1、BlenderBasicsClassroomTutorialBookByJames Chronister 2004 by James Chronister. This document may not be reproduced without permission from theauthor. You may not bundle this tutorial with any software or documentation that is intended formarketing without expressed written approval from the author.
2、Inquiries and comments can bedirected to jchronistercdsd.k12.pa.us.Information regarding the Blender program and development can be found at www.blender.org.Table of Contents:Introduction 1Explanation of Rendering and Animation . 2Basic Commands. 4The Blender Interface 6Open, Save and Append . 8Work
3、ing with Viewports (windows) 10Creating and Editing Objects 15Lighting and Cameras 24Importing Objects 28Materials and Textures 29World Settings. 37Render Window Settings 40Raytracing 43Animation Basics. 45Adding 3D Text. 51NURBS and Meta Shape Basics. 54Effects (build, wave, particles) 57Child-Pare
4、nt Relationships 63Working with Constraints 65Working with Paths and Curves 67Armatures (bones) 70Relative Vertex Keys (mesh deformation). 74Creating Springs, Screws and Gears 77Basic Game Engine Description and Set-up. 81Practice Exercises1. Viewports Practice Exercise 142. “Creating Objects” Pract
5、ice Exercise. 173. Basic Editing Practice Exercise. 214. More Basic Editing Practice Exercise 235. Lighting and Camera Practice Exercise 276. Materials and Textures Practice Exercise 367. Adding a World Practice Exercise. 398. Rendering Practice Exercise 429. Raytracing Practice Exercise. 4410. Anim
6、ation Basics Practice Exercise 5011. 3D Text Practice Exercise. 5312. Meta Shape Practice Exercise. 5613. Effects Practice Exercise 6214. Child-Parent Relationships Practice Exercise 6415. Camera Constraint Practice Exercise. 6616. Paths and Curves Practice Exercise. 6917. Working With Armatures Pra
7、ctice Exercise. 7318. Relative Vertex Keys Practice Exercise 7619. Gear Design Practice Exercise. 8020. Game Engine Practice Exercise. 85Page 1About BlenderHow can Blender be free?People usually associate freeware software with the terms “bad”, “with limited features”or just a “demo”. Blender is ful
8、ly functional. It works as an open-sourced, communitydevelopment program where people from around the world contribute to its success.Blender is a renderinganimationgame development open-sourced freeware programmaintained by the Blender Foundation and can be downloaded, free of charge, fromwww.blend
9、er.org. The goal of the foundation can be summarized as follows:“The Blender Foundation is an independent organization (a Dutch “stichting”), acting as anon-profit public benefit corporation, with the following goals: To organize a fund raising campaign in order to finance the 100,000 one timelicens
10、e fee To give the worldwide Internet community access to 3D technology in general,with Blender as a core To establish services for active users and developers of Blender To maintain and improve the current Blender product via a public accessiblesource code system under the GNU GPL license To establi
11、sh funding or revenue mechanisms that serve the foundations goalsand cover the foundations expenses”Blender website (blender.org)Blender can be a difficult program to learn with limitless possibilities. What do you teachin the time you have to teach? Thats a tough question because you cant teach it
12、all.This tutorial book is designed to get you up and running in the basics of creating objectsand scenes and animating. The best advice I can give you about learning this programis Dont Give Up! Any rendering and animation program has a tough learning curve andBlender is no exception. After a few we
13、eks, things get easier. This tutorial has beendeveloped to be used in conjunction with daily lesson planning and demonstrations.Because of this, some areas of Blender have not been described as fully as they couldbe. If you are using this guide as a stand-alone teaching or “self-help” tool, you mayn
14、eed to seek additional help from reputable places like www.blender.org to make sense of things. These sites give you access to help forumsand tutorials. There are literally thousands of Blender users world-wide that browse theforums to give and get advice. Make use of that vast knowledge base!Page
15、2Rendering and Animation BasicsRENDERING:A rendering is a pictorial output of a 3D scene or object. Features like materials,lighting, oversampling and shadows control the effects and quality of therendering. The more of these features you add, the more realistic your scenebecome, but also lengthens
16、rendering times.Materials and Textures:You can control they way an object appears by applying color and textures.Materials provide realism with added effects. You an control glossiness(specularity), self-emitting lighting characteristics, transparency and patternrepetition. Textures can be made from
17、 any scanned photograph or drawn objectin paint. The file needs to be saved as a jpeg or bitmap in most cases, dependingon the program. For Blender, the image should be square and based off of 8 x 8pixels (16x16, 64x64, 256x256), however, off size and rectangular images usuallywork also. Higher pixe
18、l images provide sharper images, but increase file sizes.Lighting:Lighting provides the realism to your scene through reflections and shadows.You can control the type of light, intensity and color. Some lights can give a “fog”or “dusty” look with a halo or volume lighting effect. Illumination distan
19、ces canalso be set.Cameras:Your camera is your point-of-view for the scene. Just like a real camera, you cancontrol lens length to achieve close-ups or wide angles. Clipping distance canalso be set to control how far and near the camera sees.ANIMATION:An animation is a series of rendered images that
20、 form a movie. The quality ofyour movie is controlled by all of the above mentioned features including framesper second (fps), output size, file type and compression. The most commonmethod of animation is called keyframing. Key frames are created at variouspoints in the animation while the computer
21、generates all of the transition framesbetween the two keys. Basic animation options include changing size, rotationand location of objects.Page 3Time Factors:In order to animate, you must first set the length of your animation in frames andyour frames per second (fps). The length in time can be calc
22、ulated from these.Frame Rate Options:NTSC- U.S. and Japan video standard of 30 fpsFilm- Movie standard of 24 fpsPAL- European video standard of 25 fpsCustom- set your own fps*We typically use a frame rate of 15 fps because most computers will displaythis rate smoothly, rendering times are shorter, a
23、nd the animation quality is stillhigh. With better computers, weve been using 25 fps more often.Creating Keys:A key is placed at the beginning and end of a desired move, size change orrotation of an object. Think in terms of how long you want a change to occur andrelate it to your fps. For example,
24、if you want an object to move from point A topoint B in 2 seconds and you have 15 fps, place 2 keys 30 frames apart.Following Paths and Objects:In most animation programs, a camera can follow a path or object (or both) as itmoves. This feature saves a lot of animation time and reduces the number ofk
25、eys needed.Output Options:We typically save our movies in AVI format for windows. This type of file playseasily on most media players. Compression agents allow us to control file sizeto a degree. However, animations can be rather large in size and may take up toseveral hundred megabytes of disk spac
26、e. A compression agent, which we foundto work well with most computers, is Indeo 5.1. For good output size, we typicallyuse a resolution of 640 x 480 pixels. This is considered low resolution forcomputers and produces good full-screen quality when played.Real-Time Animation (Blender only):Real-time
27、animation allows you to add physical properties to your objects anduse the keyboard and other features to control them. You can create actors,change masses, control dampening (friction), set force and torque in x, y, and zplanes and create relationships with other objects within the scene. With time
28、and practice, interesting 3D games and real-time architectural walk-throughscan be created.Page 4Basic Blender CommandsThis is just a partial list of Blender commands.Please visit the Blender.org website for more details and tutorialsTAB key- Toggles between edit mode (vertex editing) and object sel
29、ect mode. If youre inedit mode when you create a new object, it will be joined to the selected object.“O” key- The “O” key (not zero) will put you into proportional vertex editing while in editmode.“A” key- While in edit mode its good for selecting all vertices for commands like removedoubles and su
30、bdivide. “A” twice will clear selected and reselect.“B” key- Gives you a box (window drag) to select multiple objects. In edit mode, works thesame to select multiple vertices, but hitting “B” twice gives you a circle select thatcan be sized by scrolling the mouse wheel.Space Bar- Brings up the tools
31、 menu where you can add meshes, cameras, lights, etc.Number Pad- Controls your views. “7” top, “1” front, “3” side, “0” camera, “5” perspective,“.” Zooms on selected object, “+ and “ zoom in and out. The +- buttons alsocontrol affected vertices size in proportional vertex editing.Mouse- Left to mani
32、pulate, right to select, center wheel to zoom and rotate view. If youhold down “shift” and center wheel you can pan around on the screen.Shift Key- Hold down the shift key to make multiple selections with the right mouse button.Arrow Keys- Used to advance frames in animation. Left/right goes 1 frame
33、 at a time, up/downgoes 10 frames at a time.“R” key- Rotates an object or selected vertices.“S” key- Scales a selected object or vertices.“G” key- Grabs or moves the object or selected vertices.“P” key- While in edit mode, selected vertices can be separated into a single object bypressing P.Shift-“D
34、”- Duplicates or copies selected objects or selected vertices.“E” key- While in edit mode, selected vertices can be extruded by pressing E.“U” key- In Object Mode, brings up the Single-User menu to unlink materials, animations (IPOs),etc. for linked or copied objects. Undo command. Only works in edi
35、t mode and can nowgo back multiple steps. Sorry, no system-wide undo command.“M” key- Moves selected objects to other layers. Mirror- while in edit mode, “M” will giveyou a mirror command.“Z” key- Toggles view from wireframe to solid.Alt “Z”- Toggles a rough texture/shaded view.“P” key- Starts game
36、modeATL/CTRL “P”-Creates or breaks child/parent relationships. To create C/P relationships, holddown shift key and select child first, then parent. Hit Ctrl P. To clear arelationship, do the same except hit Alt P.“N” key- Brings up the numeric info. on a selected object (location, rotation and size)
37、. Info.can then be changed in the window.Ctrl “J”- Joins selected objects together.Alt “A”- Plays animation in selected window. Your cursor must be in that window for it toplay.“F” key- Makes a face in edit mode of the selected vertices. You can only select 3-4vertices at a time to make a face.“W” k
38、ey- Boolean expression to union, create a difference, or subtract objects from oneanother. “W” will also give you a “specials” menu while in edit mode.“X” or Delete- Delete selected objects, vertices or faces.Function Keys-F1-Load File; F2-Save File; F3-Save Image; F4-Lamp Buttons; F5-MaterialButton
39、s; F6-Texture Buttons; F7-Animation Buttons; F8-Real Time Buttons; F9-Edit Buttons; F10-Display Buttons; F11-Last Render; F12-RenderPage 5“I” Key- The “I” key is used to insert animation keys for various things. Objects can beanimated with basic Rotation, Location and Size keys and combinations ther
40、e of.If your cursor is down in the buttons portion of the screen, animation keys can beadded to lights, materials and world settings.Ctrl “0”- If using multiple cameras, this will switch to the selected camera. (Number pad“0”)Armatures- Meshes can be controlled by “bones” or armatures. Create a mesh
41、 with verticesat the joint locations, then create an armature string within it. Child/Parent themesh to the armature using the armature option. You can then animate thearmature in Pose Mode.Ctrl-Tab- Puts you into Pose mode for manipulating armatures.Import/Export- Blender accepts .DXF and VRML(.wrl
42、) files. Just use the OPEN option from thefile menu to insert these types of files into an already existing scene. Wheninserting other Blender files or objects into another scene, use the APPENDoption from the file menu and select the appropriate options. Multiple objects canbe selected with Shift-R
43、ight mouse button.Springs/Screw-Blender can create these objects in the edit buttons. You need a profile of theobject, the cursor at the center of revolution, and 2 vertices to show the length ofthe revolution. The profile and the length vertices need to be in the same object.All vertices need to be
44、 selected when performing the operation. You will alsoneed to be in the front view. There are several tutorials to help with thisoperation. Results are great!Multiple Viewports- To create multiple viewports, move your cursor over the edge of theviewport (to start, you only have the drawing window an
45、d the button window-move your cursor to the break between them). Right click on the break and selectsplit area. Blender will break the area that you brought the cursor fromPage 6The Blender InterfaceWhen I first looked at Blender and read some tutorials I thought that this looked easyand made sense.
46、 After taking the program for a test run, I decided to forget about it fora while because I couldnt make anything. The interface is different than any otherprograms Ive experienced before. After a few week however, things began to makesense and I realized the potential of the program. Heres what you
47、 are looking at whenyou open the program:You are looking down at a scene consisting of a plane and a camera (top view). Newerversions of Blender may open with different scenes (a cube instead of a plane and alight), but the idea stays the same. The cursor in the middle of the plane is used to locate
48、where new items will be placed along with some other uses. It can be moved around onthe screen by clicking the Left Mouse Button (LMB). Along with familiar pull-down menuslike other programs, you have a viewport along the bottom that changes every time youselect a different button. This ”Buttons Win
49、dow” can be changed around, but for now, letskeep it where its at.Blender works with layers much like other programs where objects can be placed in differentlayers and displayed as needed. Its a good idea to get comfortable with layers becauseas your scenes get bigger, turning layers on and off help with the speed of your work andbeing able to see things better. To change things between layers, select the object withthe Right Mouse Button (RMB) and type “M” for move. Try it with the plane and changelayers. By the way, if you put it in a layer thats tu
