Sunday 27 September 2009

Blender Basics 1

While I have used Blender before it has been a while (Back in the days of version 2.3 I believe). Back then I only had a computer powerful enough to do the simplest Tutorials ( anything more complicated slowed the system to a crawl or crashed it) so coming back to these tutorials is familiar territory!

Alas I forgot initially that Blender has an interface that relies a lot more on keyboard shortcuts, a callback to how 3D software used to look up till a few years ago. Compared with the newer Maya interface it can look a bit daunting. Though once you note the keys down its certainly easier to use than Maya in some cases still.


Initially I forgot Blender doesn't actually default to front view so I initially modelled the house on it's side! I Redid it after that little faux pas

With objects it's important to use Ctrl when moving to make shapes match I find, also Ctrl-Z undoes any mistakes (and pressing escape when editing an object cancels the action). Good shortcuts to know in case something goes wrong ( shame Blenders undo function isn't exactly clearly marked out anywhere)

The castle came together much easier, I duplicated the square to a 3x3 size, added 4 towers and made one roof and duplicated the other 3. I also added 3 lamps to improve the lighting in the render as well as moving the camera.

Incidentally F3 saves a JPEG shot of the render which the tutorial doesn't mention. Neat eh?

So far so good, now to move onto the next tutorials!

Monday 21 September 2009

Just Initial introduction - what I've done previous

I'm Rebecca, I'm a bit of a cartoon fan, hopeful potential animator and general artist.

3D I'm not really big on at the moment: I have dabbled in the past and over the summer I have been trying to work on Maya. Thought I'ld post previous experience before starting on the tutorials. As I may also add posts on Maya as I go along to chart my progress. (Maya is needed for Matchmoving this term also)


First tutorial for Maya: This was rather as I had done this sort of inital design in Blender once before.


Second Tutorial on Maya's documentation is much more tricky. I understand how to work with polygons but stuck at a roadblock currently because the edges between the head and mouth-piece wont bridge.Has admittedly been a bit of a de-motivator for progress with Maya.

The Blender tutorials seem to be at a slightly lower level: looking forward to them!