Project 2: Blender 3D Modelling

About Blender

Blender is the free and open-source 3D creation suite. It supports the entirety of the 3D pipeline—modelling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing and motion tracking, video editing and 2D animation pipeline. 

Blender updates regularly. There are sometimes big changes between versions. We have Blender 3.3 installed at school. Tutorials for olders versions may have different ways of doing things.

If you want to use your own device you will need to install it from the blender site - https://www.blender.org/

Blender fundamentals 3.0 - Tutorials  - Use these as a reference

blender cheatsheet.pdf

Activity 1: Party Monkey

You will learn:

Extension - Add a rim to the bottom of the monkey's hat

This tutorial uses Blender 2. The interface is quite different. You can import the monkey from:

 Object > Add > Mesh > Monkey

Activity 2: Cube Trees 

You will learn:

Extension - Add on to the tree by adding more leaves (cubes) and branches or create a forest of different trees. This activity is good for getting you to memorise shortcut keys. 

Activity 3: Rocket

You will learn:

Extension - Create your own version of a rocket or space ship and add colour.


Activity 4: Animating

You will learn:

1) Using what you have learnt so far creating a winter scene. That includes some trees, a house, a snowman and a snowball and colour them in. 

2) Use the video tutorial to add in animation

Activity 5: Rendering

You will learn:

1) Using the snowman animation, follow the tutorial to render the animation

Extension: Render the other models you have made as images or have a go and do some research on how to export them as 3D Models

Activity 6: Low Poly dinosaur

Follow this tutorial to recap what you have learnt in the previous tutorials but to create a more complex model.  

Try and use as many shortcut keys as possible

Reference image - or find your own

Extension - Add an environment around the model, trees, mountains, etc. 


Activity 7: Voxel 3D Illustration

Follow this mini-course to create a 3D illustration. 

You will learn:

Extension: Add to the composition by making other plates, bottles etc. 

Activity 8: Using a blueprint

To help with getting the sizing and proportions right for a model it can be very useful to use a blueprint or image as a reference image. 

In this activity you will learn:

Extension: experiment with lighting, materials (you could play around with glass), and creating a scene.

 

You can download the reference image here 

If you get stuck here are some tips to help you out

Activity 9: UV  Editing

This is the process of skinning your 3D object into a 2D surface for texturing. 

1) Have a go at adding an image texture to a monkey's head using the UV editor. 

2) Record your work in your google slide 

Activity - intro to the UV editor

Extension activity - texture painting

More information on using UV unwrapping

Activity 10: Using Nodes

Blender's Node Editor lets you assemble various processing blocks (nodes) into combinations that feed data to one another along connections that you specify to produce complex effects. These effects can be used in three different ways: as textures, as materials, or for compositing. 

1) Make the 3 textures demonstrated in the video.

2) Record your work in your google slide

Activity - Intro to using Nodes (3 textures)

Extension - Creating virtual doughnuts

Follow through the tutorials below to learn how to create a  delicious- looking virtual doughnut. 

Click here for the course

Extension - 3D printing your model

If you are aiming to 3D print your model it needs to do more than look good, the geometry needs to be good too. This youTube clip explains the different issues that need to be addressed to get a printable model and introduces the 3D -Print toolbox.

These techniques are also helpful in tidying up a model that just isn't working right.

Blender Manual - 3D-Print toolbox