Where do I start?

[Egon]

Compiled with Python version 2.6.2.
'import site' failed; use -v for traceback
Checking for installed Python... No installed Python found.

In order to use any Python script (like PyPRP export script) in blender You have to install full Python compiler in separate directory and then configure Blender properly so he would know about such compiler. Go to http://python.org/download/releases/ and install Python 2.6.X (right now it is 2.6.6). Then in Blender User Preferences window You chose "Paths" and fill up path to Python compiler (python.exe).

I think that this: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:Tutorials/Game_Engine/YoFrankie/A_Low_Poly_Tree is the best tutorial to stat learning blender.

[Luna]

Where I Am Now:
I'm used to being able to construct things from 2D views, lines, points, circles, multiple user-coordinate systems, and being able to snap things to contact with each other.

Let me guess... Autocad? In that case, Blender is /way/ different. You really cannot compare the two.

I know what I'm used to: being able to project lines and curves onto planes and curved surfaces, (either parallel to an axis, or perpendicular to the surface, even if curved), to create circles and ellipses by intersecting planes with cones, cylinders and spheres, to create surfaces that are tangent to multiple planes or other curved surfaces, (not just to bevel or chamfer edges and corners, but to form cylindrical, conical or complex radii, even from one complex curved surface to another).

uh I am afraid I don't understand all of this (English being my second language) but you may want to look into the "Boolean" modifier. It can do intersections.

Blender doesn't seem to have the ability to create independent points or lines in space for geometric construction, rounded edges, spherical corners, or multiple axis systems, though "empties" resemble multiple axes in the systems I'm used to.

"Empties" are simply empty objects you can use for scripts, or as sound emitter. Rounded corners is the Subsurf modifier and it should be used with care. It is a fast way to get a high polycount.

How do I do three-dimensional constructions in Blender? For what I want to do, I need to construct truncated octahedra, whether by beveling just the corners on a cube back to hexagons, or by rotating and translating hexagons and squares. I now know that I can make a hexagon by setting a "circle" for six vertices, but how do I create perpendicular planes at the ends of an edge segment, duplicate the hexagon, and rotate the duplicate about one edge, (not its center, and an adjacent edge to the one with the planes), until its edge is coincident with one of the planes previously mentioned? Alternatively, could you tell me how to create an octet-truss in Blender? Or how to translate an inclined hexagon until one of its edges becomes coincident with the hex it was copied from? Right now, I still have things snapping to center, and I'm expecting to find that there's an easier way than attaching "empties" to the vertices of the hexagons and making the empties into "parents" for them, though I don't yet have translation snapping working for this process.

uhm have you found the "Extrude" option yet? Also could you maybe draw it and start a different topic for this? (or maybe a mod can split it off).

Edit: oh wait this is your thread. Sorry hadn't really woken up yet.

[J'Kla]

I bought the Essential blender book and found it disapointing. The index aint worth a damm and it's main focus leads away from what your trying to do.

I don't think we can empasise enough that all the Blender documentation and youtube tutorials available via blender.org make it the best supported.

There is just so much stuff available that it presents it's own problem finding what you want.

[Fuchida]

The easiest way to to what you want to do, would be compiled of two or three steps.

First Step. Draw on a paper (yes on a paper or on cad, but paper is quicker) the form you want. Define the lenghts and measures as you would in a technical draft. Use Coordination Measure System for that, taking the middle as a Zero.

Second step. Open blender, delete the standard cube and add a plane. With the plane selected push the TAB button, that lets you enter into edit mode. Select two vertices and delete them when you push delete a little menu comes up, select vertices. you end up with just two vertices and an edge that connects them. Start now by bringin these vertices in the positions you want them by selecting one, pushing N (that will bring up a little window called Transform Properties) change from local to global and type in the position of the first point in Coordinates that you sketched up. Position both according to the coordinate system you sketched up. To add a point, select one of the vertices and push E. That will extrude a verti and you can either move it with the mouse or type in the amount of units you want to move it by pushing X Y or Z to tell blender which axis you are using for the reference. or you put it randomly and manually adjust it's position through the transform properties...

Third Step. After doing that, with as many point as you were able to do you can now create Edges where needed, by selecting two vertices (You use shift to multi-select btw, forgot to mentioned) and then pushing F. That creates an Edge between the two. If you select 4 Vertices that are all connected by edges you can push F again and a Face is created.

This three steps come probably closest to what is possible compared to a CAD System. Other than that, I found reading just the Blender Noob to Pro one or downloading a copy offline or print it to take with you in a bus, train, break time, to read it, very helpful already and then it's just trying around for a while by doing easy stuff, deleting, pushing a couple buttons reading one or two other beginner tutorials for the HotKeys or getting a Hot Key Ref instead and you should get into it.

All the best with your project, hope to see a screenshot some day

[Theo1728]

Generate an edge and translate it and its endpoints to predetermined locations? Unless I've made a mistake, (which would be far too easy), here are some vertex tricoordinates:

(0, 0, 0), (3.3, 0, 0), (-1.65, 2.857884, 0), (4.95, 2.857884, 0), (0, 5.715768, 0), (3.3, 5.715768, 0),

(-1.65, -0.952628, 2.694439), (4.95, -0.952628, 2.694439), (-3.3, 1.905256, 2.694439), (6.6, 1.905256, 2.694439), (0, 7.621024, 2.694439), (3.3, 7.621024, 2.694439),

(0, -0.952628, 5.388877), (3.3, -0.952628, 5.388877), (-3.3, 4.763140, 5.388877), (6.6, 4.763140, 5.388877), (-1.65, 7.621024, 5.388877), (4.95, 7.621024, 5.388877),

(0, 0, 8.083316), (3.3, 0, 8.083316), (-1.65, 2.857884, 8.083316), (4.95, 2.857884, 8.083316), (0, 5.715768, 8.083316), (3.3, 5.715768, 8.083316),

These 24 points are the vertices for the first room, and my rooms will come in at least five different shapes and up to six orientations. I'm gonna have to learn about mirroring, multi-axis rectangular and polar arrays, nested parenting, (if such a thing exists), and inserting/importing objects from other files. I'll probably have to do a lot of that to handle a bewildering quantity of furniture, equipment and personal items, as well as doors, doorways & steps. I may be able to get away with opposite sides of the same wall sharing an interference plane, but my walls do have thickness. One room down, thousands to go? It's not down until I actually learn how to do the construction in space, vertices, edges, faces, openings, thresholds and steps that will connect it to its duplicate or neighbor if properly oriented. Seriously, if I could create a cube inclined at an isometric angle, then bevel the corners but not the edges, (or sharpen the edges back up), I would have it, more or less, and I know that things are created perpendicular to the point of view, but I don't know how to control said point of view precisely.

I guess what I'm hoping to do is to create a precise triangular grid of about 430 Empties, of which, perhaps, fifteen or twenty are Parents to most of the rest, and to produce separate models for two to five types of each of my five different hexagonal rooms, which would be inserted into a main Age model, position, orientation and parental relationship controlled by the Empties. Little things like a nameplate in the middle of each ceiling, showing room number/ grid coordinates, would probably have to be controlled by Python. All of this would create about one "floor", though it might look like three, as it would be "tri-split-level", one "floor" of thirty. I'd still need to be able to make additions or changes to individual rooms, and I want the results to appear as a "whole cloth" without gaps or "doors to nowhere", (I mean, Ahra Pahts has a few panels missing). No, I don't expect players to search _all_ of the rooms. Solving something will tell them where they need to go, but I still need to model it all, just as someone modeled all of Minkata. Will Blender do this? Will 3DS Max do this? I'm hoping to find that Blender is enough, but if it's not, it would be good to know sooner than later.

AutoCAD? I wish. I haven't worked in AutoCAD in 17 years. CATIA 4 is my most recent experience, though I haven't worked in CATIA in ten years. I can't afford either one of them.

I found "Noob to Expert", looks like it would print in 114 pages. Maybe I can print it when my wife is out without it being noticed.

Thank you all very much.

[J'Kla]

Ye I'm the guy you met in Deep Island Tonight

First
"Noob To Pro" Print one chapter at a time as you need it.

Second
"The Blender 2.3 Guide" is available as a PDF Download for 8 Euros hard copy is out of print with blender.org but theres new/used copies available on Amazon.

Third
Don't bother with "Blender Essentials" (The index ain't worth a damm and when you want to figure out somthing you need a good index.

Blender Co-ords are for the Median point (Yes you can move the individual points but if you have a tidy median) for example a triangle with a Base line 20 units long on the x axis if its first median is at 10x,10y 10z then your second is at 30x,10y,10z twenty units to the right of your first.

The following are all done in object mode.

If you make hexagon cone in blender they are not rotated with sides aligned with the grid but here's a trick Add a cone with 6 vertecies view from the top rotate the z axis 14.825 Hit [Ctr][A] and select Scale& Rotation to ObData the Z rotation digits will reset to 0.000 but now the sides are aligned to the x and y axis any dupicates will also playing with the numbers Hit the N key to see the Numbers panel (Transform Properties) can give you a tidy shape and size and that [Ctrl][A] trick will reset your numbers to zero.

Now [Shift][D] folowed by [Esc] you now have two seperate copies your Transform Properties (thats the panel that popped up when you hit the N key shows the numbers for the new object play with the Loc numbers (small steps) this moves it arround when your happy with the second do the [Shift][D] and then [Esc] and you now have a third object but now it's starting point is where the second one was.

I could go on but why should I spoil your fun.

This could so easily end up as a full blown tutorial which would be better on the Wiki.

The following is the link to the Gus (Gingerbread man animation) useful for learning the interface do it a couple of times from scratch each time you'l learn something new.

http://www.blender.org/documentation/htmlI/c1205.html