Jennifer's Classroom

[Murray]

OOOH this is interesting. Must say you have worked very hard to bring us this instruction Jennifer. Your method of explanation of a very complex piece of software is excellent. You have got me experimenting with this once formidable program and I do thank you. Cheers Teach, Mur

[Owehn]

By the way, I think I heard at some point that Uru prefers triangulating the faces instead of using quads. Is that true?

[pappou]

Friday 21mar08
Lesson 4

Mine was was a very INelegant process of cone design. Nothing i did convinces me that this is the way it should be done:

Blender 04 cone w collar.jpg (230.45 KiB) Viewed 3907 times

And of course, that is not the way.
If i did it again, i would probably stumble through an entirely different process, even as i did in this final attempt:

Blender 05 cone w color 3.jpg (19.88 KiB) Viewed 3906 times

Maybe a good list of commands will help. How did you ever learn to find your way through that jungle of pop ups? It took me several mins to even recall how to 'select' the cone (i was more than delighted when i saw that the base came prepackaged with selection turned on).
And then, you should see my very first try.

[Jennifer_P]

Ah yes, the forests of popup windows, menus and subwindows. Until you've walked down the jungle paths enough to remember your way, you can lose your way and become horribly lost...and then the night comes, and soon the wolves. But it's best not dwell on such possibilities excessively.
So anyway, I know that this lesson has extended knowledge beyond personal experience, so we're going to focus more on practicing what we've learned and less on picking up new stuff for awhile. Mostly we'll be learning principles and commands that will make future modeling like this much easier and faster. And that's a fine looking cone you have there too, pappou. As you saw, there are many different methods you could use to make the cone; some are just faster (and easier) than others. (And the way we were doing it wasn't one of the fast and easy ways, either)

OOOH this is interesting. Must say you have worked very hard to bring us this instruction Jennifer. Your method of explanation of a very complex piece of software is excellent. You have got me experimenting with this once formidable program and I do thank you. Cheers Teach, MurMurray

I'm glad to hear that it's making sense, Murray; Blender can be pretty inscrutable at times! But I also get a sort of jig-saw puzzle-like satisfaction from finding out what all the buttons do, filling in another unknown area of the program with understanding.

By the way, I think I heard at some point that Uru prefers triangulating the faces instead of using quads. Is that true?

I'm not sure Owehn; let me consult the Uru experts.

[Jojon]

Friday 21Mar08
What is exciting to me in these (and i love solid geometry) is the resulting interpenetration of figures. We used to spend hours in architecture school working out the correct shapes of merging surfaces. They don't do that anymore, but just because one's Blender program can do it does not mean that one's eye takes in the revealed complexities. Casting shadows is very much the same thing.

One tend to take it for granted, even while having no idea of the maths involved. I remember back in the golden earlier days of the computer demo scene, how bits with intersecting 3D objects had every spectator in awe, as did shadow casting.

It may interest you that some modelling software works with actual solids, rather than (or in addition to-) hollow polygon meshes. These are mathematical primitive models, so that cone is perfectly round, no matter how far you zoom in. Typically you can do boolean operations on these objects, where e.g. an AND operation between two intersecting spheres results in lens, in the space occupied by both spheres - the rest (where ony one of the spheres is present) is thrown away -- in the same way AND NOT will let you "drill" into one object, using another. The disadvantage of this apporach to modelling, is that it gives you less "freeforming" possibilites, since a cone is a cone is a cone -- no deforming by dragging away a random point along its surface.

You can do boolean operations on meshes as well, as we will probably be taught sometime (rather a bit, I'd say) later -- good for cutting a window into that wall.

[pappou]

Ah yes -- the openings in walls; the magic of the gate in the otherwise impenetrable barrier. The act of forced entry versus the sweet invitation.
The big massive wall and the small gate which violates the protected premises – these are truly huge issues in every human imagination, in the communal psyche.

But i take it they are also respectable problems in modeling?

Robert, and others, have spoken rather cautiously of creating the penetration through the wall. Not knowing what they really mean, i have come to anticipate this 'making of the door', the 'window', with some excitement.

As fundamental as it is, the establishing of entry seems to remain hidden from our conscious perspectives. Even graduate students in architectural design are sometimes surprised to hear that Point of Entry is the most important single element in the facade.

Yes; making doorways; violating the sanctity of the wall; these have been fundamental mysteries to barrier making over the 10,000 years of the wall's existence. I await the doorway exercises with bated breath.

[Junee]

Question: Isn't there some way of melting together the cone and the "cube" so that it is one piece? I won't see it as a true cone until it's one unit.
Anyways here's my result, I found it pretty easy to do. At one moment I was lost on the colouring part ("one grey box above two others"?) but then I started to read what the buttons actually said and things made more sense.

Just a little nit-picky thing Jennifer, when you write the lessons could you make more visible paragraphs? When you switch between the programs I get lost in that big chunk of text every time. *patiently awaits the next lesson*

OMG my cone looks fat.... must.. not.. feed.. the cones...

[Jennifer_P]

Question: Isn't there some way of melting together the cone and the "cube" so that it is one piece? I won't see it as a true cone until it's one unit.

There is indeed... /me puts that on the list of stuff to learn in the next few lessons
And I'll put the making-doorways-and-windows-stuff on the priority list too; we'll need to cover orthogonal views and transformations first though, which will make creating walls and doors much easier.

Anyways here's my result, I found it pretty easy to do. At one moment I was lost on the colouring part ("one grey box above two others"?) but then I started to read what the buttons actually said and things made more sense.

Whoopsy, I'll go back and edit that to make it clearer. You have a nice looking cone too; I'm sure that it's not really fat--it's just short.

And for anyone who stumbles across this thread in a few months and wonders about the answer to Owehn's question, check out this thread: http://forum.guildofwriters.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1436

[Jennifer_P]

My apologies for taking so long to get this lesson out, I was busy with school. I hope that all the knowledge hasn't drained out of your brain by now?

Lesson 5
Today we will be learning how to save a considerable amount of time when it comes to placing objects together. We'll also be getting in some more practice on how to create, color, and transform objects.

Tip: Start using the "Tab" key to switch from Object to Edit mode, it will be more convenient for you and you'll be able to work faster.
Let's start off with a blank screen, so go ahead and delete the cube you get whenever you first start up Blender. In its place, create a new object, a plane (Add, Mesh, Plane). Now color it green. Remember how to do that? Here are the instructions from the last lesson:

Show Spoiler

"So do you see the bar right below the 3D view header bar? The one with the word "Panels" on it? Well, on that bar look for a little "shaded sphere" looking button; if you hover your mouse over it the popup should read "Shading (F5)" . Click the shaded sphere (Shading) button, and you'll get a bunch of shading-related buttons directly to the right of it: a lightbulb, a red sphere, a leopard skin pattern, a radioactivity symbol, and a globe. Click the red sphere button, which reads "Material buttons" if you hover your mouse over it. In the window below the red sphere, you will see two subwindows, one called "Preview" and the other called "Links and Pipeline." Look in the Links and Pipeline subwindow and you will see a button called "Add new" (as in "add a new material to my boring grey object"); click it. Now you have all sorts of subwindows: "Preview," "Material," "Ramps," "Links and Pipeline," "Shaders," "Mirror Trans," "SSS," and "Texture." In the "Material" subwindow, you'll see a longer-than-it-is-wide light grey rectangle sitting stacked on top of two matching white rectangles which have the same shape as the grey rectangle. Left click this grey rectangle and change the color to green.

The Hard Way
This green plane will serve as our "grass." Now (you should be in Object Mode if aren't already) select the plane and rotate it so that it faces in some weird direction (this will create a challenge for you later on). Next, create a cylinder that that is sufficiently tall and slender to serve as a tree trunk (remember, in the primitive options menu, click on the numbers to get decimals, i.e left click on the "1.00" of "Radius: 1.00" in order to get the option to type in "0.2" instead). Now color the cylinder brown (or whatever--if you want to make a redwood, be my guest). Select the cylinder and rotate it into some weird orientation. Create a icosphere for the tree's crown of leaves and color it green. Thanks to the fact that we've messed up the natural relationships between these objects, we are now presented with the problem of getting the trunk to sit vertically on the plane and getting the ball of foliage to sit on top of the trunk. Go ahead and maneuver the objects into their correct places. Takes a lot of time, huh? It's hard to tell which way you're actually moving things and you have to guess and check a lot to get it to look right. Well, fortunately there is a much easier way to do this. Go ahead and (in Object Mode) erase everything and let's try this again.

The Easy Way
Okay, recreate the plane, cylinder, and icosphere you had earlier and rotate them around into crazy orientations. Go on, be messy! And now, let's learn the easy way of getting these guys into their correct positions.
Let's start off by noting that Blender provides a nice grid background for your visual reference convenience. This grid can help us to tell which way is "up/down" (i.e., "Z") in our scene. Why don't we start off by aligning the plane with the Blender grid, since it's such a convenient reference point? So, we could do this by trial and error, moving the plane a bit, checking how it fits, then moving it a little more in another direction until it looks just right. This can sometimes take a while. What if I told you there was a way to align the plane perfectly (or at least as perfectly as your eyeball can make it) with just two rotations and two checks?
We can do this is by using what is called a "perfect view." A perfect view is when you view your scene straight down the X, Y, or Z-axes instead of from a random side angle. By viewing objects from such perfect views, you can see what you're doing and figure out what the exact effects of your tweaking are--thus making it much easier to emplace an object where you want it to be! To get to a perfect view, go to the 3D view header bar and select the menu item "View," then select "Top." Voila! A perfect head on overhead view of the Blender grid. Note that the blue "Z" arrow is pointing straight out of the screen at you, showing that you are looking right down the Z axis. The green Y-axis shoots towards the top and bottom of the screen, and the red X-axis shoots towards the left and right sides of your screen. Look at this view, and think to yourself, "Gosh, if I could just get the plane to be perfectly aligned with those X and Y-axes. Then it would perfect." Oh, but it can be! But not from this view. Instead, let's try the Side and Front views (also accessible in "View"). First go to the Side view, so that you are looking down the X-axis. Now you are in the perfect position to apply an X rotation to the plane that will get it halfway into the position you want. Remember how to do that? There are two ways; either you can hold down your left mouse button and drag out a "C" shape until the plane starts rotating, or you can go to Object, Transform, Rotate on Axis, X-global (or better yet, use the keyboard shortcut: type the letter "r" and then type the letter "x"). Now, as closely as you can, rotate the plane so that its longer-looking sides align with the green Y-axis line. Got it? That's the first part. Now switch to Front view and let's finish the alignment. This time, since we're looking down the Y-axis, we'll apply a Y rotation. So either use the "C" mouse gesture or type "r" and "y" to do Y rotation. Try to line up the longer-looking sides of the plane with the X-axis. Well, now you're done! Check your plane out and you'll see that you've aligned it almost perfectly with the Blender grid. Just for kicks, let's now take a look at the plane from Top view again. Chances are, it's a little off kilter from the gridlines. To fix that you can apply Z-rotation, and then the plane will be perfectly oriented from every direction, even from the Z view--yay!
Now let's get ready to plant our tree. We need to align it so that it's sitting in the plane like a real tree growing out of the grass. We can use the perfect views to make this process a lot easier. First, let's go into Side view. We immediately note that the cylinder is pointing off in some weird direction, certainly not the one it's supposed to be in. So, since we're staring down the x-axis, let's do like we did for the plane and apply an X rotation to align the tree the best we can with the Z-axis. Ready? Go!
Okay, now let's switch to Front view. Since we're looking down the Y-axis, we'll apply the Y rotation, again trying to align the tree as best we can with the Z-axis. There; now the tree trunk should be almost perfectly straight up and down. Now it's only a matter of moving it to its place on the plane without disturbing the perfectly aligned orientations of either the plane or the cylinder. We can do this too with perfect views.
First go to Top view and (it's easiest here to use the mouse gesture where you drag a short, straight line with the left mouse button and then release) move the cylinder until it is over (or under) the plane. Is the cylinder still perfectly aligned? Yep! Next, go to the Front or Side view (it doesn't matter which one) and using the same mouse gesture, move the cylinder up into the plane so that it's in just the right spot. There, perfect! You can apply the same procedure to the icosphere to create a ball of leaves for your tree.
As you can see, using perfect views is much simpler and faster than just doing guess and check over and over. You get complete control of how your objects move and you can orient them however you please. Now let's practice. Create four more trees and quickly and efficiently position them at the four corners of the plane using the Side and Top views. Note that the number pad can speed things along by giving you keyboard shortcuts for the different views: Numberpad 7 is "Top," Numberpad 1 is "Front," and Numberpad 3 is "Side." And, if you hold down the CTRL key as you press each one, you can get "Bottom," "Back," and Otherside views.
Well, don't the new views make things faster? Go ahead and check your scene from the Side, Front, and Top views to make sure that no trees are crooked or floating in the air...then hold down the CTRL key and check the Otherside, Back, and Bottom views! Now you have a lovely little grove of trees. Want to explore it? In the 3D view header bar, choose the menu item "View" and then go the "View Navigation" submenu and choose the option "Camera Fly Mode". Now, put on your aviator glasses, point your view towards the forest, and scroll your mouse wheel backwards and forwards--wheeee!

[Owehn]

Hurray, I did it!

Show Spoiler

Trees.jpg (28.47 KiB) Viewed 3675 times