Part I RI TE ◆ ◆ ◆ AL Mastering Blender 3D CO PY RI GH TE D MA Chapter 1: Controlling Your Environment Chapter 2: Sculpting and Retopo Workflow Chapter 3: Creating Realistic Images with UV Textures and Node-Based Materials ◆ Chapter 4: Video Compositing with Nodes ◆ Chapter 5: Working with the Video Sequence Editor
Chapter 1 Controlling Your Environment Blender incorporates a dizzying amount of functionality in a single application, and learning to use all the tools as efficiently as possible is a daunting proposition. Even after the initial shock that every beginner feels upon seeing the buttons window, experienced users often still sense that there is a great deal of potential that they have not fully tapped into.
| CHAPTER 1 CONTROLLING YOUR ENVIRONMENT window in the default screen configuration shown in Figure 1.1. The bar across the top of the default screen may look similar to the menu bar that lines the top of many other applications, but in fact it is the header of the User Preferences window, which you can bring into view by left-clicking on the window border and dragging downward, as shown in Figure 1.2. Seven buttons are located along the bottom of the User Preferences area.
GETTING YOUR WAY WITH BLENDER VIEW & CONTROLS The first subcontext of the User Preferences buttons area is the View & Controls subcontext, shown in Figure 1.3. Figure 1.3 The View & Controls user preferences The Display options include six buttons that control how information is displayed throughout the interface or in the 3D viewport. Those buttons are as follows: Tool Tips enables and disables the display of tooltips when the mouse is over interface elements.
| CHAPTER 1 CONTROLLING YOUR ENVIRONMENT Scale causes snapping to the grid when objects are scaled. Auto Depth causes the rotation and zoom of the 3D space to pivot around the point directly under the mouse. This option automatically calculates the depth of the nearest object under the mouse as the pivot point. Global Pivot causes the selected pivot to be fixed over all 3D viewport windows. If this option is not selected, each 3D viewport can use a different pivot.
GETTING YOUR WAY WITH BLENDER The next column includes buttons and fields that control the behavior of the middle mouse button and view changes made with the number pad. These buttons include the following: Rotate View causes the middle mouse button to rotate the 3D view. With this option selected, Shift+MMB pans the view. Pan View causes the middle mouse button to pan the 3D view. With this option selected, Shift+MMB rotates the view.
| CHAPTER 1 CONTROLLING YOUR ENVIRONMENT EDIT METHODS The Edit Methods user-preferences context is shown in Figure 1.4. The options in this window are as follows: Material Linked To controls whether materials are linked to an object itself or the object’s mesh datablock by default.
GETTING YOUR WAY WITH BLENDER Figure 1.4 The Edit Methods user preferences LANGUAGE & FONT The Language & Font buttons context is shown in Figure 1.5. It is no secret that internationalization is an area of Blender that has been unfortunately neglected. One of the reasons for this is the difficulty of creating and incorporating language translation files for the software, which, like many things in Blender, must be done at a low level and compiled directly into the executable. Figure 1.
| CHAPTER 1 CONTROLLING YOUR ENVIRONMENT selected. Nevertheless, this is of limited usefulness for several reasons. First, almost all documentation and learning material is written with the assumption that Blender is in English, and second, the translations are too incomplete to warrant any other assumption, as you can see in Figure 1.9. Figure 1.8 Blender in Japanese Figure 1.
GETTING YOUR WAY WITH BLENDER Figure 1.10 The Themes user preferences Figure 1.11 The Rounded theme There are too many options to set in the Themes area to describe each one individually here, but they are mostly self-explanatory. You can change the color of almost every element in Blender, and in some cases such as drop-down menus and pop-up panels, you can change the alpha value as well.
| CHAPTER 1 CONTROLLING YOUR ENVIRONMENT The icon file used throughout this book is shown in Figure 1.13 and repeated in color in this book’s color insert. It was created by BlenderArtists.org user jendrzych, and the icon set itself can be found on that website at http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=84971. The file is also included on the CD that accompanies the book. Although this is not the official default icon set for version 2.48, it is a nicer-looking and widely used alternative.
GETTING YOUR WAY WITH BLENDER Numerous Blender themes are available online for download. A quick Google search on Blender themes will give you the links for several good theme repositories. The themes may be downloadable in the form of a .blend file or in the form of a Python script. In the latter case, simply open the script in a Blender text editor window and execute it with Alt+P.
| CHAPTER 1 CONTROLLING YOUR ENVIRONMENT Figure 1.16 The System & OpenGL user preferences There are three possible OpenGL lights that can be used to illuminate objects in the Solid Draw mode. By default, two of these lights are activated. The first is a key light from the left, and the second is a dimmer fill light from the right. A third light is also available, which by default is set to provide highlights from the lower right, as shown in Figure 1.17.
GETTING YOUR WAY WITH BLENDER | Returning to the System & OpenGL user preferences (Figure 1.16), the Enabled By Default button under Auto Run Python Scripts, when enabled, will allow Python scripts to be run automatically from within a .blend file. This is convenient in some cases, but it is not recommended if you’re not sure of the source of your .blend files. The Enable All Codecs button under Win Codecs appears on Windows machines.
| CHAPTER 1 CONTROLLING YOUR ENVIRONMENT Saving the Changes After you have set all the options the way you want them, don’t forget to set the current setup as your default setup by using Ctrl+U. Remember, Ctrl+U saves the exact state of Blender at the moment you press it, so be sure you’ve put everything in place exactly the way you want to see it when you open Blender. Objects, materials, animations, and any other data in the .blend file will also be saved. The resulting settings are stored in the .B.
IMPROVING YOUR WORKFLOW Figure 1.
| CHAPTER 1 CONTROLLING YOUR ENVIRONMENT Figure 1.20 The View Properties panel View Locking enables you to enter an object name (and in the case of an armature, a bone name) and force the view to follow the movement of that object, holding the object in the center of the view. This can be useful when you’re animating detail on moving objects, such as when you’re animating the movement of fingers on a moving hand.
IMPROVING YOUR WORKFLOW | Figure 1.22 The Select Linked menu BOX, CIRCLE, AND LASSO SELECTION Pressing the B key once initiates the Box selection state, where you can drag your mouse to select whatever falls within the rectangular area you define. Holding down the Alt key while doing this will deselect whatever falls within that area. Pressing the B key twice will enable the Circle selection state, where you can drag your mouse to select all that falls within a circular area following the mouse.
| CHAPTER 1 CONTROLLING YOUR ENVIRONMENT Figure 1.24 Choosing a loop from an area Figure 1.25 Edge loop and ring selection in Vertex selection mode Figure 1.
IMPROVING YOUR WORKFLOW | Figure 1.27 Loop selection in Face selection mode Another useful selection tool, Select Vertex Path, can be found in the Specials menu by pressing the W key over the 3D viewport. With exactly two vertices selected, this option will select the shortest edge path between the two vertices. Selecting Similar Elements The Shift+G menu enables you to select all similar elements to the currently selected element, based on a variety of possible criteria.
| CHAPTER 1 CONTROLLING YOUR ENVIRONMENT Object Manipulation The most commonly used and taught methods of translating, rotating, and scaling 3D elements are the hot keys G, R, and S. These are the easiest to control, but using other methods can increase the speed and efficiency of your workflow in some cases.
IMPROVING YOUR WORKFLOW Figure 1.28 Mouse gestures for (top to bottom) translation, scale, and rotation Figure 1.29 Translate, rotate, and scale manipulator widgets Figure 1.
| CHAPTER 1 CONTROLLING YOUR ENVIRONMENT Finally, you can scale or translate along two axes by holding down the Shift key and clicking on the hot spot of the third axis. This is analogous to the way axes are constrained by hot key. Thus, to scale along the X and Y axis as shown in Figure 1.31, hold down Shift and click on the Z axis manipulator hot spot. Figure 1.
KEEPING UP WITH THE BLENDER INTERFACE | The Coming Changes Anyone who has participated in recent online discussions about Blender has probably heard about the deep changes afoot for the upcoming Blender version 2.5, in particular as they relate to the interface. Indeed, this release has taken on an almost mythological status in some circles, and opinions (some better informed than others) have been flying thick and fast.
| CHAPTER 1 CONTROLLING YOUR ENVIRONMENT DNA and RNA Blender uses a unique internal format called DNA to store and reference 3D assets. The name is an analogy to the biological term, with the implication that DNA is a highly compact encoding of all the information necessary to re-create the contents of what Blender users know as a .blend file: scenes, objects, and all associated datablocks. DNA is a binary format, which makes it very fast to load and save.
KEEPING UP WITH THE BLENDER INTERFACE | The window organization should be nonoverlapping. For regular users of Blender, this is one of the main strengths of the interface. With functionality as complex as Blender’s, overlapping windows could very quickly become a nightmare of digging around to find buried windows on the desktop. This never happens with Blender, because its windows are tidily organized in a nonoverlapping way.
| CHAPTER 1 CONTROLLING YOUR ENVIRONMENT GOALS AND SUGGESTIONS Reynish’s paper outlines some key interface goals and some practical suggestions for attaining these goals. He argues that the interface should be nonmodal, nonlinear, logical, fast, flexible, innovative, and simple. The practical suggestions are far-reaching. One of the most profound is Reynish’s recommendation for the total removal of the buttons area window as it is currently implemented.
THE BOTTOM LINE | The Developing World As development on each Blender release intensifies, the #blendercoders IRC channel and the various development-related mailing lists are filled with developers communicating their ideas and intentions with each other. The 2.5 event recode and the huge task of porting existing Blender functionality over to the new base requires a high degree of organization and coordination, as does every release.
| CHAPTER 1 CONTROLLING YOUR ENVIRONMENT Use lesser-known methods for selecting, grouping, and organizing 3D elements to speed up your workflow. There are numerous ways to select and group objects and 3D elements that can considerably increase your speed and efficiency when working. Master It Use the selection methods described in this chapter to make the face selections as shown in the following graphic.