Unreal Engine 5 Character Creation, Animation, and Cinematics E-Book

Henk Venter

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

Seitenzahl: 610

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Unreal Engine 5 (UE5) offers beginners and seasoned professionals the ability to create detailed movie scenes with realistic human characters using MetaHuman and combine it with custom props and environments. It also comes with built-in industry standard animation tools to develop such scenes in a fraction of the time compared to old methods. This book takes you through the entire 3D movie production pipeline using free (open - source) software.
By following the step-by-step, beginner-friendly tutorials in this book, you'll learn how to create your own custom 3D assets in Blender and texture these 3D assets in Quixel Mixer. Next, you'll take these completed 3D assets into Unreal Engine 5 and use them to build a virtual 3D movie set for your 3D movie. You'll also populate your 3D movie set by using Quixel MegaScans assets and create and customize your own photorealistic human character using MetaHuman Creator and UE5. As you advance, you'll discover how to rig, skin, and animate these 3D assets and characters using Blender and UE5's new Control Rig. Finally, you'll explore the process of setting up your movie cameras and animation sequences and rendering your 3D movie using UE5's Sequencer.
By the end of this Unreal Engine book, you'll have learned how to combine different elements in UE5 to make your own movies and cinematics.

Leseprobe

Unreal Engine 5 Character Creation, Animation, and Cinematics

Create custom 3D assets and bring them to life in Unreal Engine 5 using MetaHuman, Lumen, and Nanite

Henk Venter

Wilhelm Ogterop

Unreal Engine 5 Character Creation, Animation, and Cinematics

Copyright © 2022 Packt Publishing

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First published: June 2022

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Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

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ISBN 978-1-80181-244-3

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I dedicate this book to the memory of my mother and father, Margaret and Daniel, who encouraged me to follow in my mother's footsteps to become a professional artist.

– Henk Venter

To my dad, Tiemen Ogterop, who was my rock of stability and always supported me unconditionally in any way he could. You had so much love to give. To my mum, who had fire in her belly and refused to give up during my childhood health problems. I owe you both the happy life I've had the privilege to experience. To my wife, June, and my daughter, Mila, who gave up some family time with her daddy so that he can teach others through this book. I love you to the end of time.

– Wilhelm Ogterop

Contributors

About the authors

Henk Venter is a senior 3D character artist with 22 years of experience in the 3D computer graphics industry. He is currently running his own 3D art production studio. He was the principal character artist at THQ Studio Australia and senior character artist at Electronic Arts in Montreal, Canada.

In the UK, he worked for Microsoft's Rare studio, Sumo Digital, and Eurocom . He has worked on multiple projects throughout his career, such as Army of Two, Crackdown 3, Batman Begins, Kinect Sports: Rivals, Battleship, Megamind: Ultimate Showdown, and Boogie, to name a few.

Wilhelm Ogterop has 24 years of experience in the 3D computer graphics industry and has worked as a character animator and lead animator for several UK and international game studios. Raven Software, Deep Silver, TT Fusion, Eurocom Entertainment, Instinct Games, Entrada Interactive, and Headfirst Productions are among the studios for which he has worked on-site and as a contractor.

Throughout his career, he has worked on a variety of interesting projects, including Call of Duty: Black Ops III (2015), Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare (2015), Homefront: The Revolution (2016), Deadspace Extraction, Miscreated, The LEGO Movie Videogame, LEGO Legends of Chima, LEGO Lord of the Rings, LEGO City Undercover, Rio (Blue Sky Studios), GoldenEye 007, Vancouver 2010 (the official video game of the Olympic Winter Games), James Bond: Quantum of Solace, The Mummy 3: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, and other unpublished projects.

About the reviewer

Varun Kumar Gupta is a junior technical artist at Technicolor Creative Studios. He is an accomplished 3D generalist and programmer and enjoys using his skills to contribute to the exciting technological advances that happen every day at Technicolor. He likes to spend his time contributing to open source, procedural content generation, and computer graphics as much as possible. He also works as a freelancer, dealing in concept art, short films, and 2D art whenever time permits. He graduated from Bennett University in 2022 with a bachelor's degree in computer science engineering. In his free time, he likes to draw, learn music (guitar and piano), and play video games.

Table of Contents

Preface

Part 1: Creating 3D Assets

1

An Introduction to Blender's 3D Modeling and Sculpting Tools

Technical requirements

What is 3D modeling?

Understanding 3D sculpting

Introducing Blender

The user interface

Elements in the 3D Viewport

Interacting with the 3D world in Blender

Axes and transform orientations

Manipulating objects or their components

Exploring Blender's modeling tools

Extrude region

Bevel

Loop Cut

Inset Faces

Merging faces, edges, and vertices

Proportional Editing

Using modifiers in Blender

The Mirror modifier

Subdivision Surface modifier

Using Blender's sculpting tools

Brush settings

Remesh

Blender's sculpting brushes

Other sculpting tools

Line Project tool

Mesh Filter tool

Summary

Further reading

2

Modeling a Robot Drone Character

Technical requirements

Preparing Blender's Units

Modeling a Robot Drone character

Modeling the shape of the body

Creating eyes

Adding a shoulder and a ball joint

Attaching a KitBash mesh

Modeling the arm

Extruding the custom shape

Summary

3

Let's Sculpt an Alien Plant!

Technical requirements

Loading the file containing the reference image

Blocking out your model

Extruding and duplicating mesh parts

Subdividing the mesh

Sculpting the primary forms

Fixing problem areas

Flattening an area of the mesh

How to fix surface artifacts

Adding secondary and tertiary forms

Using masking in 3D sculpting

Adding the final polish to the sculpture

Generating the low-resolution mesh

Decimating the mesh in Blender

Using Instant Meshes for auto-retopology

Summary

4

UV Maps and Texture Baking

Technical requirements

What are textures and materials?

Textures

Materials

Understanding UV maps

UV unwrapping the Alien Plant model

Fixing shading issues

Creating UV seams

UV unwrapping the Alien Plant model

Triangulating the Alien Plant model

Exporting the Alien Plant mesh

UV unwrapping the Robot Drone model

Understanding texture baking

Introduction to xNormal

Preparing the Robot Drone model for xNormal

Preparing the low-poly mesh

Preparing the high-poly mesh

Baking texture maps

Summary

5

Texturing Your Models inside Quixel Mixer

Technical requirements

Introducing the basics of Quixel Mixer

Configuring your project and Mixer file

Quixel Mixer's UI and shortcuts

Texturing the Robot Drone in Mixer

Loading the Robot Drone model into Quixel Mixer

Adding texture maps

Adding paneling details

Texturing the Robot Drone

Using material ID maps and masks

Texturing the Alien Plant in Mixer

Exporting your materials for use in UE

Summary

Further reading

Part 2: Building Your Virtual Movie Set in Unreal Engine 5

6

Exploring Unreal Engine 5

Technical requirements

Introducing UE5

What can you do with UE?

New features in UE5

Free sample projects

Examples of animation projects that were made in UE5

UE terminologies

Setting up your project

Viewport navigation

Most useful shortcuts

UE's UI

Docking the Content Browser panel

The Viewport menu bar

Summary

7

Setting Up Materials in UE 5

Technical requirements

Importing your 3D assets

Importing textures

The Texture Editor

Creating materials

The Material Editor

The Static Mesh Editor

Previewing your models with lighting

Summary

8

Using MetaHuman to Create a Photorealistic Human for UE5

Technical requirements

What is MetaHuman Creator?

Getting access to MetaHuman Creator

Launching MetaHuman Creator

MetaHuman's UI

Creating a photorealistic female sci-fi character

Customizing the shape of your character's face

Previewing your character with animations

Adding your MetaHuman to Unreal Engine 5

Customizing your character's clothing

Summary

9

Building a Virtual 3D Movie Set in UE5

Technical requirements

Setting up the basic elements of your 3D movie set

Adjusting the scene's exposure

Adjusting the Viewport's Field of View

Using Quixel Bridge to acquire free 3D assets

Customizing your material instances

The Material Instance Editor's UI

Editing your Material Instances

Using Albedo Tint for the Rock assets

Using Nanite on your rock assets

Using asset filters in the Content Browser window

Building the 3D movie set

Summary

10

Adding Lighting and Atmospheric Visual Effects in UE5

Technical requirements

The fundamentals of lighting in 3D graphics

Realistic and stylized lighting

The three traditional lighting techniques

Types of light sources in UE5

Using Lumen in your UE5 projects

Preparing your project

Adding a Sky Atmosphere system

Lighting your 3D movie set

Adjusting your Key light (Light Source)

Adjusting your first Fill light (SkyLight)

Adding a second Fill light (DirectionalLight)

Adding atmospheric visual effects

Adding Fog

Light Shafts

Lens Flare and Light Bloom

Summary

Further reading

Part 3: Character Rigging for Animation in UE5 with Control Rig

11

Alien Plant Joint Setup in Blender

Technical requirements

Preparing our 3D model for the skeleton

Importing the Alien Plant into Blender

Best practice when importing your model

Positioning and scaling the Alien Plant

Parent/child hierarchies in 3D software

Creating a skeleton for the Alien Plant

Creating the skeleton

Creating a parent/child relationship

Making a long joint chain for the main stem

Making the skeleton for the branches

Summary

12

Alien Plant Skinning in Blender

Technical requirements

Introduction to skinning in Blender

Painting skin weights

Skinning the Alien Plant mesh to the skeleton

Skinning the Alien Plant

Summary

13

Robot Joint Setup and Skinning in Blender

Technical requirements

Creating a skeleton for the robot

Opening, positioning, and scaling the robot

Body and left arm bones

Renaming and parenting the bones

Using the Symmetrize tool

Checking and editing the local joint orientations of the joints

What is the local orientation of a bone?

Editing local bone orientations

Skinning the robot to the skeleton in a rigid way

Preparing the model and collapsing modifiers

Skinning the robot body parts

Assigning exact skin weights to vertices

Summary

14

Making a Custom Rig for Our Alien Plant with Control Rig

Technical requirements

Introduction to the Control Rig Editor

Loading the Control Rig tools in UE

Getting the Alien Plant and its skeleton into UE

Creating the Control Rig node on the Alien Plant

Understanding the Control Rig Editor interface layout

Creating basic Control Rig controllers

Creating two simple control shapes

Deciding on the controllers we need

Creating all the controllers

Organizing the controllers in a hierarchy

Positioning the controllers on the joints

Controlling the Alien Plant skeleton with the controllers

Practical setup for three basic nodes

Completing the animation rig

Summary

15

Creating a Control Rig with Basic IK Controls for the Robot in UE5

Technical requirements

What is IK?

Understanding IK

Creating the controllers for the robot character

Exporting the robot and its skeleton from Blender

Importing the robot into a UE project

Creating the Control Rig controllers

Ordering the control objects in the correct hierarchy and linking them to joints

Controller hierarchy

Positioning the controllers to line up with the bones

Linking bones to controllers in Rig Graph

Creating an IK controller and testing the whole rig

Getting bone orientations of our arm bones

Setting up an IK controller

Testing the IK setup

Summary

Part 4: Animation in UE5 Using Control Rig and Sequencer

16

Creating a Simple Swaying Animation Cycle in UE5 Sequencer

Technical requirements

Overview of the Sequencer interface

Opening the Sequencer and adding the Alien Plant animation rig

Sequencer interface overview

Setting keyframes for animation

What are keyframes and curves in computer animation?

Setting keyframes for the Alien Plant Control Rig

Editing keyframes and animation curves

Summary

17

Creating Three Simple Animations for the Robot in UE5 Sequencer

Technical requirements

Animation A: idle cycle

Using the Poses tool in UE5

Animating the idle cycle

Animation B: movement cycle

Animation C: action animation

Summary

18

Importing Motion Capture onto the MetaHuman Control Rig

Technical requirements

Getting MoCap animations from Mixamo

Getting MoCap animations from the UE Marketplace

Retargeting MoCap animations to a MetaHuman skeleton

Importing Maximo MoCap into UE

Setting up retargeting on the Mixamo skeleton

Setting up retargeting on the MetaHuman skeleton

Retargeting Mixamo MoCap animation to the MetaHuman

Summary

19

Motion Capture Editing and Cleanup Using Control Rig and Sequencer

Technical requirements

Planning Your MoCap edit

Baking the Stand_Up MoCap to the Control Rig

Overview of the MetaHuman Control Rig

Editing and cleaning up the Stand_Up MoCap

Changing the clipping plane in UE

Lining up the MoCap with the ground plane and the root

Fixing floaty feet

Improving the standing pose

Cleaning up Sitting Pose

Fixing the hands with the Snapper tool

Summary

20

Using Sequencer to Construct Your Final Scene

Technical requirements

Importing all the scene assets and positioning them in the scene

Migrating UE content between projects

Attaching the body armor to the MetaHuman Rig

Preparing character and Level Assets

Importing animations onto our characters

Importing Mocap animations onto the MetaHuman

Importing Mocap animations onto the Robot Drone

Importing animations onto the Alien Plant

Creating cameras and animating them

Using multiple cameras and cutting between them

Rendering our final scene

Summary

Index

Other Books You May Enjoy

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Preface

Unreal Engine 5 (UE5) offers beginners and seasoned professionals the ability to create detailed movie scenes with realistic human characters using MetaHuman, combining them with custom props and environments, plus built-in industry-standard animation tools to create state-of-the-art movie scenes in a fraction of the time compared to old methods. This book takes you through the entire 3D movie production pipeline using free (open source) software. This book can also be used as a foundation course in 3D computer art in general – a strong foundation that can be built upon and serve as a springboard toward a career in the field.

By following the step-by-step, beginner-friendly tutorials in this book, you'll learn how to create your own custom 3D assets in Blender and texture these 3D assets in Quixel Mixer. Next, you'll import these completed 3D assets into UE5 and use them to build a virtual 3D movie set for your 3D movie. You'll also populate your 3D movie set by using Quixel Megascans assets and create and customize your own photorealistic human character, using MetaHuman Creator and UE5. As you advance, you'll discover how to rig, skin, and animate these 3D assets and characters using Blender and UE5's new Control Rig. Finally, you'll explore the process of setting up your movie cameras and animation sequences and find out how to render out your 3D movie using UE5's Sequencer.

By the end of this Unreal Engine book, you'll have learned to combine different elements in UE5 to make your own movies and cinematics.

Who this book is for

This book is ideal for beginners to Unreal Engine or 3D animation and art in general who want to learn the entire process of creating 3D movies with UE5. Experienced 3D artists and animators new to UE5 will also find this book invaluable, as it covers cutting-edge techniques for making real-time 3D movies using Unreal Engine, Blender, Quixel Mixer, and Quixel Bridge. Experienced animators will learn how to move almost the entire animation pipeline into Unreal Engine. Prior experience with 3D software is not necessary, but any experience will be helpful in understanding the concepts easily.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, An Introduction to Blender's 3D Modeling and Sculpture Tools, will introduce you to the basic concepts of 3D graphics, and you will explore Blender's 3D modeling and sculpting tools. 

Chapter 2, Modeling a Robot Drone Character, takes you through the complete process to create a 3D model of a Robot Drone character in Blender.

Chapter 3, Let's Sculpt an Alien Plant!, teaches you how to use Blender to create a 3D sculpture of an Alien Plant for your 3D movie set.

Chapter 4, UV Maps and Texture Baking, helps you understand how to UV-map your 3D models in Blender and then bake your textures in xNormal.

Chapter 5, Texturing Your Models Inside Quixel Mixer, takes you through the complete procedural texturing process in Quixel Mixer.

Chapter 6, Exploring Unreal Engine 5, introduces you to the basics of UE5's user interface.

Chapter 7, Setting up Materials in UE5, teaches you how to import your 3D models, set up their textures, and create materials in UE5.

Chapter 8, Use MetaHuman to Create a Photorealistic Human for UE5, takes you through the complete process of creating a custom MetaHuman character.

Chapter 9, Building a Virtual 3D Movie Set in UE5, teaches you how to build a virtual 3D movie set by using Nanite in combination with Quixel Megascans assets in UE5.

Chapter 10, Adding Lighting and Atmospheric Visual Effects in UE5, teaches you how to light your 3D movie set by using Lumen with custom lighting and add fog, light bloom, light shafts, and solar flares in UE5.

Chapter 11, Alien Plant Joint Setup in Blender, helps you to create a skeleton joint/bone chain for the Alien Plant to make it animated.

Chapter 12, Alien Plant Skinning in Blender, helps you understand how to skin the Alien Plant 3D model so that it can animate and move with the skeleton.

Chapter 13, Robot Joint Setup and Skinning in Blender, helps you to create a skeleton for the robot and teaches you how to skin it to the skeleton in a rigid way.

Chapter 14, Making a Custom Rig for Our Alien Plant with Control Rig, helps you understand how to create a simple custom Forward Kinematics (FK) animation rig with the new Control Rig tools in UE5.

Chapter 15, Creating a Control Rig with Basic IK Controls for the Robot in UE5, shows you how to create a simple custom Inverse Kinematics (IK) animation rig with the new Control Rig tools.

Chapter 16, Creating a Simple Swaying Animation Cycle in UE5 Sequencer, shows you how to animate your first simple animation with a custom Control Rig using Sequencer.

Chapter 17, Creating Three Simple Animations for the Robot in UE5 Sequencer, helps you to create some more simple animations using your custom robot Control Rig, Sequencer, IK, and additive animation layers.

Chapter 18, Importing Motion Capture onto the MetaHuman Control Rig, shows you how to find free motion capture animations and teaches you how to retarget them to the MetaHuman Control Rig.

Chapter 19, Motion Capture Editing and Cleanup Using Control Rig and Sequencer, helps you understand how to clean up, edit, and repurpose motion capture animation for your final movie.

Chapter 20, Using Sequencer to Construct Your Final Scene, will teach you how to construct your final movie scene with all the animated custom assets you created in this book, add cameras, and render your final movie.

To get the most out of this book

First of all, you need a computer that is powerful enough to run UE5. Even a lower-lever gaming PC or a modern laptop will be sufficient. You don't need previous experience with 3D software or Unreal Engine, but you will need to have basic computer literacy such as using the Windows operating system. For experienced 3D artists making the transition from other software packages to Blender or UE5, this book will help you to make the transition by showing you how to use the equivalent basic tools.

At the time of writing, all the software used in this book is free to download and use for individuals. There might be some licensing terms and conditions, but they are mostly for big studios working on big projects and don't affect individual users. At the time of writing, these are the download links:

https://www.unrealengine.com/https://www.blender.org/download/releases/3-1/https://quixel.com/mixerhttps://metahuman.unrealengine.com/Instant meshes:https://github.com/wjakob/instant-meshesXnormal:https://xNormal.net/

However, they should be easy to find with a quick internet search. Follow the installation instructions from the software websites.

The book is an equivalent of a foundation course on the most important elements of 3D art in general. We try to teach you the most important industry-standard ways of doing things in order to lay a solid foundation that you can build upon. See this book as the first step. We want to put the first tools in your toolbelt, but it is up to you to learn the subtleties of these tools.

Practice with these tools. Find and explore more tools. Explore the area or discipline you enjoy doing the most. In many cases, this also turns out to be the one you have a talent for. Put the time in, find a mentor, and you too can become a top craftsman and artist in this field.

Download the example files

You can download the example code files for this book from GitHub at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Unreal-Engine-5-Character-Creation-Animation-and-Cinematics. 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://packt.link/EjXGU.

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: "The completed Robot Drone model, RobotDrone_Blender_File.blend, is available to download from the online repository."

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: "The last tabs we will cover in this book are the UV Editing Workspace tab and the Texture Paint Workspace tab."

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Part 1 Creating 3D Assets

In this part of the book, you will learn the complete process of creating 3D assets for use in Unreal Engine 5.

We will cover the following chapters in this section:

Chapter 1, An Introduction to Blender's 3D Modeling and Sculpting ToolsChapter 2, Modeling a Robot Drone CharacterChapter 3, Let's Sculpt an Alien Plant!Chapter 4, UV Maps and Texture BakingChapter 5, Texturing Your Models Inside Quixel Mixer

1

An Introduction to Blender's 3D Modeling and Sculpting Tools

Welcome to the exciting world of 3D movie making!

We know you are super eager to start making your first 3D movie, but before you can do that, you need to get virtual actors, virtual sets, and virtual props, just like in a (virtual) Hollywood movie.

To create these 3D assets, you will need to learn how to use a piece of 3D software called Blender. This 3D creation suite is open source (free to use).

In this chapter, we will cover two approaches to creating 3D assets in Blender: 3D modeling and 3D sculpting.

I will start by explaining the very basic concepts of 3D modeling, then delve into the differences between 3D modeling and 3D sculpting and which is the best suited for a particular task.

After this, you will get a quick overview of how to use Blender by learning how to use the user interface, navigate in the 3D Viewport, view modes, and manipulate and select items.

Finally, we will briefly explore some of the most used 3D modeling tools, 3D sculpting tools, and modifiers that we will use in the practical exercises throughout the next four chapters.

Note

This chapter's purpose is to introduce you to the fundamentals of 3D graphics in general and the basic functionality of Blender's 3D modeling and sculpting tools. It is not meant as a practical chapter but rather as a reference of the tools that are used in Blender.

In this chapter, we're going to cover the following main topics:

What is 3D modeling? Understanding 3D sculptingIntroducing BlenderExploring Blender's modeling tools Using modifiers in BlenderExploring Blender's sculpting toolsOther sculpting tools

By the end of this chapter, you will have a thorough understanding of the basic concepts of 3D modeling and sculpting.

You will learn the basics of Blender's functionality and learn about the 3D modeling and sculpting tools that you will use in the upcoming chapters.

Technical requirements

You will need the following hardware and software to complete this chapter:

A computer that can run basic 3D animation softwareBlender, which can be installed from https://www.blender.org/download/

The Blender version that's used in this chapter is version 2.93.4. Even if your version of Blender is newer, the examples should still work without any problems.

Before we dive into the 3D movie-making process, you need to understand the basic concepts of 3D modeling.

The files related to this chapter are placed at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Unreal-Engine-5-Character-Creation-Animation-and-Cinematics/tree/main/Chapter01

What is 3D modeling?

3D modeling is the process of creating 3D models by manipulating Meshes in 3D software.

A mesh (also called a polygon mesh) is a three-dimensional virtual object that is represented in a three-dimensional space in the 3D software.

A mesh is made up of components. These components are faces, edges, and vertices:

A face is best described as a filled-in plane with at least three or more straight edges. Faces are made of two sub-component parts – edges and vertices. An edge is a connection between two vertices.A vertex (plural: vertices) is a point in a 3D space. Vertices are the smallest components of a mesh.

These can be seen in the following diagram:

Figure 1.1 – The parts of a mesh

In this section, you learned about the basics of 3D modeling. This knowledge is an essential building block to learning more about 3D graphics.

In the next section, we will explore the fundamentals of 3D sculpting as a different approach to creating 3D assets.

Understanding 3D sculpting

So, what is 3D sculpting and how is it different from 3D modeling?

3D sculpting or digital sculpting can best be described as shaping or forming a 3D mesh with brush-based sculpting tools.

Imagine a traditional sculptor who is modeling in clay. Now, with modern computer graphics software such as Blender, you could sculpt much like a traditional sculptor but in a virtual three-dimensional space by using a pressure-sensitive graphic tablet and pen, or a mouse.

In Blender, we have many sculpting tools available that approximate the feeling of digital clay.

The benefit of a sculptural approach to creating models is that it can be more intuitive for creating organic shapes instead of using regular modeling tools (which are usually better suited for mechanical meshes or models of man-made structures such as buildings, vehicles, and so on).

Some examples of organic shapes for 3D sculpting include human bodies, creatures, animals, plants, rocks, and any other natural organic-shaped solid form. For 3D sculpting, we also use polygon meshes.

In this section, you learned about the basic concepts of 3D sculpting.

In the next section, you will learn about the essential functionality of Blender, which includes its user interface, navigation, and much more.

Introducing Blender

Blender is a 3D creation suite that can create almost any virtual scene or object.

We'll start exploring Blender by learning about the user interface that you see before you. Knowing what is where is the most essential starting point.

The user interface

As we open up Blender for the first time, we are greeted with a splash screen. This is a helpful menu to get you started when you have a particular project in mind. But for now, just close this menu. Once you've closed the splash screen, your view should look similar to what's shown in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.2 – Blender's user interface regions

The numbered areas in the preceding screenshot mark the different user interface regions that I will explain:

Topbar: This contains menus such as File, Edit, Render, and Help. On the right of that, we have tabs for selecting workspaces. These are like modes for the software, complete with menus and shortcuts. For example, if we want to move objects around the scene, we can use the Layout Workspace tab. Later, when we want to learn about the modeling process, we can switch over to the Modeling Workspace tab.

And, as you have probably already guessed, for 3D sculpting, we can use the Sculpture Workspace tab. The last few tabs we will cover in this book are the UV Editing Workspace and Texture Paint Workspace tabs. Some of the other tabs that you will need for your future projects are the Shading Workspace and Animation Workspace tabs.

Outliner: This is a list representation of the various objects (meshes, curves, and so on) and elements (cameras, lights, and so on) in the scene. The Outliner can be used for selecting, deselecting, hiding, and organizing these objects and elements in the scene.Properties: Here, we will find adjustable properties with tabs for adjusting active data, including the scene and its objects.Timeline: This is used for scrubbing and manipulating animation keyframes.Status Bar: This is where Blender displays contextual information about mouse and keyboard shortcuts and other statistical information.3D Viewport: This is where you can view what is happening in your virtual 3D world.

In this section, you learned about the basic layout of Blender's user interface and its regions. In the next section, we will take an in-depth look at the various elements of the 3D Viewport.

Elements in the 3D Viewport

The 3D Viewport is where you can view what is happening in your virtual 3D world. The grid pattern shows you the floor plane. The floor grid plane is positioned at 0 on all three axes:

Figure 1.3 – The 3D Viewport's UI elements, shown with the Layout Workspace active

There are a few important items and regions in the 3D Viewport, as highlighted in the preceding screenshot:

The Header bar: This menu bar acts as a container for menus and commonly used tools. Menus and buttons will change with the editor type and the selected object and mode.Toolbar: This menu bar contains a set of interactive tools that change depending on the workspace that's been selected. To show or hide the toolbar, press T. Properties region, also known as the N-panel: The Properties region can't be seen in the preceding screenshot because it is hidden by default. To open the Properties region, press N. This will open the Properties region on the right-hand side of the 3D Viewport. The Properties region holds settings for the 3D view and active object. It also provides numeric inputs for editing the Transform tab of your selected item (Location, Rotation, Scale, and Dimensions), as shown in the following screenshot. You can also use the Properties region to edit your 3D view's focal length and viewport clipping:

Figure 1.4 – The Properties region

By default, the 3D Viewport will show you some additional items that are automatically loaded on startup. These are the 3D cube mesh, the camera, and the light:

The 3D cube mesh is a model that provides a good starting point for many modeling tasks.The camera is a virtual camera that's used for renders inside Blender, while the light is a virtual light that's used to light our scenes. Neither of these will be used for our tutorial, so we can delete them.We also have the object origin. If we focus our attention on the 3D cube mesh in the center of our view, we can see that there is a tiny orange dot right in the center. This indicates the object origin point of our mesh. We will discuss why it is of importance later.The 3D cursor is a red-and-white striped circle with crosshairs. This is a very useful tool that will be discussed later.Finally, we have the Navigation Gizmo, which can be found in the top-right corner of the 3D Viewport. You can use this gizmo to rotate your view of the 3D scene. We can either click and drag on the navigation gizmo to smoothly change our view, or we can click on one of the dots, which will immediately snap our view to one of the Orthographic views.

Note

Orthographic views are two-dimensional views of a 3D object or scene. These are usually front, back, right, left, top, and bottom Orthographic views.

In this section, you learned about the different elements of the 3D Viewport in Blender. So, now that you have an understanding of the basic user interface, let's continue our journey and learn more about the basics of Blender.

In the next section, we will explore how we can interact with items in the 3D Viewport.

Interacting with the 3D world in Blender

In Blender, there are three basic ways to navigate inside the 3D Viewport – that is, to change your viewpoint of the 3D scene.

Navigating around the 3D view

The following three methods change your viewpoint and can be used to navigate inside the 3D Viewport:

Zoom: Use the mouse scroll wheel to zoom in or out from the object. Alternatively, you can use Ctrl + click and drag using the middle mouse button to zoom in or out. Rotate: Click and drag while pressing the middle mouse button. Hold Alt + click and drag using the middle mouse button to snap the view to the Orthographic view.Pan: Press Shift + click and drag using the middle mouse button to pan. Panning means moving the viewpoint from side to side.

Now that you understand how to change your viewpoint in the 3D scene, let's explore how we can interact with items in the 3D Viewport.

Selecting and deselecting items

Once you close the splash screen in Blender, the first thing you will see is a view with a 3D cube in the center.

By default, the 3D cube is already selected. We know this because the 3D cube is highlighted with an orange outline. If an item or component is deselected, it will have no orange outline.

Note

When an item is selected in the 3D Viewport, that same item will also be selected and highlighted in the Outliner. You could use the Outliner to select or deselect items. Any selected/deselected items will also be automatically selected/deselected in the 3D Viewport.

There are a few more ways to select or deselect items, objects, or mesh components in Blender:

Selecting items directly: Left-click on an item or component directly to select it. To deselect an item or component, you should left-click anywhere in the 3D Viewport.Selecting using the selection tools: The select box (located at the top of the toolbar on the left, as shown in Figure 1.3) is the default tool that's used for selection. To use this tool, press the left mouse button and drag over the items or components you want to select. Selecting multiple items: If you want to select multiple items at once, you can add to your selection by holding Shift when you click on an item. Clicking on an already selected item while holding Shift will deselect that item from the rest of the selected items.

To select all the items in your scene at once while in the Layout Workspace area, press A to select all. Pressing A twice in quick succession will deselect all the items in your scene.

Selecting mesh components: By default, meshes in the Layout Workspace area are in Object Mode. To select a mesh component, you need to toggle Edit Mode so that it's on by pressing Tab.

The following diagram shows how to enter Vertex, Edge, or Face Selection mode by either using the icons shown (these can be found in the Header menu bar) or using the relevant numbers on your keyboard, as shown here:

Figure 1.5 – How to select mesh components

To select any of these components for our tutorials, we will use the Box Select tool from the toolbar. Once selected, you can make a variety of edits. We will discuss how to do this later.

To toggle back to Object Mode (and leave Edit Mode), just press Tab.

Selecting linked mesh components: There are times when you may want to select linked (connected) parts of your mesh that are a continuous mesh surface. Position your mouse cursor over the part you want to select and use the Ctrl + L shortcut. To deselect linked (connected) mesh components under your mouse cursor, press Shift + L.

In this section, you learned how to select and deselect various items and/or their components.

In the next section, we will explore the concepts of axes and transform orientations in Blender.

Axes and transform orientations

What are axes? In 3D graphics, an axis is an imaginary line in a 3D space that defines a direction. There are three axes – X, Y, and Z – that correspond to the left/right (X), front/back (Y), and up/down (Z) directional lines, as shown in the following diagram.

Axes have both a positive and a negative direction and are colored to make them easier to visually identify. The X-axis is red, the Y-axis is green, and the Z-axis is blue. In Blender and Unreal Engine (UE), the up direction is in the positive direction of the Z-axis:

Figure 1.6 – (A) Blender's three axes: X, Y, and Z; (B) The cube serves as a reference to show how the three axes will appear on a 3D cube mesh

Now that you know what axes are, let's take a quick look at some of the other concepts you need to understand:

Transform: Transforming an object/item means to move, rotate, or scale it. When you transform an object, you are automatically using the object's axes and the axes' orientation to transform it.Orientation: This describes the direction of the axes. The orientation of the axes changes, depending on the type of Transform Orientation that you choose. In Figure 1.7, you can see that the orientation of the red, green, and blue arrows (called the Object Gizmo) changes from Figure 1.7, part A, to Figure 1.7, part B.

Note

We will cover the Object Gizmo in more depth in a later section.

Transform Orientation: This changes the behavior of transformations. In other words, the way that you transform/manipulate an object will change, depending on which Transform Orientation you choose to use. In this chapter, we will cover two of these Transform Orientation options – the Global axis and the Local axis.

To change your transform orientation using the Transform Orientations menu (drop-down menu), go to the Header bar and look for the icon with the word Global next to it. This menu is shown near the top area of the following screenshot:

Figure 1.7 – (A) Using Global (Transform Orientations); (B) Using Local (Transform Orientations)

Let's take a quick look at the difference between the Global axis and the Local axis:

Global: The orientation of the Global axis is aligned to the world/scene. In Figure 1.7, part A, I selected the Global axis Transform Orientation for the orange-outlined box. The Global axis Transform Orientation is set as the default for all objects/items in Blender. The orientation of the Global axis is fixed and cannot be changed. All items in Blender can share the same Global axis since it is the axis of the world/scene.Local: Each object/item in Blender has a Local axis that is unique to the object/item/component. When the object is transformed, the Local axis will follow along. In Figure 1.7, part B, I selected the Local axis, and you can see that the axes of the orange-outlined box are following a different orientation than when we used the Global axis. Local axes are adjustable, unlike the Global axes.

You've just learned about the concepts of axes, transforms, orientations, and how to switch between the Global axis and the Local axis using the Transform Orientation menu.

In the next section, we will go over the shortcuts that can be used to transform your objects. We will also explore how to use shortcuts to switch between the Global and Local axis Transform Orientation, to speed up your workflow.

Lastly, we will explore how to use Object Gizmos as another way to transform your objects.

Manipulating objects or their components

We can manipulate objects/components by either using shortcuts or Object Gizmos. We will explore how to use both these options now. Let's start by showing you how to manipulate using shortcuts.

Using shortcuts to manipulate objects/components

Let's look at the shortcuts for moving, rotating, and scaling objects/components:

Move: Use the G shortcut to move your selected item up, down, left, or right (perpendicular to your current viewing angle). To constrain the movement to a Global axis, hold down the X, Y, or Z key (the axes' name keys) while using this shortcut. If you press the same axis key (X, Y, or Z) a second time, it will toggle a constrain for your movement to a Local axis.Rotate: Use the R shortcut to rotate your selected item in either a clockwise or anti-clockwise direction (perpendicular to your current viewing angle). The item will use the object's origin (as shown in Figure 1.3) as the pivot point for the rotation. To constrain the rotation to a Global axis, hold down the X, Y, or Z key (the axes' name keys) while using this shortcut. If you press the same axis (X, Y, or Z) a second time, it will toggle a constrain for your rotation to a Local axis.Scale: Use the S shortcut to scale your selected item up or down. The item will use the object origin (as shown in Figure 1.3) as the center for scaling. To constrain the scaling to a Global axis, hold down the X, Y, or Z key (the axes' name keys) while using this shortcut. If you press the same axis (X, Y, or Z) a second time, it will toggle a constrain for your scaling to a Local axis.

You've just learned how to use shortcuts to transform objects and their components and other items. You've also learned that you can constrain these transforms by using the X, Y, or Z keys (the axes' name keys) and that you can switch between the Global and Local axis by pressing these keys once for the Global axis, and twice for the Local axis.

In the next section, we will learn how to use Object Gizmos to transform/manipulate objects, components, or items.

Using Object Gizmos to manipulate objects/components

What are Object Gizmos? They are transform (manipulation) tools that appear in the 3D Viewport and are overlayed on the selected item when you choose one of the three manipulation modes (move, rotate, or scale) from the toolbar, as shown in the following screenshot.

Object Gizmos offer an alternative way (another alternative to using shortcuts) to transform/manipulate objects or their components in the scene. The benefit of using Object Gizmos is that you can constrain the movement or scale to two of the three axes during a transform (constrained to a two-dimensional plane). This isn't possible when using shortcuts:

Figure 1.8 – The toolbar, with descriptions of the icons next to them. I have highlighted the manipulation modes

Let's take a look at how we can activate any of the three Object Gizmos

Move: Use the Space bar + G shortcut or click on MOVE ICON in the toolbar, as shown in the preceding screenshot, to move with the Move Object Gizmo.Rotate: Use the Space bar + R shortcut or click on ROTATE ICON in the toolbar, as shown in the preceding screenshot, to rotate with the Rotate Object Gizmo.Scale: Use the Space bar + S shortcut or click on SCALE ICON in the toolbar, as shown in the preceding screenshot, to scale with the Scale Object Gizmo.

Once you have selected a Transform mode (move, rotate, or scale), the Object Gizmos will be overlayed over your item, as shown in the following diagram:

Figure 1.9 – The Object Gizmos overlaid over a 3D cube model for move, rotate, or scale

Inside the Move Object Gizmos, you can see that there are red, green, and blue arrows that point in three directions. These three directions represent the three axes. The red arrow represents the X-axis, the green arrow represents the Y-axis, and the blue arrow represents the Z-axis.

For example, if you want to move the cube in the X-axis direction, you should left-click and hold the red arrow and then move the mouse. This will move the cube in the X-axis direction. Then, you can release the mouse again when you want to stop moving it.

The small white circle in the middle of the Move Object Gizmo is to move the object in any direction that is perpendicular to your current viewing angle.

If you manipulate the small red, green, and blue planes near the center of the gizmo, it will constrain the movement to two of your chosen axes during a transform. For example, if you manipulate the red plane, the model's movement would be constrained to the Y-axis and Z-axis simultaneously. In other words, it would be constrained to a two-dimensional plane.

The Rotate Object Gizmo has red, green, and blue colored curves. The red curve represents the X-axis, the blue curve represents the Y-axis, and the green curve represents the Z-axis. Use these curves to rotate the selected object. The white circle that encompasses the colored curves allows free rotation in any direction that is perpendicular to your current viewing angle.

The Scale Object Gizmo has red, green, and blue lines with square endpoints that will scale the selected object in the X, Y, or Z directions, respectively. There are two white circles on this gizmo, and you can use either of them to scale freely on all three axes simultaneously. If you manipulate the small red, green, and blue planes near the center of the gizmo, it will constrain the scaling to two of your chosen axes during a transform (constrained to a two-dimensional plane).

In this section, you learned how to manipulate items/components using three types of object gizmos that are available.

In the next section, we will explore how to change the way that Blender displays meshes and other items by using different View Mode options.

View Mode

View Mode (or Viewport Shading Mode) is used to display an item/component in the 3D Viewport.

The different options in View Mode are Solid View Mode, X-Ray View Mode, and Wireframe Viewport Shading Mode:

Figure 1.10 – Viewport Shading Modes – (A) Solid View Mode; (B) X-Ray View Mode; (C) Wireframe Viewport Shading Mode

Note

Solid View Mode is the default Viewport Shading Mode. In this mode, when you use the select box to select the components of a mesh, it will only select the components that are facing your current view (visible components). When you want to select mesh components on the other side of your current object (not visible in Solid View Mode), you need to activate either X-Ray View Mode or Wireframe Viewport Shading Mode.

The following shortcuts are used to toggle the View Mode options:

Use Alt + Z to toggle X-Ray View Mode.Use Shift + Z to toggle Wireframe View Mode.Use Z to toggle the Shading Pie Menu, which contains the Solid, Wireframe and X-Ray Viewport shading modes.

You have just learned about the different Viewport Shading Modes and why these are essential when creating 3D assets. You need these to switch between Solid View Mode, X-Ray View Mode, and Wireframe Viewport Shading Mode to select mesh components on the non-visible side of your model.

This also concludes the Introducing Blender section. You now understand the user interface, Viewport navigation, how to select and deselect, and how to manipulate items with object gizmos.

In the next section, we will explore the 3D modeling tools that we will use in the next four chapters.

Exploring Blender's modeling tools

Let's take a look at the 3D modeling tools that we will use in our practical tutorials during the next four chapters. This section serves as a reference and is not meant to be a practical tutorial.

Note

In the Further reading section, you will find a link to download Additional Content Volume 1 – More Blender Tools and Modifiers.pdf. This is a document where I have covered a few more modeling tools and modifiers.

When using Blender's modeling tools, either click outside the mesh in the 3D Viewport to apply the current tool, or press Alt + A to deselect the active edit; this will also apply the tool.

Extrude region

This tool extrudes a face, edge, or vertex, thus increasing the volume of the mesh and adding new geometry to it.

To use this tool, switch to Edit Mode by pressing Tab. Then, either select the Extrude Region tool icon from the toolbar or use the E shortcut to extrude:

Figure 1.11 – (Left) Using the Extrude tool; (Right) The Extrude Region tool icon

If you're using the icon, left-click and drag the plus sign (or handle) to extrude the selected face/s out in a straight path.

Click and drag on the white circle to extrude in the screen space's direction (perpendicular to your current view).

Bevel

The Bevel tool is used to bevel your selected edge, vertex, or face. A bevel is used to smooth out edges and corners, as shown in the following screenshot.

To use this function, select the Bevel tool icon and the object's components that you wish to bevel. Then, click and drag on the yellow handle. The minimized Operator panel will appear in the bottom left of your 3D Viewport (below your mesh). It shows additional options when it is expanded (it is minimized by default). If you want to use a shortcut to bevel, press Ctrl + B:

Figure 1.12 – (Left) Applying a bevel with a varying number of segments; (Right) The Bevel tool icon

The default Bevel contains one segment, but after completing your first bevel, you can add more segments inside the Operator panel to make the bevel more rounded.

If you've used the shortcut (Ctrl + B) to bevel, you can use your mouse's scroll wheel to increase or decrease the number of segments, without needing to use the Operator panel. If you beveled using the Bevel tool icon from the toolbar, then you must use the Operator panel to add more segments.

Note

The Operator panel only appears once. If you left-click outside the Operator panel in the 3D Viewport, the Operator panel will disappear, so make sure you've made all the edits that you want to in the Operator panel before it closes.

Loop Cut

The Loop Cut tool is used to add an Edge Loop to your mesh (an encircling loop of edges that connects back to its starting point):

Figure 1.13 – (Left) Using the Loop Cut tool; (Right) The Loop Cut tool icon

To use this tool, select the Loop Cut tool icon from the toolbar, or use the Ctrl + R shortcut and follow these steps:

Click on the area you wish to add the Edge Loop to. A yellow edge will appear indicating that your Edge Loop is still in Edit Mode.Click and drag the yellow Edge Loop to an area where you wish to place it.Press Alt + A to deselect and apply the Loop Cut.

Let's move on to the next tool now.

Inset Faces

The Inset Faces tool is similar to the Extrude tool, but all the faces it creates are on the surface of the selected face and do not change the mesh's surface shape. To use this tool, either press I on your keyboard or select the Inset Faces tool icon from the toolbar:

Figure 1.14 – (Left) Using the Inset Face tool; (Right) The Inset Faces tool icon

Merging faces, edges, and vertices

To collapse faces, edges, and vertices down to a single point, use the Merge function by pressing the M shortcut and choosing At Center:

Figure 1.15 – Merging vertices

Proportional Editing

Blender has a great function to modify mesh components with a soft fall-off. If you manipulate a component in your mesh with Proportional Editing enabled, the mesh components will move with a soft fall-off:

Figure 1.16 – (A) Selecting Proportional Editing; (B) Moving a vertex with Proportional Editing turned on; (C) Adjusting the fall-off

In the preceding screenshot, we can see what happens when we enable Proportional Editing in the Header bar. Alternatively, you can press O to toggle Proportional Editing on/off.

Immediately after your first modification, an Operator panel will appear in the bottom left of your 3D Viewport, with options to adjust the fall-off interactively.

In this section, you learned about different 3D modeling tools and Proportional Editing mode, which is used during 3D asset creation in Blender. These tools will come in very handy during our practical tutorial in Chapter 2, Modeling a Robot Drone Character.

Blender also has some other useful functions that give you more flexibility and options when you create 3D assets. These are called modifiers. We'll look at them in the next section.

Using modifiers in Blender

What is a modifier? Essentially, a modifier is like a mode (or function) that acts on a mesh's geometry, while allowing you to keep editing the geometry.

Modifiers are non-destructive, which means that you can toggle the modifier on or off at any time to revert to your original mesh. You can keep on modifying your mesh's geometry with the modeling tools since the modifier effect only acts on the mesh's geometry after you've made your edits.

Modifiers can act on their own or can be placed in a modifier stack in the Properties panel. When more than one modifier has been applied to the geometry, they can be re-arranged in any order to create a different result.

For example, if you put a Bevel Modifier on a 3D cube, and then you extrude some of the faces on that 3D cube, that Bevel Modifier will automatically bevel any new geometry's sharp edges.

In this section, you learned what modifiers are and what they are used for. In the next section, we will explore two of the modifiers that we will use for this book's practical tutorials. We will start with the Mirror modifier.

The Mirror modifier

Use the Mirror modifier to save time when constructing meshes that are symmetrical or have some symmetric parts on them.

With this modifier, you only need to model half of the symmetrical mesh; Blender will mirror it to the opposite side for you.

To use the Mirror modifier, follow these steps:

Delete half of the mesh (the side that will be mirrored to).Make sure all the edges and vertices in the mirror center line of your mesh are in a straight line.Now that the mesh has been prepared, let's add the Mirror modifier. Find the spanner icon in the Properties panel. You will see a collapsed drop-down menu, as shown in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.17 – The Add Modifier drop-down menu from the Properties panel

As soon as you click on Add Modifier in the drop-down menu, it will open and reveal all the modifiers that are available in Blender. Select Mirror from this list, as shown in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.18 – (A) Selecting the Mirror modifier; (B) The settings for the Mirror modifier

Choose the correct axis to mirror your mesh. Then, turn on Clipping and Merge and change the amount to a number just high enough that it will merge the vertices in the center line.

In this section, you learned how to use the powerful Mirror modifier. You can choose to use it to act on your mesh while you do 3D modeling (to see the mirrored result in real time) or you can choose to apply the Mirror modifier after you complete a model. The choice is yours.

In the next section, we will explore the Subdivision Surface modifier.

Important

Before you use functions in Blender that add new geometry to your mesh (such as Remesh, Dyntopo, Subdivision Surface Modifier, or Multiresolution Modifier), you need to take your computer system's specifications (CPU, video card, and RAM) into account. The denser the geometry of the mesh becomes, the more system resources your computer will need.

Subdivision Surface modifier

This modifier adds a Subdivision Surface function (or mode) over your mesh's geometry to subdivide and smooth out the original shape while keeping the original mesh light in geometry (not having too many faces).

By doing this, you can keep editing the low-resolution mesh while seeing the smoothed shape update with the result. Like all modifiers, it can be toggled on or off:

Figure 1.19 – Applying the Subdivision Surface modifier to a mesh

In the preceding screenshot, I used the Subdivision Surface modifier on a cube to turn the cube into a smooth-shaped sphere.

If you edit any of the original faces of the cube in Edit Mode (it will display as a Wireframe), the result of your mesh's edits will automatically be subdivided and smoothed by the Subdivision Surface modifier.

The keyboard shortcuts for this modifier are Ctrl + number (0 to 5).

The numbers 0 to 5 correspond to the subdivision level of the mesh in the modifier. You can switch between subdivision levels at any time.

The modifiers' Subdivision Set level can be found in the Operator panel, in the bottom left of the 3D Viewport. Using this menu is another way you can change the subdivision level of your mesh. To do so, click on the little arrows.

In this section, you learned how to use the Subdivision Surface modifier. With this, we have completed our introduction to the 3D modeling tools that are available in Blender.

In the next section, we will explore the other 3D asset creation method, known as 3D sculpting.

Using Blender's sculpting tools

You already understand the basic concepts of 3D sculpting. But now, let's explore how the 3D sculpting tools work in more detail. This section serves as a reference and is not meant to be practical.

Blender is excellent at 3D sculpting on meshes. When you select the Sculpture Workspace tab from the top bar, Blender automatically switches to Sculpture Mode, and the user interface changes to reflect this.

For this section, it is recommended that you use a graphics tablet and pressure-sensitive pen (also known as a stylus). That is because it makes sculpting more intuitive since we are primarily dealing with organic forms.

If you don't have a graphics tablet and stylus, don't worry – you can still follow along with the practical sculpture tutorial in Chapter 3, Let's Sculpt an Alien Plant!. Everything will still work, even if you are using a mouse instead of a stylus.