Who said Blender was hard?

Joe Cotter

Earlier there was a discussion about moving the camera around and there was one method that didn't get mentioned that can come in handy, to have the selected camera snap to the current view. Basically if we are viewing our scene the way we want the camera to view it, we can simply select our camera in the outliner and use the keyboard shortcut (ctl+alt+numpad 0.) Note, I did try to find the menu item for this but for the life of me couldn't, but the spacebar search comes to the rescue. If we hit spacebar and start to type cam... the first item that comes up is "Align Camera to View."

daveleitz

I turned off touch commands on my Wacom.  I find it does things I don't want as soon as I lift the pen for any reason without lifting my hand.  That goes for pretty much any program I use, not just Blender.  Still, it's a nice feature to have available.

RAMWolff

Not sure what this is called but I'd love to know how to do this in Blender.  Where you take a simple vector line with or without curves and then created a full on 3D object from that.  Can you do that in Blender and if so, how? 

Richard Haseltine

RAMWolff said:

Not sure what this is called but I'd love to know how to do this in Blender.  Where you take a simple vector line with or without curves and then created a full on 3D object from that.  Can you do that in Blender and if so, how? 

Sweep/lathe?

Joe Cotter

There are a few things that will do that but do it differently, so it depends on what exactly you are trying to accomplish. The screw modifier does, as mentioned before, in a lathe type of fashion. You can extrude along a path, create a curve object and convert it to a mesh object, import an SVG file and convert to mesh (for ai files, convert to svg first) and probably some others I'm not thinking of at the moment.

Oso3D

Yeah, Carrara inherited all that from RDS. You can create a 2d shape and move it through various paths, and then set outer 'envelopes' to modify the shape along it's path. A torus, for example, is a simple circle extruded along a circular path. (Duh)
But then you can modify the envelope to, say, push one part of the torus in, or set up frames along the path that have modified geometry. For example, you could have a shape that alternates between circle and square repeatedly (it'd be a little tricky because you have to have the same bezier points)

And then, once you've done all THAT, you can convert it to vertex modeling and tweak it further.

 

Joe Cotter

I really liked the RDS work environment. Some of the tools while doing the same thing as some of the tools in Blender were more intuitive. I didn't end up making the switch to Carrara myself as I ended up going back to Blender. There are plusses and minuses for all tools. Among other things, the Blender community is a real plus for me. :)

RAMWolff

Yea, I guess it's lathe.  It's a really cool function to get a 2D set of vectors and create a 3D object with it! 

Oso3D

I don't know if I would have bought Carrara if I hadn't misunderstood its compatibility with Daz Studio. I had naively assumed that things like procedural shaders and particles would be exportable. Ha ha. Ha.

Granted, given I got it on sale for $60 and it's a fine modeler that is mostly straightforward, I suppose it worked out for the best. (And now that I'm getting a greater handle on UV mapping and export, even better)

 

Though I suspect I may poke at Blender a bit to get more control of UV mapping.

 

Joe Cotter

RAMWolff said:

Yea, I guess it's lathe.  It's a really cool function to get a 2D set of vectors and create a 3D object with it! 

That particular function is the Spin modifier if you are looking for tutorials.

Joe Cotter

timmins.william said:

 I may poke at Blender a bit to get more control of UV mapping.

Blender has some very nice UV tools and there are add-ons that make it even more functional.

RorrKonn

Can you rig a low polycount character 5,000 polygones.

Can you morph a low polycount character 5,000 polygones.

then raze the polycount to 4 million sculpt and still use the rigs n morphs ?

Cris Palomino

RorrKonn said:

Can you rig a low polycount character 5,000 polygones.

Can you morph a low polycount character 5,000 polygones.

then raze the polycount to 4 million sculpt and still use the rigs n morphs ?

Yes.

Yes.

A sculpt of 4 million polys would really only be used for the creation of maps to capture the high details in maps such as normals and displacement.  You wouldnt want to move around a model with such dense mesh.

BradCarsten

I must say, the one thing I really miss from my lightwave days is splines. it was so easy to create smooth shapes with those. 

BradCarsten

kyoto kid said:

...I think I mentioned that I already have a copy of Blender for Dummies (paid 24.95$ for it) and evne after reading through it, every time I open the programme up and see that same UI (which doesn't respond the same as in other CG software), I still feel totally lost. I don't think in keystrokes and key combinations when it comes to creating graphics as I used to draw & paint. Hence, based on that perspective, I find using a clean, elegant, pointer driven UI (like Hexagon's) to be so much more intuitive as it doesn't "get in the way" of the process for learning modelling.

As to Carrara, I do have it but can never seem to get the modelling tab's screen to work right. All I seem to get is the "thumbnail" view down in the right lower corner.

Again, the reason I ike Hexagon's concept, is that it is totally dedicated to the task of modelling without all the other distracting features that programmes such as Blender, Carrara, and even the "pro" applications include.

Books are great- I've got about 5 blender books, but if that's not helping then the best thing to do is just start a project. Then every time you have a question, post it here, and we'll tell you how to do it. Write the solution down, so that you know it next time. It will be a slow start, but you'll find yourself only using a handful of tools at first, so once you've covered those you'll get into the flow. 

Cris Palomino

Someone asked me about working with text and curve modifiers to place something correctly on another object.  They couldn't get the modifier to match up with the font and it was due to mismatching origins.  This pdf explains how to make this work as you require.

http://www.elektralusion.com/Blendernomics/Curve modifiers.pdf  (you can right click and save or open in a new window on many browsers)

Joe Cotter

bradrg said:

I must say, the one thing I really miss from my lightwave days is splines. it was so easy to create smooth shapes with those. 

While it won't operate exactly like Lightwave's version and might be missing some features of Lightwave's, you might want to check out Blender's version of b-Spline/Nurbs Surface tools. This Google search will give more information.

For anyone not familiar with Non-uniform rational B-spline's (Nurb surfaces, also known by other names in some software such as surface patches,) they are an alternative to box modeling like sculpting is. Nurbs are not used as much in modeling outside engineering software such as tools targeted at automotive, jewelry design, etc... Hexagon has tools for Nurbs right up on the main button bar so anyone who's used Hexagon has probably played with them at some point.

RAMWolff

Gedd said:

timmins.william said:

 I may poke at Blender a bit to get more control of UV mapping.

Blender has some very nice UV tools and there are add-ons that make it even more functional.

I tried adding the uv_squares.py  from a previous post you put up about add ons.  There was some error installing it.  So I guess I don't get that one and I really wanted it! 

Joe Cotter

I'm not sure which link it was, but it's available here. It's a paid add-on, $16. There could be a free version available, I'm not sure, but you might want to post a message on the site to see if the add-on works with the current version of Blender and what the status is of it.

RorrKonn

I know it's common practice to use normals n all

but still wondering if you wanted to could you.

Can you rig a low polycount character 5,000 polygones.
Can you morph a low polycount character 5,000 polygones.

Then raze the polycount to 4 million sculpt and still use the rigs n morphs ?

 

Does IRADIUM support vectors ?

 

 

StratDragon

falsedelic_90928cfd0b said:

Wow, this is a long and active thread! Thought I'd add my 2 cents.

I started learning Blender around May. I was also intimidated by the interface and everyone talking about how hard it was. Looking at my choices for low cost modeling programs, basically powerful but expensive or cheap but abandoned, didn't leave me too many options. So I decided to dive into Blender and am glad I did. Here are a couple of things that made it easier for me as a newb, some have been mentioned before:

• Changed right mouse button select to left mouse button select in User Prefs. That gave me one less thing to worry about as I learned. Hasn't been a problem so far in following tutorials or using the program other than sometimes it's difficult to select a vert or edge under the widgets. I just hide the widgets if it's an issue.
• Also in User Prefs I made the text bigger, amoungst other things. Really helps these old eyes and most programs don't allow this.
• Activated Pie Menus add on. Included in basic install of 2.73. Speeds things up a bit.
• Activated Dynamic Spacebar add on. Don't remember if it comes with the install but it basically turns the spacebar into a contextual menu. It puts most of the various menu items as well as search into one key command. Highly recommended! Also added Development Icons add on which adds Icons to the menu, for those that like icons.
• For those that like video tutorials I recommend the series by BornCG and Darrin Lile. Theirs are comprehensive, well organized, and broken down into bite sized chunks. They're also well labeled so if you want to know about UV unwrapping the vid is labeled as such, and the series are placed in separate playlists. I believe both uploaders are professional instructors and it shows. They don't take for granted that you know how to do things until you get to more advanced lessons. 
• I started simple and spent a week or so just learning the interface and modeling. Didn't worry about texturing or anything complex right off the bat.
• Most importantly I accepted the fact that Blender has a non-standard interface. Blender isn't really free. The money you save using Blender is spent in the time it takes to learn its unique interface approach (time is money). It's a fair trade off in my opinion.

I had tried modelling in other software but it wasn't until I tried Blender and followed the different tutorials i came across that i actually created anything worthwhile. Between the low cost, the power, the active development and helpful community, Blender makes me very happy.

Blender is free and the vast majority of tools to learn it are also free. Unless you billed someone when you tried to learn blender its free.

RorrKonn said:

I know it's common practice to use normals n all

but still wondering if you wanted to could you.

Can you rig a low polycount character 5,000 polygones.
Can you morph a low polycount character 5,000 polygones.

Then raze the polycount to 4 million sculpt and still use the rigs n morphs ?

 

Does IRADIUM support vectors ?

 

 

1) see this I think

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.4/Manual/Modeling/Meshes/Editing/Multires

1b) Blender rigging does not translate to DS

2) Does Studio support vectors? 

Joe Cotter

StratDragon said:

Blender is free and the vast majority of tools to learn it are also free. Unless you billed someone when you tried to learn blender its free.

Just to clarify a point, there are paid add-ons to Blender and some of the sites that provide tutorials for $$ are well worth the money. CGCookie has free tutorials and exclusive content for (paid) subscribers. CGMasters has some excellent tutorials that are well worth the money. I've personally used some of their tutorials in the past.

StratDragon

Gedd said:

StratDragon said:

Blender is free and the vast majority of tools to learn it are also free. Unless you billed someone when you tried to learn blender its free.

Just to clarify a point, there are paid add-ons to Blender and some of the sites that provide tutorials for $$ are well worth the money. CGCookie has free tutorials and exclusive content for (paid) subscribers. CGMasters has some excellent tutorials that are well worth the money. I've personally used some of their tutorials in the past.

While you can buy content it's not near what a DS user might come to expect. I've used Blender for years and been able to use a myriad of tutorials add a tremendous amount of external functionality (plug-ins, models) without spending a single cent. You sometimes "get what you pay for" with the quality of those lessons on you-tube but there are other sources of very professional resources; for instance iTunes has some free blender courses from universities that are excellent. 

RAMWolff

Gedd said:

I'm not sure which link it was, but it's available here. It's a paid add-on, $16. There could be a free version available, I'm not sure, but you might want to post a message on the site to see if the add-on works with the current version of Blender and what the status is of it.

Thanks.  I've bookmarked it.  Not ready to spend money on something I'm still trying to figure out fully!  lol 

Joe Cotter

Yes that is true, and there is a lot of free tutorials and resources available for Blender. I just thought it important to point out that there are hard working people out there who do put together paid resources that are worth checking out. It's also important to remember to support artists for their work or they may not be able to afford to keep doing it.

While creating the link to CGMasters I noticed they are working on some new intro modules which are currently free. They are short but well put together and cover some important points for anyone getting started. They are available here.

kyoto kid

bradrg said:

kyoto kid said:

...I think I mentioned that I already have a copy of Blender for Dummies (paid 24.95$ for it) and evne after reading through it, every time I open the programme up and see that same UI (which doesn't respond the same as in other CG software), I still feel totally lost. I don't think in keystrokes and key combinations when it comes to creating graphics as I used to draw & paint. Hence, based on that perspective, I find using a clean, elegant, pointer driven UI (like Hexagon's) to be so much more intuitive as it doesn't "get in the way" of the process for learning modelling.

As to Carrara, I do have it but can never seem to get the modelling tab's screen to work right. All I seem to get is the "thumbnail" view down in the right lower corner.

Again, the reason I ike Hexagon's concept, is that it is totally dedicated to the task of modelling without all the other distracting features that programmes such as Blender, Carrara, and even the "pro" applications include.

Books are great- I've got about 5 blender books, but if that's not helping then the best thing to do is just start a project. Then every time you have a question, post it here, and we'll tell you how to do it. Write the solution down, so that you know it next time. It will be a slow start, but you'll find yourself only using a handful of tools at first, so once you've covered those you'll get into the flow. 

...this is how I usually approach new software however having to use keyboard commands just to move about the main workspace instead of a pointer pretty much stops me cold on even a simple project.

As I mentioned I have bad arthritis which is why I turned to 3D CG since it is very difficult to hole a pencil or brush steady anymore.  Instead of a mouse, I use an ergonomic trackball to do my CG work as it is the easiest on my hands and wrists. My keyboarding speed is about half of what it used to be as I'm down to using only use one finger on my right hand when typing.  So shortcut keys, especially multiple combinations (like Shift + Alt + alphanumeric), are actually slower (and more of a pain at times, literally) for me than using my trackball to just "point & click".

Then (as I have also mentioned) there is the whole issue with having to memorise a bunch of keyboard shortcuts on top of learning the tools and figuring out the basics of modelling.  I am more "visually" oriented and find a setup which is built on visual references (like a pointer - icon - menu driven UI) much more elegant to use and almost "invisible" compared to having to deal with so many different key combinations at the outset.

When I worked with WordPerfect 5, It came with a plastic quick reference Template that fit over the Function keys (which were that programme's "hotkeys" as this was in the "pre mouse GUI" days) with all the "Alt", "Shift" "Ctrl" combinations over each key printed on it (it was even colour coded). As Blender makes extensive use of the alpha keyboard and numeric keypad, such a guide would be impossible to implement.  So for me, it means having to stop and look these up either within the programme, or some in other source (like a help file/tutorial) far too frequently. Tis has a major impact on the workflow and learning process as again they are required to pretty much do anything and everything in the programme "out of the box".  This is why I have said that Blender's UI tends to "get in the way" of the learning process for me as I find the heavy reliance on keyboard based commands (and having to memorise them all) to be much more clumsy and "clunky" for my style of workflow, compared to one like Hexagon uses.

RAMWolff

Heads up: https://cgcookie.com/archive/ FREE even for non citizen members! 

j cade

kyoto kid said:

bradrg said:

kyoto kid said:

...I think I mentioned that I already have a copy of Blender for Dummies (paid 24.95$ for it) and evne after reading through it, every time I open the programme up and see that same UI (which doesn't respond the same as in other CG software), I still feel totally lost. I don't think in keystrokes and key combinations when it comes to creating graphics as I used to draw & paint. Hence, based on that perspective, I find using a clean, elegant, pointer driven UI (like Hexagon's) to be so much more intuitive as it doesn't "get in the way" of the process for learning modelling.

As to Carrara, I do have it but can never seem to get the modelling tab's screen to work right. All I seem to get is the "thumbnail" view down in the right lower corner.

Again, the reason I ike Hexagon's concept, is that it is totally dedicated to the task of modelling without all the other distracting features that programmes such as Blender, Carrara, and even the "pro" applications include.

Books are great- I've got about 5 blender books, but if that's not helping then the best thing to do is just start a project. Then every time you have a question, post it here, and we'll tell you how to do it. Write the solution down, so that you know it next time. It will be a slow start, but you'll find yourself only using a handful of tools at first, so once you've covered those you'll get into the flow. 

...this is how I usually approach new software however having to use keyboard commands just to move about the main workspace instead of a pointer pretty much stops me cold on even a simple project.

As I mentioned I have bad arthritis which is why I turned to 3D CG since it is very difficult to hole a pencil or brush steady anymore.  Instead of a mouse, I use an ergonomic trackball to do my CG work as it is the easiest on my hands and wrists. My keyboarding speed is about half of what it used to be as I'm down to using only use one finger on my right hand when typing.  So shortcut keys, especially multiple combinations (like Shift + Alt + alphanumeric), are actually slower (and more of a pain at times, literally) for me than using my trackball to just "point & click".

Then (as I have also mentioned) there is the whole issue with having to memorise a bunch of keyboard shortcuts on top of learning the tools and figuring out the basics of modelling.  I am more "visually" oriented and find a setup which is built on visual references (like a pointer - icon - menu driven UI) much more elegant to use and almost "invisible" compared to having to deal with so many different key combinations at the outset.

When I worked with WordPerfect 5, It came with a plastic quick reference Template that fit over the Function keys (which were that programme's "hotkeys" as this was in the "pre mouse GUI" days) with all the "Alt", "Shift" "Ctrl" combinations over each key printed on it (it was even colour coded). As Blender makes extensive use of the alpha keyboard and numeric keypad, such a guide would be impossible to implement.  So for me, it means having to stop and look these up either within the programme, or some in other source (like a help file/tutorial) far too frequently. Tis has a major impact on the workflow and learning process as again they are required to pretty much do anything and everything in the programme "out of the box".  This is why I have said that Blender's UI tends to "get in the way" of the learning process for me as I find the heavy reliance on keyboard based commands (and having to memorise them all) to be much more clumsy and "clunky" for my style of workflow, compared to one like Hexagon uses.

The folks here have told you multiple times, that while hotkeys can speed up workflow, they are not required. I use more now as I have gotten used to the software, but for the first 2 years I used the program I used all of shift+middle mouse button to pan, cntrl+mmb to zoom, g to grab, s to scale, and e to extrude. You will note that none of these use more than one button on the keyboard. I still don't use any hotkeys where I press 3 keys at once. I repeat hotkeys are not required.

StratDragon

Ok, well I may spend $16 on this if it makes UVMapping work the way I think it should and not how Blender likes it to.
https://cgcookiemarkets.com/all-products/uv-squares/

 

Joe Cotter

I would double check to see that it works with the current version just to be safe. Usually for something like this it wouldn't be an issue but it'd be a bummer to spend the money and find out otherwise.

One nice feature of Blender though is that it is totally self contained. We can drop a folder on the hard drive, create a link and it runs, not registry entries or the like to complicate matters. This means that we can run multiple versions of Blender side-by-side with no issues. In fact many people do, beta versions, release candidates, stable releases and in some cases older versions to use certain plugins/add-ons or just because they like an older version better for some functions.