (F6 or click the spotted wall tiny button, choose Image as the texture type and then press Load Image button). To create a material see the material tutorial at http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro/Quickie_Material.
  

The texture should be flat texturing (top button to right of preview) and flat in the Map Input tab. Occo coordinates work. All that is required now is a bit of tweeking of the texture size using the Xsize and Ysize values in the Map Input tab, and scaling the pupil hole size in Edit mode.

Here is the eye texture taken from the picture above

You can tweak the RGB values and brightness/contrast of the image to achieve the appearance you want. Use a smaller value for Hard (about 50) otherwise you'll have a too shiny look instead of soft specular that fakes refracted light. The Spec value depends on the energy and distance of the light that illuminates it. Generally you'll need to take care that the refracted ligth on the iris should be no more than half as bright as the small specular spot on the cornea - otherwise you'll achieve the bad effect of two specular spots. Oh, another important thing - join the four meshes before tweaking the texture coordinates. Otherwise you'll have to do the job twice after you join them, because the texture space is changed. And activate shadeless button.

[edit] Pupil

The material for the pupil is a simple black color with the "shadeless" button on.

[edit] Cornea

The cornea uses a transparent material (alpha = 0.1) with Spec = .6, Hard = 255 and SpecTra = 1. "Ztransp" should also be turned on (found under Links and Pipelines tab). The cornea is simply a piece that fits exactly in the middle of the hole in the eye white. Make sure that the 'Traceable' button, under Render Pipeline, in the Links and Pipelines tab, is switched off. Noob note: I found it helps to turn off Shadebuff since, as far as I know, you don't generally want the cornea to cast a shadow.

Noob question: I don't know where is the "SpecTra" Value. I'm working on 2.46. Thanks a lot. You can find "SpecTra" under "Mirror Transp"

[edit] Lighting

The lighting is simple - move the eye to a new layer, create a new lamp and make the lamp affect only this layer. Position the lamp at a good angle so you have a small shiny spot of specular light on one side of the iris and a soft spot of "refracted" light on the other side. You can use a backlight to prevent the eyeball from being too dark at the non-illuminated part.

To move the newly created lamp to a new layer, press SHIFT+M and select the second blue button and press OK. P

That's it! Now you're (almost) ready to start with character animation. You have a nice eye, now you only need a character for it!

[edit] Changing the Eye Color

You can change the color of the eye by either changing the cornea color, or by changing the iris color itself. Changing the cornea color might be like putting on colored contacts.

[edit] Changing the Cornea Color

To change the cornea color, do the following:

1. In the mesh which is used to create Cornea set the value of the alpha slider to 0.2 (or more if you desire)
2. Change the color of the mesh to whatever color you like
3. Turn off traceble
   
4. Render!

(and remenber to smooth out everything by selecting the particular mesh going to edit buttons and clicking on set smooth)

[edit] Changing the Iris Color

To change the iris color you can either edit the iris image external from blender or you can modify the RGB values of the image when imported into Blender.

[edit] Useful Links

For rigging an eyeball, (making it stay in one place while turning to look at something) and other eyeball stuff, you can visit this site. This tutorial assumes you already have the eyeball made above or one of your own. Click. 5jun2009, the PDF shows no rigging, only creating an eyeball

UV Map Basics

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 3D View header [note on edit: this is also not available in the depicted 'Draw Type -> wireframe' mode for later versions])

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

[2.49 is a complete revision, this method wont work but contains useful information and notes by users. For a finishing method that that is current see *Don't Unwrap]

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] [another noob note: when I used the image (in 2.49a/OSX) , it deformed the mesh, I found using a resized image (405 px. square - the same image as above placed on a square black background) sorted this out]

[2.49b Don't unwrap. After 3D View -> 1. (CTRL+E) Mark Seam -- 2. (AKEY) Select All >> UV/Image Editor - 3. Load: BlueMarble-2001-2002.jpg. -- 4. Click the 'belly button' to select the picture. (You should see the picture.) Now unwrap. This will load the mesh horizontally on unwrap. Then use the regular manipulation keys (RKEY, SKEY, GKEY) and buttons in UV/Image Editor to fit the uv meshes. Observed: The uv mesh loaded alone is one vertical island while the uv mesh loaded on an image was two. Weird. In your Edit Panel buttons around now you can see the sub-context master panel called UV Calculation. This is like an important thing so don't worry if it is brain overload. Experimentation with that pack margin will separate the mesh islands in either case. ]

[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 saved HTML file instead of the jpeg. Also it seems you need to reload the directory listing in the "Open" dialog box in Blender else it won't find the newly saved file. You can do this by going to the parent directory and back into the child directory.
   • Response: Normally the image file used by the html file will be downloaded along with the html file. Loading an html file as your texture is not recommended.
5. Comment There does not seem to be a "UV Face Select" mode in blender 2.46 - There is a face select mode in 2.46+, but, first go to edit mode, than find the small triangle icon in your window's toolbar, hovering over it will give you the tooltip: "Face Select Mode". you can also use the shortcut CTRL+TAB+3KEY in edit mode. (The default mode is vertex mode, the four dots icon)
6. Question: Because 2.46 has no UV face select mode, how do I apply something like "two-sided" to a whole group of faces instead of just one at a time? - See the tip above on how to get in face-select mode
   • Response: Changing a material property for any user (even a single selected vertex) will change that for all the users of the material. You can assign faces their own material (those 3 vertex if the face is a polygon) even though they are normally selected with a mesh. With using Similar to Selection -> Material you can then perform other actions on those faces. Beyond that you can create groups that do not use materials as their commonality. I am a Noob, so I have never seen UV Select as a mode, but you can work out details before mapping, and there are some buttons like Sync which seems relevant.
     
7. Question: when i press u it does not show the menu you have on your screen shot it has unwrap and some other things but does not say LCSM
   
   • Response: "LSCM" has been renamed to just "Unwrap"
8. Question: When I finished the mapping, I had the normal earth sphere, but with this black ring where the seam was made. It's not a flat line.
   • Response: Make sure that all the verticies are inside the circumference of the Earth image. Also notice that each half of the Earth image is shadowed on the right side. Try rotating one half of the verticies 180 degress around so that the shadows on the Earth match up on both halves.
   • Question: My earth won't show up in renders. I've mapped it, I've tried all sorts of lighting, but it won't show up. What should I do?
9. Question:In the UV Image Editor panel, I can click on Image > Open and select the edited TGA file, but when I click Open Image, nothing happens. Is there a problem between Blender 2.49 and Python 2.6?
   • Response:Nothing actually changes in the UV Image Editor window. You might need to change your Draw Type in a 3D window to Textured.
10. Question:UV export is not working: I have python 2.5.4 with blender 2.49b. I can generate the UV in Blender but I cannot see any of the script options (menu empty) even when all the meshes are selected. Furthermore when I try to export an image with save or save as, it just creates an empty tga with only the background color and no edges whatsoever.
    
    • Response:Make sure blender is properly installed, in my case the installer forgot the .blender and plugin directory. Try the .zip file from the blender website instead of the installer. uv_export.py should be in the .blender/scripts folder. In the uv image editor use UVs -> scripts -> save UV face layout to export to tga.

[edit] Source

Greybeard's LSCM Mapping video tutorial: http://www.ibiblio.org/bvidtute/mytut/uvtut.avi

[edit] Extras

Blender 2.49 UV Map Basics tutorial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_8OV92HLPY

Every Material Known to Man

[edit] "Every Material Known To Man" Project

Want to share your material settings with the world? This is the place! This page is going to be turning from a page to a chapter, but to do that we need your support!! If you have an idea for a material, even if you don't know how to make it, just put it in the list to help! Someone out there knows how to make it, and if they come across this page with it listed, they might be willing to share.

Modeling Keyboard Shortcuts Blender HotKeys - Relevant to Blender 2.36 - Compiled from Blender Online Guides

[edit] Window HotKeys

Certain window managers also use the following hotkeys. So ALT+CTRL can be substituted for CTRL to perform the functions described below if a conflict arises.

CTRL+LEFTARROW. Go to the previous Screen.

CTRL+RIGHTARROW. Go to the next Screen.

CTRL+UPARROW or CTRL+DOWNARROW. Maximise the window or return to the previous window display size.

SHIFT+F4. Change the window to a Data View

SHIFT+F5. Change the window to a 3D Window

SHIFT+F6. Change the window to an IPO Window

SHIFT+F7. Change the window to a Buttons Window

SHIFT+F8. Change the window to a Sequence Window

SHIFT+F9. Change the window to an Outliner Window

SHIFT+F10. Change the window to an Image Window

SHIFT+F11. Change the window to a Text Window

SHIFT+F12. Change the window to an Action Window

[edit] Universal HotKeys

The following HotKeys work uniformly in all Blender Windows, if the Context allows:

CTRL+LMB. Lasso select: drag the mouse to form a freehand selection area.

• • ESC.
  • This key always cancels Blender functions without changes.
  • or: FileWindow, DataView and ImageSelect: back to the previous window type.
  • or: the RenderWindow is pushed to the background (or closed, that depends on the operating system).

SPACE. Open the Toolbox.

TAB. Start or quit EditMode.

F1. Loads a Blender file. Changes the window to a FileWindow.

SHIFT+F1. Appends parts from other files, or loads as Library-data. Changes the window to a FileWindow, making Blender files accessible as a directory.

F2. Writes a Blender file. Change the window to a FileWindow.

SHIFT+F2. Exports the scene as a DXF file

CTRL+F2. Exports the scene as a VRML1 file

F3. Writes a picture (if a picture has been rendered). The fileformat is as indicated in the DisplayButtons. The window becomes a File Select Window.

CTRL+F3 (ALT+CTRL+F3 on MacOSX). Saves a screendump of the active window. The fileformat is as indicated in the DisplayButtons. The window becomes a FileWindow.

SHIFT+CTRL+F3. Saves a screendump of the whole Blender screen. The fileformat is as indicated in the DisplayButtons. The window becomes a FileWindow.

F4. Displays the Logic Context (if a ButtonsWindow is available).

F5. Displays the Shading Context (if a Buttons Window is available), Light, Material or World Sub-contexts depends on active object.

F6. Displays the Shading Context and Texture Sub-context (if a ButtonsWindow is available).

F7. Displays the Object Context (if a ButtonsWindow is available).

F8. Displays the Shading Context and World Sub-context (if a ButtonsWindow is available).

F9. Displays the Editing Context (if a ButtonsWindow is available).

F10. Displays the Scene Context (if a ButtonsWindow is available).

F11. Hides or shows the render window.

F12. Starts the rendering from the active camera.

LEFTARROW. Go to the previous frame.

SHIFT+LEFTARROW. Go to the first frame.

RIGHTARROW. Go to the next frame.

SHIFT+RIGHTARROW. Go to the last frame.

UPARROW. Go forward 10 frames.

DOWNARROW. Go back 10 frames.

ALT+A. Change the current Blender window to Animation Playback mode. The cursor changes to a counter.

ALT+SHIFT+A. The current window, plus all 3DWindows go into Animation Playback mode.

IKEY. Insert Key menu. This menu differs from window to window.

JKEY. Toggle the render buffers. Blender allows you to retain two different rendered pictures in memory.

CTRL+O. Opens the last saved file.

QKEY. OK? Quit Blender. This key closes Blender. Blender quit is displayed in the console if Blender is properly closed.

ALT+CTRL+T. TimerMenu. This menu offers access to information about drawing speed. The results are displayed in a pop-up.

CTRL+U. OK, Save User defaults. The current project (windows, objects, etc.), including UserMenu settings are written to the default file that will be loaded every time you start Blender or set it to defaults by pressing CTRL+X.

CTRL+W. Write file. This key combination allows you to write the Blender file without opening a FileWindow.

ALT+W. Write Videoscape file. Changes the window to a FileWindow.

CTRL+X. Erase All. Everything (except the render buffer) is erased and released. The default scene is reloaded.

CTRL+Y. Redo. Mac users may use CMD+Y.

CTRL+Z. Undo. Mac users may use CMD+Z.

SHIFT+CTRL+Z. Redo. Mac users may use SHIFT+CMD+Z

[edit] Object Mode HotKeys

These hotkeys are mainly bound to the 3D Viewport Window, but many work on Objects in most other windows, like IPOs and so on, hence they are summarized here.

HOME. All Objects in the visible layer are displayed completely, centered in the window.

PAGEUP. Select the next Object Key. If more than one Object Key is selected, the selection is shifted up cyclically. Only works if the AnimButtons->DrawKey is ON for the Object.

SHIFT+PAGEUP. Adds to selection the next Object Key.

PAGEDOWN. Select the previous Object Key. If more than one Object Key is selected, the selection is shifted up cyclically. Only works if the AnimButtons->DrawKey is ON for the Object.

SHIFT+PAGEDOWN. Adds to selection the previous Object Key.

ACCENT.(~) (To the left of the 1KEY in US keyboard) Select all layers.

SHIFT+ACCENT. Revert to the previous layer setting.

TAB. Start/stop EditMode. Alternative hotkey: ALT+E.

AKEY. Selects/deselects all.

CTRL+A. Apply size and rotation. The rotation and dimensions of the Object are assigned to the ObData (Mesh, Curve, etc.). At first glance, it appears as if nothing has changed, but this can have considerable consequences for animations or texture mapping. This is best illustrated by also having the axis of a Mesh Object be drawn (EditButtons->Axis). Rotate the Object and activate Apply. The rotation and dimensions of the Object are 'erased'.

SHIFT+CTRL+A. If the active Object is automatically duplicated (see AnimButtons->DupliFrames or AnimButtons- >Dupliverts), a menu asks Make duplis real?. This option actually creates the Objects. If the active Mesh Object is deformed by a Lattice, a menu asks Apply Lattice deform?. Now the deformation of the Lattice is assigned to the vertices of the Mesh.

SHIFT+A. This is the AddMenu. In fact, it is the ToolBox that starts with the `ADD' option. When Objects are added, Blender starts EditMode immediately if possible.

BKEY. Border Select. Draw a rectangle with the LeftMouse; all Objects within this area are selected, but not made active. Draw a rectangle with the RightMouse to deselect Objects. In orthonormal ViewMode, the dimensions of the rectangle are displayed, expressed as global coordinates, as an extra feature in the lower left corner. In Camera ViewMode, the dimensions that are to be rendered according to the DisplayButtons are displayed in pixel units.

SHIFT+B. Render Border. This only works in Camera ViewMode. Draw a rectangle to render a smaller cut-out of the standard window frame. If the option DisplayButtons->Border is ON, a box is drawn with red and black lines.

CKEY. Centre View. The position of the 3DCursor becomes the new centre of the 3DWindow.

• • ALT+C. Convert Menu. Depending on the active Object, a PopupMenu is displayed. This enables you to convert certain types of ObData. It only converts in one direction, everything ultimately degrades to a Mesh! The options are:
    • Font -> Curve
    • MetaBall -> Mesh The original MetaBall remains unchanged.
    • Curve -> Mesh
    • Surface -> Mesh

• • CTRL+C. Copy Menu. This menu copies information from the active Object to (other) selected Objects.
    • Fixed components are:
      • Copy Loc: the X,Y,Z location of the Object. If a Child is involved, this location is the relative position in relation to the Parent.
      • Copy Rot: the X,Y,Z rotation of the Object.
      • Copy Size: the X,Y,Z dimension of the Object.
      • DrawType: copies Object Drawtype.
      • TimeOffs: copies Object time offset.
      • Dupli: all Duplicator data (Dupliframes, Dupliverts and so on)
      • Mass: Real time stuff.
      • Damping: Real time stuff.
      • Properties: Real time stuff.
      • Logic Bricks: Real time stuff.
      • Constraints: copies Object constraints.
    • If applicable:
      • Copy TexSpace: The texture space.
      • Copy Particle Settings: the complete particle system from the AnimButtons.
    • For Curve Objects:
      • Copy Bevel Settings: all bevelling data from the EditButtons.
    • Font Objects:
      • Copy Font Settings: font type, dimensions, spacing.
      • Copy Bevel Settings: all bevelling data from the EditButtons.
    • Camera Objects:
      • Copy Lens: the lens value.

SHIFT+C. CentreZero View. The 3DCursor is set to zero (0,0,0) and the view is changed so that all Objects, including the 3Dcursor, can be displayed. This is an alternative for HOME.

DKEY. Draw mode menu. Allows to select draw modes exactly as the corresponding menu in the 3D viewport header does.

SHIFT+D. Add Duplicate. The selected Objects are duplicated. Grab mode starts immediately thereafter.

ALT+D. Add Linked Duplicate. Of the selected Objects linked duplicates are created. Grab mode starts immediately thereafter.

CTRL+D. Draw the (texture) Image as wire. This option has a limited function. It can only be used for 2D compositing.

ALT+E. Start/stop EditMode. Alternative hotkey: TAB.

FKEY. If selected Object is a mesh Toggles Face selectMode on and off.

CTRL+F. 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).

• • GKEY. Grab Mode. Or: the translation mode. This works on selected Objects and vertices. Blender calculates the quantity and direction of the translation, so that they correspond exactly with the mouse movements, regardless of the ViewMode or view direction of the 3DWindow. Alternatives for starting this mode:
    • LMB to draw a straight line.
  • The following options are available in translation mode:
    • Limiters:
      • CTRL: in increments of 1 grid unit.
      • SHIFT: fine movements.
      • SHIFT+CTRL: in increments of 0.1 grid unit.
    • MMB toggles: A short click restricts the current translation to the X,Y or Z axis. Blender calculates which axis to use, depending on the already initiated mouse movement. Click MiddleMouse again to return to unlimited translation.
    • XKEY, YKEY, ZKEY constrains movement to X, Y or Z axis of the global reference.
    • a second XKEY, YKEY, ZKEY constrains movement to X, Y or Z axis of the local reference.
    • a third XKEY, YKEY, ZKEY removes constraints.
    • NKEY enters numerical input, as well as any numeric key directly. TAB will switch between values, ENTER finalizes, ESC exits.
    • ARROWS: These keys can be used to move the mouse cursor exactly 1 pixel.
    • Grabber can be terminated with:
      • LMB SPACE or ENTER: move to a new position.
      • RMB or ESC: everything goes back to the old position.
    • Switching mode:
      • GKEY: starts Grab mode again.
      • SKEY: switches to Size (Scale) mode.
      • RKEY: switches to Rotate mode.

ALT+G. Clears translations, given in Grab mode. The X,Y,Z locations of selected Objects are set to zero.

• • SHIFT+G. Group Selection
    • Children: Selects all selected Object's Children.
    • Immediate Children: Selects all selected Object's first level Children.
    • Parent: Selects selected Object's Parent.
    • Shared Layers: Selects all Object on the same Layer of active Object

• • IKEY. Insert Object Key. A keyposition is inserted in the current frame of all selected Objects. A PopupMenu asks what key position(s) must be added to the IpoCurves.
    • Loc: The XYZ location of the Object.
    • Rot: The XYZ rotation of the Object.
    • Size: The XYZ dimensions of the Object
    • LocRot: The XYZ location and XYZ rotation of the Object.
    • LocRotSize: The XYZ location, XYZ rotation and XYZ dimensions of the Object.
    • Layer: The layer of the Object.
    • Avail: A position is only added to all the current IpoCurves, that is curves which already exists.
    • Mesh, Lattice, Curve or Surface: depending on the type of Object, a VertexKey can be added

CTRL+J. Join Objects. All selected Objects of the same type are added to the active Object. What actually happens here is that the ObData blocks are combined and all the selected Objects (except for the active one) are deleted. This is a rather complex operation, which can lead to confusing results, particularly when working with a lot of linked data, animation curves and hierarchies.

KKEY. Show Keys. The DrawKey option is turned ON for all selected Objects. If all of them were already ON, they are all turned OFF.

SHIFT+K. A PopupMenu asks: OK? Show and select all keys. The DrawKey option is turned ON for all selected Objects, and all Object-keys are selected. This function is used to enable transformation of the entire animation system.

LKEY. Makes selected Object local. Makes library linked objects local for the current scene.

• • CTRL+L. Link selected. Links some of the Active Object data to all selected Objects, the following menu entry appears only if applicable.
    • To Scene: Creates a link of the Object to a scene.
    • Object IPOs: Links Active Object IPOs to selected ones.
    • Mesh data: Links Active Object Mesh data selected ones.
    • Lamp Data: Links Active Object Lamp data to selected ones.
    • Surf Data: Links Active Object Surf data selected ones.
    • Material: Links Active Object Material to selected ones.

• • SHIFT+L. Select Linked. Selects all Objects somehow linked to active Object.
    • Object IPO: Selects all Object(s) sharing active Object's IPOs.
    • Object Data: Selects all Object(s) sharing active Object's ObData.
    • Current Material: Selects all Object(s) sharing active Object's current Material.
    • Current Texture: Selects all Object(s) sharing active Object's current Texture.

MKEY. Moves selected Object(s) to another layer, a pop-up appears. Use LMB to move, use SHIFT+LMB to make the object belong to multiple layers. If the selected Objects have different layers, this is ORed in the menu display. Use ESC to exit the menu. Press the "OK" button or ENTER to change the layer setting. The hotkeys (ALT-)(1KEY, 2KEY, ... - 0KEY) work here as well (see 3DHeader).

CTRL+M. Mirror Menu. It is possible to mirror an Object along the X, Y or Z axis.

NKEY. Number Panel. The location, rotation and scaling of the active Object are displayed and can be modified.

ALT+O. Clear Origin. The `Origin' is erased for all Child Objects, which causes the Child Objects to move to the exact location of the Parent Objects.

SHIFT+O. If the selected Object is a Mesh toggles SubSurf onn/ off. CTRL+1 to CTRL+4 switches to the relative SubSurf level for display purpouses. Rendering SUbSurf level has no HotKey.

• • CTRL+P. Make selected Object(s) the child(ren) of the active Object. If the Parent is a Curve then a popup offers two choices:
    • Normal Parent: Make a normal parent, the curve can be made a path later on.
    • Follow Path: Automatically creates a Follow Path constraint with the curve as target. If the Parent is an Armature, a popup offers three options:
    • Use Bone: One of the Bones becomes the parent. The Object will not be deformed. A popup permits to select the bone. This is the option if you are modelling a robot or machinery
    • Use Armature: The whole armature is used as parent for deformations. This is the choice for organic beings.
    • Use Object: Standard parenting. In the second case further options asks if Vertex groups

should not be created, should be created empty or created and populated.

• • ALT+P. Clears Parent relation, user is asked if he wishes to keep or clear parent-induced transforms.
    • Clear Parent: the selected Child Objects are unlinked from the Parent. since the transformation of the Parent disappears, this can appear as if the former Children themselves are transformed.
    • ... and keep transform: the Child Objects are unlinked from the Parent, and an attempt is made to assign the current transformation, which was determined in part by the Parent, to the (former Child) Objects.
    • Clear Parent inverse: The inverse matrix of the Parent of the selected Objects is erased. The Child Objects remain linked to the Objects. This gives the user complete control over the hierarchy.

• • RKEY. Rotate mode. Works on selected Object(s). In Blender, a rotation is by default a rotation perpendicular to the screen, regardless of the view direction or ViewMode. The degree of

rotation is exactly linked to the mouse movement. Try moving around the rotation midpoint with the mouse. The rotation pivot point is determined by the state of the 3DWiewport Header buttons. Alternatives for starting this mode:

• • • LMB to draw a C-shaped curve.
  • The following options are available in rotation mode:
    • Limiters:
      • CTRL: in increments of 5 degrees.
      • SHIFT: fine movements.
      • SHIFT+CTRL: in increments of 1 degree.
    • MMB toggles: A short click restricts the current rotation to the horizontal or vertical view axis.
    • XKEY, YKEY, ZKEY constrains rotation to X, Y or Z axis of the global reference.
    • a second XKEY, YKEY, ZKEY constrains rotation to X, Y or Z axis of the local reference.
    • a third XKEY, YKEY, ZKEY removes constraints.
    • NKEY enters numerical input, as well as any numeric key directly.
    • ENTER finalizes.
    • ESC exits.
    • ARROWS: These keys can be used to move the mouse cursor exactly 1 pixel.
    • Rotation can be terminated with:
      • LMB SPACE or ENTER: move to a new position.
      • RMB or ESC: everything goes back to the old position.
    • Switching mode:
      • GKEY: switches to Grab.
      • SKEY: switches to Size (Scale) mode.
      • RKEY: starts Rotate mode again.

ALT+R. Clears Rotation. The X,Y,Z rotations of selected Objects are set to zero.

• • SKEY. Size mode or scaling mode. Works on selected Object(s). The degree of scaling is exactly linked to the mouse movement. Try to move from the (rotation) midpoint with the mouse. The pivot point is determined by the settings of the 3D Viewport header pivot Menu. Alternatives for starting scaling mode:
    • LMB to draw a V-shaped line.
  • The following options are available in scaling mode:
    • Limiters:
      • CTRL: in increments of 0.1.
      • SHIFT+CTRL: in increments of 0.01.
    • MMB toggles: A short click restricts the scaling to X, Y or Z axis. Blender calculates the appropriate axis based on the already initiated mouse movement. Click MMB again to return to free scaling.
    • XKEY, YKEY, ZKEY constrains scaling to X, Y or Z axis of the local reference.
    • a second XKEY, YKEY, ZKEY removes constraints.
    • NKEY enters numerical input, as well as any numeric key directly. ENTER finalizes, ESC exits.
    • ARROWS:These keys can be used to move the mouse cursor exactly 1 pixel.
    • Scaling can be terminated with:
      • LMB SPACE or ENTER: move to a new position.
      • RMB or ESC: everything goes back to the old dimension.
    • Switching mode:
      • GKEY: switches to Grab.
      • SKEY: starts Size mode again.
      • RKEY: switches to Rotation.

ALT+S. Clears Size. The X,Y,Z dimensions of selected Objects are set to 1.0.

• • SHIFT+S. SnapMenu:
    • Sel->Grid: Moves Object to nearest grid point.
    • Sel->Curs: Moves Object to cursor.
    • Curs->Grid: Moves cursor to nearest grid point.
    • Curs->Sel: Moves cursor to selected Object(s).
    • Sel->Center: Moves Objects to their barycentrum.

TKEY. Texture space mode. The position and dimensions of the texture space for the selected Objects can be changed in the same manner as described above for Grab and Size mode. To make this visible, the drawingflag EditButtons->TexSpace is set ON. A PopupMenu asks you to select: "Grabber" or "Size".

CTRL+T. Makes selected Object(s) track the Active Object. Old track method was Blender default tracking before version 2.30. The new method is the Constrain Track, this creates a fully editable constraint on the selected object targeting the active Object.

ALT+T. Clears old style Track. Constraint track is removed as all constrains are.

UKEY. Makes Object Single User, the inverse operation of Link

• • (CTRL+L) a pop-up appears with choices.
    • Object: if other Scenes also have a link to this Object, the link is deleted and the Object is copied. The Object now only exists in the current Scene. The links from the Object remain unchanged.
    • Object & ObData: Similar to the previous command, but now the ObData blocks with multiple links are copied as well. All selected Objects are now present in the current Scene only, and each has a unique ObData (Mesh, Curve, etc.).
    • Object & ObData & Materials+Tex: Similar to the previous command, but now Materials and Textures with multiple links are also copied. All selected Objects are now unique. They have unique ObData and each has a unique Material and Texture block.
    • Materials+Tex: Only the Materials and Textures with multiple links are copied.

VKEY. Switches in/out of Vertex Paint Mode.

ALT+V. Object-Image Aspect. This hotkey sets the X and Y dimensions of the selected Objects in relation to the dimensions of the Image Texture they have. Use this hotkey when making 2D Image compositions and multi-plane designs to quickly place the Objects in the appropriate relationship with one another.

WKEY. Opens Object Booleans Menu.

XKEY. Erase Selected? Deletes selected objects.

ZKEY. Toggles Solid Mode on/off.

SHIFT+Z. Toggles Shaded Mode on/off.

ALT+Z. Toggles Textured Mode on/off.

[edit] Edit Mode - General

Again, Most of these hotkeys are useful in the 3D Viewport when in Edit Mode, but many works on other Blender Object, so they are summarized here. Many Object Mode keys works in Edit mode too, but on the selected vertices or control points; among these Grab, Rotate, Scale and so on. These hotkeys are not repeated here.

TAB or ALT+E. This button starts and stops Edit Mode.

CTRL+TAB. Switches between Vertex Select, Edge Select, and Face Select modes. Holding SHIFT while clicking on a mode will allow you to combine modes.

AKEY. Select/Unselect all.

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

CTRL+H. With vertices selected, this creates a "Hook" object. Once a hook is selected, CTRL+H brings up an options menu for it.

NKEY. Number Panel. Simpler than the Object Mode one, in Edit Mode works for Mesh, Curve, Surface: The location of the active vertex is displayed.

OKEY. Switch in/out of Proportional Editing.

SHIFT+O. Toggles between Smooth and Sharp Proportional Editing.

PKEY. SeParate. You can choose to make a new object with all selected vertices, edges, faces and curves or create a new object from each separate group of interconnected vertices from a popup. Note that for curves you cannot separate connected control vertices. This operation is the opposite of Join (CTRL+J).

CTRL+P. Make Vertex Parent. If one object (or more than one) is/are selected and the active Object is in Edit Mode with 1 or 3 vertices selected then the Object in Edit Mode becomes the Vertex Parent of the selected Object(s). If only 1 vertex is selected, only the location of this vertex determines the Parent transformation; the rotation and dimensions of the Parent do not play a role here. If three vertices are selected, it is a `normal' Parent relationship in which the 3 vertices determine the rotation and location of the Child together. This method produces interesting effects with Vertex Keys. In EditMode, other Objects can be selected with CTRL+RMB.

CTRL+S. Shear. In EditMode this operation enables you to make selected forms `slant'. This always works via the horizontal screen axis.

UKEY. Undo. When starting Edit Mode, the original ObData block is saved and can be returned to via UKEY. Mesh Objects have better Undo, see next section.

WKEY. Specials PopupMenu. A number of tools are included in this PopupMenu as an alternative to the Edit Buttons. This makes the buttons accessible as shortcuts, e.g. EditButtons-> Subdivide is also `WKEY, 1KEY'.

SHIFT+W. Warp. Selected vertices can be bent into curves with this option. It can be used to convert a plane into a tube or even a sphere. The centre of the circle is the 3DCursor. The mid-line of the circle is determined by the horizontal dimensions of the selected vertices. When you start, everything is already bent 90 degrees. Moving the mouse up or down increases or decreases the extent to which warping is done. By zooming in/out of the 3Dwindow, you can specify the maximum degree of warping. The CTRL limiter increments warping in steps of 5 degrees.

[edit] EditMode - Mesh

This section and the following highlight peculiar EditMode Hotkeys.

CTRL+NUM+. Adds to selection all vertices connected by an edge to an already selected vertex.

CTRL+NUM-. Removes from selection all vertices of the outer ring of selected vertices.

ALT+CTRL+RMB. Faces loop select.

ALT+RMB. Edges loop select.

CKEY. If using curve deformations, this toggles the curve Cyclic mode on/off.

EKEY. Extrude Selected. "Extrude" in EditMode transforms all the selected edges to faces. If possible, the selected faces are also duplicated. Grab mode is started directly after this command is executed.

SHIFT+EKEY. Crease Subsurf edge. With "Draw Creases" enabled, pressing this key will allow you to set the crease weight. Black edges have no weight, edge-select color have full weight.

CTRL+EKEY. Mark LSCM Seam. Marks a selected edge as a "seam" for unwrapping using the LSCM mode.

FKEY. Make Edge/Face. If 2 vertices are selected, an edge is created. If 3 or 4 vertices are selected, a face is created.

SHIFT+F. 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.

ALT+F. 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+F. Flip faces, selected triangular faces are paired and common edge of each pair swapped.

HKEY. Hide Selected. All selected vertices and faces are temporarily hidden.

SHIFT+H. Hide Not Selected: All non-selected vertices and faces are temporarily hidden.

ALT+H. Reveal. All temporarily hidden vertices and faces are drawn again.

ALT+J. Join faces, selected triangular faces are joined in pairs and transformed to quads

• • KKEY. Knife tool Menu.
    • Face Loop Select: (SHIFT+R) Face loops are highlighted starting from edge under mouse pointer. LMB finalizes, ESC exits.
    • Face Loop Cut: (CTRL+R) Face loops are cut starting from edge under mouse pointer. LMB finalizes, ESC exits.
    • Knife (exact): (SHIFT+K) Mouse starts draw mode. Selected Edges are cut at intersections with mouse line. ENTER or RMB finalizes, ESC exits.
    • Knife (midpoints): (SHIFT+K) Mouse starts draw mode. Selected Edges intersecting with mouse line are cut in middle regardless of true intersection point. ENTER or RMB finalizes, ESC exits.

LKEY. Select Linked. If you start with an unselected vertex near the mouse cursor, this vertex is selected, together with all vertices that share an edge with it.

SHIFT+L. Deselect Linked. If you start with a selected vertex, this vertex is deselected, together with all vertices that share an edge with it.

CTRL+L. Select Linked Selected. Starting with all selected vertices, all vertices connected to them are selected too.

MKEY. Mirror. Opens a popup asking for the axis to mirror. 3 possible axis group are available, each of which contains three axes, for a total of nine choices. Axes can be Global (Blender Global Reference); Local (Current Object Local Reference) or View (Current View reference). Remember that mirroring, like scaling, happens with respect to the current pivot point.

ALT+M. Merges selected vertices at barycentrum or at cursor depending on selection made on pop-up.

CTRL+N. Calculate Normals Outside. All normals from selected faces are recalculated and consistently set in the same direction. An attempt is made to direct all normals `outward'.

SHIFT+CTRL+N. Calculate Normals Inside. All normals from selected faces are recalculated and consistently set in the same direction. An attempt is made to direct all normals `inward'.

ALT+S. Whereas SHIFT+S scales in Edit Mode as it does in Object Mode, for Edit Mode a further option exists, ALT+S moves each vertex in the direction of its local normal, hence effectively shrinking/fattening the mesh.

CTRL+T. Make Triangles. All selected faces are converted to triangles.

UKEY. Undo. When starting Edit Mode, the original ObData block is saved and all subsequent changes are saved on a stack. This option enables you to restore the previous situation, one after the other.

SHIFT+U. Redo. This let you re-apply any undone changes up to the moment in which Edit Mode was entered

ALT+U. Undo Menu. This let you choose the exact point to which you want to undo changes.

• • WKEY. Special Menu. A PopupMenu offers the following options:
    • Subdivide: all selected edges are split in two.
    • Subdivide Fractal: all selected edges are split in two and middle vertex displaced randomly.
    • Subdivide Smooth: all selected edges are split in two and middle vertex displaced along the normal.
    • Merge: as ALT+M.
    • Remove Doubles: All selected vertices closer to each other than a given threshold (See EditMode Button Window) are merged ALT+M.
    • Hide: as HKEY.
    • Reveal: as ALT+H.
    • Select Swap: Selected vertices become unselected and vice versa.
    • Flip Normals: Normals of selected faces are flipped.
    • Smooth: Vertices are moved closer one to each other, getting a smoother object.
    • Bevel: Faces are reduced in size and the space between edges is filled with a smoothly curving bevel of the desired order.

• • XKEY. Erase Selected. A PopupMenu offers the following options:
    • Vertices: all vertices are deleted. This includes the edges and faces they form.
    • Edges: all edges with both vertices selected are deleted. If this `releases' certain vertices, they are deleted as well. Faces that can no longer exist as a result of this action are also deleted.
    • Faces: all faces with all their vertices selected are deleted. If any vertices are `released' as a result of this action, they are deleted.
    • All: everything is deleted.
    • Edges and Faces: all selected edges and faces are deleted, but the vertices remain.
    • Only Faces: all selected faces are deleted, but the edges and vertices remain.

YKEY. Split. This command splits the selected part of a Mesh without deleting faces. The split parts are no longer bound by edges. Use this command to control smoothing. Since the split parts have vertices at the same position, selection with LKEY is recommended.

[edit] EditMode - Curve

CKEY. Set the selected curves to cyclic or turn cyclic off. An individual curve is selected if at least one of the vertices is selected.

EKEY. Extrude Curve. A vertex is added to the selected end of the curves. Grab mode is started immediately after this command is executed.

FKEY. Add segment. A segment is added between two selected vertices at the end of two curves. These two curves are combined into one curve.

HKEY. Toggle Handle align/free. Toggles the selected Bezier handles between free or aligned.

SHIFT+H. Set Handle auto. The selected Bezier handles are converted to auto type.

CTRL+H. Calculate Handles. The selected Bezier curves are calculated and all handles are assigned a type.

LKEY. Select Linked. If you start with an non-selected vertex near the mouse cursor, this vertex is selected together with all the vertices of the same curve.

SHIFT+L. Deselect Linked. If you start with a selected vertex, it is deselected together with all the vertices of the same curve.

MKEY. Mirror. Mirror selected control points exactly as for vertices in a Mesh.

TKEY. Tilt mode. Specify an extra axis rotation, i.e. the tilt, for each vertex in a 3D curve.

ALT+T. Clear Tilt. Set all axis rotations of the selected vertices to zero.

VKEY. Vector Handle. The selected Bezier handles are converted to vector type.

• • WKEY. The special menu for curves appears:
    • Subdivide. Subdivide the selected vertices.
    • Switch direction. The direction of the selected curves is reversed. This is mainly for Curves that are used as paths!

• • XKEY. Erase Selected. A PopupMenu offers the following options:
    • Selected: all selected vertices are deleted.
    • Segment: a curve segment is deleted. This only works for single segments. Curves can be split in two using this option. Or use this option to specify the cyclic position within a cyclic curve.
    • All: delete everything.

[edit] EditMode - Metaball

MKEY. Mirror. Mirror selected control points exactly as for vertices in a Mesh.

[edit] EditMode - Surface

CKEY. Toggle Cyclic menu. A PopupMenu asks if selected surfaces in the `U' or the `V' direction must be cyclic. If they were already cyclic, this mode is turned off.

EKEY. Extrude Selected. This makes surfaces of all the selected curves, if possible. Only the edges of surfaces or loose curves are candidates for this operation. Grab mode is started immediately after this command is completed.

FKEY. Add segment. A segment is added between two selected vertices at the ends of two curves. These two curves are combined into 1 curve.

LKEY. Select Linked. If you start with an non-selected vertex near the mouse cursor, this vertex is selected together with all the vertices of the same curve or surface.

SHIFT+L. Deselect Linked. If you start with a selected vertex, this vertex is deselected together with all vertices of the same curve or surface.

MKEY. Mirror. Mirror selected control points exactly as for vertices in a Mesh.

SHIFT+R. Select Row. Starting with the last selected vertex, a complete row of vertices is selected in the `U' or `V' direction. Selecting Select Row a second time with the same vertex switches the `U' or `V' selection.

• • WKEY. The special menu for surfaces appears:
    • Subdivide. Subdivide the selected vertices
    • Switch direction. This will switch the normals of the selected parts.
    • Mirror. Mirrors the selected vertices

• • XKEY. Erase Selected. A PopupMenu offers the following choices:
    • Selected: all selected vertices are deleted.
    • All: delete everything.

[edit] VertexPaint Hotkeys

SHIFT+K. All vertex colours are erased; they are changed to the current drawing colour.

UKEY. Undo. This undo is `real'. Pressing Undo twice redoes the undone.

WKEY. Shared Vertexcol: The colours of all faces that share vertices are blended.

[edit] EditMode - Font

In Text Edit Mode most hotkeys are disabled, to allow text entering.

RIGHTARROW. Move text cursor 1 position forward

SHIFT+RIGHTARROW. Move text cursor to the end of the line.

LEFTARROW. Move text cursor 1 position backwards.

SHIFT+LEFTARROW. Move text cursor to the start of the line

DOWNARROW. Move text cursor 1 line forward

SHIFT+DOWNARROW. Move text cursor to the end of the text.

UPARROW. Move text cursor 1 line back.

SHIFT+UPARROW. Move text cursor to the beginning of the text

ALT+U. Reload Original Data (undo). When EditMode is started, the original text is saved. You can restore this original text with this option.

ALT+V. Paste text. The text file /tmp/.cutbuffer is inserted at the cursor location.

[edit] UV Editor Hotkeys

EKEY. LSCM Unwrapping. Launches LSCM unwrapping on the faces visible in the UV editor.

PKEY. Pin selected vertices. Pinned vertices will stay in place on the UV editor when executing an LSCM unwrap.

ALT+PKEY. Un-Pin selected vertices. Pinned vertices will stay in place on the UV editor when executing an LSCM unwrap.

[edit] EdgeSelect Hotkeys

ALT+CLICK. Selects an Edge Loop.

[edit] FaceSelect Hotkeys

ALT+CLICK. Selects a Face Loop.

TAB. Switches to EditMode, selections made here will show up when switching back to FaceSelectMode with TAB.

FKEY. With multiple, co-planar faces selected, this key will merge them into one "FGon" so long as they remain co-planar (flat to each other).

LKEY. Select Linked UVs. To ease selection of face groups, Select Linked in UV Face Select Mode will now select all linked faces, if no seam divides them.

RKEY. Calls a menu allowing to rotate the UV coordinates or the VertexCol.

• • UKEY. Calls the UV Calculation menu. The following modes can the applied to the selected faces:
    • Cube: Cubical mapping, a number button asks for the cubemap size
    • Cylinder: Cylindrical mapping, calculated from the center of the selected faces
    • Sphere: Spherical mapping, calculated from the center of the selected faces
    • Bounds to x: UV coordinates are calculated from the actual view, then scaled to a boundbox of 64 or 128 pixels in square
    • Standard x: Each face gets default square UV coordinates
    • From Window: The UV coordinates are calculated using the projection as displayed in the 3DWindow

[edit] Render Window Hotkeys (to be written)

To be written (if someone could it would be very useful! : there's no place about it on the internet (or I didn't search enough) )

JKEY. Changes the image output. You have two slots in which to render. Very useful when you want to see what a specific change did to the image.

AKEY. Toggles display of alpha channel. The alpha channel of a picture determines it's transparency: Black areas are fully transparent, white areas are fully opaque and grey means semi-transparent. This can be useful when rendered images are arranged in layers, or used in applications which support alpha channels in images. To save images with alpha channel, make sure that the RGBA button in the render panel (F10) is enabled. Also, not all image formats support alpha channels, i.e. TGA and PNG do, but JPG does not. Note: Any background texturing which is done via the world panel (F8) will have an alpha value of 0, meaning it will be transparent. However, the world background will still be rendered correctly on (opaque) surfaces as reflections (i.e. mirrors) - this must be taken into account when later composing rendered images with a different background.

ZKEY. Toggle Zoom (2x). This will zoom the rendered image. The mouse can still be used to scroll around the zoomed image.

---

Beginning Modeling Final Project Now that you've gotten the hang of 3D modeling, it's important to get some community feedback on your progress. Don't be an idiot and skip this part, or you'll regret it later. Basically this will help you track your progress and give you something that you'll be working on over a long term and something you'll be proud of.

• First, you need to come up with a project idea. You can choose your own modeling project, or choose one from the list below.

• Second, you need to create a model of your idea. Spend a couple of hours on it, and give it some details.

• Third, once you believe you've come far enough with the model, post it in the Works In Progress forum on BlenderArtists.org(formerly elysiun.com) (you will have to create an account if you haven't already). Post several screenshots of your model from within the Blender (note: creating screenshots is outside the scope of this wikibook, though see note lower down the page). You can post whatever subject and message with your posting that you would like, or you can use this suggested subject and message:

Subject: Beginning Modeling Final Project - <project name>

Please assist me with any feedback on my model, keeping in mind that I am an absolute beginner still. I appreciate your help.

• Wait for feedback. It usually comes very quickly. If you have any questions about feedback that you are given, don't be afraid to ask your questions in the forum.

• When you and others that have viewed your work feel that you are ready, save your model in some place you can get back to easily. You will continue working on this project once you've learned some new skills.

• Move on to the next page.

(BTW. in Windows and/or maybe other OS, to take a screenshot press 'PrtScn' (PrintScreen). It will copy the screen to clipboard for you to paste in your favourite graphics application. This may not work in other OSs but try anyway. You can also create Blender screenshot directly from Blender using menu File>Dump 3DView... or File>Dump Screen... )

(In linux under the KDE I use ksnapshot, check under the graphics tab and see if you have it. If not it should be just a google search away :) gl and happy blendering)

(On Mac OS X, press Command (Apple) + Shift + 3 to do a full screen capture)

• List of ideas:
• A Computer and keyboard
• A fishing rod
• A train engine
• A skyscraper
• A robot
• A Tank (real or made up)
• An airplane
• A truck or car
• Household appliances
• A Weapon

[edit] Lighting

Beginning Lighting

Lighting, you say? Psshh. Just throw up one light source and let her run, right?

Wrong. Lighting is probably the most underestimated part of a scene by new 3D artists. By the following tutorials, you will gain knowledge of the technical use of lights in your scenes.

Adding Lamps

You can quickly add several different types of lights to your blender scene

SPACE > Add > Lamp > Spot

A light will appear in the location of the 3D cursor. You can move a light just like any other object.

If you want to quickly light a scene just for illumination, not for a specific look, add four lamps around your subject. If you are interested in experimenting with a lighting arrangement, a nice quick way to experiment is to create a Monkey in the scene to test with.

SPACE > Add > Mesh > Monkey

The monkey is just as good of a test subject as a human face, so give it a try. You can throw various materials on the monkey and try different textures too. Don't bad mouth the monkey, she is really useful.

[edit] Explaining the Different Lights:

• Lamp: Single point light source. This simple light source can cast sharp shadows, but is best for filling in dark areas without shadows turned on.
• Sun: A light with parallel rays that will illuminate the scene with a bright even light. Often a good starting point for outdoor scenes.
• Spot: Spot lights produce light in a cone shape, and have some special features. They are the only light source that can be made visible with the 'halo' option, to simulate light in a fog. They are also the only light source that cast fake shadows, called buffer shadows. Unlike raytraced shadows , these buffer shadows are smooth, but not as accurate. They are FAST though, the only real choice for animation.
• Hemi: 180° constant light source. Great for use as a fill light, or as a back light.
• Area: These are similar to lamps, except that they are rectangular instead of an infinitesimal point. As a result they can cast accurate raytraced soft shadows. These are my lamp of choice for still shots, but they take a lot of time to render.

Standard lamp

Area lamp

Spotlight lamp

Sun lamp

Hemi lamp

[edit] Creating a basic scene with basic lighting

• This addition is simply a way to apply what you know about lights and to discover a few settings like colors or creating simple shadows. The purpose here is to create a basic scene with a sphere over a plane, nicely lighted. You should already know the basics of Blender (creating a mesh, moving and rotating it, rendering).

[edit] Creating the scene

• Okay, let's start! Open a new file. Add a UVsphere of 32 rings and 32 segments. Exit EditMode. Leave it in the center of the scene.

Tip : Go in the Editing buttons , and push Set Smooth so the sphere will render as a nicely smoothed sphere.

• You should already have a plane in the basic scene, otherwise add a Plane. Have it in ObjectMode and move it just under the sphere. Scale it so it is very big. The ideal would that we can't see borders with the camera.

• Then we will move the Camera. Grab it and rotate it so it looks at the sphere from top and a bit from the right. You can have an idea of what it sees pressing Num0 to have a CameraView.

Trick : First click on the Camera, then on the Sphere holding Shift( the order is very important ). Do a Ctrl+T and select TrackTo Constraint . The camera will be looking at the center of the sphere... You can then move either the camera or the sphere and the camera will still point at the sphere. hieudaigia

[edit] Adding the lights

• Okay, what we have is a pretty beautiful scene, isn't it?... Well, it isn't! But it is enough to add some lights... Here I will describe a basic lighting scene I use as a default for fast renderings. I picked it out from another tutorial, you can find the link at the end of this page.
• Now we will add our so-awaited lights. Add>Lamp>Spot. Yes, we will first use the Spot light. We can see it as a projector. This is the only light casting shadows. Place it so it is upper and on the left of the sphere. Rotate it so it looks at the Sphere (you can use a Trick I gave you before to have the light looking at the sphere).
• Okay, let's see what we can tune with the spot light. Having the lamp selected, go in the Lamp settings . You will see these buttons.

• Yeah, really lots of options. Don't worry, I'll explain the basic ones.
  • Dist : Sets the maximum distance the light can reach. Increase it so the lighting cone really goes behind the sphere. I set it to Dist:40.
  • Energy : This is the force of the light. You can leave it at Energy:1.
  • RGB : You can change the colour of the light. Click on the colour and a little window will appear to select the colour you want. Leave it white.

• • Buf.Shadow : Enables the light to cast shadows, leave it pushed.
  • OnlyShadows : This light only creates shadows, without casting light ( yeah quite unrealistic, but it can be useful ). Leave it unpushed. File:OnlyShad.png
  • SpotSi : This is the angle of your cone, in degrees. Leave to SpotSi:45.
  • SpotBl : This smoothes the circle cast by the light. We will smooth it so that it looks better. Set it to SpotBl:0.4.
  • ClipSta and ClipEnd : This is the distance from the light between which shadows will be cast. You can see the "line of effects" in the 3D windows when you change these. Set them so the line starts before the sphere and ends far ( well, a bit ! ) behind the plane. You should obtain something like this. (this is very important... If you do this badly, it can result in completely dark scene!)

• Now, we have set our Spot light. This light will be our side light and shadowing light. You can make a fast preview pressing F12. You can see your so nice shadow. But there isn't enough light... Let's add some more!

• Time to add a second light! Add>Lamp>Lamp. This time, we will create a basic lamp. This is like a point which emits light in every direction from that point. You should place it at the opposite of the camera, quite at the same height. This light will be used to better see the form of the sphere and to add a sort of general lighting of the scene.

• Go in the Lamp buttons, and set it to a higher energy like Energy:1.25. You can make a quick render to see how much this light is important to a scene.

• Now, we will add a second basic lamp. Add>Lamp>Lamp and we will place it just behind the camera point of view, a bit moved at the opposite of the Spot light. This third light will slightly light the dark parts of the sphere.

• Decrease the energy of this light, as it is only supposed to fake the reflections of the environment. I set it to Energy:0.8. Another little trick, as this is not supposed to be a direct light, there shouldn't be a little white glow called Specular on the sphere coming from this light. Push the No Specular button.

• Okay, it's time for the final rendering. Of course, this is a really basic lighting set you can use for rendering a simple mesh; but for more complicated scenes, lights can come from other places, with other colors, etc... Thus we didn't use the Sun, Hemi and Area lights, which are a bit more complicated.

Note that the following site contains nude figures: For a more in-depth tutorial, here is a tutorial from the Blender Documentation, which has been a great source of help for me.
User note: you might want to check this tutorial on lighting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=US&v=YJiR2Q7uvbQ

[edit] Outdoor lighting

• Here you will use a Sun in conjunction with a Spot light and some little Lamps.

[edit] Lighting Without Lamps

• It is possible to light a scene without lamps.
• Ambient Occlusion Video Tutorial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKUAemD7oo4
• Radiosity Lighting Video Tutorial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_M4ffj2w_WY

[edit] Rendering

Render Settings

The render settings control various options related to the output of rendered, or full quality images. Rendering an image will calculate effects not displayed in the editing environment (due to their complexity), and therefore takes a larger amount of time to produce an image. If you notice an error partway through a render, then you can press escape to abort.

[edit] The Scene Tab

Let's take a look at all of the rendering options that Blender has. Open up a new scene (CTRL + X) and press F10. You should see something that looks like this:

These are the default settings for Blender. Let's take a look at all of these tabs and see what they do.

[edit] Output / Render Layers

This is the first tab on the left. First of all, we see a file locator icon ( ) to the left of /tmp/. This is Blender's temporary directory. (Normally C:/tmp on Windows) Below that, we see another file locator icon, labeled //backbuf. This is the Back Buffered image, one way to make an image the background on your render. Simply use that file locator to find a file, and Blender will use it as the background image (the backbuf button must be clicked to activate it). Finally, the last one is //ftype. The Blender description reads "image to use with FTYPE image type."

The next row down, we see this: "What do these do?!" you ask. Well, it's actually quite simple. First of all, the first button is the backbuf button that I just talked about. If you have selected a background image to render using the "backbuf" option, clicking this button will make it show up. Next, on the right, are the 'Edge' and 'Edge Settings' buttons. Clicking the 'Edge' button will render your image with edges. Edges are rendered where the camera sees an edge. For an experiment, turn it on and render to see what happens. Notice how the default cube now has a black edge around it. If you want it bigger, click the 'Edge Settings' button. Here, you can change the size of the edge that is rendered, as well as the color. The next button we are going to talk about is the 'Threads' button. Clicking this enables threads, which allows the renderer to do threaded processes. Basically, if you have a dual-core processor (Athlon X2, Intel Core2Duo, etc.) it will have one processor render part of the image at the same time that the other processor is rendering another part. This (generally) helps reduce rendering time. Finally, the last button on this row is the 'Free Tex Images' button, which "Frees all images used by textures after each render".

There is one last row of buttons below. The bunch of little squares enable you to tell Blender where to put the render window on your screen. Try pushing one and then rendering to see for yourself. The "Save Buffers" button saves all the tiles from every render layer and SceneNodes to files, saving memory. Experiment to try it out. The dither button will put dither noise in your image. The render window button allows you to render your image in a new window, render it full screen in the UV Image Editor, or render the result in the UV Image Editor (but not in full screen), a good idea when working with nodes. The extensions button adds extensions to your animations.

[edit] Render

Now, let's move on to the render tab! The first thing you should notice is the VERY BIG button that says 'Render' on it. This button performs the same action as the F12 button. Below this is a drop-down box, allowing you to change between the Blender Internal Render engine and YAFRAY. (For more on YAFRAY, see YAFRAY Render Options). Next to the 'Render' button are 5 buttons: Shadow, Env Map, Pano, Ray, Radio. These are explained in detail below:

• Shadow: Lights will cast shadows. If this is turned off, nothing will cast a shadow. To see this, add a plane below your default cube and render. Now turn this button off and see how there are no shadows.
• EnvMap: Use the environment map.
• Pano: This enables panoramic rendering. For more on panoramic rendering, see Panorama Settings
• Ray: This enables Ray Tracing. Turn it off, and render the same images as I talked about in the description of the Shadow button. "What!?" you say. "That did the same thing as turning off the shadows! What's the deal?" Well, ray tracing is used to calculate how light goes through objects like glass and stuff. It also has something to do with shadows.
• Radio: This stands for Radiosity.

Moving on, the next button we come to is the 'OSA' button. For the use of this button, see OSA

To the right of the OSA button, are some percentages. These will set the renderer to render at the specified percent of the resolution that you have set. (We'll come to resolution later) For an experiment, press the '50%' button. As you can see, Blender renders the image at 50% of the set resolution. This is an easy way to make a quick render.

Next on our tour, we come to two boxes labeled 'Xparts' and 'Yparts'. These buttons change the number of boxes that Blender will render in total. Play around with these to see how they change the number of small boxes in the render window when you render.

[edit] Anim / Bake

The final tab we'll (briefly) cover is the Anim(Animation) tab. If you have made an animation, pressing the 'ANIM' button will render your animation. Right below it are two buttons, Do Sequence and Do Composite. The Do Sequence button will render your animation with any effects you have done in the Sequence Editor and the Do Composite button will render an animation with your composite node work included. The Sta: and End: are the start and end frame numbers. The default setting is that your animation will start at frame 1, and will end at frame 250.

Output Format Options

[edit] Output Format Basics

When you render a scene in Blender, by default a small window will open showing your image. If you want to publish your picture, you may want to render it a bit bigger. To do this, you have to open the Scene context (F10) and locate the Format tab (usually on the right).

You will see some settings there. Let's go through their meanings:

• SizeX: This parameter sets the width of the image in pixels.
• SizeY: This parameter sets the height of the image in pixels.
• AspX, AspY: These parameters specify the aspect ratio of the pixels. By default, this is 100:100, because a pixel on a computer screen has equal width and height. These settings can be used for screens whose pixels don't have equal width and height. For example, on a PAL system one pixel's width/height ratio is 54:51, which you can select there easily. Notice that these parameters don't change the size of the image.

Don't forget, setting the number of pixels changes the resolution. Resolutions for your computer desktop are normally 1024x768, but can be larger. This means that it is 1,024 pixels wide and 768 pixels tall. To make an image this size in Blender, change the SizeX to 1024 and the SizeY to 768.

If this does not come out correctly, then you should right-click your desktop and click Properties, then go to Appearance. The highlighted numbers are X by Y.

[edit] Output formats

Blender has the ability to save in a wide variety of formats. To change the format, click the drop-down box ( ) halfway down the format tab. Currently, Blender can save files in the following formats:

• TIFF
• OpenEXR
• DPX
• Cineon
• Radiance HDR
• Iris:
• Iris + Zbuffer:
• HamX: extremely compact but only for the "Play" option
• Jpeg: default format. Lossy compression.
• BMP: uncompressed.
• PNG: open, lossless compression, alpha channel.
• Targa Raw: uncompressed Targa.
• Targa: Compressed Targa.

Single rendered images are not automatically saved to disk. Once Blender finishes rendering a scene (this can take some time), press F3 and the save dialogue will be opened where you can specify a filename and location for the output. You can retrieve the last picture rendered by pressing F11.

Video:

• AVI Codec: saves an AVI with a compression codec. Once selected a pop-up menu will appear giving options as to what codec you want.
• AVI Jpeg: saves an AVI as Jpeg images. Compressed but lossy.
• AVI Raw: saves an AVI with uncompressed frames.
• QuickTime: saves a QuickTime MOV file. Once selected, a pop-up menu will appear giving various video codecs to choose from. Can also remain uncompressed.
• FFMpeg: Implemented in a Google Summer of Code event, this codec is composed of multiple software libraries, so you can choose which codec to use under the video tab. The audio tab lets you choose from several different audio codecs to use and also has a bitrate setting. The Multiplex Audio button will render your animation with sound (if you have any), a nice feature.

For more information, see

• Blender 3D: Noob to Pro/Creating animated GIFs using Blender and Gimp
• Blender 3D: Noob to Pro/Creating Ogg-Theora movies using Blender

[edit] Cropping

You can see button next to drop-down box. If you activate it, image automatically gets cropped after rendering.

[edit] Palette

You can select three different palettes in Blender:

• BW - images are saved with BW (greyscale) data
• RGB - images are saved with RGB (color) data
• RGBA - images are saved with RGB and Alpha data (if supported)

[edit] Pre-sets Just For You

The render settings in blender are customizable for unique results, but blender includes 9 pre-sets for common render outputs. One can use the pre-set as is or can use it as a starting point at which the settings are then modified.

PAL and NTSC are systems used in analogue Television. If someone were making an animation for TV or DVD, that individual may use one of these depending on which is used in their country. Both the PAL and NTSC pre-sets in Blender only affect the dimensions and pixel aspect ratio of the render and doesn't turn on anti-aliasing (OSA) or affect any other variable in the render. Pal 16:9 is a newer an improved version of PAL which is also known as PALplus.

The Default pre-set uses the dimensions and an pixel aspect ratio as PAL but also includes OSA and shadows.

The Preview pre-set generates a low quality setting for a fast render that usually is not used as a final output.

• PANO is short for Panorama. This setting allows for a full 360 degree panoramic render.
• FULL produces a render that fits your monitors full screen.
• HD is for High Definition.

OSA

OSA stands for oversampling, also known as anti-aliasing. It prevents "jaggies," or "aliasing" as it's called.

This occurs when you have a diagonal change of colour, which results in rough edges. Remember drawing a diagonal line in Paint? To overcome this hindrance of square pixels, a technique called anti-aliasing or "oversampling" is used. It blends the colours around the rough edge to create a smooth, but defined edge. One way of doing this is to by creating the image twice as large, then scaling it down - oversampling. Blender can do this for you if you select an OSA rate. Remember this will take much longer, but results in better renders, so use this for the final product, not while testing. In some cases the scene can seem blurred due to oversampled textures; try changing the OSA setting, or oversampling yourself.

Here's a quick illustration of how OSA changes a render (look at the edges):

OSA settings can be manipulated in from the Render Settings panel.

Looking All Around - Panorama Settings

[edit] Panoramic Renderings

[edit] This Article is Out Of Date

This article is out of date, and the panoramic features mentioned do not work this way in recent Blender versions. Panoramic features were changed somewhere between 2.37a and 2.42. More information, including how to actually use panorama, can be found in this thread in the forums: http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?p=797886

[edit] Building the Example Scene

Ever wondered how that cool looking 360 degree panoramas that you see on some websites are made? Well, I don't know either, so someone else will have to tell about that. What I found out though is how to make Blender output a 360 degree panoramic image - quite probably this at least is the first step when making something like on those websites.

Now, let's try to progress like in a tutorial, as in the other pages of this Wikibook. So, fire up Blender, and look at the well known initial box scene. Or rather, change it somehow. Assuming you have read the book in order, it shouldn't be hard to get something like in the picture.

I placed the camera and the light both above the origin, deleted the cube, and added 8 cylinders, all around the origin. One way to do this is to place one cylinder, then duplicate and rotate it around the origin. For this to work, set the rotation center to the 3D-cursor (with the Pivot button), and position the 3D cursor at the origin (use SHIFT+S to make the 3D cursor snap to the grid).Place the first cylinder using GKEY and then holding CTRL while moving the mouse. Change to object mode, then use SHIFT+D to duplicate it. Next, press RKEY to rotate it, then hold CTRL while rotating it by 45 degrees. Repeat the same for the remaining cylinders. Use G to move the light. Use NKEY to enter the camera values like shown, so it looks parallel to the ground.

Speaking of ground, lets also add a ground. I added another cylinder, below the other ones, as shown. It's easy to add by switching to front view (NUM1), duplicating a cylinder (SHIFT+DKEY), and then moving it holding CTRL pressed again, so it snaps to the grid. To scale it, use the SKEY , but hit SHIFT+ZKEY to lock the z scaling, and hold CTRL pressed while scaling in x and y direction so you can snap to the exact size you want.

Now, to have a complete scene, we need some colors. I made the ground cylinder green, the 8 example cylinders gray, and also added a noise normal to the ground. This doesn't really matter here though, just needed some example scene for the 360° camera.

Something more interesting is the sky texture, because Blender's sky can be made to seamlessly wrap around with 360 degree. Belows is a screenshot of the sky settings I used. To get there, click on the Shading button, then select World.

To change the texture, click the textures button or press F6, then add a new texture with the small button with two arrows, and select the type (e.g. "Marble" or "Clouds") instead of "None" for the texture. Go back to the World pane, and enable the Real and Blend buttons. And don't forget to use nice colors, I used blue and white. Now it looks a bit like white clouds in a blue sky.

[Maybe should add here more details? What is important so you don't get a seam at the 0 - 360 degree point? How do you map pre-made sky textures?]

And we are already done, this is the example scene. All that is left to do is to render it as a panorama.

[edit] Panoramic Rendering

Go to the render settings (F10), and click the Pano button. Change the Xparts value to 4. The value in Xparts will tell how many times the camera will 'turn' horizontally when rendering. The Yparts value would do the same vertically. Each part (Xparts or Yparts) will render the size of the whole image you set. To make things easier, make the output image size quadratic and set both X and Y Aspect to 100. E.g. make your image size 600x600, but not 800x600, otherwise the following will not work.

If you want a seemless 360 degree view, it is important to know how many degrees one single image spans. For example, if you know one image is 90 degree, then you can set Xparts to 4, and the result will be a single panoramic picture, and with the right panorama viewer, you can spin around in it endlessly.

But, how do you make a single picture 90 degree? The angle a picture spans is called field of view (FOV). And it is a property of the camera. To change it, select your camera, then click the edit button (or hit F9). Make sure you haven't set your camera to orthographic (the "Ortho" button), since FOV only exists with a normal camera.

Unfortunately, you can't directly enter the FOV in Blender's camera settings (as of version 2.37) - instead there is just a parameter called Lens. Type in 16 to get a FOV of 90 degree. Now hit F12 to render our test image.

If you want, you can also try it out with any other scene. Place the camera somewhere in the middle with a good view all around, set the camera's Lens to 16, and go into the render settings (F10). Set Xparts to 4, enable Pano, and render. You should get an image 4 times as wide as a normal image, and the left and right edges should fit together seemlessly. Also note that Blender doesn't know if it should apply the FOV as horizontal or vertical viewing angle, but we always want it to be the horizontal angle. Therefore just make the single images of the panorama quadratic, as mentioned above - then horizontal and vertical FOV is the same and Blender gets it right.

This is the resulting panoramic image:

One problem remains, the image will be quite distorted. This is because a FOV of 90 degree is too high. Let's try with 45 degree and 8 XParts instead. As you will have noticed when playing around with the Lens parameter before, setting Lens to 8 instead of 16 will not achieve this, it will make the FOV even bigger. Setting it to 32 looks better, but definitely is not 45 degree. The picture to the right explains how FOV and Lens relate to each other:

The camera is at the bottom, the red angle is our desired FOV, and the length of the green line is what the Lens parameter represents in Blender. Therefore, the formula to calulcate Lens when we know FOV:

Lens = 16 / tan(FOV / 2)

For a FOV of 45 degree, we therefore get a Lens of 38.627. Now, write that into the Lens field in the camera settings, and render with 8 XParts. This time it will render an output image which is 8 times as wide as a normal output image, and again it will be a seamless 360 degree all around panorama of your scene. And this time with less distortion. With the above formula, you can now use any number of XParts you want - just divide 360 by the number of parts, and calulate the Lens parameter for the resulting FOV. Note that you also need to take the Aspect settings into account, unless you set it to 100 and create a quadratic output, as we did.

Some Lens settings:

• 4 parts: 16
• 8 parts: 38.627
• 16 parts: 80.437

The output with 8 parts can be seen below.

As always, feel free to modify this page in any way you want or add feedback to the Talk page.

Other Important Render Options

Rendering by Parts (Bucket Rendering)

Images can be rendered in pieces or layers rather than all at one time. Your computer will only need to compute smaller bits of information thus using less memory. By changing the Xpart and Ypart values (up to 8 each since Blender can't support more than 64 [8x8] parts) in the Render panel of the Scene context(F10,) you can divide your image into an invisible grid. The pieces will layer one at a time until they are whole.

Edge Renderings - Tutorial Here

Blender has an option of adding a border – a defined edge to objects (like in cartoons). To do that you need to go to the render buttons (F10) and then, under "output" change the edge setting: set the "Eint" to a value of about 100 and check the "edge" icon to enable edge rendering. This would give you edge line at the edge of each polygon. To prevent it from applying on all polygons the same way change to "unified render" under the format tab. Then, in the edge settings change the "antishift" value, it will decrease itself from the fint value when the line is between identical materials. By also checking the "all" icon you tell the render to apply the edge rendering on transparent materials as well.

Note: User Terrywallwork - The edge bordering feature in Blender 2.43 only seems to work when Blender Internal renderer is used, when Yafray is used, no edge is show even if the options is clicked. I'm not sure if there is a way round this or not.

HDRI Rendering - Tutorial Here

Multi Thread Rendering

Blender has the option to render with 'Multiple threads' meaning it can render more than 1 part at once. This is done by sending more than 1 Render parts to the CPU to process at the same time, if your CPU can handle it. The Option is found in render buttons (F10). Change the number of threads used by changing its number.

Note in Blender 2.46+: Blender 2.46 automaticly selects the number of threads.

Yafray Render Options

YafRay (Yet Another Free Raytracer) is an open-source alternative rendering engine supported by Blender.

Reader note: in the new version of Blender (2.46) internal renderer of Blender got a lot of upgrades and is now about two times faster than YafRay, so this article may be considered obsolete.

The YafRay render settings are normally hidden. To show them, switch from the Blender Internal rendering engine to the Yafray rendering engine.

• Go to the Scene Panel (Press F10)
• Click the Render Buttons button
• In the render tab, under the big Render button, click the Blender Internal button and select YafRay.

Now the YafRay and YafRay GI tabs appear.

[edit] Getting Started with Yafray

First, I would like to state that Yafray renders 2-3 times faster and nicer (includes Global Illumination, Caustics and...) than the normal internal built-in renderer in Blender^{[citation needed]}. So it would just be worth it to download and install it.

On Windows, just download the .zip file and unzip it. You get the .exe file. Run it and follow default instructions. Latest version is 0.1.0 as of October 2008. Now change the Environment variable by adding C:\Program Files\YafRay to your PATH or whichever folder you installed yafray.exe, users Windows 95/98/ME will need to restart where as WinXP users won't. Remember Yafray doesnt have a GUI and is a commmand line tool. Anyway you never need a GUI to run yafray as it runs nicely inside Blender as it is integrated into it. Go to the Command line and type yafray and press return. Now you have two paths

Reader: Can someone make this a little bit clearer? What is the Command line?
Answer: The command line interface (CLI) is an interpreter for the operating system that provides a way of getting around by accepting commands from the keyboard instead of using the mouse to click on icons. It was the primary method of using the computer in MS-DOS, the predecessor to Windows. There are no buttons like in programs such as Blender. [12]

You can access the command line in Windows by pressing Win-R then typing CMD and pressing the enter button. The command line can also be accessed by clicking on the Start menu, going down to "All Programs", over to the "Accessories" tab, and then clicking on the Command Prompt option. To change the environment variable, enter "path C:\Program Files\YafRay;%PATH%", without the quotes.

1) If there was an error regarding MSVCR71.dll, then download this file from the Web and place it in the c:\windows\system32 directory.

Reader: I have been using Blender for a while now, but due to my school's administrative limitations I am only able to use it on certain computers in school. For example, the computers that have already had 3d programs installed on them (like the ones in the Drafting and Design room) allow me to use Blender. Other computers give me an error message concerning MSVCR71.dll when I try to use it (specifically the ones in my Study Hall). Could you give me an alternate method of installing the .dll (maybe I can put it on a flash drive or in the My Documents folder)? Answer: Unfortunately, without administrative rights you will not be able to install a DLL. Answer 2: My school has the same type of administrative blocks, however I placed everything from my blender folder at home onto a flash drive, and now it works perfectly on all computers. Maybe try that?

2) Switch from the Blender Internal rendering engine to the Yafray rendering engine as explained and press F12 to Render. Wow, You should have noticed the lightning speed of Yafray.

[edit] YafRay tab

• XML button: If pressed blender will export an xml file that describes the scene and will pass it to YafRay. If not pressed blender will render with the YafRay plugin. When using the plugin interface, the render in progress will update continuously in Blender's render window. This gives much faster feedback. It even shows the distribution of the samples taken by the path light when rendering with cached pathlight. YafRay divides the image into blocks and renders them in a random sequence.

[edit] Animation

Basic Animation

[edit] Note About Blender 3D: Noob to Pro/Basic Animation

I created this little note section to both warn learning users, and to give information to those who would make this wikibook better. The animation section in this book leaves a lot to be desired. It needs to go slower, and be more thorough. It is not finished (hence the accurately drawn "status images"). Here are a few things that need to be mentioned:

• What a key is
• How to manipulate keys after they are drawn
• How to delete keys (both IPO and Lattice)

I recommend that new users read the animation section in the blender documentation first. It is written for an older blender version, but it is more informative than this tutorial, and most of the information in there is still accurate. Here is a link: http://www.blender.org/documentation/htmlI/p6390.html

[edit] Basic Animation Introduction

Animating, in principle, isn't that hard. Good animation is a very different story. These steps show you how to make a simple keyframe animation:

1. It is a good idea to switch into the animation screen using the screen selection drop-down on the main menu or by pressing CTRL + Left Arrow.
2. Go to the starting frame, using the arrow keys on your keyboard (Shift+Left Arrow goes to Start Frame, Shift+Right Arrow goes to End Frame, the Up and Down arrows Skip 10 Frames, the Right and Left arrows skip 1 Frame)
3. Go into the correct mode. To animate solid objects, go into Object Mode. To animate bones, go into Pose Mode (in this case, you don't have any right now).
4. Place the object or bone at the desired starting location and/or rotation.
5. Press the i-key on your keyboard while the mouse is in the 3D view and you will see a menu of the different properties which you may animate. Choose the most appropriate one, based on the properties you wish to change in the next keyframe. For example, if you wish to change the location, rotation and size of the object, select LocRotSize (now called LocRotScale). You have now made the first keyframe, which is a frame of animation which you have personally set up.
6. Now go to the frame of the next keyframe you wish to define, and put everything in the place you want for that frame. Remember, if you have a frame rate setting of 25 frames per second (fps) then if you want to make the next keyframe one second later in the animation, you need to go to frame 25 to make the keyframe. Then press the i-key again, and select the correct option again, depending on the changes you've made. (All in-between frames are automatically made to interpolate between the two neighboring keyframes).
7. Repeat the previous step for each keyframe of the animation.
8. If you want more control over the transition between the keyframes, use the IPO-window (if you followed step 1, it should already be open on the right of the screen). Select the object you have keyframed and the IPO-window will display its animation curves (one curve for each of the properties you selected). You can select and edit the curves using the normal Blender controls. Use the curve menu for more options, such as making the curves actually curve instead of being straight lines.

For more information, see this YouTube Tutorial or The Blender Userguide

Lattice Deformer

[edit] What is a Lattice?

A Lattice is essentially a simple container that can be used to deform and manipulate a more complex mesh in a non-destructive manner (ie. A lattice can be used to seriously deform a mesh then, if the lattice is later removed, the mesh can automatically return to its original shape).

[edit] How to add and use a Lattice

A Lattice is added to the scene in the same way other objects are added. Either:

1. Shift-A over the 3D window and choose Lattice from the pop-up menu, or
2. Press Spacebar over the 3D window and choose Lattice from the pop-up menu, or
3. LMB ADD from the 3D window menu and choose Lattice from the drop-down menu

The default Lattice looks just like a cube when first added except that it is just one Blender Unit (BU) wide whereas a mesh cube is 2 BU wide. When the Lattice is added, the window remains in Object Mode and the Lattice can be moved, resized and rotated like any other Blender Object.

On its own, a Lattice serves no purpose whatsoever since it can't be seen in a rendered image. Its only use is to manipulate another object and so, to be useful, we need to associate another object with it. The current method for doing this is by applying a "Lattice Modifier" to a Blender object.

The basic workflow is:

• Add a mesh (cube, cylinder, cone, sphere, etc)
• Add a Lattice
• Select the mesh
• Press F9 and go to Modifiers Panel(buttons window). In the modifiers tab Press Add Modifier > Lattice
• In the Ob: Panel, enter the name of the Lattice (The default name is Lattice, Lattice.001, Lattice.002, etc - or you can give it a useful name that you'll remember later)

NOTE: In older versions of Blender, a lattice was applied using a parent method - select the mesh, then select the Lattice, then press Ctrl-P and choose "Lattice Deform". While this method is still available, it does not offer the full functionality of the newer Lattice Modifier. If you use the parent method, you will need to press the "Make Real" button in the modifiers palette to enable the modifier functionalities. Using the method, the Lattice becomes a parent and a modifier. As a parent, it will act on the mesh in Object Mode whereas a true modifier lattice only influences the mesh when altered in Edit Mode.

Adding a Lattice Modifier to an object

Now, we can change the Lattice in Edit Mode and any changes we make to it will affect the mesh.

[edit] Note: Applying the Modifier Correctly

When adding the modifier to your object, you must enter the exact same name as your lattice. The default is Lattice with a capital "L" but if you've changed it or have more than one Lattice, then you will need to enter the new name. When you enter a valid Lattice name, the name stays visible in the Ob: box. If your entry disappears then you've entered the name incorrectly.

One simple way to get the right name is to select the Lattice, go to F9, Link and Materials panel and where it says Ob:Lattice or Ob:Lattice.001 etc, move the mouse over this field and press Ctrl-C (don't click on it, just hover over it). This copies the Lattice name. Then select your object, go to the Lattice Modifier panel, hover the mouse over the Ob: field and press Ctrl-V to paste the name in. Now it should stay there and your Lattice should work in Edit Mode.

[edit] Basic Exercise:

1. Start with a new Blender scene, delete the default cube and add a UVsphere (Spacebar>Add>Mesh>UVsphere). Accept the default 32 Segments and Rings. You could use any of the mesh shapes but because the sphere is heavily subdivided (made up of lots of edges and faces); you will get a better idea of what the Lattice is doing.
2. Tab back into Object Mode then add a Lattice. It is generally wise to resize the Lattice so that it surrounds the mesh it will be deforming. So, press SKEY and enlarge the lattice to 2 BU wide.
3. Select (RMB) the Sphere and add a Lattice Modifier to it. Make sure that you type the exact Lattice name correctly into the box. Nothing appears to happen but that's fine.
4. Now select your Lattice, TAB into Edit Mode, select just one control point (a control point looks like a vertex) on the Lattice and move it around. You will see the sphere mesh stretching and squashing relative to that control point. Move each Lattice control point one at a time and see just how far you can deform the mesh. Zoom in your 3D window if you need a closer look.
5. The control points of the Lattice can be moved, scaled and rotated in the usual ways. Try selecting a few of all the control points and scaling them (SKEY) or Rotating them (RKEY) and watch the mesh follow along.
6. Now, exit Edit Mode (TAB) and select the sphere in Object Mode. Go to the modifiers panel and press the big "X" button to remove the modifier. Despite all that deforming, the sphere immediately returns to its original size and shape. Nothing was really changed in the sphere's mesh data. Immediately re-apply the modifier as before and see the Lattice immediately apply its own deformation to the sphere again.

[edit] Getting more involved with Lattice

The default Lattice is two control points high, two wide and two deep, ie, it is two control points wide in each direction (these are referred to as the U, V and W directions). However, we can change the number of control points in one, two or all directions. This is done by selecting the Lattice, going to the Lattice Panel (F9) and changing the values in the U, V & W buttons. If you decrease one figure to a value of 1, the Lattice will become two-dimensional (planar). Decreasing two values to 1 will change the Lattice to a line (one dimension). This can be useful, especially if the remaining value is increased, but is not the most common usage of Lattice.

UVW settings for Lattice

NOTE: The "Make Regular" button will set the UVW control points of an unscaled Lattice to be exactly one Blender Unit apart in each direction. The "Outside" button effectively removes all the internal control points which are added when the UVW settings are higher than 2.

In most situations you will want to increase some or all the values as this gives you more control over complex deformations, much like a subdivided mesh. How much you increase the UVW directions depends entirely on how much detailed control you need over deformations. As you've already seen basic squash, stretch, shear and simple deforms can easily be achieved with the default 2,2,2 Lattice but by increasing the UVW values a little, a whole new range of deform possibilities becomes available.

Three Lattices with different UVW settings

One thing to understand, however, is that a Lattice cannot bend the individual edges of a mesh (the lines connecting any two vertices) so the mesh must contain enough edges in order to apply complex lattice deformations to it. These edges must be genuine edges and not the virtual edges created by a subsurf modifier. Edges can be added to a mesh using a variety of tools including subdivide, knife and loop cuts.

N00b note here...um, I'm doing the tutorial cover to cover style, and haven't ever heard of 'knife'...or loop cuts, please elaborate.

New Note: Use the K key to open a menu for the knife, loop cuts, etc. Knives are used to add a vertex to each line you left click and drag the cursor over, and loop cuts allow you to make multiple cuts into your active object.

About loop cuts: Ctrl + R also is a direct shortcut to a loop cut. Furthermore, loop cuts' main uses are for subsurf modeling. In order to accomplish a hard edge in a subsurfed object (for example the edges and corners of a wooden table or the bumpers of a car) you must apply loop cuts to the faces surrounding the edge and place them very close to them (and parallel). Experiment with a simple subsurfed cube and you'll see. Keep in mind this is why when modeling it is highly recommended to use quads. A loop cut will only cut a quad face, or every face connected with it in one direction, but only quads. Another main reason why it is recommended to model with quad faces is regarding animation but I suppose other tutorials will deal with that later. More information: [13]

A simple subdivided cube after a complex lattice deformation

---

[edit] Intermediate Exercise

For this exercise, start over with a new scene and repeat Steps 1 - 3 in the Basic Exercise above. Don't go into Edit Mode yet.

Basic Exercise:

1. Start with a new Blender scene, delete the default cube and add a UVsphere (Spacebar>Add>Mesh>UVsphere). Accept the default 32 Segments and Rings. You could use any of the mesh shapes but because the sphere is heavily subdivided (made up of lots of edges and faces); you will get a better idea of what the Lattice is doing.

2. Tab back into Object Mode then add a Lattice. It is generally wise to resize the Lattice so that it surrounds the mesh it will be deforming. So, press SKEY and enlarge the lattice to 2 BU wide.

3. Select (RMB) the Sphere and add a Lattice Modifier to it. Make sure that you type the exact Lattice name correctly into the box. Nothing appears to happen but that's fine.

• In Object Mode, select the Lattice then press F9 and go to the Lattice Panel. Increase all the UVW values to 4. You will immediately see the change displayed in the 3D window.

• Tab into Edit Mode and play with the control points again. The first thing you might notice is that the corner control points have less influence now than before. This is because the effect is proportional to the distance of each point from the mesh. Move some points in the middle of a side face and you'll see the effect is significantly greater.

• Try selecting groups of control points and pulling them away from the Lattice to stretch lumps and bumps out from the mesh. If you are familiar with the proportional edit tool, try that too - it works on Lattices just like it does on meshes.

Try doing the same exercise but increasing values in only the W direction. (U divides in the X direction, V divides the Y direction and W divides the Z direction). So, set the UVW to 2,2,4 and play with the control points again in Edit Mode. Select the two rows of control points around the centre of the Lattice and scale them up (SKEY) then Scale them down along Z-axis only (Skey>ZKey). Try other transforms constrained on different axes for interesting, controlled results.

There are three different options for how the Lattice Modifier affects each UVW direction. These are Linear, Cardinal and B-Spline. All I can say is that B-Spline is the default and to find out what the difference is, press the buttons and see.

[edit] Examples

Some examples of a Lattice deforming a standard UV Sphere mesh (not smoothed)

[edit] Making it stick

To keep the mesh deformed permanently, you can select it and press the "APPLY" button in the Lattice Modifier panel. This "bakes" the mesh in the deformed position and disconnects it from the Lattice. The Lattice can then be deleted without the mesh returning to its original shape. This is useful if you are using the Lattice as a modelling tool rather than an animating tool.

Also, instead of deleting the Lattice, you can use it to immediately modify another mesh. Simply move the Lattice over the new mesh in Object Mode then apply the Lattice Modifier to the new mesh. If the Lattice is already in a deformed state, the mesh will immediately be deformed too. Press Apply again to "bake" that mesh and keep re-using the already deformed Lattice on as many other meshes as you wish for matching results.

[edit] Animating a Lattice Modifier

Lattice animation uses a workflow almost identical to the RVK (Relative Vertex Key) workflow from Blender 2.37 and earlier. You don't need to know this but some people might find the information useful.

With your Lattice Modifer already added to your object, select the Lattice and press I-Key to tell Blender you wish to animate the Lattice. Choose "Lattice" from the pop-up list. This sets the basis key (undeformed state) for the Lattice.

Adding the basis key

In the Editing panel (F9), press the "Relative" button.

Set the keys to "Relative"

NOTE: The Slurph setting determines the delay, in frames, for how long it will take to morph from their former state to the one applied by the new lattice.

To set your first deform key, press I-Key again then enter Edit Mode. Deform the Lattice by scaling or moving control points then Tab back into Object Mode. If you open an Action Window now, you will see your first key, "Key 1", added to the list. If you press the small arrow at the the top of the list, it will display the slider for that key.

Lattice key sliders in the Action Window [Noob note for blender 2.48a] In the action window, select "ShapeKey editor" in the dropdown "editing modes for this editor" (in the panel header)

To add more Lattice keys, for a variety of deform shapes, repeat the process: I-Key, Tab to Edit Mode, move control points, Tab back to Object Mode. Each time you exit edit mode, a new key will be added to the list in the Action Window.

Animating the Lattice uses the same process as animating Shape Keys for meshes.

If you want the object to begin undeformed, then set each key slider to zero on the first frame of the animation. Move through the frames, setting the sliders as you go to deform the Lattice as desired. You will often find you'll need to set a key before and after each deform key in order to control the rate at which deformations take place in the animation.

Setting keys in an animation

Noob note: I'm doing everything as described and get no keys in action window when exiting Edit mode... Any suggestions?

Noob note; Is it possible to create a keyframe using the object's mesh rather than applying a lattice?

Noobie note: What to press after I-Key? I'm not getting any keys in the action window, help please.

Another Noob: No keys here. I got something changing to IPO Curve Editor and choosing Shape in IPO Type

Noob note; Select Action Editor header->Shape Key Editor. Make sure you also selected Buttons Window->Editing (F9)->Relative Keys

[edit] Let the fun begin!

Now you have your object safely locked away inside your Lattice, you can still animate the object itself, inside the Lattice!

[edit] Why would I animate the object too?

Take the case of the classic cartoon eyeball which is taller than it is wide. If you just stretched the sphere object itself, instead of using a Lattice to deform it, then you couldn't properly rotate the eyeballs to look up and down because the whole "egg-shaped" eyeball would rotate and end up lying on its front or back. The eyes would literally pop-out of the head.

Cartoon eyes: The stretched spheres don't rotate properly.

If, however, you use a Lattice to deform the basic sphere to make it into a tall "egg" shape, you can still select the eyeball itself and animate it within the Lattice. Now when you rotate the eyeball, it will look up and down but still maintain its deformed shape within the head.

Cartoon eyes: Spheres deformed with Lattice can still be rotated with good results.

Bouncing Ball with Lattice

[edit] How to make a ball bounce convincingly!

This tutorial assumes basic Blender awareness and some knowledge of using Blender Lattices as well as keyframes basics regarding the Blender Panels. Knowledge of IPO curves will prove useful later as we progress to more advanced techniques.

[edit] How hard can it be to move a ball?

It would be easy to just put a sphere on the screen and animate it to move up and down but in all honesty, it would not look like a bouncing ball. It would not be convincing in any way.

To be believable, the ball must use some of the most fundamental principles of good animation. In particular, the ball must squash and stretch and change speed as it falls, hits the floor, bounces and rises ready to fall again. With a little effort we can make that boring sphere look alive!

[edit] Why use a lattice?

It is possible to make a simple bouncing ball animation without using a Lattice object but with the Lattice we can do more than just bounce the ball. For example, once we have a ball that bounces how we'd like it, we can later add rotation to the ball so it spins through the air and bounces then, as the bounces decrease, the ball can roll to a halt. Doing this without lattice would be a far more complex exercise as a rotating squashed and stretched sphere would look like it was wobbling in space (like having the flat part of a flat tire spin around the tire instead of staying on the bottom, even while the wheel is turning).

[edit] Let's begin then

To begin, add a UVSphere in Top View (NUM7). It is important to add the objects in top view to keep their Z-Axis aligned upwards. Set Smooth and Sub-surf on the sphere if desired. Tab back into Object Mode then immediately add a Lattice. Resize (SKEY) it so it closely surrounds the sphere. Make the edges of the lattice align with the circumference of the sphere as this will make animation easier.

(By default the Lattice Object Name is "Lattice". It is good to give all your objects unique and sensible names, especially if you are planning a complex scene. So you might call the Sphere "Red_Ball" and the Lattice "Red_Ball_Latt" or something similar for easy reference and recognition later.)

Top view of UV-Sphere inside selected Lattice

[edit] Make the lattice deform the sphere

Prior to Blender 2.4, objects were parented to Lattices with a Lattice Deform option. In version 2.4+ you can select the object (the sphere) and apply a Lattice Modifier to it (Ob: Lattice). However, if you use this new method then the ball will not move where the Lattice moves and will not squash when the Lattice squashes and we want it to do both of these things.

Luckily you can still use the good old Parent option then use the Modifier palette to make the Lattice Deform "Real" . So select the sphere and THEN SHIFT SELECT the Lattice then CTRL-P to make parent and choose the "Lattice Deform" option. If you now select just the sphere, press F9 and look in the Modifiers palette, you'll see a listing for "Lattice parent deform" with a button for "Make Real". You can either ignore this button or press it. It really won't matter for now. If we wanted to do some weird things to our ball, like kicking it or deforming it in other complicated ways, then we would have to use the "real" Lattice modifer option.

So, this may not be the purist approach to using a Lattice but it is a convenient way to achieve the results we're after. Basically, it works and is reasonably intuitive.

Lattice Modifier screen using parenting option.

If you press "Make Real" you enable the full Lattice Modifier

You can easily check if the Lattice is working the way we want it to by selecting the Lattice and resizing, moving or rotating it. The ball should do everything the Lattice does. I don't wish this to be a full lesson in Lattices so if you don't understand any of the above, or you're certain your Lattice is not working as it should, then please learn a bit about lattices before proceeding.

[edit] Time to animate!

For our basic animation, we'll use just 23 frames starting with the ball high then falling, squashing, bouncing and ending up back where it started. When this is played back in the 3D window, it will loop and we'll see the ball bounce forever in one place.

This part is easier done in "SCR:1 - Animation" Viewport configuration. It is also useful to have multiple orthographic views open in the viewport by right clicking on the resize viewport arrow and choosing "split area" then making a top view, side, etc...

Go to Front View (Num1).

Press F10 and set your start (Sta) frame to Frame 1 and your end frame to Frame 23. Then make sure you're on Frame 1 (Shift+Left Arrow) to start animating. Note that we are animating the Lattice, not the ball. Everything we do to the lattice will directly affect the ball too.

Select the Lattice (NOT the ball) then do the following on the corresponding frames:

• FRAME 1: Press IKEY and set a key for LocRotScale - the ball's start position (high).
• FRAME 11: Move the Lattice to ground level and key LocRotScale again (keep the fall distance small for now).
• FRAME 13: Leave Lattice in same position as frame 11 and key LocRotScale again.
• FRAME 23: Move Lattice back to start position (use Num (N) Panel if you need to)and key LocRotScale again.

(Noob note- This may seem obvious, but move the lattice BEFORE you insert the keyframe.)

These four frames give a basic up and down animation with a pause at the bottom. We can add squash on Frame 12 to finish off.

• FRAME 12: Place the cursor at the base of the Lattice then set the Rotation/Scaling Pivot to "3D Cursor" Scale the Lattice down along the Z-Axis SKEY-ZKEY and see the ball squash. Key LocRotScale again.

When you have set all five keys, you can cycle through the frames and you should see the following result on the Key frames we just set.
Screenshots of the 3D window, front view, on each of our five key frames.

If you press Alt-A now in the 3D window, you should see the ball bounce. Even though the squash happens on just one frame, it still reads properly in our minds and is a vast improvement over an animation with no squash at all. (Press RMB or ESC to stop the animation playback).

If you have a camera and lighting suitably set up you could render the animation out and use Blender's "PLAY" button to loop the rendered animation. See the bottom of the page for an OpenGL render made from the steps above. Add material to the ball and a ground plane for a more interesting result.

[edit] Looking at the IPO Curves

If you want the ball to bounce three times then you could repeat the above instructions three times over - if you have the patience - but Blender has a better, easier way.

Select the Lattice then open up an IPO (InterPOlation) window and zoom into the group of keys. If you select LocZ and SizeZ from the channel list on the right, you should see something like this (I've added labels to the screenshot):

Note the the IPO Type here is "Object". Purists may be disturbed or perplexed by this but if you remember, we're not really using our Lattice in the purist, Lattice Modifier form. Don't worry about it though. It works.

IPO curve for Lattice, showing LocZ and SizeZ channels.

This shows the relative position on the Z-Axis and size in the Z-Axis of the Lattice. You can see that the Size remains constant until frame 11, then reduces, then goes back and remains constant until frame 23. Similarly, the LocZ curve shows how the ball starts high, falls then stops before rising again. The rounded bottom of the LocZ curve occurs because the IPO curve maps the centre point of the Lattice and when we squash it, the centre point lowers slightly.

Of special interest is that by default, Blender uses Bezier curves for IPOs and this gives us rounded tops on the curve. This means the ball starts moving slowly downward then moves faster until the reaches the bottom. Also, as it nears the top, it slows down again. This is good because this is exactly what happens in reality when a ball rises and falls (It could be better - but it's a good start).

While in the IPO window, select both curves then press KKEY and you'll see each key frame indicated by a vertical line. (Note: You can also press View->Show Keys if you cant remember this shortcut - this has helped me in the past.)

IPO window set to show key frames

Press AKEY to select all key frames then duplicate (Shift-D) them. The curves will seem to deform but when you drag the frames to the right, they will sort themselves out. Position them so the "first" frame is at Frame 24 and the new end frame is now Frame 46. Reset the End Frame in the Scene (F10) window then watch the animation again. It's not bad. You can repeat this process for more bounces. (To have it bounce forever throughout a long animation, ignore the above procedure and just set the "Extend Mode" to "Cyclic" in the Curve menu. You'll have to adjust the curve a little on the first and last frame but you only do it once and Blender repeats the change for all other cycles.)

It's not bad for a start but there's a lot more to do to this ball before applying for that animation job.

[edit] So what next?

In real life and in a typical cartoon, balls don't just bounce forever in one spot. They move along and slowly lose their bounce before rolling to a halt. And they have more character than our bouncing ball.

Things to consider next:

• Perfecting the squash - maintaining volume
• Adding stretch
• Look at acceleration and deceleration
• Rotate the ball as it bounces
• Reduce the bounce height over time
• Move the ball around as it bounces

See this ANIMATION LINK (580kb, AVI-DivX) for an idea of how you can achieve interesting results with just a little more effort. but its k? k

[edit] Links

Principles of bouncing ball animation: http://www.idleworm.com/how/anm/01b/bball.shtml

Blender 2.49B bouncing ball animation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEY_6dFdUJY

Blender 2.49B vector blur animation, to add realism to your animations: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qY4WcNgEXv8

Creating Basic Water animation

Important: Always make the domain after you have already made the fluid and everything else. Subsurf the object that you are currently working on before you create any other object except the domain.

[edit] Water and Other Fluids

Water is without a doubt one of the most important compounds in our lives (second to air), and it covers about 70% of the earth and is therefore incredibly important in quite a few blender animations. Wouldn't it be great if we could get an accurate physical representation of this liquid in blender? We can, using a tool called Fluid Simulation. This tool looks unnervingly complex at first glance, but this tutorial should clear it up for you. At least to a basic level. (Sorry, but I'm not the best with this feature. If anybody sees any missing information that you can help with, please don't be shy to contribute!)

[edit] The Domain

One can imagine how much time it would take Blender3D to think about everything in the infinite 3d world in terms of fluid objects and deflection, so we obviously need to cut down on that size. Create a fairly large cube. This will eventually be set as the volume in which all of the fluid simulation occurs. Don't make it too large, but not too small either. With this cube selected, press "F7" to get to the physics screen. Find the tab that says "Fluid Simulation", and click "Enable". of the six new buttons that appear, click "Domain". All the fluid physics will be calculated inside this cube. Also in that tab, you'll see three buttons, "Std" (which will be pressed by default), "Ad", and "Bn". Each one opens a different set of values. These will be explained as they become important.

[edit] The Fluid

As a basic start up for your experiments with fluid simulation, I am going to take you through a small demo in which we drop an object into a pool of water, creating a splash. To do this, we need a fluid object and an obstacle object. For the fluid, create another cube, scaled down to cover the bottom of your domain. Enable this object in fluid simulation also and select "fluid". When we start to bake the fluids, this will be set up as your liquid.

Let us go over what you have now. You have your starting cube, with the "Fluid Simulation" and "Domain" buttons depressed, and will be referred to as "Domain". Inside this is the cube that covers the bottom of your Domain , which is the liquid. The liquid will be a different object with the "Fluid Simulation" and the "Fluid" button depressed. Create a third object which we will call "Obstacle". This will be the object dropped into the water, and will be described further in the explanation.

[edit] The Obstacle

Now, create the object you want to drop into the water. Give it an IPO to drop into the water, and enable it as--you guessed it--an obstacle.

newbie:Kamerad...well IPO stands for "Interpolation" or Animation

Newbie: Actually, I didn't guess it. What is an obstacle, and how do I enable the object as one?

Response to Newbie: Go to the Physics panel and enable the fluid simulation then set it as an obstacle. It should make perfect sense if you're playing along in blender as you read.

In my Blender 2.49 b the tab in the Physics panel is Fluid and the button is also Fluid

[edit] Baking Fluids

Now we get to see what it all looks like. Before we do anything too fancy, however, go to the render buttons (F10) and specify the total number of frames to simulate the fluid in. Most projects don't need the whole 250 frames. Select the domain object, and find the big button that says "BAKE" under its fluid simulation panel. Press it, click the "continue" part of what comes up, and watch your masterpiece evolve. Be patient, blender has to render this simulation just like it would render the final product. The frame count of this rendering replaces the bar at the top of the screen where it says, "www.blender.org" with the blender logo. If at any time you feel that you want to abort this process, press "Esc".

(note: Make sure the bake data is being sent somewhere or the time you spent waiting will have been for nothing!!)

(User edit: Specify a folder in the space at the bottom for blender to keep the temporal data. Else it will not work)

(Yet another User: I tried to Bake my animation, but all it says is something about no images to bake to. I know I need to set a folder or something, but have no idea how!) (You'll get that is you're still in the "Render Options", make sure to go back to the Domain object's "Physics" buttons.)

[edit] Other Fluid Objects

There are two other incredibly useful types of fluid objects--"inflow" and "outflow". The both of these do exactly what they sound like. Inflow objects pour more fluid into the scene, and outflow objects drain it away.

[edit] Keep This In Mind

Blender will make your water its default opaque grey unless you set its color. A good way to make realistic, clear water (as well as glass for that matter) is to edit the color, then apply a simple mirror effect plus transparency effect. After your water has rendered, select the domain in object mode. This selects the liquid in the frame you have just added. From shading [F5] then the 'Materials buttons' (the button that resembles a ball, if when you click on this the colors settings are not up, just press add new under the only panel there), then the panel called "shaders/Mirror transplants/SSS". Go to the Mirror transplants panel, play around with the settings until you get what you fancy. Suitable settings include [the 'Mirror trans' panel of Material:] click 'ray mirror', set rayMir to 0.1 for water, 0.15 for glass, set depth to 7; click 'ray Transp', set IOR to 1.3 for water, 1.5 for glass; then set the Alpha value to 0 while adding an appropriate color from the "Material" panel.

[edit] Notes

This tutorial was just a simple example that leaves much to be desired. Below are some helpful links that will further your understanding of the fluid simulator.

A bunch of Youtube videos demonstrating parameters in the fluid panel (if using Adblock Plus, disable it for this page to work)

Some very snazzy fluid examples made by Mpan3 (lots of videos)

[edit] Site Under Construction

More to come, so check back in a few days!

[edit] Particles

Particle Systems

This tutorial was written for Blender v2.49

Particle systems are used to simulate large amounts of small moving objects, creating phenomena of higher order like fire, dust, clouds, smoke, or fur, grass and other strand based objects. You may also use other objects as a visualization of particles.

Before you start with the tutorials, you should at least take a brief overview about the very extensive manual pages of the particle system. You will find every single parameter explained in the manual if you have the desire to delve deeper ...

Don't forget: particles alone don't do any magic. They are only a placeholder for something nice to view. You have to take care of the visualization also, and that is usually the harder part than to create the particle system.

[edit] The very first particle system

[edit] Creating a particle system

To create a particle system:

• insert a plane
• select the object (only mesh objects can emit particles)
• change to the object buttons and to the particle subcontext
• click on Add new (Img. 1a)

Voila, your first particle system! It doesn't do anything useful now, but we're going to change that on the following pages.

• To see any particles press Alt-A. The frames change and you see particles appear. Press Esc to stop the animation.

You return to frame 1. The particle movement is cached (stored), so if you play your animation again it will go faster (well, you won't notice any difference in this simple case).

• If you want to stop in a certain frame, press Space.
• To see the particles even better change to wireframe mode (Z),

If you change anything in your particle system you always have to return to frame 1, to recalculate the system from start.

Use a timeline window to change easily between frames (Img. 1b).

[edit] Changing properties of the system

The most important properties are probably:

• Amount: the total number of particles
• Sta/End: the start and end frame of the emission
• Life: the lifetime of the particles
• The initial velocity. This is often set with Normal, than the particles get a speed in the direction of the face normal (if emitted from faces).
• A constant global force. AccX/Y/Z set's a force in the respective direction.

For now change:

• the Amount to 5000
• the Lifetime to 100 frames
• the Normal value to 1.0.

The Particles are emitted directly upwards (if your plane is orientated that way) and life for 100 frames.

If you render now, you will see a white "Blob". This is the default Halo rendering of the particles.

[edit] Changing the material of the particles

• Change to the Shading buttons and assign a material to the plane.
• Activate Halo in the Links and Pipeline panel.

The Halo settings are in the Shaders panel. The color of the Halo is set in the Material panel (see also the Manual on Halos). Halos are a post rendering effect, that is applied after the scene is finished. So halos can't shed any lights on other objects, they are not rendered behind RayTransp materials (like glass).

• Set the Halo color to deep blue (RGB: 0/0/1)
• Halo Size: 0.05 so each halo is quite small.
• Hard: 127 so that each halo has the maximum sharp edge
• Add: 0.5 so that the brightness increases where several halos overlap

Set the world color to black and render (Img. 3b). Nothing special till now, but that will change soon. So proceed to the next page, where we're going to make some fire.

[edit] Links

• Blender 2.49b Basic Particles Video Tutorial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwsR8v5VE4M

Making Fire

This tutorial was made with Blender v2.48a

We're going to create a camp fire with a simple particle system. This tutorial is based on the method described in the Blender Manual. The result of this tutorial is shown in Fig. 1, the Blend-File is included at the bottom of this page.

If you need more realistic looking fire, you should use the method described in BlenderArt Magazine No. 16, though that method is more advanced and uses Compositing Nodes heavily.

The starting point of the tutorial is how fire behaves physically. The flames are made of hot gases. These accelerate upwards due to their lower density in contrast to the cooler air in the environment. Flames are in the middle hot and bright, to the outside they are darker.

[edit] The particle system

I've created the usual scene with some stones and a few pieces of wood (the wood is by courtesy of Teeth). (Fig. 2a).

• Add a Plane in the middle of the stones.

This will become the particle emitter.

• Rename the Plane object to "Emitter".

If you use good names you will find it much easier to orientate yourself in your scene later. Having 100 objects named "Cube.something" will make it very difficult to quickly select a desired object.

• Subdivide the plane once in Edit mode.
• Change the shape of the plane, so that it's shape equals the base of the fire.
• Change to object mode.

• Change to the Particle buttons of the Object buttons.
• Create a particle systems (Add New in the Particle System panel - and make sure the plane is selected!).
• Type: Emitter The plane emits the particles.
  • Amount: 9000 The total amount of particles.
  • Sta: -45 The simulation shall start before the rendering, to have a fully developed flame in the first frame.
  • End: 200 The simulation shall last 200 frames - here: the particles are emitted till frame 200.
  • Life: 16.6 I've adjusted the lifetime of the particles to their speed. Both parameters together regulate the hight of the flame.
  • Rand: 0.5 The lifetime is changed randomly.
• Emit from:
  • Random
  • Faces
  • Even
  • Random

This creates particles with a random distribution on the faces of the emitter object.

The movement of the particles is controlled with particle physics. You set the Initial Velocity and let the physics do the rest.

• Normal: -0.099 The particles are emitted slightly against the direction of the face normal. This leads to a bit wider fire at the base.
• Random: 0.014 This creates a random start velocity as well in speed as in direction (you could use a texture to randomize only the speed, see the discussion page for that).

After you have given the particles an initial velocity they are moved by forces.

• AccZ: 2.57 A force in positive Z direction (upwards).
• Drag: 0.1 Air drag decelerates the particles.
• Brown: 1.99 Random movement simulates agitated air movement.

The particle system is finished. Until now is doesn't look like much (see the white Blob in Fig. 2c). Therefore the emitter will get a material, this material will be animated.

[edit] Material

• Create a new material for the emitter, call the material Flames.
• Activate the Halo button in the Links and Pipeline panel. Else we couldn't set the particle parameters. The particles would be rendered with the default Halo values.
• Halo color: 1/0/0 (red)
• Alpha: 0.8 The particles shall always be a bit transparent.
• HaloSize: 0.132 I wanted many, but fairly small particles.
• Hard: 45 The transition from fully transparent to fully opaque.
• Add: 0.875 Several Halos over each other combine their power. This makes the fire in the center really bright.
• HaloTex: A Halo can bear an individual texture, but only the texture in the first texture slot is evaluated.

To give the Halo a bit more structure, give it a texture:

• Add a new texture in the first texture slot.
• Map To:
  • Col
  • Color: Bright yellow (1/1/0.664)

• Use an adjusted Clouds texture with a NoiseSize of 0.6.

[edit] Animation of the particle material

The particles "pop" into life and vanish suddenly. We should change that. Therefore we're going to animate the Alpha value of the particles.

• Make sure the material buttons are visible in the buttons window.
• Change to frame 21, move the mouse cursor over the button window and press I->Alpha. This is going to be the maximum visibility of the particles.
• Change to frame 1. Change the Alpha value to 0 and insert the next key.
• Change to frame 100. Change the Alpha value to 0 again and insert the third key.

If you want to see the IPO curve in the IPO Editor window you must change the IPO Type selector in the window header from Object to Material.

The Alpha value therefore changes during the individual lifetime of each particle from 0 to 0.8 and back to 0 (Fig. 3c).

[edit] Rendering

Our particle animation is finished.

• Change the end frame in the Anim panel of the rendering Buttons to 200 and click on Anim.

Note: If after rendering your particles are too small, such that the fire doesn't look realistic, try increasing the Halo size slightly. I used 0.300 instead of 0.132

To actually let the fire glow you have to use one or more lamps and animate them as well. But that would be part of another tutorial ...

[edit] Links

• The resulting blend file: [14].

Furry

This tutorial was created using Blender v2.48a. There is an older version of this page created with Blender v2.40.

This tutorial deals with fur, i.e. lots of relatively short hairs covering a body. We will use particles to create the fur, and discuss a few aspects here:

• How to determine the length and the thickness of the hair.
• How to determine the place to grow the hair.
• How to color hair.
• How to render efficiently.

The particle system is far too complex to show more than one method in this tutorial. You can achieve many of the same effects shown here in different ways.

[edit] The emitter

• Remove the cube.
• Add an UVSphere. This will become our emitter.
• Change to the Particle buttons in the Object buttons (Fig. 2a).
• Click on Add New.
• Rename the particle system to "Fur".
• Change the particle system type to Hair.

A Hair particle system has a lot of specialties, the most important thing is that we can edit the particle "motion" by hand if we want to. Apart from that normal particle physics apply, so everything a particle does hair can do also and vice versa. A particle hair shows the way of the particle during it's lifetime at once. To do that efficiently not every single frame is rendered as a point, but a certain number of control points are calculated. Between these control points there will be drawn an interpolated path. The number of control points is the number of segments + 1.

For fur you need lot's of particles, like 1.000.000 upwards. This will hurt us badly if we have to deal with so many particles in the 3D window and want to render it. Therefore we will create the great amount of particles with so called "children", that mimic the behavior of their parents. The amount of particle parents should be as low as possible, but you need a certain amount to control the distribution of the hair. We will also use as little control points as possible, three segments should be enough for short fur.

• Set the Amount to 1000.
• Set the number of Segments to three.
• Emit from:
  • Random:Faces
  • Even  :Random

This will create a nice, uniform distribution.

Let the hair grow - the hair shows the path of the particle:

• Set Normal to 0.05.
• Random 0.005

Nothing special here: the hair grows in the direction of the face normals. Length and direction are a bit randomized.

The Visualization type changes automatically to type Path if you select a hair particle system. If you would render now, you couldn't see the emitter object any more.

• Activate Emitter in the Visualization panel.
• Activate Strand Render.

The Strand Render (which I have baptized keypoint strands to differentiate from the "normal" polygon strands) renders the hair strands extremely efficiently and magnitudes faster than the normal strand. It is the only way to handle many hairs in terms of memory consumption. But it has a few disadvantages:

- They are not seen by raytracing, so you don't get raytracing reflections and no raytracing shadows. You can use environment mapping to compute the reflections and Spot Lamps with buffer shadows for the shadow.

- If the hair is very thick (like 1 BU) sometimes the shape is not correct.

• Activate Children from Faces.
• Amount: 5 This is the amount of particles visible in the 3D window. Keep this low.
• Render Amount: 50 This is the amount of particles during the render.
• Rough 2: 0.1 Random variation of the shape of the particles. So the hairs will not stand plain upright and appear a bit curly.

The parent particles are not rendered by default, so now we have 50.000 Particles that render on my old machine in 6 seconds. If we use 1.000 children we have 1.000.000 particles, that need approx. 1 GB of RAM and render in 1:42 minutes. If you render keypoint strands with Children from Faces you can also use Child simplification, which will reduce the amount of particles on objects far away from the camera automatically.

Now we should change the lighting to get a preview.

• Select the lamp.
• Change to the Lamp buttons.
• Change the lamp type to Spot.
• Change the shadow type to Buf. Shadow
• Change the buffered shadow type to Classic-Halfway.

This is a great shadow type that renders keypoint strands very well and creates fewer artifacts than Classical (In my opinion). I have inserted two other lamps and used a the classical three point lighting for the first rendering (Fig. 2c).

[edit] Material

In the material buttons you can set different aspects for the strands:

- their width and form

- the used shader

- the base color

- a texture along the strand

- different particle attributes like length, density or roughness

• Add a material to the emitter.
• Name the material "Fur".

[edit] Strands Shader

The default strands settings for Keypoint strands are shown in Fig. 3a. Take a look in the Manual about Strands for an explanation of all settings.

• Change the End value to 0.25, this will make the hair more spiky (not shown in Fig. 3a).

[edit] Giving the hair its base color

Strands are rendered with the material of the unterlying face/vertex, including shading with an UV-Texture. Since you can assign more than one material to each face, each particlesystem may have its own material and the material of the underlying face can be different from the material of the strands. We will use an UV texture and use it for the surface of the emitter as well as for the color of the hair.

• Change to Front view in the 3D window (View->Front).
• Make sure you are in Orthographic view mode (also in the View menu).
• Change to Edit mode of the sphere.
• Press U to unwrap, select Sphere from View. This is a quick and well working method to correctly unwrap a sphere the easy way.

You don't need to assign a texture in the UV/Image Editor, we only need the coordinates now.

• Add a texture to the material, name it "FurColor".
• Set Map Input to UV.
• Go to the Texture Buttons and set Texture-Type: Image.
• Load an image texture. I have used the image in Fig. 3b.

Normally I would just stop here, I think the material is good enough. But if you want to make the fur more fluffy and soft, you should a second texture along the strand, which changes the alpha value.

If you want to do that:

• Activate ZTransp.
• Add a second texture.
• Map Input: Strand
• Map To: Alpha and Spec, DVar=0
• Use a blend texture (Linear or Quad)

You can change all other properties this way, for example the color along the strand (bleached tips).

[edit] Changing Hair length with a texture

At first I will show you how to render the emitter mesh with a different material than the strands. Then I will show how to change the length of the hair with a texture semi-interactively.

• Change to the Editing Buttons.
• Change to Edit mode.
• In the Links and Materials panel click on New in the material section (right hand side).
• Make sure all vertices are selected.
• Click on Assign.
• Change back to Object mode.

Now the emitter bears a second material.

• Return to the material buttons.
• In the Links and Pipeline panel click on the X next to the material name (Deletes link to this Datablock).
• Add a new material.
• Name it Emitter.

Now you got a new material on your emitter object. Since the particle system uses material no. 1 you can use different settings for the emitter.

We have already unwrapped the emitter, this is something that will probably be the case also for any real models. Now we will use an UV-Image and texture painting to determine the hair length.

• Split the 3D window.
• Change the right hand side to an UV/Image-Editor window.
• Change to edit mode of the emitter object.
• In the UV/Image-Editor use Image->New... and confirm the default settings. This will create a new image, that we will paint on.
• Click on the package icon in the windows header of the UV/Image-Editor window. Confirm.
• Change the object to Texture Paint mode.

Now you see the texture on the object.

• Paint a structure on the object.
• Change back to object mode.
• Go to the Material buttons.
• Change the active material to Fur (click on the arrows in the Links and Pipeline buttons where it reads 2 Mat 2).

• Create another texture. Name it FurLength.
• Set Map Input to UV.
• Set Map To
  • Turn Col off.
  • PAttr
  • Length
  • DVar=0 All the white areas on the texture will produce a particle length of 0.
• Load the image texture that we have painted.

The result is shown in Fig. 4c, you can also see the particles change in the 3D window.

There would have been other ways to achieve this result, e.g. with vertex groups or with particle editing. But I like to work with textures, because you have very fine control and may change the strength of the effect at any time. Vertex groups don't allow for such fine control or you need very many vertices in the emitter. Particle editing (what we will do in the next step) is lost if you change the base particle settings late on, and you can't change it's effect so easily.

[edit] Comb it!

An effect that is often underestimated is the importance to comb fur in the natural directions. Fur doesn't simply stand upright, and it also doesn't follow gravity (or only to a small amount). So back to the particle system!

• Change back to the Particle buttons.
• Click on Set Editable in the Particle System panel.
• Change to Particle Mode.

Particle Mode only appears if you have made the particle system editable, and only hair systems can be made editable. There are a few lifesavers to know when working in Particle Mode.

- you can edit only the control points (remember the setting Segments from the beginning of this tutorial)

- you can only edit parent particles, so you need enough parents for good control

• Activate Limit selection to visible
• Activate Point select mode for even finer control.

Both settings are in the window header of the 3D window.

• Open the Particle Edit Properties panel with N key in the 3D window.
• Select Comb.

You have quite a few different tools at hand in Particle Mode, see the manual on Particle Mode.

• Comb the hair following the natural flow.

On the example sphere I have used here it is a bit difficult to tell what the natural flow should be ;-). So I have just very carefully combed and changed the length at a few places a bit. You find the rendered result in Fig. 1, the Blend file is linked below.

[edit] Links

• The result of this tutorial: [15]
• A tutorial in German that shows how to create Grass with a very similar method.
• Awesome fur shown here: Tiger

Rug Blender 3D: Noob to Pro/Rug

[edit] Soft Body

Soft Body Animation

Due to rapid updates in Blender, some menu items may be different from those mentioned here. If the menus don't agree then just do what seems logical.

Softbody makes each individual vertex its own object that falls according to gravity and reacts to outside forces like fields. By adjusting the settings, you change the behaviour of the edges that connect the vertices. For example, you can make it so edges can stretch really far (aka elasticity), allowing the vertices to become distant, or you can make the edge stiff, so the vertices will always stay the same distance apart.

To put this in perspective, picture two cloth's, one elastic and one cotton. The elastic one has edges that can extend, so if you view them in wire-frame (with vertices and edges visible) you would see the edges are more extended than an equal distance. The cotton one would only stretch a little bit, so the vertices would stay essentially the same distance apart.

We are going to make a big rubber ball, but not a big bouncy one, a flat (and somewhat lifeless) one. Start with a sphere. I would use a cube sphere or an icosphere, UV spheres don't deform well as they have too few vertices. A cube sphere is made by subdividing a cube and doing a "To Sphere" in the Edit window, under Mesh Tools.

Move the sphere up and place a plane below it. Make sure to do this in the right views so that it is aligned properly. Gravity acts on the z-axis (sphere should be above the plane relative to the z axis).

Now for the soft body select the ball and go to the object tab then the physics subtab or whatever your version has. Click "enable softbody" and then turn up 'Grav' to 9.8. Click off use goal. Press the > arrow key (a few times) and you should see the ball fall. The center will remain in place but this is not a problem. If you are on a slow machine you will notice lag. This is because blender moves it vert by vert, not efficient.

Note: In Blender 2.44, click F7 on keyboard, select the "Physics Buttons" button, select "Soft Body".

When it reaches the bottom it will go through the plane. To fix this we must make the plane effect the softbody. To do this make the plane deflect in its physics buttons.

Now the ball collapses into a strange quivering wreck after impact. To fix this, you need to turn on the stiff quad button, but set the edge stiffness down a bit, so its more bouncy. You can use the bake function to solidify the settings see below

Note from Noob: You might have to turn up the Rigidity Level to 0.100 (in the Soft Body Tab) as well in order to prevent the object from collapsing. (I used a subdivided cube as Object)
What I recommend to do before rendering as animation: In the Bake Settings (Soft Body Tab) Set Interval to 2 or 1, so the object will not start deforming too early before impact. This will slow down the bake process - just slightly - but make the object bounce more dynamically. Then bake again.

Noob note: In blender 2.46 you have to adjust the value of Be in the soft body tab, I changed it to 0.4

another thing you could do is animate the scene. Just put up animation video and set frames at about 50. Go to object mode, select sphere and press i key, and select LocRocScale. =)

[edit] Explanation of Settings

I invite you to correct and expand these definitions:

[edit] Softbody

• Friction: creates a resistance to movement of the whole object, like being submerged in a viscous fluid
• Grav: the rate of velocity change due to gravity. Results in a constant -z force.
• Mass: (Force = mass × acceleration) affects everything by making the object heavier.
• Speed: tweaks the simulation to run faster or slower.
• ErrorLimit: raise it and the simulation will solve faster but strange things might happen. Save frequently, as blender might go nuts with this or any physic simulation (but less so after 2.4)
• Goal: makes the object try to return to it's original position, useful at times, in the tutorial you could turn gravity off and key the ball falling and use this to keep it a ball.
• use Edges: uses the edges a means of resistance to movement for the object. Helps to keep it looking possible

[edit] Deflection

Simple Cloth Animation

In this tutorial, we will be making a simple skirt. This tutorial does not assume that you have any Blender or other 3D program experience. Note: In the new version of Blender, there is specific cloth functionality which works better than this.

[edit] Making the Skirt Mesh

1. Open Blender and delete the default cube, if you aren't looking down on the scene, press NUM7.
2. SPACE → Add → Mesh → Circle
3. You should get a prompt for the number of vertices. Use about 20 and hit OK.
4. Once the circle is added, you should be in 'Edit Mode' (You can tell that you're in edit mode if you can see the individual points of the circle and they are all highlighted in yellow). If you're not in 'Edit Mode', press TAB.
5. Press SKEY and resize (in 3D terms, scale) the circle to however big you want your skirt to be.
6. Tap the AKEY key twice to select all vertices.
7. Press NUM1 to look at the skirt from the front. If you can't see it, that's because all the vertices are in the same plane, this is fine.
8. Press the EKEY then select Only Edges, wherever you move your mouse, you'll see a circle follow it. Pull the mouse downward and left click.

  You should now have a hollow cylinder

1. In the bottom pane under 'Mesh Tools', click 'subdivide'. Then click fractal, set to '10' and press ok. Finally, click 'Subdivide' again. The subdivide function adds vertices. The fractal function adds vertices with a little bit of randomness. All we really did was add some interest to the skirt.

[edit] Creating Vertex Group

The vertex group will tell us which vertices will be affected by softbody and which ones won't. The non-affected vertices are given a weight of 1.0. To understand the concept of vertex groups, Click Here , however, it's not necessary for this tutorial.

1. Deselect all vertices by pressing AKEY.
2. You're still looking from the front, right? If not, then press 1 on the num pad. Press z to enter wireframe mode. This allows you to select vertices that you couldn't see before.
3. Tap the b key and the cursor turns into a plus. Now, if you click and drag, you can select all vertices within the box, it's much faster. Anyways, select all the vertices on the top layer.
4. Look in the bottom pane under 'Link and Materials'. You will see that there are two columns of buttons directly underneath the 'Vertex Groups' label. Click the 'New' button. Two boxes appear directly underneath the 'Vertex Groups' label. Change the new vertex group name to something meaningful, like 'softbody'. Change the 'Weight:' to 1, by clicking on the left side and sliding to the right. Now press the 'Assign' button. This assigns the vertices that you have selected (the inner-most circle) to this vertex group.

-Note: The higher the weight, the closer that vertice will stay to it's position in edit mode. By making it '1', we essentially
"pinned" the top vertices where they are, but will let the other ones hang loosely.

[edit] Making the Skirt a Soft Body

1. Enter object mode and select the skirt (right-click it)
2. In the buttons window, typically at the bottom of your screen, click the objects button. It looks like three arrows.
3. A new set of buttons appear, click the one that says physics when you hover over it. It is a black arrow reverbed on a line (right of the 3 arrows), just at left of the particle button (red and yellow angle with yellow squares coming out of it).
4. At this point there should be three little windows on the bottom. One deals with deflection, one with particles and one with softbody. Click enable softbody.
5. Set the gravity to 9.81. This is like real earth gravity.
   1. leave mass and friction, but increase speed to about 3. This allows you to see the movement in fewer frames.
   2. for goal, click enable vertex groups (right next to the "use Goal" button is a small button indicating up/down. Click it to select your Vertex-group) and assign the one that you made earlier. What this does, is it tells the vertices that were assigned a 1, to stay where they are, and the ones with a zero that they don't have to stay. Of course, you can assign a value of .5, then the vertex will go somewhere between where it began and where gravity wants it to go.
6. Test it out, by placing your cursor over the biggest 3d window and pressing ALT A
   1. To exit this animation, press ESC
   2. If it runs too slow, exit the animation, press Z To enter wireframe mode, then try again.

Noob Note: Using Version 2.45, I had to create a second vertex group for the bottom side vertices and set their weight to 0. Then, in the Soft Body tab, the 2nd vertex group (the one with weight=0) had to be selected (thus the 1st group was deselected) for the object to move.

[edit] Extra Practice

This YouTube tutorial might also help: http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=mgYhZ3hWwTQ happy animating!

[edit] Blender Game Engine(BGE)

Game Engine Basics

Purpose: To demonstrate the object collision feature of Blender's Game Engine.

[edit] Introduction to Object Collision

In this tutorial, you will learn the basics of object collision within the Blender Game Engine (BGE). These physics simulations can be used for many things, from Blender games to use in animations, the bullet physics engine offers a massive number of possibilities, limited only by your imagination (and the amount of RAM your computer possesses). The tutorials found within this wikibook on the subject of the BGE are generally focused on game creation, but the concepts taught within them can be applied to a multitude of situations.

With the mouse cursor over a 3D viewport, press NUMPAD-7 to switch to TOP view.

Press the spacebar and select Add >Mesh >Plane. Press TAB to leave edit mode and enter object mode. [16]

Enlarge the plane by pressing S and dragging the mouse cursor away from the center of the plane. Click to stop re-sizing. The plane will serve as the 'floor'.

Add A UVSphere using the same sequence for adding the plane object. Press TAB to enter object mode.

With the mouse cursor over a 3D viewport, press NUMPAD 1 for Front view, then press G and move the sphere above the plane. Click to exit Grab Mode. You may need to scale the sphere down. It will be the ball which collides with the floor.

Go to logic panel (move cursor over Button Viewport and press F4).

Click on actor button (in the upper left corner of the logic panel), then Dynamic, then Rigid Body. This activates physics properties for the sphere so it can bounce.

Change the value of "Radius" to 2.0. Notice the dotted line that appears around the sphere. This dotted line marks how big the physics engine thinks this sphere is. For now, set it back to 1.0.

Next, you want to add some colour to the sphere and the plane (see Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro/Quickie_Material for details), so you can tell the two apart during simulation.

Move the cursor over a 3D viewport and press P. The sphere will drop down and collide with the plane. Press ESC to end simulation

For fun, try rotating the plane in front or side (NUMPAD 3) view and press P again. The ball will first hit the plane, then roll down. Add several more planes rotated to differing angles and position them in the falling path of the ball to keep it going.

This YouTube tutorial might also help: Link.

Your First Test

The Blender Game Engine is an interesting feature of Blender. It is basically a 3D environment in which 3D objects move around and react to each other upon contact. One common application is to recreate 3D architectural tours.

In this tutorial, you will learn the basics of object collision within the Blender Game Engine (BGE). From Blender games to use in animations, the bullet physics engine offers a massive number of possibilities. The tutorials found within this wikibook on the subject of the BGE are generally focused on game creation, but the concepts taught within can be applied to a multitude of situations.

As a start, we will teach you to make a ball roll realistically down the hill using Blender's game engine.

[edit] Adding the Hill

First, make a plane, then switch to Edit mode (TAB), and multi-subdivide it with 2 cuts (WKEY → Subdivide Multi → 2). Next, enter face select mode (CTRL+TAB → Faces) to drag the center face up, in order to form a rough outline of a hill. Add a subsurf modifier (in the edit buttons) to about 3, then apply. You should now have a serviceable, but small, hill. Scale the hill up (SKEY) by about 10 times, and we're ready to add the ball.

[edit] Creating the Ball

Now, add an icosphere (SPACE → Add → Icosphere) and relocate it to be just above the hilltop (GKEY or use the translate widget by pressing CTR+ALT+G). Let's change the color of the sphere so we can differentiate it from the plane. Go to the material buttons (with the sphere selected) and click on the white panel beside the COL value. In the color selection wiget that appears, change its color to a bright red.

Next we need to make the Physics engine iterate over it. With the sphere selected, go to the logic buttons (the little purple Pacman-icon). You will see a button in the top left that says Actor. Press it. Now select from the selection box beside of the "Actor" button Rigid Body. This makes the ball roll, instead of staying completely upright the entire time. You will see a bunch of settings available now. Change Radius to 2. This changes size the physics engine thinks the ball is. You notice a dotted circle around the object; this is the boundary. Now change the Radius back to 1. You now have your first Blender game ready to go.

[edit] Testing your game

Now the time has come for the first test of our game.

1. Add a light source well above the maze (SHIFT+AKEY → Lamp → Lamp). Align in front view (NUM1)
2. Press NUM5 to switch to Perspective mode, which gives a realistic view, rather than a view in which objects stay the same size with distance (be sure to switch back to Orthographic view when you are editing again using NUM5)
3. Enter textured mode (ALT+ZKEY -- press ZKEY to switch back to solid view mode)
4. Switch into side view (NUM3) and press NUM8 several times to get a good perspective on the ball.
5. Press PKEY to play the game (Make sure you are in Object mode (TAB)
6. Press P to start testing the game. You should see the red ball drop onto the hill.
7. Press ESC to quit testing the game

[edit] Conclusion

With the knowledge acquired in this tutorial, there are many things you could accomplish within the Blender Game Engine, although the majority of them would require more knowledge. So read on, and work your way through the multitudinous seas of tutorials (That is, two).

[edit] Extra Tutorials

Making a Basic Game: Link, The State Actuator: Link, Blender Game Engine Mouse Follow: Link, Blender Bullet Physics: Link, Domino Game: Link, Rag Doll: Link

Build a skybox

One way to add a realistic feeling to your 3d environment in a game engine is to create a skybox. A skybox is a large cube which has on its inside a projection of a 360° environment. When the player (camera) is inside this environment, the scene is rendered with the illusion of being inside a gigantic world. This is a similar effect to Quicktime VR (see http://fullscreenqtvr.com for examples). And, by setting up the skybox as a simple cube shape, you place the least amount of strain on the graphics engine. It's a great advantage for your game with very little overhead.

This tutorial will show you how to create skyboxes relatively easily from panoramic photos. My favorite part is, you can do it easily using free tools such as Blender and the Gimp.

Using the Gimp to manipulate images is not really in the scope of this tutorial... check out some other page on using that software. You should have an understanding of how to edit images and apply alpha channels. (You could also use the Gimp to apply a polar coordinate texture to your rectangular image in order to create a fisheye image. Hint: it's not the sphereize filter.)

[edit] Gather your graphics

You can take panoramic images yourself using a regular digital camera and a tripod. A quick way to accomplish this is to draw marks on your tripod base at every 30 degrees (think of the hours on a clock face). Make a single mark on the swivel of your tripod to allow you to line up your shots -- twelve shots at 30 degrees each. Then, using a program such as the Gimp or the incredibly cool Autostitch to merge the photos into one big panorama.

Or, if you're lazy like me, you can just grab photos online to use as templates to create original images. There are also many places you can download non-copyrighted photos for free as well. One resource for cloudy sky textures, as well as panoramic photography instructions, is Philippe Hurbain's site Philo's Home Page. This tutorial will use a fisheye sky photo from his copyright-free Panoramic Skies images collection.

You'll also probably want a photo for your ground, unless you prefer to use real models such as buildings in your skybox. This earlier chapter on creating landscapes can be incorporated into setting up your skybox. However, this tutorial will use the sky photo for the top half of our world, and a panoramic landscape with an alpha channel for the bottom half. I've created a ground image using copyright-free textures obtained from Accustudio.

Here are the images I'll be using (you'll want to use images with higher resolution): Note that the sky has trees, etc.

Note: I've outlined the horizon of the ground texture with an alpha channel which will allow me to place the ground mesh right against the sky mesh with a very natural feel.

[edit] Create a dome for the sky

Open a new file in Blender. Your default new file will probably be a two-unit cube in the center of the screen, with a single light source and a camera. You can delete the light source because we won't be needing it. Leave the cube, because that is what will become our skybox.

The cube will be the center of our environment, so use Object->Snap->Cursor To Selection if your cursor is not centered. Then, from the top view [KEYPAD-7], Use [KEY-SPACEBAR] to insert a new mesh; make it a UV sphere. I find a 32-segment, 32-ring sphere to be sufficient. We create the sphere from the top view because that is the projection from which we want to add the sky texture.

Scale up the sphere so it resembles a large "arena" in comparison to your cube, and select and delete the lower half of the vertices, using the front view [KEYPAD-1] and [KEY-B] to create a bounding box. It helps if "Select Visible" is turned off so you can select all of the vertices in one go.

Turn on proportional editing with [KEY-O], then select the bottom row of vertices and scale them up with [KEY-S] so that the bottom of the sphere gets a bell shape. Because the projection of the sky texture will be from the Y-axis (ceiling) we need the bottom faces of the sphere to be at an angle, to catch the texture. (Faces perpendicular to the projection will look like smears.) Alter the influence of proportional editing with [KEY-PAGEUP] and [KEY-PAGEDOWN]. Linear or Sharp falloff works best with the sphere shape.

Now you're ready to add your sky texture to this mesh. In the Materials menu, create a new material and a new texture. Be sure to set your material not to recieve shadows by clicking the "Shadeless" button. Then, in the Texture menu, set the texture type to Image, and click the Load Image button to insert our sky texture. Back in the Materials->Texture->Map Input menu, you may need to scale your image to get rid of the distorted textures at the edges of the fisheye by setting the Size to, say, 0.950 for X, Y and Z.

At this point, if you wish, you can reposition the camera and render the scene to see how your sky mesh looks.

[edit] Create a dome for the ground

I found it easiest to move the sky dome to a new layer with the [KEY-M] move to layer command. Then you can select the cube, Object->snap cursor to selection if you need to, select the top view [KEYPAD-7] and insert another UV sphere just as before -- except this time, remove the top hemisphere of vertices. I left an extra row of vertices at the "equator", scaled up, to function as a "billboard" to display the the horizon of our ground texture with the alpha channel. This sphere should be slightly smaller than the sky hemisphere.

This time, I will apply the ground texture with a tube projection, so it is projected onto the mesh horizontally [Materials panel | Map Input tab | Tube button]. Because I have an alpha channel on this texture, I click "Use Alpha" in the Texture menu and Map To -> both Col and Alpha buttons [Materials Panel | Map To Tab | -> both Col and Alpha buttons]. You will also need to set ZTransp in the Mirror Transp menu [Materials Panel | Links and Pipelines Tab | ZTransp button] so that your alpha channel shows up in the envmap (which will become your skybox), and Alpha to 0 [Materials panel | Material tab | A slider ] to allow the masked areas to be transparent. (Alpha channels appear to require Z buffering to appear on procedural textures.) Also, you may need to adjust the offset of the ground texture (Y-axis), so that the horizon appears properly on the "billboard" area of your ground hemisphere.

Again, you can reposition the camera and render the scene to make sure everything is properly aligned. Be sure to activate the layer where you moved the sky mesh. Your results will look similar to the following image. Set OSA on in the render screen for best results. Also, use higher resolution images with cleaner alpha channels -- the image below is rather blurry and you can see a halo around the horizon.

[edit] Render the environment map

The last step is to use the procedural Envmap texture to project the dome textures onto the cube, which will become our skybox. Select the cube and create a new material. Set the material to "Shadeless" [Materials Panel | Materials Tab | Shadeless button]. Add a new texture and make its type Envmap. Set the CubeRes [Envmap tab | CubeRes setting ] to whatever you want the resolution of your skybox to be (512 is a good resolution for a game; 1024 or 2048 are fairly high-res; I stuck with low-res for this tutorial). If your sky & ground hemispheres are very physically large, you may also need to increase the ClipEnd value to include all of the faces. You may want to set the Envmap calculation to Anim so you don't have to keep freeing envmap data if you're experimenting. (Anim automatically clears Envmap data with every render, otherwise you must click 'Free Data' to reset the Envmap.)

Once you've created the Envmap texture, you should be ready to render the Envmap for your skybox. If you want to set your file format such as JPG or PNG, you should do that first. Then, simply go to the render screen and click "Render." Again, make sure all layers are visible. The rendering window appears. First, Blender renders the environment map of the cube. Afterward, the camera view is rendered, at which point you can hit [KEY-ESCAPE] to stop rendering -- we are only interested in the environment map which is already complete.

Select the cube again, then get to its texture menu. You will see the newly-rendered Envmap on the sample texture. Click "Save EnvMap" in the texture menu to save the rendered Envmap.

Blender environment maps are saved as a 3x2 matrix of squares, as seen here:

The cube faces are in the following order.

You can now load this image as an envmap texture in a new cube, which you can incorporate into your game as a skybox. This file can also be edited in the Gimp to remove any unwelcome artifacts such as trees, buildings, jet trails, etc. Also, because I used a tube projection on the lower hemisphere, in the bottom face of the envmap you see a strange star shape at the "pole." You'll most likely have a floor in your game, so you probably won't see that face anyway, but sticklers can avoid it with clever use of the Filters->Distorts->Polar Coords filter in the Gimp or Filter->Distort->Polar Coordinates (Polar to Rect.) in Photoshop. Patching also works well.

To make the skybox appear as a static background in your game, vertex-parent it to the current active camera object.

A simple basic mouse pointer

Making a simple mouse pointer in the game engine. This takes up a lot of resources but it is very simple.

A little Python is involved but it is very easy to use and is only 2 lines of code.

1. Open up blender and split the screen in two.
2. Make the right screen a text editor and add a new text file with ALT+N. Type in the following code.
   

   import Rasterizer as r
   r.showMouse(1)
   

3. Set TX: showpointer in the middle of the Text panel menu bar.
4. Select an object that will always be available - preferably a camera.
5. Go to the logic tab, add a "Property" sensor, a "Python" controller, an "AND" controller and a "Property" actuator.
6. Activate the True Level Triggering (the “‘ button), set Prop: switch and Value: 0. Connect the property sensor to the python and AND controllers by dragging lines between the bullets.
7. For the python controller set Script: showpointer. Note: If the value keeps being reverted to blank after setting it, the name you entered is not a legal script name; chances are you did not set the name of your script correctly. Look for the selection menu beginning with "TX:" and make sure it says TX:showpointer.
8. Now connect the AND controller to the property actuator. Set Prop: switch and Value: 1.
9. Select Actor and click on Add Property make it a Int type and set Name:switch.

Now press P to start the game and now you`ll see your mouse pointer.

How to make a .exe

This tutorial will show you how to make an executable for your game made in Blender.

Note: The methods listed in the "Windows" and "GNU/Linux or Mac OS X" sections work only for the operating system you are on when you create the file. To make it cross platform, use the "BlenderPlayer" method.

[edit] Windows

First create a folder that will hold all your game information. Name it something meaningful, like "Yo Frankie!".

The folder must contain four files that you can copy from your blender installation directory.(under windows it should be "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender") They are:

1. SDL.dll
2. python24.dll (Or other relevant python file; python25.dll, python26.dll etc)
3. pthreadVC2.dll
4. zlib.dll

(sometimes you will need the following also...

1. avformat-51.dll
2. avutil-49.dll
3. avcodec-51.dll

They are in the same folder.)

Not quite a Noob Note: If you are using the latest version of Blender you WILL need the following files)

I am running windows xp media edition and blender 2.46, here is a full list of files i needed:

1. avcodec-51.dll
2. avformat-52.dll
3. avutil-49.dll
4. libfaac-0.dll
5. libfaad-0.dll
6. libmp3lame-0.dll
7. libx264-59.dll
8. pthreadVC2.dll
9. python25.dll
10. SDL.dll
11. swscale-0.dll
12. vcomp90.dll
13. xvidcore.dll
14. zlib.dll

On Blender 2.48a (Windows XP Media Center 2002, SP3), these .manifest files are also required:

1. blender.exe.manifest
2. blenderplayer.exe.manifest
3. Microsoft.VC90.CRT.manifest
4. Microsoft.VC90.OpenMP.manifest

Now open blender with the game that you have created and open the file menu. Click on Save Game as Runtime and then save to the new folder that you have created and rename the file yourgamename.exe,

and then you can run the game!

[edit] Making A Screensaver (Windows Only)

1. First, save your runtime (that's the .exe addressed above.) via File->Save Game as Runtime. ("Save Runtime" in older versions)
2. Now, go to your .exe game and rename it .scr - for instance, if your game was NotMyGame.exe, rename it to NotMyGame.scr. You can now right click to Install it, and then use it as your regular screensaver by applying it as you would any other screensaver (right click on desktop, properties... You know the drill.)

Just a helpful idea; when distributing my games, I often include a real awesome screen saver so that when Person A walks into Person B's room and sees that amazing thing going, they decide that they want my game. Just a note, though; screensavers are not games, and so they should not accept input. At most, they should be videos showing what your game does. If you just rename your regular game as a .scr, it will be remarkably boring, because your game needs input and screensavers do not.

[edit] GNU/Linux or Mac OS X

Open blender with the game that you have created and open the file menu. Click on Save Game as Runtime and then save to the new folder that you have created and rename the file yourgamename...

and then you can run the game!

[edit] BlenderPlayer

The methods shown above only create an executable for your operating system. Well, BlenderPlayer can fix that.

1. Make a new folder to store all your game data.
2. Then save your .blend file into the directory.
3. You can skip this step and the next step if you do not want a Windows version. For the Windows users, copy blenderplayer.exe to the new folder from a Windows copy of Blender. Then copy all your DLL files for Blender as mentioned for Windows to the folder.
4. Next you have to make an MS-DOS batch file (for *NIX users, this is the shell script equivalent). In a simple text editor, in CR-LF mode if available (Notepad is always in this mode, and NOT a word processor!), copy and paste this text:
   blenderplayer.exe yourgamename.blend
   Save it as YourGameName-Windows.bat in your game folder.
5. You can skip this step if you do not want a *NIX (basically Mac OS X and GNU/Linux) port. For GNU/Linux (at least), make a shell script. (A shell script is the *NIX term for a batch file.) In a simple text editor, in LF mode (unfortunately Notepad can't be used), copy and paste this text:
   #!/bin/bash
blenderplayer yourgamename.blend
   Save the file as YourGameName-UNIX.sh in your game folder. Note that due to the nature of these systems, BlenderPlayer will need to be pre-installed.
6. Write a readme for your program. This is again best done with a simple text editor like Notepad or gedit, but it does not matter which mode it is in. You should include the name of the game, a description, perhaps a walkthrough or hints, and if you made a *NIX port, mention that it requires BlenderPlayer, available with Blender.

[edit] Other

Match Moving Next page: Blender 3D: Noob to Pro/HDRi
Previous page: Blender_3D: Noob to Pro/Build a skybox

Match moving is the art of merging 3D with live action film. If you are unfamiliar with the concept, take a look at the WikiPedia article on Match Moving

Blender cannot perform the match moving itself, you use a 3rd party tool to determine the camera position and the way it moves, then import this data into Blender. While there are many software tools to do this, this page references two free options: Voodoo and Icarus.

[edit] Icarus

Icarus is a discontinued University of Manchester project which can be used for non-commercial work. The download links from the official page no longer function, but Windows and MacOS X versions are available from this Icarus video tutorial by Colin Levy.

[edit] Voodoo

Voodoo is an actively developed free match mover available for Windows and Linux. Here is a tutorial on using Voodoo and Blender

Next page: Blender 3D: Noob to Pro/HDRi
Previous page: Blender_3D: Noob to Pro/Build a skybox

A reader has identified this page or section as an undeveloped draft or outline. You can help to develop the work, or you can ask for assistance in the project room.

High Dynamic Range imaging (HDRi)