My first try at modelling, have mercy with criticism

Post by **chuck_starchaser** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 7:54 pm

Uh?
Are you in Object mode? Try Edit mode.

Kangaroo · Post by **Kangaroo** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 8:00 pm

I meant that I understoo what was I doing wrong when I tried to place a face inside a face. One more thing - how do I make only the selected edges to be bevelled?

Post by **chuck_starchaser** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 8:13 pm

Kangaroo22 wrote:I meant that I understoo what was I doing wrong when I tried to place a face inside a face. One more thing - how do I make only the selected edges to be bevelled?

Ah, now you got me; that IS something Blender cannot do. Beveling is tricky in Blender... Bevel only bevels a whole object. To do selective bevelling:

Select all the faces whose edges you want to bevel.
Press P to make them a separate object.
Press Tab to go to Object mode, right click on the object, press Tab again to return to Edit mode.
Preferably, put a polygon or two, temporarily, to make it a closed solid.
W->Bevel.
Now make sure you have nothing selected; press A otherwise.
Got to the Selection menu and click on Triangles.
Inspect the triangles the bevel tool generated at the corners; some may be ill-formed. If so, delete the bunch of triangles at that corner and place your own, manually (select two edges and press F; repeat).
Once the bevels are cleaned up, delete the temporary extra faces.
Press Tab to return to Object mode
Shift-Right-Click on the original object so that both are selected
Press Shift-J to join them back together into one object.
Weld them back together (select a few vertices to merge, W->Merge at Center, repeat).

HTH

æþeling · Post by **æþeling** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 8:14 pm

I also have a question about Blender.

How can I add a light source? By default, there's only one, and I don't know how to move it.

Post by **chuck_starchaser** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 8:20 pm

You have to be in Object mode (press Tab if you're in Edit mode)
SpaceBar -> Add -> Light.
The new light is placed at the cursor. If you don't see it, it means you're looking away from the cursor, --just press C.
And you have to be in object mode to move a light. Just right-click it and press G. Follow G by X, Y, or Z if you want to constrain the motion to one axis.
With the light selected, press F5 to control its type, color, intensity, and whether you want it to cast shadows in rendering.
F12 to render, but you must have lights AND a camera in the scene.
If you like the rendering, press F3 to save it.

æþeling · Post by **æþeling** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 8:27 pm

Thanks, that helped

Who would've thought a single expert gets the job done faster than a 200+ page manual

Post by **chuck_starchaser** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 8:31 pm

Hey, same thing here; I learned what I know by asking questions; --never read the manual, in fact. (Can't read manuals; I fall asleep; --no kidding.)

Kangaroo · Post by **Kangaroo** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 8:33 pm

Um, how do I make a camera point the face I'm working with?

æþeling · Post by **æþeling** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 8:42 pm

Go into object mode and rotate it?

Kangaroo · Post by **Kangaroo** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 8:46 pm

Damn, even the current camera (the one I'm looking with) ?

æþeling · Post by **æþeling** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 8:55 pm

I don't know if there's a single-button shortcut to make it point to your selection, I always did it with moving and rotating the camera (or the object I'm working with).

Post by **chuck_starchaser** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 9:01 pm

You can be either in normal mode or in camera mode viewing. To enter camera mode viewing you press Numpad-0 (zero/Insert). And the moment you press the middle mouse button and move the mouse, you exit camera mode and are back to normal viewing.
Now, if you're looking at your model in normal mode, and want your rendering camera to render what you're seeing, press Ctrl-Alt-Numpad-0.
Try it.

You may need to adjust zoom, by selecting the camera in Object mode and pressing F9.

Finally, if you want to make fine adjustments to the direction the camera is pointing, go to Object mode, select the camera, press 1, 3 or 7 on the numpad, to get to an orthogonal view, press R for rotate, or G to move.

It helps to split the screen and have a small screen permanently in camera view. This way, when you adjust camera position, orientation or zoom, you see how the view from the camera is changing.

Post by **chuck_starchaser** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 9:04 pm

Kangaroo22 wrote:Um, how do I make a camera point the face I'm working with? ... Damn, even the current camera (the one I'm looking with) ?

Ah, you mean your (normal/working) view, not the rendering "camera".
To face a selection, press Numpad-[.]/Del.

Kangaroo · Post by **Kangaroo** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 9:11 pm

Thanks a million! This will help me a lot. Chuck, how do you make shadows look less opaque in the render?

Post by **chuck_starchaser** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 9:20 pm

My pleasure. Either by having more lights, or by having ambient light. Depending on how long you're willing to wait for the rendering, you might want to add Ambient Occlusion.

To add ambient light, you press F5 repeatedly until you get a panel where you see sliders for the color of the sky, one set for horizon, one set for zenith... Don't make them too bright. Orange for the horizon and blue for the zenith is kind of what we're used to for dawn and sunset.

You can also import a cube-map texture. Press the Real, Blend and Paper buttons on the left, if you like.

For ambient occlusion, click the Ambient Occlusion button in the middle.
Samples 5 for a quick render (noisy look); 9 for high quality. Click on Add, click on the Sky Color button, and set Bias to 0.2. At least I do, has something to do with smooth shading...

Ambient lighting for any material is affected by the Ambient slider at the bottom of your material's shader panel.

EDIT:
Also, rendering with Radiosity (Rad button in Rendering Panel (F10)) will cause light to bounce around a bit before it dies

but it takes longer to render.

Kangaroo · Post by **Kangaroo** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 9:31 pm

Ok, my first model looks like this:

Post by **chuck_starchaser** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 9:34 pm

Cool! Your first Blender model! YEY!

Kangaroo · Post by **Kangaroo** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 9:37 pm

I still have much to learn, master

Post by **chuck_starchaser** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 9:40 pm

Now, for a little surprise ...

Go to object mode and place a shape you want to make a greeble with; make sure it's not centered on the ship; only on one side. Press F9. On the right panel, press Add Modifier -> Mirror. Select X, Y or Z, whichever axis crosses your ship left to right (should be X); press all three buttons on the right, and watch. Now, go to Edit mode and you can edit your greeble, and any edit you do is updated instantly on the other side.

Kangaroo · Post by **Kangaroo** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 9:41 pm

That reminds me - how do I reset my cursor to the center?

Post by **chuck_starchaser** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 9:44 pm

Kangaroo22 wrote:That reminds me - how do I reset my cursor to the center?

Shift-C

In Object Mode, make sure your objects have their centers where they should. Press F9. The button Center New places the object's origin at its geometric center. Center Cursor places the origin at the cursor.
If you scale an object in object mode, make sure to follow with Ctrl-A; else your normals will be all screwed-up.

Kangaroo · Post by **Kangaroo** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 9:46 pm

Thank you again, good night everybody (or day)

Post by **chuck_starchaser** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 9:50 pm

I was editing the post, make sure you don't miss the last bit. Good afternoon...

æþeling · Post by **æþeling** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 10:25 pm

Well, I did a render with a background image too (it took me 20 minutes to learn how to do it in Blender+70 seconds to render it, when I could to it in 30 seconds with gimp, lol)

And yeah good night it's late here too and I have to go to work tommorow

Ryder P. Moses · Post by **Ryder P. Moses** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 11:37 pm

I have to admit that the concept that Wings is a "toy" compared to Blender is intriguing. By which I mean hilarious.