Tuesday, 18 May 2010

How to: Blender tutorial 3 - Editing objects and Vertices (part 1)


3D animation may seem to be the realm of big budget movies, and certainly major companies like Industrial Light and Magic use big budget software. Thankfully, the if you want to try 3d animation as a hobby, you can do an impressive amount of work using free software such as Blender. Alot of the principles are transferable across animation software in general.
This is the third in a series of tutorials I've written for Blender - which will introduce you to the basics of editing objects and vertices. This is quite a big subject even then, so I've split it into two. But for those of you who want to skip:

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one -- the basics of editing objects

To edit an object you must first be in OBJECT MODE.

To select an object you must right-click it’s centre-point. When it’s selected both the point and the object will turn pink. (When unselected it will be black).

Once you’ve selected the object you can change it. There are 3 ways you can do this:
two -- basics of editing vertices

To edit
vertices you need to be in EDIT mode

You edit vertices in the same way you edit objects, using the r, s and g keys to rotate, resize and move the vertices….

If you make a mistake in EDIT mode pressing u will undo it
Selecting vertices (make sure you’re in EDIT mode)
To select vertices individually:
Right-click on one vertices
To select more than one:
As above – but then hold down shift and right-click however many more you want…
Sometimes you’ll want to select more than one at a time:
Press B once to bring up a crosshair. If you click and drag this will form a box which you can use to select many vertices at one time:

Alternatively you can press B twice which will create a circle, which you can change the size of by rotating the mouse-wheel. Left-click and drag to select many vertices at the same time.


When a vertices is SELECTED it will be yellow

When a vertices is UNSELECTED it will be pink.

three -- joining and separating meshes

Sometimes you want to join meshes (eg a head onto a body). To do this you need to be in OBJECT mode. Right-click on both objects (to select them) – remember to hold down shift as you do so.

Then press shift + J
Your meshes will then join (if they are separate) or separate (if they are joined). The objects will now be moved/rotated etc together in OBJECT mode.

four -- viewing your objects alittle easier
Sometimes shading your objects can make them easier to manipulate – many wire-meshes can be very confusing. Move your cursor over the object then…

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Monday, 17 May 2010

Note: Sponsor me please ^_^


So, the more observant among you may have noticed this:


button pop up to the top right acouple of days ago. I imagine some may be curious to know why. Well, just for those who can resist that urge to click...

It's connected to a student-run charity I heard about in my university. They've had a long history of running in the Cardiff half-marathon to raise money for their charity. So I've decided to take part and help them out!

Yes! I'm actually going to run a half-marathon!! I did this last year, and completed it in a grand old time of 3 hours and 26 minutes! So my challenge for this year is not only to run - but to complete it in a faster time!

What cause? (I hear you ask): this charity gives money to help educate children in poor areas in Africa by giving them school equipment and uniforms, transport to school and access to medicines ^_^ (for more info go see:)

http://www.sosafrica.com/

So I'm going to run, and get sponsored, and help out!
If you're generous enough to want to sponsor me along in this endevour, it's really easy to do - and you can sponsor me online! Just click the link above, and then click the "sponsor me now" button.

If you want to sponsor me I really appreciate it, whatever you can spare x and please spread the word!

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Saturday, 15 May 2010

How to: Blender tutorial 2 - Creating Objects and Blender Modes


3D animation may seem to be the realm of big budget movies, and certainly major companies like Industrial Light and Magic use big budget software. Thankfully, the if you want to try 3d animation as a hobby, you can do an impressive amount of work using free software such as Blender. Alot of the principles are transferable across animation software in general. This tutorial follows on from my previous Blender tutorial. This discusses how you go about navigating the screen and loading files - so it's best to take a look at that first before you come back here :)

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1 -- The basics of creating objects

You can see here the “3D cursor” which determines the location of the next object you create. I want it to appear directly above the cube - to make sure I need to check both of the perspective screens….

It’s in the centre in the top screen…

And above the cube in the side view…

Great!

When ever you create an object you must never forget you are working in a 3D SPACE. That is why there are 4 perspective screens for you to work with. Just because it looks right on one doesn’t mean it will be right on the others.... Use them all! (Or you will probably not get the results you want).

Right, now that we know where we want our object to appear within our 3D space now we can create it.

Spacebar brings up the insert menu…. Then you go to add… in this case we want to insert a mesh, and then insert a UV sphere. (See below).

You will then get an info box questioning you on the number of segments and lines you want. This is important for editing and the smoothness of your object (the more the smoother generally – but also the more lines/segments the more memory it takes up and the longer it takes to render). Don’t worry too much at this point though :).
Ok, as you can see the sphere has been created above the cube and in the centre:

It is automatically in “edit mode”.
2 -- The two modes
There are two modes in Blender
OBJECT MODE allows you to affect (only) the whole object
EDIT MODE allows you to edit an object
You can change between these two modes in two ways:
one - Go to the Mode button which is at the bottom of each window and press the left mouse button which will bring up the mode menu and let you choose which mode you want to be in. This changes the mode in EVERY window.

two - You can also change the mode by pressing the Tab key which toggles between the two.
You can tell which mode you’re in by the image you see on the screen:
OBJECT MODE
You can see your object as a pink wire frame model. (Note the places where the ‘wires’ cross.. they will become significant in edit mode)

EDIT MODE
Your objects is seen in yellow.. if you look closely you will see that at each intersection of the lines you saw in the wire frame model there is a point – these points are called vertices. This is what we will manipulate when changing the object.

The object is yellow because all the vertices are selected. Pressing A will unselect them. If you right-click on a point it will turn pink. This means it’s selected and that you can move it around if you want too

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Thursday, 13 May 2010

Recipe: best cheese sauce ever


Cheese sauce is an essential component to get right - for any dish, from lasagne to tuna-pasta-bake. It's one of those dishes where things like consistency and thickness depend alot on the cook and on the dish, but it's easily adaptable. All good fun, enjoy ^_^

What do I need?

Kitchen Stuff:
- Medium saucepan
- Wooden spoon
- butter knife
- milk

Ingredients:
- Butter, an eighth of a pack
- Plain flour, half a cup
- cheddar cheese (200g or so, grated)

Optional Ingredients:
- dijon mustard (1-2 tsp)
- cayenne pepper
- nutmeg (for the adventurous)
- creme fraiche
- parmesan, especially for lasagne

(makes enough for 1-2 people)

takes about 20 minutes

Step 1 -- melt the butter in the pan

Keep an eye on the butter, you don't want it to melt completely and you certainly don't want it to bubble. You're just looking for it to become soft enough to:

Step 2 -- add the flour

Sieve if you want to but it should make too much difference. Stir it into the butter gradually until it becomes paste-like.

Step 3 -- pour in a dash of milk

Stir it in, make that paste alittle more runny. this stage in the process is an exercise in patience in order to achieve a nice saucelike consistency. If you were to just add loads of milk it would just be a runny gloopy mess, this way it's smooth and lovely.

Step 4 -- keep adding milk

Keep adding the milk alittle bit at a time, so the sauce gradually becomes thicker. Once you've got it to the consistency you want it, that's the hard bit over. This is a white sauce.

Step 5 -- add the other things

Add the cheese and stir it in - keep stirring from this point onwards. Add some salt, pepper and cayenne. If you want a more creamy sauce, that works really nicely with lasagne although I have an even better recipe for that coming up sometime in the future. trust me that's well worth waiting for... but anyway... if you want you can also add a dab of dijon mustard, and a little bit of parmesan adds a stronger touch for those who want it :) A little dab of nutmeg is also an interesting change from the norm.

Step 6 -- Enjoy ^_^

You can add it to maaany things - foe example cooked pasta, tuna and sweetcorn for tuna pasta bake - just mix it together in an oven-proof dish and sprinkle some breadcrumbs and cheese and put it in the oven for 20 minutes of so...
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Tuesday, 11 May 2010

How to: Blender tutorial 1 - Moving, Saving and Customising your Screen


3D animation may seem to be the realm of big budget movies, and certainly major companies like Industrial Light and Magic use big budget software. Thankfully, the if you want to try 3d animation as a hobby, you can do an impressive amount of work using free software such as Blender. Alot of the principles are transferable across animation software in general.

This is the first in a series of tutorials I've written for Blender - which will introduce you to the basics of opening files, moving around the screen and navigating your view. But for those of you who want to skip:

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1 -- A note about the File menu

When opening files… APPEND adds another blender file
OPEN adds files not from blender

If you save over a file (eg animation.blend) the ‘old’ file automatically becomes a backup incase you do anything wrong (eg animation.blend1)

2 -- Changing the screen view

To change your screen view, move your mouse over a boundary until it becomes a double-sided arrow.


Right-click and a box will appear. Select “split area” and a dividing line will be created that you can move to where you want. When you are satisfied it’s in the right place press the left mouse button.
To join two areas simply right-click the “join area” bit of the box which appears when you right click over a boundary (see above).

You can change what is in each window so you don’t get four camera views or four top views…
There are two ways you can do this:
Move your cursor over the “view” button at the bottom of a window and change it to eg camera, top, front or side. (See diagram below).


Or you can move your cursor across the window and click the view buttons (remember, NUM LOCK MUST BE ON):

When you have selected the camera, the following will appear on the screen:

To move around the 3D space, you also use the numlock number keys:


You can also navigate the screen using a combination of keyboard and mouse-buttons
- Shift + scrolling the mouse wheel also means you pan up and down the screen
- Alt + scrolling the mouse wheel also means you pan left and right
- Scrolling the mouse wheel zooms in and out
- The left mouse button moves the 3D cursor (which controls where the next created object will be placed), selects objects and drags windows
- The right mouse button selects objects and vertices in edit mode


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