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- Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Sprache: Englisch
Blender is a powerful 3D creation package that supports every aspect of the 3D pipeline. With this book, you'll learn about modeling, rigging, animation, rendering, and much more with the help of some interesting projects. This practical guide, based on the Blender 2.83 LTS version, starts by helping you brush up on your basic Blender skills and getting you acquainted with the software toolset. You’ll use basic modeling tools to understand the simplest 3D workflow by customizing a Viking themed scene. You'll get a chance to see the 3D modeling process from start to finish by building a time machine based on provided concept art. You will design your first 2D character while exploring the capabilities of the new Grease Pencil tools. The book then guides you in creating a sleek modern kitchen scene using EEVEE, Blender’s new state-of-the-art rendering engine. As you advance, you'll explore a variety of 3D design techniques, such as sculpting, retopologizing, unwrapping, baking, painting, rigging, and animating to bring a baby dragon to life. By the end of this book, you'll have learned how to work with Blender to create impressive computer graphics, art, design, and architecture, and you'll be able to use robust Blender tools for your design projects and video games.
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Blender 3D By Example Second Edition
Copyright © 2020 Packt Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.
Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the authors, nor Packt Publishing or its dealers and distributors, will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to have been caused directly or indirectly by this book.
Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.
Commissioning Editor:Kunal ChaudhariAcquisition Editor:Ashitosh GuptaContent Development Editor: Akhil NairSenior Editor: Hayden EdwardsTechnical Editor: Shubham SharmaCopy Editor: Safis EditingProject Coordinator:Kinjal BariProofreader: Safis EditingIndexer:Manju ArasanProduction Designer: Alishon Mendonsa
First published: September 2015 Second edition: May 2020
Production reference: 1280520
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd. Livery Place 35 Livery Street Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.
ISBN 978-1-78961-256-1
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Contributors
About the authors
Oscar Baechler is a CG generalist, professor, painter, photographer, open source advocate, and community organizer who teaches at Lake Washington Institute of Technology. He's published a number of mobile games with a Blender pipeline and created animation for clients both big and small. Oscar runs the Seattle Blender User Group and Ballard Life Drawing Co-op and has presented on CGI at SIGGRAPH, LinuxFest Northwest, the Blender Conference, OSCON, Usenix LISA, SeaGL, SIX, WACC, and others.
Xury Greer has been involved in digital media production for over 15 years. He got his start as an indy film director, participating in 48-hour film competitions, and creating training videos for businesses in the Greater Seattle Area. Xury earned his bachelor's degree in game design at Lake Washington Institute of Technology and graduated with the highest honors. Xury specializes in 3D characters and technical art, and he loves to share his knowledge. He has taught courses for Mount Si High School, Washington Network for Innovative Careers, DigiPen, and LWTech.
About the reviewers
Henk Kok is an experienced 3D generalist with over a decade of experience working on games, television series, and feature films. He values thriving cooperation with those around him. In 2019 he worked as the 3D animation supervisor for the groundbreaking Amazon Prime series Undone.
Fernando Castilhos Melo lives in Toronto, Canada, and works as a software engineer. He holds a degree in computer science. In his spare time, he works on 3D modeling using Blender and has done so since 2009. He has given some lectures about Blender and 3D modeling at some open source software events and reviewed several Blender books. He also developed an integration between Blender and Kinect to create 3D animation using body movements.
Packt is searching for authors like you
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright and Credits
Blender 3D By Example Second Edition
About Packt
Why subscribe?
Contributors
About the authors
About the reviewers
Packt is searching for authors like you
Preface
Who this book is for
What this book covers
To get the most out of this book
Download the example code files
Download the color images
Conventions used
Get in touch
Reviews
Introduction to 3D and the Blender User Interface
Overview of the 3D workflow
The 3D coordinate system
3D objects
Components of a mesh
Materials and textures
Perspective view versus Orthographic view
Blender's user interface
A brief history of Blender's user interface
Blender 2.8's user interface
Basic 3D navigation controls
A brief introduction to the projects in this book
Setting up the source files
Summary
Editing a Viking Scene with a Basic 3D Workflow
Setting up the source files
Using the Outliner to organize a scene
Navigating the 3D Viewport
Using the Toolbar
Basic transformations in Object Mode
Editing the Viking helmet
Preparing to work on the helmet
Making changes to components in Edit Mode
Adding the nose guard
Adding the horns
Adding the studs
Returning to Object Mode to finish
Rendering the final image
Summary
Modeling a Time Machine - Part 1
Using transformation hotkeys
Setting up the reference images for the time machine
Box modeling the main section of the chair
Destructive editing versus non-destructive editing
Modeling the cushions of the chair
Modeling the sci-fi rings with modifiers
Modeling the armrests
Summary
Questions
Modeling a Time Machine - Part 2
Modeling the base of the time machine
Modeling the clock
Modeling the side rails
Modeling the rear assembly
Modeling the front housing
Adding smooth shading to the model
Summary
Questions
Modern Kitchen - Part 1: Kitbashing
Setting up the source files
Previsualizing the kitchen layout
Creating a floor plan
Creating previz objects
Laying out the kitchen composition
Creating tables with box modeling
Appending or linking the tables to the scene
Creating chairs with modifiers and curves
Chair 1 – a wooden slat deck chair
Chair 2 – a perforated plastic bar stool
Chair 3 – cushioned coffee table chairs
Chair 4 – a plastic chair with air slits
Chair 5 – wooden layers with Booleans
Appending, linking, and instancing the chairs
Creating cabinets, islands, and a stove with add-ons
Enabling our add-ons
An Archimesh kitchen island
Boolean modeling a sink with Bool Tool
Doors and windows with Archipack
Adding other decorations with Extra Objects
Linking in canned assets
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Modern Kitchen - Part 2: Materials and Textures
Simple materials and the nodal workflow
Navigating nodes with a test material
The Principled BSDF material
Simple metals
Simple non-metals
Wood
Tiled backsplash
Granite counters
Plant alpha cards
Wall art texture atlas
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Modern Kitchen - Part 3: Lighting and Rendering
Preparing the scene
Daylight rendering
Preliminary lighting with a sun object
World lighting
Indirect lighting
Irradiance volume
Addressing artifacts
Reflection probes
Using filters and postprocessing
Screen space reflections 
Bloom
Ambient occlusion
Color management
Camera settings
Rendering with indoor lighting
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Illustrating an Alien Hero with Grease Pencil
Playing with Grease Pencil objects
Setting up a tablet and stylus
Annotating with Grease Pencil
Testing in the default Grease Pencil scene
The Edit and Sculpt modes
Adjusting the brush tool for calligraphy
Customizing Grease Pencil materials
Stippling over a photo with a dots material
Roughing in a character
Thumbnailing with layers and keyframes
Sketching rounded forms in Pencil
Construction drawing
Inking the alien hero
The starting ink
Adding color with the fills pipeline
Silhouette and local color
The background
Lighting and texture
Summary 
Questions
Further reading
Animating an Exquisite Corpse in Grease Pencil
Animating a bouncing ball
Pose to pose beginnings
Arcs, timing, and squash and stretch
Adding a visual style
Adding an ease-in, ease-out anticipation starting take
Reusing and reworking frames with Multiframe
Blinking Blender eyes
Reusing frames for the Blender blinking animation
A field of eyeballs
Returning to the start frame
Building a zooming fight scene
The lines layer
The fighters
Adding color
Bringing it all together
Rendering to external files
Editing the scenes together
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Animating a Stylish Short with Grease Pencil
Getting started
Preproduction
Navigating this chapter's files
The walk cycle
The pencil test
The head and pelvis
Footfalls
Finalizing the walk cycle with loop and pizzazz
The background
The city skyline
The theater and usher
Animating the usher's take
The theater approach
The first take
The money exchange
Setting up the scene
Animating the characters
The theater, crying, and triumph
Reusing the walk with the concession stand
The popcorn
The change of heart
The ending
Entering the theater
Animating the girl's eating and the popcorn's death
End credits
Rendering the finished animation
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Creating a Baby Dragon - Part 1: Sculpting
The sculpting UI preset
Viewport shading and MatCaps
Low poly versus high poly
Overview of the sculpting brushes
The Draw brush
Smooth, Slide Relax, and Simplify brushes
The Clay and Clay strips brushes
The Snake Hook, Grab, and Elastic Deform brushes
Mask brushes
The Inflate and Blob brushes
The Crease and Pinch brushes
The Scrape and Flatten brushes
The Nudge and Thumb brushes
The Layer brush
The Rotate and IK Pose brushes
Utility brushes
Creating the starting point of the baby dragon with speed-sculpting
Approach 1: Dynamic topology – head, jaw, and horns
Approach 2: Skin modifier – wings, arms, and legs
Approach 3: Metaballs – torso and tail
Approach 4: Meshes – eyes, teeth, claws, and horns
Brute-force sculpting
Sculpting intermediate details
Chiseling with the Scrape, Pinch, and Smooth brushes
Bulging seams
Overlapping muscles via masking
Sculpting the fine details
Stenciling in scales
Stamping ridges along the wing and spine
Refining the details
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Creating a Baby Dragon - Part 2: Retopology
What is topology?
What are the rules of good topology?
Polygon density
Edge loops
Face loops
Poles
Setting up Blender for the retopology workflow
Downloading the source files
Linking the sculpture to a new scene
Setting up viewport shading
Setting up the snap settings
Setting up the retopology object
Subdivision-shrinkwrap method (optional)
Enabling add-ons
Retopologizing the baby dragon
Method 1 – the Poly Build tool
Method 2 – Manual extrusion and F2
Method 3 – Shrinkwrap
Method 4 – Bsurfaces
Method 5 – QuadriFlow remeshing
Finishing up
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Creating a Baby Dragon - Part 3: UV Unwrapping
What are UVs?
Setting up Blender for the UV unwrapping workflow
Downloading the source files
Setting up the interface
Setting up the preview checker pattern
Marking the seams and UV unwrapping
Marking the first seams
Visualizing the distortion
Fixing texel density issues
Laying out the baby dragon's UVs
Summary
Questions
Creating a Baby Dragon - Part 4: Baking and Painting Textures
Technical requirements
Getting set up for texture baking
Preparing the scene for baking
Material baking setup
Baking texture maps from high poly to low poly
Your first bake – AO
Normals 
Cavity and displacement
Convexity
Subsurface
Top lighting, soft lighting, and facing maps
Texture painting the base color in Blender
Painting the base color
Creating stencils in the image editor
Normal maps and sculpting with a bump map
Using external programs for image editing
Setting up an external program
Image edit projection painting
Setting up the remaining BSDF textures
Making specular and roughness maps from a master file
Subsurface scattering
Rune magic with object projection
Painting the eye
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Creating a Baby Dragon - Part 5: Rigging and Animation
What is a rig?
Armatures and bones in Edit Mode
Practicing with a simple tentacle rig
Setting up the tentacle rig's controls
Finishing the tentacle rig
Using the Rigify add-on to rig the baby dragon
Setting up the baby dragon's meta-rig
Creating and modifying the Rigify rig
Modifying the armature weights
Parenting (everything) with automatic weights
Parenting to bones (eyes and stencil)
Assigning weights manually (to the horns, claws, and teeth)
Weighting the animation
Painting weights
Animating a flying cycle
Understanding the rig controls
Blocking in keyframes
Summary
Questions
Further reading
The Wide World of Blender
Blender skills to learn next
Photogrammetry
Physics 
Volumetrics
Hair and fur
Recording a macro in Python
The Blender community
The Blender Foundation and Blender Institute
Blender user groups
Online Blender communities
Summary
Questions
Other Books You May Enjoy
Leave a review - let other readers know what you think
Preface
What is Blender? In a nutshell, it's a free, open source 3D modeling suite. But it's also a 3D and 2D animation program. But wait! It's also a video editor. And a Python programming IDE. And a sculpting interface, a compositor, a motion tracker, and so much more. A nutshell is insufficient; Blender needs more of a watermelon to cover all its features.
I remember my first experience with Blender. After years with the commercial program Maya, I was skeptical of how free software could compare, and learning 3D programs is rarely forgiving to newcomers. But every day I used Blender, I would discover an awesome killer feature Blender had that expensive commercial 3D animation software didn't. Then a new update for Blender would launch, and the new features and workflows would leave me floored again.
Over the years, I've met so many Blender users who retell this story in their own words. The conclusion is generally the same: we can't believe how lucky we are that such phenomenal software exists, free for everyone, and supported by a robust open source community. The energy is infectious, and long-time Blender users talk about this magic piece of software with a passion usually reserved for wedding speeches.
We look forward to introducing you to Blender in this book. The chapters we've put together will help Blender beginners leap over the initial stumbling blocks of Blender's tools and interface. They'll also challenge your artistic and technical skills with advanced workflows to bring your imagination to life.
Who this book is for
This book assumes that you have a decent familiarity with computers. You should have some rudimentary skills at using a mouse and keyboard, navigating the internet, and know your way around your computer's operating system. You'll also need some grasp of your hardware. Tools such as a keyboard with a number pad, a mouse with three buttons, and a powerful CPU and GPU are helpful, but you can make some decent Blender projects using even a bare bones netbook.
Maybe you have some knowledge of other 3D programs, such as ZBrush, Maya, Cinema4D, or SketchUp. Maybe you're looking to learn Blender because the price tag appeals, the newest features blow you away, or a professional client wants you working with their Blender-centric pipeline. You'll find many concepts that have equivalencies to those programs. You can gloss over the explanations of 3D vocabulary, such as polygons, normals, and rigs, and instead jump right into Blender's tools and workflows.
For those of you who enjoy gaming, that experience will also pay off when learning Blender. Just like many AAA games, Blender's interface is heavily based on keyboard shortcuts, and navigating the 3D viewport is similar to moving the view around in games. Additionally, Blender is an excellent choice for any gamers looking to create content for their favorite game's custom mod community.
If you're more inclined toward coding, you might have experience with a game engine, such as Unity, Unreal, or Godot. This book will serve as an excellent expansion to your technical skills, showing you how to make 3D content to add to games. This book will also give you a foundation in understanding how these 3D components work, which will come in handy if you ever build out your own 3D tools.
Artists of every stripe can find their new favorite tool in Blender. Blender's 2D animation tools are perfect for artists who love drawing, anime, and experimental media. Especially when combined with Blender's native 3D interface, plus a drawing tablet, Blender has everything you need for both 3D and hand-drawn cartoons.
Whether you're completely new to Blender, or a 3D animation veteran enticed by Blender's newest features, this book will have something for you.
What this book covers
Chapter 1, Introduction to 3D and the Blender User Interface, explains the basics of Blender's interface, tools, and workflow conventions.
Chapter 2, Editing a Viking Scene with a Basic 3D Workflow, will take a look at a 3D scene and let us get used to navigating and transforming objects.
Chapter 3, Modeling a Time Machine – Part 1, is the beginning of a two-part project in which we will model an object based on provided reference images. We will cover many of the essential modeling tools needed for creating 3D objects.
Chapter 4, Modeling a Time Machine – Part 2, is the second half of the time machine project. We will build on our modeling knowledge and discover non-destructive workflows.
Chapter 5, Modern Kitchen – Part 1: Kitbashing, will show how to plan a complete scene and model the necessary assets to complete a kitchen layout.
Chapter 6, Modern Kitchen – Part 2: Materials and Textures, is a deep dive into material nodes and explains how to create all kinds of materials to decorate our kitchen with.
Chapter 7, Modern Kitchen – Part 3: Lighting and Rendering, is the final chapter in the kitchen series. We will produce a final rendered image complete with lighting and post-processing effects.
Chapter 8, Illustrating an Alien Hero with Grease Pencil, is the first of our three chapters that dives into the brand new feature set known as Grease Pencil. We will learn about character concept art workflows and how to use the basics of Grease Pencil.
Chapter 9, Animating an Exquisite Corpse in Grease Pencil, builds on the previous chapter's workflows and dives into animation and key frames with a loose and fun animation style.
Chapter 10, Animating a Stylish Short with Grease Pencil, wraps up the Grease Pencil projects in this book. We will cover more advanced workflows and explain how to animate something with more structure than the previous chapter.
Chapter 11, Creating a Baby Dragon – Part 1: Sculpting, is the beginning of the biggest project in this book. We'll start with an introduction to sculpting. We'll see an overview of the brushes and learn how to create our very own baby dragon design, which we will take all the way to a game-ready asset by the final chapter.
Chapter 12, Creating a Baby Dragon – Part 2: Retopology, is a shift into the more technical side of 3D character creation. We'll learn about shrink-wrapping, surface snapping, and rules of topology to transform the sculpted baby dragon into a low-poly mesh that can be used in a production pipeline.
Chapter 13, Creating a Baby Dragon – Part 3: UV Unwrapping, is where we'll prepare the model for texture painting. We'll learn how to cut seams, unwrap UVs, lay out islands, and use checker patterns to check for distortion.
Chapter 14, Creating a Baby Dragon – Part 4: Baking and Painting Textures, gets back to the artistic side of things. We'll start by baking texture maps that can be used as masks in our texture painting workflow. We'll use Blender's built-in texture painting tools, and we'll add some color and surface detail to the baby dragon.
Chapter 15, Creating a Baby Dragon – Part 5: Rigging and Animation, is the final baby dragon chapter. We'll get to see all of our hard work pay off and rig the dragon so that it can be posed and animated. To wrap it up, we'll animate a fly cycle so that we can see the character in action.
Chapter 16, The Wide World of Blender, shows off some of the areas that this book couldn't cover in detail. Even a book this size can barely scratch the surface of what a 3D suite such as Blender can do, but we'll have a look at some inspiring extra features before we're done.
To get the most out of this book
You will need an internet connection to download the latest version of Blender and the source files for this project (an internet connection is not required after downloading the software and the files).
Blender can be downloaded from https://www.blender.org/download and requires about 400 MB of storage space to install. The project files in this book are approximately 2.65 GB all together (you do not need to download them all at once). There are some projects that require additional software for digital painting / image editing such as Krita, GIMP, Affinity Photo, or Photoshop. We recommend Krita because it's free and open source, just like Blender! It can be downloaded from https://krita.org/en/download/krita-desktop/. The download for Krita is approximately 100 MB. It's a good idea to have at least 4 GB of additional free storage so that you can create your own 3D sculptures and texture files for the projects. In total, about 7 GB of space will be enough for everything covered in this book.
The version of Blender used in this book requires a computer that supports OpenGL 3.3. You can find the official hardware requirements on the Blender website here: https://www.blender.org/download/requirements/ This book has been tested for the Blender 2.8 series of releases. The upcoming 2.9 and 3.0 series of releases may have different hardware requirements.
Blender works best on a computer that has a numpad because the camera navigation hotkeys are bound the numpad keys. This book uses an alternative method to teach these controls since many laptops do not have a numpad, so it is not absolutely required.
A drawing tablet with pressure sensitivity is highly recommended for the Grease Pencil projects as well as the sculpting and texturing chapters in the Baby Dragon project. There are affordable options available from http://www.huion.com/, premium options on offer from https://www.wacom.com/, or if you have a computer with a built-in stylus such as a Microsoft Surface that will work nicely as well. It is possible to complete these chapters using a mouse, but it is not recommended.
Software/Hardware covered in the book
OS requirements
Blender 2.83
Windows 10, 8.1, and 7
macOS 10.12+
Linux
Krita 4.2.9
Windows 8.1 or higher,
OSX 10.12,
Linux
Blender and Krita are open source and receive updates several times a year. There may be new versions available if you're picking up this book even a few months after it's published, but don't worry. The projects in this book should still be compatible.
Download the example code files
You can download the example code files for this book from your account at www.packt.com. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit www.packtpub.com/support and register to have the files emailed directly to you.
You can download the code files by following these steps:
Log in or register at
www.packt.com
.
Select the
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tab.
Click on
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Enter the name of the book in the
Search
box and follow the onscreen instructions.
Once the file is downloaded, please make sure that you unzip or extract the folder using the latest version of:
WinRAR/7-Zip for Windows
Zipeg/iZip/UnRarX for Mac
7-Zip/PeaZip for Linux
The project files for the book are also hosted on GitHub athttps://github.com/PacktPublishing/Blender-3D-By-Example-Second-Edition. In case there's an update to the project files, it will be updated on the existing GitHub repository.
We also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books and videos available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/. Check them out!
Download the color images
We also provide a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots/diagrams used in this book. You can download it here: https://static.packt-cdn.com/downloads/9781789612561_ColorImages.pdf.
Conventions used
There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.
CodeInText: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: "Rename it Top."
Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. For example, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in the text like this. Here is an example: "Choose Delete | Faces."
Get in touch
Feedback from our readers is always welcome.
General feedback: If you have questions about any aspect of this book, mention the book title in the subject of your message and email us at [email protected].
Errata: Although we have taken every care to ensure the accuracy of our content, mistakes do happen. If you have found a mistake in this book, we would be grateful if you would report this to us. Please visit www.packtpub.com/support/errata, selecting your book, clicking on the Errata Submission Form link, and entering the details.
Piracy: If you come across any illegal copies of our works in any form on the Internet, we would be grateful if you would provide us with the location address or website name. Please contact us at [email protected] with a link to the material.
If you are interested in becoming an author: If there is a topic that you have expertise in and you are interested in either writing or contributing to a book, please visit authors.packtpub.com.
Reviews
Please leave a review. Once you have read and used this book, why not leave a review on the site that you purchased it from? Potential readers can then see and use your unbiased opinion to make purchase decisions, we at Packt can understand what you think about our products, and our authors can see your feedback on their book. Thank you!
For more information about Packt, please visit packt.com.
Introduction to 3D and the Blender User Interface
Welcome to the wonderful world of 3D graphics! This section of this book will help you jump-start your knowledge with some terminology and the basics of working in 3D. We'll keep this brief and try to get through the boring stuff as quickly as possible so you can get right into creating amazing 3D projects in Blender 2.8!
First, we will take a look at the fundamentals of a 3D scene. We will learn how the 3D coordinate system uses three dimensional axes, as well as how 3D objects are manipulated with transformations. We will answer some basic questions, such as: what are objects? What are polygons? What is topology? What are materials and textures? What is the difference between Perspective and Orthographic views? The answers to these questions are key to working with any 3D software.
After we've provided you with some general 3D knowledge, we will learn about the specifics of Blender. We will cover how to install the software, as well as how to download the source files for this book. We will take a look at Blender 2.8's user interface. Then, we will learn about the basic 3D navigation controls, which include Rotate, Zoom, and Pan. We will also learn how to use Blender's hotkeys effectively. At the end of this chapter, we will provide an overview of the projects in this book.
We will cover the following topics in this chapter:
Overview of the 3D workflow
Blender 2.8's user interface
Basic 3D navigation controls
A brief introduction to the projects in this book
Overview of the 3D workflow
If this is your first time working with 3D software, you'll find the explanations in this section very helpful. However, if you are already familiar with 3D terminology and the composition of a 3D scene, then you may want to skip ahead to the next section of this chapter.
Some of the vocabulary terms you're about to learn might sound overwhelming at first, but don't worry – you don't have to be good at math just because we use words such as "geometry" to describe our 3D models. Luckily for us, the software does all of the complex math for us, and we get to sit back and create art without having to worry about it – hooray!
The 3D coordinate system
All 3D software uses the Cartesian coordinates system, which is made up of three-dimensional axes: the X-Axis (red), the Y-Axis (green), and the Z-Axis (blue). The exact unit size of this coordinate system is arbitrary and varies from one software package to another, but many packages set one unit on the grid to be equal to 1 meter in the real world:
With these three axes, we can define where an object is in a 3D space using transforms. There are three types of transforms:
Location
: (sometimes called
translation
) This determines the position of an object.
Rotation
: This determines the orientation of an object.
Scale
: This determines the size of an object.
Now that we understand the coordinate system, let's look at the 3D objects that will appear in the scene.
3D objects
An object is something that appears in a 3D scene. All objects have transforms that define their location, rotation, and scale in a 3D space. You will find several types of objects in a 3D scene:
Mesh
: A mesh is the most common type of object in 3D; nearly everything we make is a mesh. Meshes are 3D objects that are made up of components (sometimes referred to as the geometry of the mesh). These components are used to form geometric polygons. Polygons are the multi-sided shapes that form the visible surface of a model. Creating 3D models with this approach is called polygonal modeling.
Empty
: An
empty is
an object that doesn't have any components attached to it. Some software packages call these
null objects or locators. Th
ese are useful in advanced workflows for defining and keeping track of an exact spot in a 3D space. Since an empty has transforms, it will be present in the 3D scene just like all other objects, but because it has no components, it will not be visible in the final result.
Light
: A light is a type of object that casts light onto the scene. Just like in the real world, you can't see without a light source. If a 3D scene had no light source, you would just see black. Most 3D software includes a light source in the scene by default so that you can see what you're doing. Often, these default lights are a type of environmental light or ambient light source that illuminates the scene without necessarily coming from a particular point in the scene.
Camera
: A camera is a tool that's used to create the final image from our 3D scene. We can use a 3D camera the same way we would use a camera in real life: position it, aim it at the subject, and take a picture. The picture we take with a 3D camera is called a render. Rendering creates a high-quality
image
of the scene. High-quality renders take much longer to process than the normal Viewport preview of the scene, so we don't usually render until we are finished creating the scene.
Now that we know what an object is, let's take a closer look at the most important type of object: a mesh. We need to understand how the components of a mesh come together to create a 3D model.
Components of a mesh
There are three basic components that we use in polygonal modeling:
Vertices
: The most basic piece of geometry is a vertex (the plural form is vertices). A vertex is a single point in 3D space. It has no size nor orientation; it only has a location within the mesh object. You can't do much with vertices alone, which is why we need edges
.
Edges
: These
are straight lines that are drawn between vertices, similar to a connect-the-dots puzzle. The edges that connect two points are always perfectly straight in polygonal modeling.
Faces
: T
he visible part of a polygon. Faces are created by filling in the space between three or more edges.
The following diagram shows the vertices, edges, and faces of a 3D model:
Polygons can have any number of sides; three sides make up a triangle (tri), while four sides make up a quadrilateral (quad). There are lots of fancy names for specific polygons with more than four sides, such as pentagon, hexagon, and so on, but in the world of 3D modeling, any polygon with more than four sides is simply referred to as an n-gon. The following image shows some of the basic polygons you'll come across:
The way in which these components are connected is referred to as topology, a subject that we will cover in depth later in this book. There are many best practices and rules for creating a mesh with good topology. The most basic rule of topology is that quadrilaterals are the best type of polygon, triangles should be used sparingly, and n-gons should be avoided altogether. Models that don't follow the rules of good topology usually have problems in the final result. Topology is a very large and advanced subject, so we won't go into any more detail about it in this chapter.
Materials and textures
We can add color to our 3D models with a mixture of materials and textures. Materials are used to determine how light behaves when it interacts with the surface of the object. Does it look like glass? Metal? Skin? Textures are 2D images that are wrapped onto a 3D model, sort of like a candy wrapper. To make our textures line up with the model, we have to unwrap the model first. Unwrapping gives us a 2D representation of the model called a UV map (or UVs). An example of this can be seen in the following image:
Once we have UVs, we can paint a texture that will be wrapped back onto the model, as shown here:
They are called UVs because all of the pieces have a U coordinate and a V coordinate, which are used to determine their positions in 2D space (very similar to graphing data on a 2D graph). Since we already used X, Y, and Z for our three-dimensional axes, our two-dimensional axes are labeled U and V. We will cover UVs, materials, and textures in detail in later chapters.
Perspective view versus Orthographic view
3D scenes can be displayed in Perspective mode or in Orthographic mode. In Perspective mode, objects are drawn with a vanishing point. As objects get farther away from us, they look smaller, which is the way things look in real life. In Orthographic mode, however, objects stay the same size no matter how far away they are from us. In this mode, everything looks flat and close together. This can be useful for making blueprints or architectural renders, but usually, we keep the view in Perspective mode because it looks more natural:
So there it is – your first introduction to 3D! We've covered a lot of new ideas in a short time, but they will all become second nature to you once you've spent a little time working on 3D projects. Next, we'll take a look at Blender's user interface.
Blender's user interface
You can download the latest version of Blender at http://blender.org/download. At the time of writing, the latest version is Blender 2.83. Blender is available on Windows, macOS, and Linux. It is a very similar experience on all three operating systems.
Before we learn about the current version of the user interface, it's useful to know a little bit about Blender's history. There is over a decade's worth of tutorials and resources available online. The software may look a bit different in those old resources, but if you can get past the old interface, the information is just as helpful as it always was, so let's take a look.
A brief history of Blender's user interface
Blender's user interface (UI) was very polarizing in the past. Older versions of Blender required the user to memorize dozens of hotkeys before it was possible to accomplish even basic tasks, which meant that many users found this hard to use. However, those were the days of Blender 2.49, and when Blender was updated to version 2.50, the UI got its first major facelift, which added many new features, more buttons, and a cleaner user experience.
Each release of Blender increments the version number by +0.01, which means 2.80 is 30 versions newer than 2.50 – that's a lot of versions! Many of these versions simply added small new features and bug fixes, but version 2.80 is just as big of an overhaul from version 2.79 as 2.50 was from version 2.49.
The original Blender included most of the basic requirements for a 3D modeling suite: 3D modeling, rigging, animating, and its internal "Blender Render" rendering engine. The earliest versions of the software were infamous for missing features such as undo and warning the user that data might be lost if they exited the program without saving first.
Its bright white UI with horizontal buttons, excessive use of tabs, and odd coloration was criticized by many users, but nevertheless, it was responsible for some amazing Open Movie projects such as "Elephant's Dream" and "Big Buck Bunny":
When Blender 2.50 rolled around, the UI was changed radically in response to user feedback. The Open Movie "Sintel" was created alongside the development of this new version to make sure that it included all of the features required for animation production. The 2.5 series of releases continued to introduce amazing features such as Cycles, the ray tracing rendering engine; the bMesh modeling system, which overhauled all of the modeling tools and allowed users to use n-gons; the new dynamic topology sculpting tools; and much more.
It quickly became a formidable modeling suite and gained popularity as the software grew all the way through to version 2.79:
Finally, the 2.8 series came around. This highly anticipated release was in development for over 3 years and overhauled many of the underlying systems that were starting to show their age. The result was a stable, fast, customizable, and user-friendly experience that provided all the modern features you would expect in a modeling suite:
This is an excellent time to learn Blender! The Blender 2.8 series of releases comes with massive improvements to the software, among other things. The user interface has received several updates that will make it more user-friendly than ever before! There has especially been a focus on making it more accessible to new users (that's you!).So, there's your brief history lesson on Blender's UI. Now, let's break the UI down into its different sections and learn how to use it!
Blender 2.8's user interface
When you first launch Blender, you will see the Splash Screen. This screen will show you what version of Blender you are using. It will display a piece of artwork made with Blender, and it will let you open project files that you've recently been working with:
If this is your first time launching Blender 2.8, it will also ask you to choose which mouse button you would like to select objects with: left or right.
In previous versions of Blender, the default was to select objects in the Viewport with the right mouse button. Many users found this strange, so in 2.8, the new default is to use a left-click to select objects (you can change this at any time through the user preferences menu).
Believe it or not, right-click is more ergonomic in this context; your hand won't get as tired if you use right-click to select. It sounds weird, but you should give it a try! From this point on in this book, selecting objects will simply be referred to as "click to select" so that you can follow along with either a left-click select or right-click select.
When you're finished with the Splash Screen, click anywhere outside of it to dismiss it.
Blender's UI is highly customizable. By default, it is broken up into six distinct areas, as highlighted and numbered in the following image:
The four largest areas in the center of the UI are called editors. Each editor presents us with a specific way of visualizing our 3D project.There are many types of editors, but these four are open in the default workspace:
3D Viewport
: The 3D Viewport is where we will be spending most of our time. It is our window onto the 3D scene. Nearly all of our 3D modeling is done here.
Outliner
: The Outliner lists all of the objects in the project and helps us organize our scene.
Properties
: Th
e Properties panel co
ntains the render settings and lets us
add advanced modifiers, constraints, particles, physics, and materials to our 3D models.
Timeline
: The
Timeline is
useful
when we start animating. It keeps track of playback options and keyframes.
Blender 2.8 includes two new major pieces of the UI: the Top Bar and the Status Bar. Most of the data that can be seen in these areas isn't new to Blender 2.8; it has just been reorganized into these two bars so that it is always visible:
Top Bar
: The Top Bar is found at the
very top
of the user interface
. The Blender logo can be seen at the top left. Clicking on it will give us the option to reopen the
S
plash Screen
. The Top Bar includes the typical menu options that you'll find in most software, such as
File
,
Edit
, and so on. The most exciting feature on the Top Bar is the new Workspace presets, such as
Layout
,
Modeling
,
Sculpting
, and more. These tabs will allow us to quickly rearrange the UI for different workflows.
Status Bar
: The
Status Bar can
be found at the very bottom of the user interface. It
includes h
elpful hotkey reminders
, tool options, a p
olygon count, and other useful information about the current file. Check here often for reminders of how tools work.
We've broken down the latest version of the UI into its main sections, which means we're ready to take a look at basic navigation in the software.
Basic 3D navigation controls
The first thing you'll need to learn in any 3D software is how to navigate the 3D Viewport.
In Blender, the X-Axis is used for width, the Y-Axis is used for depth, and the Z-Axis is used for height. All 3D applications use the same colors for these axes; red for X, green for Y, and blue for Z.
The 3D Viewport is where you will be spending the majority of your time in any 3D software, and Blender is no exception. We will need a three-button mouse to be able to navigate the 3D Viewport properly (pressing the scroll wheel down acts as a middle mouse button). The Middle Mouse Button (MMB) is used for three fundamental navigation controls:
Rotate
(sometimes referred to as
Orbit
): C
lick
and hold
MMB
and drag the mouse to rotate the view.
Zoom
(sometimes called
Dolly
): S
croll with the
scroll wheel
to zoom in and out. If you want more precision, you can hold down the
Control
key
(abbreviated to
Ctrl
)
and then
click
and hold
MMB
and drag to zoom in and out.
Pan
(sometimes referred to as
Slide
or
Move
): H
old down the
Shift
key and
then
click
and hold
MMB a
nd drag to pan the view.
If you ever forget these controls, you can always look at the Status Bar at the bottom of the screen. There, you will see reminders of these hotkeys. Alternatively, in Blender 2.8, there is a new navigation gizmo at the top-right corner of the 3D Viewport. This gizmo is particularly useful if you're using Blender with a drawing tablet or any other device with a stylus instead of a mouse:
Navigating in 3D space can take some getting used to, but it is essential that you practice these controls. Every 3D project will require you to be constantly using a combination of rotate, zoom, and pan.
As long as we're talking about the essentials, let's give a quick mention to how to use Blender's hotkeys effectively. You will need to learn several important keyboard shortcuts, or hotkeys. The hotkeys in Blender only work correctly if your mouse cursor is hovering over the appropriate window when you press them. Most of the hotkeys covered in this book are for the 3D Viewport, which means you need to make sure that your mouse is hovering over the 3D Viewport when you press a hotkey. Otherwise, the hotkeys won't do what you expect them to do.
So, now you know the basic navigation controls in Blender. You will need to know these controls before you can follow along with the projects in this book. Speaking of which, up next, we'll have a quick look at the projects in this book!
A brief introduction to the projects in this book
This book offers a wide variety of projects, so there's something for everyone: you'll start by adding horns to a Viking helmet. Then, you'll kick it up a notch by building a time machine. After that, you'll try your hand at architecture by modeling and rendering a modern kitchen in the EEVEE physically-based rendering (PBR) engine. Next, you'll explore 2D character design techniques with Blender's brand-new Grease Pencil tool. You'll practice 2D animation by creating a free-form surreal transformation animation, learn advanced Grease Pencil animation techniques by creating a fun 2D animated short, and finally jump back into the world of fantasy by creating a baby dragon. It is recommended that you go through these chapters in order, but you can try skipping ahead to some of the later projects if they sound more interesting to you. Here are the projects, in order:
Viking Helmet
: In this project, you'll dive right into Blender 2.8 and get a feel for the 3D workflow. You'll start with a scene of Viking-themed items, including a helmet that's been partially created. You'll add a nose guard, rivets, and horns to the helmet, and then place the helmet on the head of a training dummy to make a completed scene.
Time Machine:
Starting from scratch this time, you'll build a time machine. You'll learn about modeling tools, creating new objects, the modifier stack, and fixing shading issues in a 3D mesh.
Modern Kitchen:
With this project, you'll learn how to assemble a scene from premade parts to create custom materials and lighting to turn a boring grey scene into a fully rendered gorgeous final shot in the new EEVEE rendering engine.
Illustrating an Alien Hero with Grease Pencil:
You will design a character with the powerful new Grease Pencil tool and learn how to draw 2D images inside of a 3D scene.
2D Surreal Transformation Animation:
This will be your first introduction to animation, you don't have to have fantastic drawing skills for this one. You'll learn about frames and materials in Blender's Grease Pencil tool.
Animating a Stylish Short
: Taking your 2D skills to the next level, you'll learn how to animate a short film from start to finish.
Baby Dragon:
This is one of the biggest projects in this book, but don't let that scare you
–
you'll start off with one of the most artistic and fun parts of the 3D process: sculpting! By the end you'll have a finished character that can be used for animations and video games.
Now that we know what projects will be covered in this book, let's have a look at how to get the starter files for the projects.
Setting up the source files
This book comes with project files that you can use to follow along with each chapter. Please check the Download the example code files section of this book's Preface to learn how to access the project files.
There are a variety of file formats in these source files. Blender projects are labeled with the .blend suffix. The .blend files store data such as objects, materials, collections, scripts, and more. Basically, your whole project is stored inside of this single file. One exception, however, is image files. It is possible to store images inside of .blend files, but image files take up a lot of space on your computer, so this would make each project file huge.
By default, Blender saves projects with a relative file path, which means as long as you don't move the .blend file or the linked texture files out of their appropriate folders, Blender will know where the files are and everything will work properly when you open a project.
Summary
In this chapter, you learned how 3D software works and in particular, Blender. You learned the basics of the three-axis coordinate system, as well as how transforms are used to place objects in a 3D scene. You also got a glimpse of Blender's UI and looked at the list of projects that will be covered in this book.
These concepts will be the foundation of your 3D knowledge. There are so many possibilities that there's something for everyone! You can model, create materials, paint textures, sculpt, render, and much more! To learn more about Blender's features, have a look at the features page on the Blender website at: blender.org/features.
Now, you're ready for your first 3D project! In the next chapter, you'll be provided with a small scene full of Viking themed objects. You'll get to position objects in the scene and make some edits and additions to a Viking helmet. See you there!
Editing a Viking Scene with a Basic 3D Workflow
In this chapter, you'll get your first taste of the 3D workflow. Now that we've covered some basic 3D terminology, we can learn the navigation controls, menus, and a few modeling tools. Whether you're new to 3D or you've used other 3D software before, this chapter will help you get an idea of how things are done in Blender 2.8.
Many of the 3D modeling concepts we're about to learn are interdependent on one another. It would be difficult and very slow to learn in order of the smallest features to the largest features. If we take things too slowly, you'll be so bored that you'll fall asleep before getting to do anything exciting, so we're going to keep things moving. If this chapter seems like it's going fast, don't worry; we will break down theseconcepts in more detail in subsequent chapters.
Once we've finished the boring textbook stuff, we'll dive right in and work on our first project in Blender 2.8! This project is a little Viking themed scene with a training dummy, arrows, and most importantly, a Viking helmet! We'll get some practice transforming objects by sticking the arrows into the dummy's chest, and we'll really have some fun by adding horns and other features to the Viking helmet.
In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:
Setting up the source files
Using the Outliner to organize a scene
Navigating the
3D Viewport
Using the
Toolbar
Basic transformations in Object Mode
Editing the Viking helmet
Rendering the final image
Setting up the source files
For this project, you'll need the files from Blender3DByExample_Chapter02.zip, which can be downloaded here: https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Blender-3D-By-Example-Second-Edition. Download and unzip the folder. You should now have a directory called Blender3DByExample_Chapter02 that contains the starting project file and a folder that contains all of the texture files that are required:
Blender saves projects in a proprietary format called .blend– these files store everything you need for a 3D scene: models, animations, lights, you name it! .blend files can also include image textures, though most 3D artists choose to keep the texture files separate so that the .blend file will take up less room on the computer. For this chapter, the textures can be found inside the VikingScene_Textures folder, as you can see here:
Now that we have our files, we can get started. Open the VikingScene_Start.blend file to begin this project. You can open a .blend file by dragging and dropping it into Blender, or by going to the File menu and choosing Open.... We will start by learning how to use the Outliner panel.
Using the Outliner to organize a scene
Welcome to your first Blender scene! We had a brief introduction to the user interface in Chapter 1, Introduction to 3D and the Blender User Interface, but now we can see it with our own eyes. The largest area of the UI is dedicated to the 3D Viewport (or just "Viewport" for short). You can see all of the 3D objects inside this area. This scene has been set to use the new Random Colors
