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Thread: Introduction to 3D Modeling with Blender

  1. #1
    Nesimî's Avatar Protector Domesticus
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    Default Introduction to 3D Modeling with Blender

    Hello all, and welcome to the beginning of my series of Blender tutorials. I promised to teach a class in the TWC University but failed, due to time constraints.
    I have decided to put my stuff up here at my own pace. I won't get a fancy badge, but I hope I will be able to introduce some of our members to this wonderful and free 3D modeling program.

    First of all, you will have to go the the website at http://www.blender.org/download/get-blender/, where you will download the appropriate version for your system. Once you have it installed, fire it up.

    Setup When you start up blender, this is what you will see:
    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 


    A lot to take in at first sight, but fear not, for I will guide the weak through the valley of darkness. Before you do anything at all, you should set your Renderer to Cycles Render, as pictured here:

    And now we will delete the lamp, as it is an outdated object suitable for the old render engine. Select it by right clicking it, then press the X key on your keyboard.

    Finally, click on the File menu in the top left corner and press "Save Startup File." This will make this your default setup.

    Now, we are ready to begin.
    Last edited by Joar; March 10, 2013 at 12:03 PM. Reason: Fixed the title. / Joar
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  2. #2
    Nesimî's Avatar Protector Domesticus
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    Default Re: [TUTORIAL] Introduction to Blender

    Let us now begin navigating this program. The big gray thingy in the middle of the screen is the viewport. It has the cube and the black wireframe pyramid, which is the camera object. I will speak more of the camera later. This program is a bit unorthodox in that it heavily uses the right mouse button for selection, unlike most others which use the left.
    Let us now select the cube. Right click the cube. Congratulations, you have selected the cube. You can deselect it by pressing the key "A" on your keyboard.

    You will probably notice the three arrows and the orange dot in the middle of the object. The arrows are called movement widgets, and are used to move the object along the three dimensions of X, Y and Z. You can do so by clicking on one of the arrows and dragging.

    Can you move without adhering to a single dimension? Of course you can. Press "G" and the object will move freely with your cursor, until you either left click to apply the movement, or right click to stop moving it and return it to its previous position.

    You can also move the object along the axes with the shortcut. First press "G", then press either, X, Y or Z on your keyboard, and the object will move along that axis.


    Now for moving along the viewport. You can rotate the viewport by clicking and dragging the middle mouse button. You slide the viewport by holding shift while clicking and dragging the middle mouse button.

    Now, let's make a sword. Yes, I know this is what you all want. Except maybe Adamat. He wants to make a birdie.

    Making a Sword

    First, you will want to set your view from Perspective to Ortographic (Toggle with key "NUMPAD 5"). If you are not familiar with the terms, Orthographic basically means that the images will not be distorted by perspective view.

    Perspective view:

    Orthographic view:

    Make sure the view is set to orthographic and press "NUMPAD 1" to bring the viewport to the front.

    Note: Likewise, you can use NUMPAD 1, 3 and 7 to get front, side and top views. Hold CTRL while pressing these to get the opposite view (CTRL 1 for back, CTRL 7 for bottom view)
    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 


    Now we will go into edit mode. Make sure the cube is selected and press Tab on your keyboard. The cube should look like this:

    Those dots at the corners of the cube are called "vertices" and are what hold every single model together. Models are created with the linking of three or more vertices to create a "face" or "poly". Blender and most modern programs generally work with quads, four sided polys, though they can utilize other numbers as well. Some older programs such as milkshape work with tris.

    Symmetry: A very useful tool for a modeler. You only have to model half of the thing and its perfectly symmetrical! We can use what we call a modifier to achieve this. A modifier is a script that does certain things to an object, symmetry being one of many achievable effects.

    First we will delete half of the cube. To do that we need to make a cut at the middle. So press CTRL-R when your mouse is hovering over where you want to make the cut, then left click when you are satisifed with its placement. By default, the cut will be in the middle, so just click without moving the mouse in this case.

    Left click for this:


    Now we are going to delete the vertices on the right side of the cube. As we can only currently access the front side of it, we will have to enable transparancy. Hit the "Z" key on your keyboard to toggle on transparancy.

    Now select the vertices on the right. First deselect all by pressing "A", the press "B" on your keyboard and click and drag your mouse to select the vertices you want, like so:

    Press X to delete.


    Now we are going to go over to the sidebar on the right and click on the little wrench which will open the tab for modifiers.



    Click add Modifier and select Mirror from the drop down menu. Set the settings to these:


    Forging the Blade

    Time for some extrusion. Extruding is taking a face and pulling it along a trajectory. I will demonstrate with a GIF.
    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
    Last edited by Nesimî; March 11, 2013 at 01:23 AM.
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  3. #3
    Adamat's Avatar Invertebrate
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    Default Re: [TUTORIAL] Introduction to Blender

    I'm subscribing to this.
    #JusticeForCookie #JusticeForCal #JusticeForAkar #JusticeForAthelchan

  4. #4
    Nesimî's Avatar Protector Domesticus
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    Default Re: [TUTORIAL] Introduction to Blender

    Now we will leave the extruding for later. Let us decide what sort of sword it will be. Yes, Adamat, we can make a Zweihander. Lets look up a picture on the internet.
    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 


    A bit too celtic for my taste but it will serve. Save the image somewhere on your computer and go back to blender. Hit the "N" key to bring up the right sidebar.


    Scroll down until you see the Background images thingy. Click on the arrow to unfurl it and check the box to the left of it.
    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

    Press "Add Image." Find your image and you will see that it is now in the background in the orthographic view.

    You probably noticed that the cube slightly off center of the sword, so lets move it so that it will be in line. Hit tab to exit edit mode, then "G" to move it where you want. Left click when you are done.

    Now we will scale it. Scale the object using the "S" key. You can also scale along a single axis by pressing X, Y or Z after S, but we don't need that right now.

    You should have something like this once you move it into place.


    Now we can start extruding. Hit tab again to enter edit mode, then select all the vertices on the bottom of our cube, with the "B" key. Hit the E key to extrude the cube downward along the blade.

    Now we are face to face with the parallelogram thingy. Extrude once, like this:

    Now we shall scale along the X axis. Hit "S", then "X" to scale along the X axis.

    Rince and repeat.

    Keep extruding along the blade, scaling along the X axis where it tapers, until you have this:

    The blade is slightly angled in the picture, so don't follow it exactly, just scale X where you think it would be suitable.

    Now we come to the tip. Select the faces on the bottom and extrude them. But this time pull the middle vertices down farther, into a point.

    Now lets see what we have made. Hit "Z" to disable invisibility and rotate around your sword.

    Chunky. Let us fix the problem. Switch to side view by hitting NUMPAD 3.

    To be continued.
    Last edited by Nesimî; March 25, 2013 at 11:27 AM.
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  5. #5
    Nesimî's Avatar Protector Domesticus
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    Default Re: [TUTORIAL] Introduction to Blender

    Select the vertices in the side view and bring them in line until the sword is flat from the side view.

    Now we are going to make the crossguard and hilt. We will make them separate objects, so hit TAB to exit edit mode. You already know how to follow a reference image now, so let us model something on our own. go to the front view with NUM 1 once again and press SHIFT+A to bring up a menu.

    Like I have highlighted, we want a cube mesh to start off the crossguard. Move it to the base of the blade.

    As you can see I have removed the background image, we do not need it anymore. Do so by once again pressing N bring up the side menu and uncheck Background Images. Press it again to close the menu.

    We are going to use another mirror modifier on this, like I have showed you before. Use the modifier and bring the bottom vertices to align them roughly with the blade's bottom.

    Now lets rotate the view around a bit, get a sense of what we are making.

    Lets make this thinner and wider.

    Lets make this a bit prettier. Create two edge loops along the crossguard and one across from it with CTRL+R, Like so:

    Move the vertices at the edges inward by selecting and scaling them along the X and Y axes.


    Now let us add a cylinder for a hilt. Once again close edit mode by pressing TAB and press Shift+A to add a cylinder. As you can see it will give us a rather high poly model, I think we should cut this down a bit, as this is a low poly sword.
    Reduce the vertices from 32 to 16, then delete either the bottom faces, as we will not need it, it will not be visible.

    Now fit the the cylinder in place.

    We will now extrude the top for the pommel. By extruding and scaling do something like this:


    That's about it! You now have a low poly zweihander sword! Thank you for reading.
    Last edited by Nesimî; August 08, 2013 at 04:11 AM.
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  6. #6
    Adamat's Avatar Invertebrate
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    Default Re: [TUTORIAL] Introduction to Blender

    Quote Originally Posted by Prince Tafari View Post
    First, you will want to set your view from Perspective to Ortographic (Toggle with key "5"). If you are not familiar with the terms, Orthographic basically means that the images will not be distorted by perspective view.

    Perspective view:



    Make sure the view is set to orthographic and press "1" to bring the viewport to the front.
    Note: the numbers '5' and '1' will only work on the numpad of your keyboard.
    #JusticeForCookie #JusticeForCal #JusticeForAkar #JusticeForAthelchan

  7. #7

    Default Re: Introduction to 3D Modeling with Blender

    Great initiative, and I've moved it to its proper forum.


  8. #8
    Nesimî's Avatar Protector Domesticus
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    Default Re: Introduction to 3D Modeling with Blender

    Much appreciated. Will fix errors and continue later on. Any chance of some publicity for this?
    shum

  9. #9

    Default Re: Introduction to 3D Modeling with Blender

    following.

  10. #10
    Treva ★'s Avatar Primicerius
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    Default Re: Introduction to 3D Modeling with Blender

    Following!

    I know the basics of this program, you can always ask us for help.

    I never learned to render animations though, and it's always good to relearn the basics.
    The tentacled horror from beyond my stars spoke, and von Neumann help me, in my madness, I understood its words.
    СИНДИКАТ!
    Dè a tha Montrose Mór ag ràdh?
    Heavy Metal will never die. - Sir Christopher Frank Carrandini Lee.

  11. #11
    Nesimî's Avatar Protector Domesticus
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    Default Re: Introduction to 3D Modeling with Blender

    Relatively simple, I'l show that once I do a cloth animation lesson or something.
    shum

  12. #12
    Radboud's Avatar Luctor et Emergo
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    Default Re: Introduction to 3D Modeling with Blender

    How far along are you with this?

  13. #13
    Nesimî's Avatar Protector Domesticus
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    Default

    Theoretically, I could be done in about an hour, but I rarely have an hour of free time that coincides with an available laptop.

    Updated, will probably be done in the next update.
    Last edited by Radboud; May 13, 2013 at 04:36 AM. Reason: Double Posting
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  14. #14
    Nesimî's Avatar Protector Domesticus
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    Default Re: Introduction to 3D Modeling with Blender

    Bumped for subscribers. Finished tutorial.
    shum

  15. #15
    Adamat's Avatar Invertebrate
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    Default Re: Introduction to 3D Modeling with Blender

    Yay!
    #JusticeForCookie #JusticeForCal #JusticeForAkar #JusticeForAthelchan

  16. #16
    Treva ★'s Avatar Primicerius
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    Default Re: Introduction to 3D Modeling with Blender

    So, we're doing this? Wheeee.
    The tentacled horror from beyond my stars spoke, and von Neumann help me, in my madness, I understood its words.
    СИНДИКАТ!
    Dè a tha Montrose Mór ag ràdh?
    Heavy Metal will never die. - Sir Christopher Frank Carrandini Lee.

  17. #17
    Nesimî's Avatar Protector Domesticus
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    Default Re: Introduction to 3D Modeling with Blender

    Well, not a TWC uni class, but I will simply add tutorials as I find time to do them. I have been hindered by a bad laptop and a full schedule, but in about a week I will be free from both for a month.
    shum

  18. #18
    Fozzie's Avatar Tiro
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    Default Re: Introduction to 3D Modeling with Blender

    This is an extremely concise and well-written guide for beginners (myself included). I'm taking on a hefty project over the semester. This has done wonders in getting me started. Cannot thank you enough. Subscribing, and will be looking for you in the future!

    Fozzie

    "Wocka wocka wocka." ~Fozzie Bear

  19. #19
    Nesimî's Avatar Protector Domesticus
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    Default Re: Introduction to 3D Modeling with Blender

    Thank you very much, I appreciate the feedback. I am currently making a second part to this tutorial, and it will probably be finished in a week or so.
    shum

  20. #20
    Treva ★'s Avatar Primicerius
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    Default Re: Introduction to 3D Modeling with Blender

    Can we… post results (pics and schtuff)?
    The tentacled horror from beyond my stars spoke, and von Neumann help me, in my madness, I understood its words.
    СИНДИКАТ!
    Dè a tha Montrose Mór ag ràdh?
    Heavy Metal will never die. - Sir Christopher Frank Carrandini Lee.

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