nicked on 2/10/2014 at 07:56
Thanks for covering ambient occlusion, very handy.
Also, not sure if you covered it, but I didn't see it - one thing I use a lot to speed up UV mapping with some models, is to set the 3D view to front, sides, top etc. and use Unwrap > Project from View, as this UV maps from the current camera angle. For faces that are perpendicular to a side, it prevents any warping and weirdness from unwrapping complex stuff. Depends on the model shape as to how useful it is of course.
Renzatic on 4/10/2014 at 20:55
Pie Menus! About damn time!
Now we have to wait for 2.73, which I believe will finally implement Pixar OpenSubDiv. Blender will get a massive speed increase in subdivided geometry, have finely detailed edge weighting for subsurfing (far better than what's already in there), and all other kinds of cool stuff. I've been playing around with it in Modo for about a year now, and it easily allows you to make (
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Modo_Edge_Weights.png) any type of shape you want with almost no effort or performance hit. It's just like using the constraining edges I detailed above, without any extra geometry messing up your shape. You can sharpen what you want to sharpen, smooth what you want to smooth.
To get on topic, the next part of the tutorial should be coming in tonight.
Renzatic on 5/10/2014 at 07:30
TRAIN
In case you're all wondering why I keep doing this, it's because I want to throw something big and noticeable out to help break up the tutorial into sections. I'm not doing it to be obnoxious.
...well, not just to be obnoxious, anyway.
Also, I'm gonna expand upon what Nicked said about UV Project From View between this and the next tutorial. I covered it a bit in my UVs and U tutorial I did for TDM, but I think I can stretch it even farther.
Renzatic on 5/10/2014 at 07:48
And now, the much anticipated second part of the Blender Lamp Tutorial.
Before we begin, I want to touch on something that was apparently just added to the newest version of Blender: PIE MENUS!
Now I'll admit that Pie Menus are one of those subjective things you'll either love, hate, or be entirely indifferent to. Personally, I love them. I've been using them for awhile now, and think they're so much quicker than mousing over to a dropdown menu, and selecting something from there. But because of their subjectiveness, and the fact they're not directly important to these tutorials, I'm gonna take the lazy route, and simply provide a video showing how to activate them, how they work, and how you use them.
(
http://www.cgmasters.net/free-tutorials/blender-2-72-feature-pie-menus/) Click Here For Pie Action.
Did you watch it? Okay, good. Now let's get to the fun part.
Par for the course, we're going to try something slightly different for this tutorial. The techniques won't be anything new, but this time we'll be loading up and working with a reference image. Something to help guide us along while we're building our shape, rather than simply eyeballing it like we did the last time.
You've already seen it, of course, but in case you delete it between then and now, we'll be loading this image up in our back...
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut_Lamp/Blender_Tut_Lamp_1.jpgTo begin, hit the N key to bring up your Properties Menu. Look for “Background Image” (yeah, I changed my theme).
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut_Lamp/Blender_Tut_Lamp_85.jpgGo ahead and click the checkbox, then hit “Add Image”. You'll see this...
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut_Lamp/Blender_Tut_Lamp_86.jpgHit the dropdown menu next to “Axis”, and click “Front”, make sure “Image” is selected (yeah, you can load up movie clips in Blender), then hit the “Open” button, and lead Blender to wherever you have the lamp image saved. Once it's loaded, you'll see a few extra options pop up.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut_Lamp/Blender_Tut_Lamp_87.jpgFor the sake of tutorialing, I'll explain these new settings.
Source: A more indepth option between “Image” and “Movie” above. You can set it to display Blender generated images, a sequence of pictures, a movie clip, or keep it set as a single image, which is what we obviously want to do here.
The section just below that allows you to open multiple files and edit their locations at will. If you add multiple images, this becomes a stack.
Input Color Space: If you have an image that's using a gamut besides the standard sRGB format, you'll set that here. Since you probably don't at this moment, I suggest leaving it as 'sRGB”.
View As Render: I believe this allows your background image to show up in a render. Never used this, so I'm not 100% sure what it does.
Opacity: self explanatory. Allows you to set the transparency of the image in the background. It's set to 0.5 by default, which is usually fine, but if you find your image a little too indistinct, you can change that from here.
“Back” and “Front” buttons. Shows the image either behind your model, or in front of it. Considering we're only using this image as a reference, you can pick either/or. Obviously, if you set it to “Front”, you'll want to adjust your opacity accordingly.
X & Y sliders: Let's you adjust the location of the image on the grid. In this situation, it's looking at your window as a 2D space, so X is left and right, Y is up and down.
Size: Make it bigger or smaller.
Normally, you don't have to play with any of these extraneous options. Merely setting the image, and perspective it'll display on is more than enough.
Okay. You've got it loaded, and set to front. Keep in mind that these images will only display when you're looking at it from and orthographic top, bottom, left, right projection. So how do you set your camera to look at it from the front dead on? Easy!
Hit NUM 5 to switch between orthographic and perspective projections, then hit NUM 1 to jump to the front view. Or if you decided to go fancy, hit Q to bring up the projection pie, and hit the appropriate buttons. You'll see the projection you're currently oriented in at the top left of the 3D window, in case you're wondering. You should now be seeing something that looks...
(
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut_Lamp/Blender_Tut_Lamp_88.jpg) Like This.
Alright. You've got your picture, and you've got your perspective. Let's go into wireframe mode by hitting the “Z” key. If you don't have Pie Menus installed, this is a toggle between solid and wireframe mode. If you do, it'll bring up a pie showing all your shading options.
Go ahead and select the whole model with A, then hit S to scale it out so it's roughly the same width as the lamp, then hit G, and adjust it so the bottom of your cube is centered on the body of the lamp, and flush with the bottom it.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut_Lamp/Blender_Tut_Lamp_89.jpgLooks a little too big doesn't it? Don't we need to make the cube smaller so we can build it up like we did the last time? Not this time. For this iteration of our lamp, we're going to do something a little different.
But first, let's do some adjusting. We want to bring our top edge down a little bit. If you haven't already, drop your selection with A, then go into Face Selection with CTRL+TAB, then hold CTRL and LMB to draw a lasso around your topmost face.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut_Lamp/Blender_Tut_Lamp_90.jpgInline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut_Lamp/Blender_Tut_Lamp_91.jpgAny time you have a sharp angle between edges surrounding a face (I'll say when it gets close to 90 degrees, give or take) , it'll stop an edge loop select. This isn't just a Blender thing, either. All the modellers do the exact same thing.
Now, hit G and Z, and drag your edges to about here, right about where we ended on our last model before we stretched out, and did our own thing.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut_Lamp/Blender_Tut_Lamp_92.jpg...just so you all know, there's an owl hooting right outside my window, as I'm typing this and it's goddamn creepy.
Renzatic on 5/10/2014 at 07:59
Now the fun begins. We're going to do a series of edge loop cuts, corresponding to where we'll want our geometry to conform to the shape of the lamp. Hit A to drop our current selection, hit CTRL+R to activate the Edge Cut tool, and make a cut here...
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut_Lamp/Blender_Tut_Lamp_93.jpgHere...
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut_Lamp/Blender_Tut_Lamp_94.jpgHere...
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut_Lamp/Blender_Tut_Lamp_95.jpgAnd so on...
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut_Lamp/Blender_Tut_Lamp_96.jpgInline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut_Lamp/Blender_Tut_Lamp_97.jpgInline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut_Lamp/Blender_Tut_Lamp_98.jpgInline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut_Lamp/Blender_Tut_Lamp_99.jpgInline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut_Lamp/Blender_Tut_Lamp_100.jpgInline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut_Lamp/Blender_Tut_Lamp_101.jpg...we won't worry about that last cut along the little lip at the base, since we're going for a low poly model. You can add in that extra bit of detail with a texture.
If you've been following along with these tutorials from the start, you probably have an idea of what I'm about to do. That's right, we're going to start from the top, and work our way down, scaling our edges in to mold it into shape.
Since we have a poly at the top of our cube, we can't do an ALT+RMB select to grab all those edges. Yeah, it's a little annoying, but you can easily fix it with a quick lasso grab. Think of it as good lassoing practice.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut_Lamp/Blender_Tut_Lamp_102.jpgInline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut_Lamp/Blender_Tut_Lamp_103.jpgRenzatic on 5/10/2014 at 08:14
Now, hit S, and scale it in so those polys match the contour of the lamp.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut_Lamp/Blender_Tut_Lamp_104.jpg Now you can ALT+RMB the rest. Select the next edge loop, hit S, and drag 'er in.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut_Lamp/Blender_Tut_Lamp_105.jpgRemember, you can hold down SHIFT at any point while dragging to make slower, finer changes.
Select the next edge loop by ALT+RMBing, hit S, and do it again.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut_Lamp/Blender_Tut_Lamp_106.jpgAnd repeat the process down the cube. ALT+RMB, S, and scale it in our out depending on the shape.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut_Lamp/Blender_Tut_Lamp_107.jpgInline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut_Lamp/Blender_Tut_Lamp_108.jpgWhoops. Looks like we (read: me) forgot a cut! We can fix that right fast just by adding another edge loop, and scaling it out.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut_Lamp/Blender_Tut_Lamp_109.jpgInline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut_Lamp/Blender_Tut_Lamp_110.jpgAnd while we're at it, we'll readjust that loop just below it again.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut_Lamp/Blender_Tut_Lamp_111.jpgNow for the rest.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut_Lamp/Blender_Tut_Lamp_112.jpgInline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut_Lamp/Blender_Tut_Lamp_113.jpgInline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut_Lamp/Blender_Tut_Lamp_114.jpgIf you accidentally move your camera out of whack, just hit NUM 1 to get back into it again.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut_Lamp/Blender_Tut_Lamp_115.jpg...hell, this one's just about where it needs to be.
Renzatic on 5/10/2014 at 08:15
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut_Lamp/Blender_Tut_Lamp_116.jpgSince the bottom edge surrounds a face, we'll have to lasso select again. Really, this one doesn't need any scaling, so we'll just drag it up a bit with G+Z.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut_Lamp/Blender_Tut_Lamp_117.jpgInline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut_Lamp/Blender_Tut_Lamp_118.jpgInline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut_Lamp/Blender_Tut_Lamp_119.jpgNo, it doesn't conform to the picture, but remember, we're having to adjust a bit for perspective. Look more at the thickness of that last outer bit, and make the appropriate changes based on that.
And there you go. If you want, you can add a few extra cuts to smooth out your contours. Like I think I could use another loop along the steeper edge of the brass body, just below the housing for the wick. I'll make a cut, and scale it out.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut_Lamp/Blender_Tut_Lamp_120.jpgInline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut_Lamp/Blender_Tut_Lamp_121.jpgIf you see any other edges you want to refine, feel free to add as many loop cuts as you want, and scale them out.
Once you're done adjusting, it'll be time to scale it out. No, we're not going to play with Subdivision Surfaces this time. We're going to do the cut-'n-scale method, and take it a single step farther.
Hit Z to toggle from wireframe to solid display. If you want, hit NUM 5 to go back to perspective projection. Some people prefer working in orthographic, and it does occasionally have its uses, but I prefer working in perspective myself.
Hover over your cubist lamp, and make two cuts, like so. Just like I did previously.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut_Lamp/Blender_Tut_Lamp_122.jpgThen SHIFT+ALT+RMB both edges, hit S, then hit SHIFT+Z to exclude it from scaling on the Z axis, and round it out.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut_Lamp/Blender_Tut_Lamp_123.jpgWow. That looks familiar.
Now let's refine it a little more. Basically, we'll be doing the same thing, only we'll make 4 cuts between the edges we previously made, and scale those out. Hit SHIFT+ALT+RMB to select all 4, S then SHIFT+Z, and scale it out. Like so...
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut_Lamp/Blender_Tut_Lamp_124.jpgInline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut_Lamp/Blender_Tut_Lamp_125.jpgOoh, it's rounder.
Want me to go ever crazier with it? Why not? We'll start by making 8 cuts. To make it easier on you, aim your loop cuts along the flat sections between the points, like so...
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut_Lamp/Blender_Tut_Lamp_126.jpgthen SHIFT+ALT+RMB to select them, S, then SHIFT+Z to scale.
Inline Image:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Tut_Lamp/Blender_Tut_Lamp_127.jpgIf I wanted to go farther, I could make 16 cuts, and round it out even more. But right now, we're at 1024 tris, so I think we've gone far enough. This was just a good way to show that, with a bit of know-how, you can refine anything to the nth degree.
Renzatic on 7/10/2014 at 00:25
I'm writing up the new tutorial now, and I figured I'd take a break to tell you all that I spent a couple hours yesterday making a new theme for Blender. I found that a lot of the color schemes sacrifice clarity for consistency and style, and it makes everything blend together, and difficult to find unless you know exactly where you're looking. I wanted something that made all the individual parts of the interface stand out and easy to see.
(
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/Blender_Theme.png) So I did it.
And I call it...
(
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3018396/orangina.zip)
ORANGINA!Yeah, it's named after an orange drink, and it always makes me laugh when I see it in stores, because apparently my sense of humor hasn't matured much since I was 14. Plus it was appropriate, having a lot of orange and all.
Geddit if yaw'ant it.
