Blender course

This is the documentation for a “blender beginners course”, that was tought by videoconference to participants from Germany, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Lithuania.
Sunday 24.1.2021 18:00-21:00h

Sunday 31.1.2021 18:00-21:00h

Sunday 07.2.2021 18:00-21:00h

Sunday 14.2.2021 18:00-21:00h

Motivation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blender_Foundation

Blender Open Movies:

Netflix:

Features

Blender is a polygonal modeler and much more.
“Swiss Army-Knife of multimedia”
Blender is a team with Gimp, Inkscape and Krita
With blender you can do:

top blender artists
Blender Guru
Daniel Bystedt
Ian Hubert
Raf Grassetti

Blender cloud
blender cummunity
rightclickselect

Tutorials

Blender Guru
Blendercookie

Uses

Content Creation for Games, VR
Correction of Models for 3D printing
Building stuff for 3D-printing
Architecture Visualization
Forensic reconstruction
Realtime rendering

Addons/Extensions

Make human
InteriorDesign

3D models

Blendswap
Thingiverse

getting blender

blender.org
graphicall
Building blender
Blender demo files

Blender Basics 1

Blender has a few features that are slightly different from most other programs, but you will soon learn to use and love them.

Blender reacts differently to shortcuts depending on where your mouse-cursor is positioned at the moment of execution of the Shortcut. If you execute a shortcut with your mouse in the “Buttons-Window”, it will react differently than with your mouse in the “3D-View-Window”. It also makes a difference if you are in “Object-Mode” or “Edit-Mode”. Whenever a shortcut is not doing what you expect, double-check if your mouse is in the right window and mode!

Blender is extremely fast if you use shortcuts. They work a bit different than in other programs, because in addition to shortcuts where you press a bunch of keys at the same time (for example File → Save: Ctrl+ S) you can use shortcuts sequencially (e.g. “Scale in local z-direction by 2”: S ZZ 2 Enter).

You will need a mouse for working properly with blender!
Get a standard three-button-mouse! Apple Magic-Mouse not recommended. “Space-mouse” works!

Many shortcuts make a little pop-up window appear at your mouse-position. Don’t move your mouse too much, if not the pop-up will dissapear. (e.g. CMD+N asks for confirmation to reload startup file).

blender preferences

Edit → Preferences → Input → Emulate Numpad (if you use a keyboard without Numpad)
Edit → Preferences → Navigation → Zoom to Mouse
Edit → Preferences → Keymap → frame selected

Zoom: rotate mousewheel
Orbit: press mousewheel and move mouse
Pan: press + mousewheel and move mouse

Windows (split, change…):
Move mouse on the edge between windows until it changes to a cross:

drag down/sideway to split the window
drag between two windows to join them (or rightclick → join areas)
rightclick on header to remove header or flip to bottom/top

LMB drag corner → separate window
Strg LMB drag → swap window

Ctrl + page ⇧/page ⇩ cycle workspaces

Strg + Space maximise area (pay attention to which area your cursor is in!)

Importance of Mouse Position!

Change views with View → Viewpoint → Top/Front/Right,
or quicker with shortcuts:

1 Front View
3 Right View
7 Top View
5 Toggle Perspective/Orthographic
0 Camera View

camera, light

+ rightclick to move 3D-Cursor

+ S Cursor to origin

delete cube: Delete/X

+ A Add Mesh monkey

rightclick on selected object → shade smooth/flat
object data properties → Normals → autosmooth

make a tower with Cube cylinder, cone, torus, uv-sphere

Z wireframe/solid

G Grab
R Rotate
S Scale

After entering in one of the transformations (G/R/S) you can use the X, Y, and Z keys to limit the transform in one of the global directions.
Hitting X, Y, or Z twice will transform in local coordinates.

You can also enter numerical values during the transformation. Don’t forget to hit ENTER once you are finished.
(e.g. Scale by 2.5 in local Z-Direction: S, Z, Z, 2, ., 5, ENTER)

value input

Toggle Edit-Mode/Object-Mode

In edit-mode you can switch between Vertex/Edge/Face Select with the buttons on top:

Select a face and extrude: E Extrude

If you want to make a hole in a face, you hit E, Rightclick or Esc to Chancel
(There will be an invisible “double” face)
Scale it down with S
and extrude inwards with E

You can extrude Vertices → Edge(s),
Edge(s) → Face(s),
and Face(s) → Volume(s)

If you select 3 or more Vertices, you can create a new face: F Make Face

If you apply a “Subdivision Surface” modifier, everythings gets smoothed out:

Blender Basics 2

N opens/collapses the “Numeric Panel”
T opens/collapses the “Tool Panel”

W to cycle selection mode
explanation why to prefer G to tweak

Example “Gingerbreadman”

Here are some more frequently used shortcuts:
Ctrl + R Cut Face Loop
K Knife Cut

x or BackspaceDelete
H Hide
Alt + H Unhide
B Border Select
C Circle select (try rotating the mouse wheel once you see the circle)
Ctrl+Right mouse button Area select

O Toggle Proportional Edit (try rotating the mouse wheel once you see the circle)

If you Alt rightclick on an edge/face, it will select the edge-/face-loop.

Example Hand:


Edge → Subdivide
Face → Extrude individual face
Transform Pivot Point Individual origins:

Example chair:

Change object size in Transform panel
S , + Z, scale in all directions but Z
numerically positioning the 3D cursor
Object origin (moving in object mode vs edit mode)
example table legs
position leg with 3D Cursor
Position legs with snap Shift + Unhide
change length with object origin changed
change length with transformation center 3d cursor
make table in 2 ways: objects / extrude
separate backrest
+ for expanding selection
separate loose
x dissolve edges
extrude arc
transformation center
remove doubles (Mesh → merge → by distance)
orbit center

Shift + S Cursor to Selected

Select → Select All by Trait → Non Manifold, will highlight vertices where the volume is “open”

P separate selection, will make a separate part from the selected/loose vertices.
F3 menu, allows you to search for commands by name
#/^ toggle local view
A Select All
Alt+A / AA Deselect Everything
Ctrl + J Join Meshes

Saving, in the save menue you can you the +-key to increment a number in the filename.
In the Modifier Properties you can find the Boolean-Modifier that allows you to add/substract/intersect models.

Example 3D Scan:

Example Suzanne:


select by type → non manifold
L Select linked
Fix it?
Symmetry Modifier?
Apply Modifier

Alt+S Scale Along Normals (shrinking or fattening the mesh)
Select → Select all by trait → Non manifold
Soft selection

Multires Modifier

Scult Mode
F Change brush size
+ F Change Strength
Rightclick

Blender Basics 3

Suzanne
Change camera angle
Ctrl + Alt + 0 Move camera to current view
N → View → View lock → Camera to View

Edit camera

Apply Material

Change diffuse color

Change Viewport shading

Render engines

Output Properties

change to spotlight
Three point lighting

Shader Editor

Environment Texture

hdrihaven

Animation

Particles
Modfifiers
demo files
Fluid Simulation
Ocean Modifier
Smoke/Fire Simulation

Blender Basics 4

Questions from last class

  • How to show the local coordinates of camera?
    Object Properties → Viewport Display → Axis

  • How to render transparent pngs?
    Go to “Render Settings → Film → check Transparent”

  • How to render “shadows only” in Cycles?
    Go to “Object Properties” of the object the shadow is cast upon.
    Check “Shadow catcher”:

In Eevee there is no Shadow catcher, but you can [https://artisticrender.com/how-to-create-a-shadow-catcher-with-eevee-in-blender/](build one with nodes).

  • How to show normals In “Edit Mode” go to “Overlays” → “Normals” and check Vertex, Vertex per face or face normals.

  • How to recalculate/flip normals?
    In “Edit Mode” go to Mesh → Normals → Flip/Recalculate outside

UV-texturing

Cube unwrap
Ctrl + E Mark Seam
Suzanne
blenderman
Texture paint
Papermodel plugin: https://github.com/addam/Export-Paper-Model-from-Blender

“packing” blend files
appending files
rendering with transparent background
shadows only

Ctrl + E Mark seam
U Unwrap

Fluid simulation

Ctrl + N New File → General
Go to Physics Properties and select Fluid:

With the cube selected, choose “domain”

Choose “domain type” liquid:

On the very bottom choose “Format Volumes” OpenVDB → Uni Cache:

Add an Icosphere: Shift + A Mesh → Ico Sphere
Scale it down by 0.3 and move it up a bit:
S 0.3 Enter
G Z 0.5

With the sphere selected go to fluids again:

This time select flow instead of domain:

In flow type select “liquid”:

Select the cube and switch back to OpenVDB:

Go to the beginning:

Hit the Spacebar or the play icon:

For the domain select Mesh and play from the beginning:

Hide the Icosphere H
Deselect “Liquid”.

You should be seeing something like this:

If you want (and if you have a good computer) increase the resolution:

Smoke simulation

Go to “Object → Quick Effects → Quick Smoke”