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 5Today 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 WayThis 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 WayOkay, 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!
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. 