Taking Blender to the Next Level E-Book

Ruan Lotter

• Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 456

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

If you're ready to start exploring the more advanced workflows and processes in Blender to create intricate 3D models, then Taking Blender to the Next Level is for you.
This book focuses on a few different VFX-related workflows such as geometry nodes, organic modeling, 3D camera tracking, photogrammetry, sculpting, compositing, and physics simulations. You’ll learn how to use geometry nodes to create dynamic motion graphic scenes as well as perform 3D scanning of real-world objects using photogrammetry. You’ll also find out how to model, rig, and animate your own 3D characters from scratch. Next, you’ll progress to using simulations to break objects apart and then use cloth and hair simulations to add realism to your 3D creations. Finally, you’ll go over the final render settings and export your 3D animation masterpiece as a video.
By the end of this Blender book, you’ll be able to model your own 3D characters, objects, and landscapes; rig, animate, and texture your characters; 3D track live-action footage; and composite your 3D characters into live-action scenes.

Leseprobe

Taking Blender to the Next Level

Implement advanced workflows such as geometry nodes, simulations, and motion tracking for Blender production pipelines

Ruan Lotter

BIRMINGHAM—MUMBAI

Taking Blender to the Next Level

Copyright © 2022 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 author, 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.

Group Product Manager: Rohit Rajkumar

Publishing Product Manager: Vaideeshwari Muralikrishnan

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First published: May 2022

Production reference: 1290422

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

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ISBN 978-1-80323-356-7

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I would like to take a moment to thank everyone who supported me during the writing process of this book. I want to dedicate this book to my mother, Ronel, who is the number one reason I'm doing what I'm doing today. She bought my first computer when I was about 8 years old and she always allowed me to spend my younger days tinkering at the computer, day and night, which changed my life forever! Thanks Mom, I love you lots! I also want to thank everyone who has motivated me constantly and given me the confidence that I can do this! And a huge thanks to all the Blender developers for creating this amazing free application! You are the best!

Ruan Lotter

Contributors

About the author

Ruan Lotter is a 3D generalist and visual effects (VFX) artist specializing in motion graphics, compositing, 3D tracking, and 3D simulations. He currently works as a VFX artist and compositor in the advertising industry and also teaches multiple 3D and VFX-related classes online. He also created the YouTube channel, TunnelvizionTV where he shares tutorials on multiple creative topics.

About the reviewer

Everton Velho is a Brazilian 3D artist focused on Environment Art for games. He is passionate about games, music, movies, and cats. He graduated in Information Technology and Animation Design, combining creativity with the technical aspects.

Table of Contents

Preface

Part 1: Modeling, Materials, and Animation Workflows

Chapter 1: Using Geometry Nodes to Create Dynamic Scenes

Introduction to Geometry Nodes in Blender

The Geometry Nodes workspace

Geometry Nodes

Creating and manipulating geometry using nodes

Creating the base mesh

Creating a new Geometry Nodes modifier

Creating our instance object

Creating our first nodes

Specifying the instance object

The Subdivide node

The Point Scale node

Different types of attributes

The Point Rotate node

The Point Translate node

The Attribute Randomize node

Randomizing the Scale attribute

Randomizing the Position attribute

Randomizing the Rotation attribute

Changing the instance object

Muting nodes

Using textures to control attributes

The Attribute Sample Texture node

Animating with Math nodes

The Attribute Vector Math node

Summary

Chapter 2: Creating a Motion Graphics Scene Using Geometry Nodes

Creating our base mesh and instance object

Creating the base mesh

Creating the instance object

Distributing the instance object across our base mesh

Using an empty object to calculate proximity data

Calculating the proximity

Using the proximity data to modify the attributes

Adding our nodes

Naming the input value

Animating our scene

Adding keyframes

Adjusting the overall scale of the instance objects

Adding color using materials

Summary

Chapter 3: Organic Modeling P1: Creating a Mushroom

Creating our base mesh for the mushroom

Using primitive objects to create our base mesh

Optimizing our topology

UV unwrapping our model

The UV Editing workspace

Adding seams

Unwrapping the faces

Adding more seams

Unwrapping the stem

Optimizing the UV layout

The multiresolution modifier

Statistics overlay

Sculpting finer details

Setting up the sculpting workspace

Sculpting basics

Sculpting finer details onto our mushroom

Using a lattice to shape your overall model

The Lattice modifier

Shaping your mesh using the lattice object

Creating a low-poly and high-poly mesh

Duplicating our models

Applying the modifiers

Baking the normal map

Creating the blank normal map image texture

Baking from the high-poly mesh to the image texture

Saving the normal map texture

Summary

Chapter 4: Organic Modeling P2: Creating the Landscape around the Mushroom

Creating the landscape

Adding grass using Geometry Nodes

Creating the individual grass blades

Scattering the grass blades using Geometry Nodes

Summary

Chapter 5: PBR Materials: Texturing our Mushroom Scene

Adding materials to the mushroom

The mushroom stem

The top part of the mushroom

Adding materials to the landscape

Creating a procedural grass material

Using an HDRI, Sky Texture, and Sun to light our scene

Summary

Chapter 6: 3D Scanning and Photogrammetry: Creating Your Own 3D Scans

Taking photos for 3D scanning/photogrammetry

Camera settings and best practices

Using Meshroom to convert photos into a 3D model

Cleaning up a model using Blender

Importing the model created by Meshroom

Optimizing the topology of a model using Instant Meshes

UV unwrapping and texture baking

UV unwrapping

Texture baking

Summary

Chapter 7: Modeling an Alien Cartoon Character

Creating reference images of your character

Setting up the reference images in Blender

Modeling an alien cartoon character

Modeling the body

Modeling the head

Modeling the legs and feet

Modeling the arms and hands

Modeling the eyes

Modeling the mouth

Adding smaller details to our character

Summary

Chapter 8: Rigging and Animating Your 3D Cartoon Character

Installing the Rigify add-on

Importing our character and getting it ready for the rigging process

Importing our character model

Applying any active modifiers

Rigging the character using Rigify

Rigging the upper part of the character

Rigging the lower part of the character's body

Rigging the torso, arms and hands of our character

Final rig alignment

IK versus FK and rig layers

IK versus FK

Rig layers

Animating the walk cycle

Setting up key pose number one

Setting up key pose number two

Setting up key pose number three

Setting up key pose number four

Creating inverted keyframes

Looping the walk cycle

Summary

Part 2: Let's Do Some Physics

Chapter 9: Rigid Body Simulation: Destroying a Statue Using Physics

Installing the required add-ons

Setting up the scene

Using Cell Fracture to break our model into smaller pieces

Fracturing the impact point using the Annotation Pencil

Rigid Body physics

Rigid Body physics properties

Transferring Rigid Body physics properties to other objects

Configuring mass, gravity, and speed

Linking fractured pieces together using Rigid Body Constraints

Animating a Rigid Body impact object

Baking the final physics simulation

Summary

Chapter 10: Dynamic Cloth Simulations

Importing our character and walk cycle

Adding a rest pose

Creating clothing for our character

The cloth simulation

Using forces to enhance the simulation

Baking the cloth simulation

Adding final modifiers

Summary

Chapter 11: Creating Dynamic Hair Using Particles

Reusing our alien character and walk cycle animation

Creating a Vertex Group

Creating hair particles that interact with physics

Grooming and styling

Baking the hair simulation to cache

Setting up a hair shader for rendering

Summary

Part 3: Match Moving and Compositing

Chapter 12: Matching Blender's Camera Movement to Live Action Footage

Creating an image sequence from a video

Importing the image sequence into Blender

Camera tracking or match moving

Placing trackers in the viewport

Tracking features that go off-screen

Solving and refining the track and orienting the scene

Testing the camera track with test objects

Summary

Chapter 13: Compositing the Alien Cartoon Character onto the Live Action Footage

Importing our alien character and tracked camera into a new Blender project

Converting the tracked camera to keyframes

Importing the tracked camera into our new project

Importing the live-action image sequence

Positioning our character in the scene

Matching the lighting to our live-action scene

Adding an HDRI image to light our scene

Configuring View Layers

Using collections to separate render elements

Compositing using nodes

Rendering out one frame

Initiating the compositing process

Changing the backdrop image

Color grading the live-action footage

Blurring shadows

Color grading our image

Summary

Chapter 14: The Final Render

Understanding the render settings

Enabling Motion Blur

Rendering an animation as an image sequence

Converting the image sequence into an MP4 video

Summary

Other Books You May Enjoy

Preface

If you're ready to start exploring the more advanced workflows and processes in Blender to create intricate 3D models, then Taking Blender to the Next Level is for you.

This book focuses on a few different VFX-related workflows such as geometry nodes, organic modeling, 3D camera tracking, photogrammetry, sculpting, compositing, and physics simulations. You'll learn how to use geometry nodes to create dynamic motion graphic scenes as well as perform 3D scanning of real-world objects using photogrammetry. You'll also find out how to model, rig, and animate your own 3D characters from scratch. Next, you'll progress to using simulations to break objects apart and then use cloth and hair simulations to add realism to your 3D creations. Finally, you'll go over the final render settings and export your 3D animation masterpiece as a video.

By the end of this Blender book, you'll be able to model your own 3D characters, objects, and landscapes; rig, animate, and texture your characters; 3D track live-action footage; and composite your 3D characters into live-action scenes.

Who this book is for

This Blender 3D book is for 3D modelers, texture artists, character animators, technical animators, match-moving artists, compositors and anyone interested in learning about advanced concepts in Blender. Motion graphics artists will also benefit from this book. Readers are expected to have a very basic understanding of 3D concepts and the Blender UI.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Using Geometry Nodes to Create Dynamic Scenes, focuses on creating interesting and dynamic scenes.

Chapter 2, Creating a Motion Graphics Scene Using Geometry Nodes, uses Geometry Nodes to create a motion graphics scene that you can easily modify using different nodes.

Chapter 3, Organic Modeling P1: Creating a Mushroom, focuses on modeling an organic Mushroom, using tools such as Sculpting, Proportional Editing, and Lattice.

Chapter 4, Organic Modeling P2: Creating the Landscape around the Mushroom, deals with creating the landscape and grass around the mushroom using tools such as Proportional Editing and Geometry Nodes.

Chapter 5, PBR Materials: Texturing our Mushroom Scene, teaches you how to add color to our scene using the Shader Editor node system to create realistic and customizable materials.

Chapter 6, 3D Scanning and Photogrammetry: Creating Your Own 3D Scans, deals with creating 3D scans of almost any object using a camera, Meshroom, and Blender.

Chapter 7, Modeling an Alien Cartoon Character, teaches you how to create a cartoon character from scratch using your own reference images.

Chapter 8, Rigging and Animating Your 3D Cartoon Character, helps you understand how to rig your character using the Rigify add-on as well as animate a walk cycle.

Chapter 9, Rigid Body Simulation: Destroying a Statue Using Physics, teaches you how to destroy a statue dynamically using Cell Fracture and Rigid Body Simulations.

Chapter 10, Dynamic Cloth Simulations, assists in creating clothing for your characters using cloth simulations that interact with physics and forces.

Chapter 11, Creating Hair Using Particles, helps in creating hair for your character using particles, that interact with physics and forces, while also adding custom hair materials to create amazing-looking hair styles.

Chapter 12, Matching Blender's Camera Movement to Live Action Footage, helps you understand how to import footage and track the real-world camera to create a virtual camera that matches the real-world camera's movement.

Chapter 13, Compositing the Alien Cartoon Character onto the Live Action Footage, deals with compositing our cartoon character into the live-action footage and using the compositing nodes to enhance the look of our final shot.

Chapter 14, The Final Render, focusses on rendering the final animation to an image sequence and converting the image sequence into an MP4 that you can share easily.

To get the most out of this book

You only need a copy of Blender 2.93.x to follow along – a basic understanding of Blender is recommended but not mandatory.

For Chapter 6, 3D Scanning and Photogrammetry: Creating Your Own 3D Scans, you will need a free copy of Meshroom 2021 which is only available on Windows and Linux.

All the projects in this book have been created and built on Blender 2.93.x. The projects should work perfectly fine with Blender 3.x versions too. There may obviously be slight changes going forward as they develop Blender 3, but most of the changes they usually do are minor and should not break any workflows. However, the Geometry nodes chapters will work strictly on versions 2.93.x, since these nodes are updated with every version change. Version 2.93 has Long Term Support (LTS) till 2023 and you can download it from here. https://www.blender.org/download/lts/2-93/

If you are using the digital version of this book, we advise you to type the code yourself or access the code from the book's GitHub repository (a link is available in the next section). Doing so will help you avoid any potential errors related to the copying and pasting of code.

Download the example files

You can download the example files for this book from GitHub at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Taking-Blender-to-the-Next-Level. If there's an update to the code, it will be updated in the 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 and diagrams used in this book. You can download it here: https://static.packt-cdn.com/downloads/9781803233567_ColorImages.pdf.

Conventions used

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

Code in text: 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: "You can also name your texture here – let's call it MyTexture."

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. For instance, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in bold. Here is an example: "Click on File and select New | General."

Tips or important notes

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Get in touch

Feedback from our readers is always welcome.

General feedback: If you have questions about any aspect of this book, email us at [email protected] and mention the book title in the subject of your message.

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 and fill in the form.

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Part 1: Modeling, Materials, and Animation Workflows

In the first part of this book, we will be looking at some advanced ways to create geometry such as using Geometry Nodes, Sculpting, 3D Scanning and organic 3D modeling. We will also be focusing on creating advanced materials to make your scenes look amazing!

We will cover the following chapters in this section:

Chapter 1, Using Geometry Nodes to Create Dynamic ScenesChapter 2, Creating a Motion Graphics Scene Using Geometry NodesChapter 3, Organic Modeling P1: Creating a MushroomChapter 4, Organic Modeling P2: Creating the Landscape around the MushroomChapter 5, PBR Materials: Texturing our Mushroom SceneChapter 6, 3D Scanning and Photogrammetry: Creating Your Own 3D ScansChapter 7, Modeling an Alien Cartoon CharacterChapter 8, Rigging and Animating Your 3D Cartoon Character