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[Nirur Torir]

There comes a time in every young geek's life when they decide it would be cool to make 3D models, so they download Blender, only find windows with tabs of tabs of options. One nervous breakdown later, Blender is promptly deleted.

If at least six people show interest, I'll write up a tutorial each week for a few weeks (my current plan is for 5 weeks). We'd go through the basics of making meshes, texturing/UV-unwrapping, and finally making animated .gifs. I'll be aiming to teach the minimum to get a basic knowledge level of "how to make things with Blender," to reduce the information flood. If you have problems or want to do something not covered, I'll try to help, if I can.

Be aware that my technique is self-taught, after getting annoyed at the few tutorial videos I tried watching. There are, I hope, better ways to go about things than what I'll show you. This is mostly to get you started.

I'll be using version 2.70a, which is the newest as of this writing. Get it here. I think it needs Python to be installed. Blender doesn't seem to like directly exporting to .gif, so if you're interested in that than check to see if your 2D art program of choice can open multiple images as layers (with GIMP this can be found under File > Open as Layers). Please make sure Blender works before we start.

[Svampapa]

I've been using Blender for a few years, but I'd still watch any such endevour. There always seems to be a tip or two to pick up from other people.

Also, gifs? I've been looking for a gif exporter for Blender for quite a while. Care to share?

[Nirur Torir]

I've been using Blender for a few years, but I'd still watch any such endevour. There always seems to be a tip or two to pick up from other people.

Great, feel free to speak up if you think I'm suggesting something stupid.

Also, gifs? I've been looking for a gif exporter for Blender for quite a while. Care to share?

Control F12 (render animation) saves each frame as a separate image file before it plays the movie. Mine defaults to c:\tmp. You can change it in the properties window > camera tab > output sub-tab. Then open GIMP/Photoshop/whatever, select "open as layers," and shift-select every frame you want in the .gif. hit open, Save as .gif, set the .gif settings, and done.

[Arx]

I'd be interested. I can actually use Blender, but more tutorials are always good. I must say, even though it's not on your list, I will love you forever* if you cover particles.



*Platonically. T's&C's apply.

[Nirur Torir]

I had plans to quickly point out the basics of how to add particles. I don't really know much about them, but I'll see if I can figure out anything useful about them to add.

[Lightningfalcon]

I'd be interested.  I have Blender installed somewhere on some computer but I have yet to use it.   

[Itnetlolor]

I've taught myself a few techniques and saw my share of tutorials, but can always learn more, or better ways of doing things. I've done some dabbling in Blender with my limited set of skills.

I haven't really had much time to get back to art (work's been a bit of a hefty load lately), but I can use what you have in store when I eventually have time again.

Spoiler: Here's some of my work I've done with what I know (obviously incomplete for one reason or another) (click to show/hide)

Deathmask Frigate
(Missing a couple engine blocks on it and a few turrets and such.)



[BB] Paladin-Class Airship "Excalibur" (Flagship and battleship with a fixed beam and homing beam Aurabolt cannon system, uses holy and unholy energies, which can be fired in unison in a yin-yang configuration, powerful enough to rival nuclear weaponry. When the primary cannon's offline, it's magnetic rails still permit it to serve as a makeshift railgun system, large enough to fire even munitions.)





Aviar-Kai KN-a-1 Drop Pod "Kunai"-Class
(Probably the most-complete of my set.)

Some things need refining, naturally, but it's still not bad for a beginner. Gotta admit, my old artwork looks a hell of alot cooler in 3D (though the 2D renders in my old sketchbooks were still pretty good and detailed. In fact, some are still used for reference, the Kunai was out of memory, and turned out better than the original sketch concept, the airship, was used with a sketchbook reference I still have on my wall). Plus, I get to better refine some details, and get a better idea of even my own ideas.

EDIT:
If I can get around to a few landscaping techniques, I'd like to also craft a floating island I have made as well. But as of right now, I guess I'm stuck with modeling buildings and using a combination of Terragen and Photoshop to craft one, and scenes from it.

[Nirur Torir]

((Eh. 6. 4 interested people, three of which already know how to use Blender. Same thing.))

Intro: The Interface

Terminology:
Verts - Vertices. An infinitely small point.
Edge - Connects 2 verts.
Face - Defined by 3 or more verts.
Tri - A face of 3 verts. Other programs frequently prefer tris. Blender can work with larger faces, but, near as I can tell, treats them as groups of tris.
Quad - A face of 4 verts. Other programs frequently prefer quads.
<Ctrl+S> - How I'll represent a command. This one is my personal favorite.
3D cursor - Generally a nuisance. Left clicking anywhere moves it. It is hard to click it exactly where you want it, since you're using a 2D representation of 3D space. New objects are spawned at the 3D cursor.

When Blender starts up, it has a small window with your recent projects. Click outside of it and it'll go away. You'll then be presented with this screen:



1) is a cube. It has a yellow outline because it is selected.
2) is a camera. It is used when rendering a scene (with <F12>). It can be moved much like any object, or set to the current view with <Ctrl+Numpad0> while the camera is selected.
3) is a light source. You will generally want more than one when rendering a scene.



I'll only be talking about the 3D view window in this intro. This is the window you'll spend most of your time in.

1) Each window can be changed to a different window with an icon in one of the corners. You can do most of what you need with 3D View, Timeline for animations, UV/Image Editor for adding textures, and properties. The default settings have the properties window already open on the right side. It is important. The Timeline, (not pictured; it's below the picture), isn't something that you'll need every time you open Blender. We'll take care of that later.

2) Tools is a useful sub-tab. It gets more options during editing. It sometimes lets you change commands (Eg, if you Separate an edge, adding a vert on its halfway point, this tab will let you separate it into more verts.)

3) The origin of an object is represented by a small orange dot in the middle, when it's selected. It's fairly easy to accidentally get the origin completely outside of an object, which makes it start behaving oddly with certain tools. Reset it with this.

4) Set an object's shading to smooth or flat. Observe it in action:



5) The 3D view has pull-out tabs on either side. The left starts pulled out (it's where the tools sub-tab is). I mostly only use the right one to see the exact coordinates of the selection or to reset the 3D cursor.



To reset the 3D cursor, fill these with 0s.


Commands take effect in the window your cursor is in.

Camera controls
Clicking the mouse wheel moves the camera. Hold shift will let you pan.
The numpad is quite useful. The corner keys of 1, 3, and 7 directly move the view to front, side, or top. Control reverses these, to back, other side, or bottom.
The side keys of 2, 4, 6, and 8 move the view in 15 degree increments. These aren't as useful.
The central key, 5, toggles between perspective and orthogonal views.
0 is used for the camera. Alone, it moves the view to the camera. With control, the selected camera is moved to your current view. (Move the view slightly after moving the camera to remove the border.)

Mouse controls
Right clicking is for selecting and interacting with objects (unless you're box selecting. That uses the left button, because awesomeface.png).

Left clicking is used for moving the 3D cursor. I have yet to find a use for moving the 3D cursor in this way. You can change the LBM to be used for selections under File > User Preferences, under the Input tab.

Window manipulation
Move the mouse to the line between the 3D view window and the timeline window until it becomes a double arrow. Right click it. You'll be given the option to split or join the areas.



For now, click join, and merge them into one large 3D view (if you merge them into a giant timeline, use the lower left icon to change back into the 3D view).

Now move the cursor to the top of the 3D view until you get the double-arrow again. This time click split. You now have a line stuck to the cursor. Clicking the mouse wheel will switch it between horizontal and vertical. Clicking the LMB will duplicate the current window. Split it vertically, then split one half horizontally. Use the numpad camera controls over each window, to get different views of the cube. You should be left with something roughly like this:



You may find it helpful to have different views of the same object like this, particularly if you have a second monitor.

That's it for this time. I'll explain how to actually do something in a few days. If you want clarification on anything, please speak up.

[inEQUALITY]

I'll be watching this as you continue it! I learned the very basics of Blender, like the interface and such, but like every other program that isn't Maya it never felt as user-friendly to me for whatever reason, so I went back to Maya. Maybe this will help me learn how to use Blender properly so that I don't have to jump through a few hoops to export in the format Star Wars: Empire at War uses...

EDIT: Funny enough, other than a few hiccups, I finally managed to sit down and do most of the same things in Blender that I could do in Maya. Not as bad as I thought it was. Or maybe I just remembered it being more frustrating in earlier builds. Looks like I might actually get some modeling done again... will definitely be watching this thread with interest, though. There's always something to learn.

[Nirur Torir]

Week 1: So you want to make a box-person?

There are three basic commands for manipulating an object: <g>rab it and move it around, <r>otate it, and <s >cale it. (These commands are frequently used across Blender. You can rotate line graphs of animations.)

You can then either move your mouse around or enter a number. {<r> <66.666666667> <enter>} rotates the cube by roughly two thirds of a right angle, based on your current view.

You may modify this with an axis: <x>, <y>, or <z>. {<g> <z> <-2> <enter>} moves the cube down by two units.

Doubling up on x, y, or z will manipulate it by local (something), instead of global. It's easiest to demonstrate. Make sure the cube's selected, and watch what happens at each step: {<s > <z> <1.5> <enter>}. {<r> <45> <enter>}. {<s > <zz> <2> <enter>}. {<s > <z> <5> <enter>}. This is somewhat more useful during animation, say, moving a forearm the same way regardless of how the elbow is positioned ((Yes, "<s >" is intentional. The forum doesn't like it without the space.))

You can further use the shift key as a modifier, to manipulate everything except that axis: {<s > <shift+z>} will scale the object along only the x and y axes.




If you'd rather use the GUI for grab/rotate scale, I have circled the buttons swap between them. Cycle through them and watch the red/green/blue buttons on the cube change. Left clicking those will use them.

These work just as well for verts as they do for entire objects.


Enter edit mode, either with <tab>, or with the button I enclosed in parenthesis in the above picture.

<a> selects or deselects everything. Use it to make sure you're only manipulating what you want.
<b > lets you box select. This will only select currently visible verts.
<z> toggles wireframe and solid view.


This title promised the knowledge to create a box person, which we can't do now that the cube is vandalized. When you're done doing strange things to the former cube, delete it with the delete key (the one above the arrow keys, not backspace).



Use the create tab to create a new cube.

Shift-D will duplicate it, and put you instantly into grab mode. Move the new cube about 4 units along the x or y axis. Duplicate both boxes, and shift them up the z axis.



Progress!

Now make something roughly resembling a person. Remember to include two arms, two legs, and a head. Bonus: Use an ico sphere or UV Sphere for the head.



Perfect. Save it; we'll use these for animation later.


Now close and re-start Blender. It's time to start a new project and learn about extrusion.

Enter edit mode with <tab>. Select a face, either by selecting four verts or entering face selection mode and right clicking a face.



These are the buttons for very/edge/face selection mode. If there's a shortcut key, I don't know it.

<E>xtrude once a face is selected. (Verts and edges may be extruded as well.) The new face can be moved just like grab mode, with one useful difference: Newly extruded faces will default to moving towards the original facing.



I don't know what I just made, but it took less than a minute. Yay for extrusion!



Watch yourself. If you cancel an extrusion, the new faces/edges/verts still exist. Not only does this waste polys, making the model less efficient, but it'll look like the protrusion on the left in the above picture.



Use the "remove doubles" button on the tools tab to clear that right up.



Now use extrusion to turn a cube into a letter. Grab and Ctrl-z might help.

Your goal is now to post letters and boxmen. No real need to be fancy. I'm more looking to see if anybody actually cares than for artistic appeal.

Next week: A few more mesh editing commands and then we'll make weapons.

[Parsely]

Never heard of this. PTW.

[Lightningfalcon]

Now if only the weekend can come so I can finally get Blender installed.  This looks very useful so far. 

[GreatWyrmGold]

Interesting. Would I be correct in guessing that Blender is a basic 3D modeling program? Or that its models can be used in other types of programs?

[TamerVirus]

Um. Is blender in any way similar to 3dsmax?

[Hugehead]

Interesting. Would I be correct in guessing that Blender is a basic 3D modeling program? Or that its models can be used in other types of programs?

You're wrong in the guess that it's a basic 3D modeling program, it's feature set is very close to Maya's. And yes, it's models can be exported.