Table Of Contents ABOUT THIS BOOK BLENDER FOUNDATION FOREWORD HOW TO USE THIS BOOK 01 INTRODUCTION
What is Blender? .......................................................................... 22 Blender's History.......................................................................... 23 About Free Software and the GPL .................................................. 25 Getting support - the Blender community........................................ 26 Downloading and installing the binary distribution............................ 28
14 16 18 22
02 INSTALLATION
Windows, MacOS X, Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris................................... 29 Building Blender from source ........................................................ 33 Technical Support ........................................................................ 37
28
03 UNDERSTANDING THE INTERFACE
Blender’s Interface Concept .......................................................... 38 Keyboard and mouse .................................................................... 38 Window types .............................................................................. 41
Contextes, Panels and Buttons............................................................ 42
38
Toolbox ....................................................................................... 45
Screens ............................................................................................ 45 Navigating in 3D Space...................................................................... 46 The viewing direction (rotating) ........................................................... 46 Translating and Zooming the View ....................................................... 48 Perspective and Orthographic Projection .............................................. 48 Draw mode........................................................................................ 50 Local view......................................................................................... 50 The layer system................................................................................ 50 The vital functions ............................................................................. 51
04 QUICKSTART
Your first animation in 30 + 30 minutes ......................................... 56 Warming up................................................................................. 56 Building the body ......................................................................... 56 Let‘s see what Gus looks like......................................................... 63 Materials and Textures .................................................................. 68 Rigging ....................................................................................... 74 Skinning...................................................................................... 76 Posing ........................................................................................ 78 Gus walks! .................................................................................. 82
56
6
Table Of Contents 05 OBJECT MODE 86
Moving (translating) objects........................................................... 87 Rotating objects........................................................................... 87 Scaling/mirroring objects .............................................................. 89 Transform Properties Panel ........................................................... 90 Duplicate .................................................................................... 90 Parenting (Grouping) .................................................................... 90 Tracking ...................................................................................... 91 Other Actions .............................................................................. 92 Boolean operations....................................................................... 92
06 MESH MODELING
96
Basic Objects .................................................................................... 96 EditMode .......................................................................................... 98 Basic Editing .................................................................................... 100 Mesh Undo ....................................................................................... 103 Smoothing ........................................................................................ 103 Proportional Editing Tool .................................................................. 106 Extrude............................................................................................. 108 Spin and SpinDup ............................................................................. 112 Screw ............................................................................................... 117 Noise ............................................................................................... 118 Warp Tool ......................................................................................... 119 Catmull-Clark Subdivision Surfaces ..................................................... 120 Edge Tools ........................................................................................ 124 Knife Tool......................................................................................... 124 Face Loop......................................................................................... 125 Meta Objects..................................................................................... 126
07 CURVES AND SURFACES
Curves ........................................................................................ 128 Béziers ....................................................................................... 128 NURBS....................................................................................... 130 Working example.......................................................................... 131 Surfaces ..................................................................................... 136 Text ............................................................................................ 137 Special Characters ....................................................................... 138 Extrude Along a Path.................................................................... 140 Skinning...................................................................................... 143
128
08 MATERIALS AND TEXTURES
Diffusion ..................................................................................... 147 Specular Reflection ...................................................................... 148 Materials in practice ..................................................................... 150
146
7
Table Of Contents
Material Colors ............................................................................ 150 The Shaders ................................................................................ 151 Tweaking Materials ....................................................................... 152 Textures ...................................................................................... 153 ImageTexture ............................................................................... 158 Multiple Materials ........................................................................ 160 Special Materials.......................................................................... 162 Solid and Hollow Glass ................................................................. 171 UV editor and FaceSelect.............................................................. 175 Texture Plugins ............................................................................ 179
09 LIGHTING
Introduction................................................................................. 180 Lamp Types ................................................................................ 181 Sun Light .................................................................................... 182 Hemi Light .................................................................................. 184 Lamp Light.................................................................................. 184 Spot Light ................................................................................... 189 Spot Buttons ............................................................................... 190 Shadows ..................................................................................... 190 Volumetric Light .......................................................................... 192 Tweaking Light............................................................................. 194 Three point light .......................................................................... 196 Three point light - Outdoor ............................................................ 198 Area Light ................................................................................... 200 Global Illumination (and Global Shadowing) .................................... 204
180
10 THE WORLD AND THE UNIVERSE
The World Background.................................................................. 208 Mist............................................................................................ 210 Stars .......................................................................................... 212 Ambient Light.............................................................................. 212
208
11 ANIMATION OF UNDEFORMED OBJECTS
IPO Block.................................................................................... 217 Key Frames ................................................................................. 217 The IPO Curves............................................................................ 218 IPO Curves and IPO Keys.............................................................. 222 Other applications of IPO Curves ................................................... 224 The Time IPO .............................................................................. 224 Path Animation ............................................................................ 226
216
12 ANIMATION OF DEFORMATIONS
Absolute Vertex Keys .................................................................... 230
230
8
Table Of Contents
Curve and Surface Keys ................................................................ 234 Lattice Keys ................................................................................ 234 Relative Vertex Keys ..................................................................... 234 Lattice Animation......................................................................... 239
13 CHARACTER ANIMATION
Introduction: Light, Camera and... ACTION ! ................................... 242 General Tools............................................................................... 243 The Armature Object .................................................................... 244 Bones Naming ............................................................................. 245 Parenting and IK chain ................................................................. 246 The Armature Panel...................................................................... 248 Skinning...................................................................................... 248 Vertex Groups .............................................................................. 249 Weight Painting............................................................................ 250 Posemode ................................................................................... 251 Action Window............................................................................. 252 Non Linear Animation................................................................... 254 Working with Action Strips ............................................................ 256 Constraints.................................................................................. 257 Constraint Types .......................................................................... 258 Constraints Evaluation Rules and Precedence.................................. 260 Influence..................................................................................... 261 Rigging a Hand and a Foot ............................................................ 262 Rigging Mechanics ....................................................................... 272 How to setup a walkcycle using NLA .............................................. 280
242
14 RENDERING
Rendering by Parts....................................................................... 291 Panoramic renderings ................................................................... 291 Antialiasing ................................................................................. 292 Output formats ............................................................................ 294 Rendering Animations................................................................... 296 Motion Blur ................................................................................. 296 Depth of Field.............................................................................. 298 Cartoon Edges ............................................................................. 302 The Unified Renderer ................................................................... 304 Preparing your work for video......................................................... 304 Color Saturation ........................................................................... 306 Rendering to fields ....................................................................... 306
290
15 RADIOSITY
The Blender Radiosity method ....................................................... 308 Radiosity Rendering...................................................................... 312
308
9
Table Of Contents
Radiosity as a Modelling Tool......................................................... 314 Phase 1: Collect Meshes............................................................... 315 Phase 2: Subdivision limits. .......................................................... 316 Phase 3: Adaptive Subdividing ...................................................... 316 Phase 4: Editing the solution......................................................... 318 Radiosity Juicy example ................................................................ 319 Setting up ................................................................................... 320 The Sky Dome ............................................................................. 320 The Radiosity solution .................................................................. 322 Texturing..................................................................................... 324
16 SPECIAL MODELING TECHNIQUES
Introduction................................................................................. 330 DupliVerts ................................................................................... 330 DupliFrames ................................................................................ 337 More Animation and Modelling ...................................................... 342 Modelling with lattices.................................................................. 345 How does it work? ........................................................................ 346
330
17 EFFECTS
Introduction................................................................................. 350 Build Effect ................................................................................ 350 Particle Effects ............................................................................ 351 A first Particle System .................................................................. 352 Rendering a particle system .......................................................... 353 Objects as particles...................................................................... 354 Setting Dupliverted Particles ......................................................... 355 Making fire with particles .............................................................. 356 The particle system ..................................................................... 356 The fire-material .......................................................................... 357 A simple explosion ....................................................................... 359 Controlling Particles via a Lattice ................................................... 362 Static Particles ............................................................................ 365 Wave Effect ................................................................................ 367
350
18 VOLUMETRIC EFFECTS 19 SEQUENCE EDITOR
370 376
Learning the Sequence Editor........................................................ 376 First animation: two cubes ............................................................ 376 First Sequence: delayed wireframe animation.................................. 378 Second animation: A delayed solid cube ......................................... 380 Third animation: a tunnel .............................................................. 382 Second sequence: Using the tunnel as a backdrop........................... 386
10
Table Of Contents
Fourth Animation: a jumping logo .................................................. 386 Fifth Animation: particle bars ........................................................ 386 Third sequence: Combining the logo and the particle bars ................ 388 Sixth Animation: zooming logo....................................................... 390 Assembling everything so far ......................................................... 390 Conclusion .................................................................................. 392 Sound Sequence Editor ................................................................ 392 Sequence Editor Plugins ............................................................... 394
20 PYTHON SCRIPTING
Setting PYTHONPATH .................................................................. 400 A working Python example ............................................................ 401 Headers, importing modules and globals......................................... 402 Drawing the GUI .......................................................................... 403 Managing Events.......................................................................... 404 Mesh handling ............................................................................. 405 Conclusions ................................................................................. 407 Python Reference and Scripts ....................................................... 407
398
21 BLENDER'S PLUGIN SYSTEM
Writing a Texture Plugin ................................................................ 408 Specification ............................................................................... 409 Compiling.................................................................................... 416 Writing a Sequence Plugin ............................................................ 416 Specification ............................................................................... 416 Our Modifications......................................................................... 420 Compiling.................................................................................... 422
408
22 FROM BLENDER TO YAFRAY USING YABLE
What is Yable? ............................................................................. 426 Which Yable? ............................................................................... 426 Where to get YableX? .................................................................... 427 Installing the script ...................................................................... 427 The Interface............................................................................... 428 Workflow philosophy ..................................................................... 428 Global Settings ............................................................................ 428 Rendering settings ....................................................................... 433 Material Settings.......................................................................... 435 Light Settings .............................................................................. 440 Yable Juicy example ..................................................................... 444
426
23 YAFRAY
Installation .................................................................................. 449 Scene Description Language Overview............................................ 451 Shaders ...................................................................................... 453
448
11
Table Of Contents
Meta Shaders .............................................................................. 455 Renderable Objects ...................................................................... 461 Lights ......................................................................................... 462 Background ................................................................................. 470 Camera ....................................................................................... 472 Render........................................................................................ 472 Filters ......................................................................................... 474
24 BLENDER WINDOWS
The Mouse .................................................................................. 478 The Window Header ..................................................................... 479
478 480
25 HOTKEYS IN-DEPTH REFERENCE
Window HotKeys .......................................................................... 480 Universal HotKeys ........................................................................ 481 Object Mode HotKeys ................................................................... 485 Edit Mode HotKeys - General......................................................... 496 EditMode Mesh Hotkeys ............................................................... 497 EditMode Curve Hotkeys ............................................................... 500 EditMode Surface Hotkeys ............................................................ 502 EditMode Metaball Hotkeys ........................................................... 503 EditMode Font Hotkeys ................................................................. 503 Armature Hotkeys......................................................................... 504 VertexPaint Hotkeys...................................................................... 505 FaceSelect Hotkeys ...................................................................... 505
26 WINDOWS REFERENCE
The The The The The The The The The The The The The
InfoWindow ........................................................................... 506 FileWindow ........................................................................... 513 3DWindow ............................................................................ 521 IPO Window .......................................................................... 529 Sequence Window.................................................................. 539 OopsWindow ......................................................................... 544 Action Window....................................................................... 549 Non Linear Animation Window................................................. 552 Text Window.......................................................................... 556 Audio Timeline Window .......................................................... 559 ImageWindow ........................................................................ 561 ImageSelectWindow ............................................................... 564 Animation Playback Window.................................................... 567
506
27 BUTTONS REFERENCE
The Buttons Window .................................................................... 570 Logic Context .............................................................................. 572 Script Links - Linking scripts to Blender ......................................... 574
570
12
Table Of Contents
Shading Context........................................................................... 576 Lamp Sub-context ....................................................................... 576 Material Sub-context.................................................................... 583 Texture Sub-context ..................................................................... 600 Radiosity Sub-context .................................................................. 615 World Sub-context ....................................................................... 620 Object Context............................................................................. 626 Editing Context ............................................................................ 639 Scene Context ............................................................................. 666 Rendering Sub-context ................................................................ 666 Animation/Playback Sub-context ................................................... 674 Sound Sub-context ...................................................................... 675 Panels out of the Buttons Window.................................................. 678 3D ViewPort ................................................................................ 678 IPO Window................................................................................. 681
28 COMMAND LINE ARGUMENTS
Render Options ............................................................................ 683 Animation Options ....................................................................... 684 Window Options ........................................................................... 684 Other Options .............................................................................. 684
682
29 BLENDER 2.32 RELEASE
Rendering ................................................................................... 688 Displacement mapping ................................................................. 693 Blender 2.32: Yafray .................................................................... 696 Blender 2.32: new features and fixes ............................................. 697
688
A B C D E F G
QUICK HOTKEYS LIST SUPPORTED VIDEOCARDS BLENDER 2.31 CHANGELOG THE BLENDER DOCUMENTATION PROJECT JOINING THE CODERS LICENSES GLOSSARY INDEX
704 724 732 738 740 742 752 762
13