1

Camp Blender
http://cs.oregonstate.edu/~mjb/blender

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0
International License
Mike Bailey
[email protected]

Computer Graphics mjb – July 15, 2024

blender4.1.pptx
 For Those of you on Zoom, I Apologize in Advance 2

for the Barking You Might Hear in the Background 

They mean well, but delivery vans are just too-tempting a bark-target…

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Handy Blender Shortcuts
Shortcut What it Does
LMB Select something
Shift-LMB Add something else to the selection

MMB Rotate the scene

Shift-MMB Pan the scene

Shift-spacebar Bring up the transformation menu

Scroll Wheel Zoom in and out

Tab Toggle between Object Mode and Edit Mode

Control-Tab Bring up Mode pie menu

Bring up View pie menu

` (back quote)

a Select all

Click in empty space Unselect all

Alt-a Unselect all

Shift-a Bring up the Add menu

Escape Get you out of almost anything (including stopping a render or an animation)

b, c Box or circle select

C Center the scene (good if you are lost in 3D)

Shift-d Duplicate

e Extrude (in edit mode)

F3 Search

g
Computer Graphics Grab (translate) an object
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Handy Blender Shortcuts
Shortcut What it Does
Shift-g Group
i Insert a keyframe
Control-j Join 2 or more objects
m Send object to a collection (layer)
n Toggle the Sidebar menu
Shift-n Recalculate normals
p Partition (only in edit mode)
Control-p Establish a parent-child relationship (last object selected will be the parent)
Alt-p Destroy a parent-child relationship
Control-Alt-q Toggle quad viewing
r Rotate an object
s Scale an object
Shift-s Pie menu for using the 3D Cursor
Spacebar Start / Pause an animation
t Toggle the Object Tools menu
x Delete whatever is selected
z Bring up a display mode pie menu
Control-z Undo
Alt-z Toggle x-ray mode
Control-Shift-z Redo
F12 Render a scene image
F11 Return to the interactive scene
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Not Exactly a Shortcut, but Really, Really Useful

If you would like to be able to rotate

the entire scene around a particular
object, click on the object and then
select:

View → Frame Selected

You can also hit the period (.) on

the number pad on the keyboard.

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What is Blender?
Blender is a free program that lets you do professional-looking
3D modeling, rendering, and animation. This, not this. 

Note: The version number

changes often. These notes
have been written against
Blender version 4.1

You can get Blender for yourself by going to: http://www.blender.org

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Next Gen – a Blender-Animated Movie

See the trailer at:

https://www.netflix.com/title/80988892
(Go to the bottom of the screen to see the trailer and teaser.)

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Why Do We Have These Notes?

http://xkcd.com

Blender has thousands of buttons you can press. It is difficult to understand them
all. These notes are here to show you what certain combinations of buttons do in
order to learn them, and to remind you later when you’ve forgotten.

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In these notes, what do these icons mean?

cloth.blend worldtex.bmp cloth.mp4

They tell you that if you go to our notes web site:

http://cs.oregonstate.edu/~mjb/blender

you will find Blender input files (*.blend), texture map files (*.bmp), and animation
movie files (*.mp4).

You can read a .blend file right into Blender (File → Open) so that you can
experiment with these examples without having to first create them yourself.

You can play an .mp4 movie file right from your browser so that you can see how
these examples look without having to run Blender at all.

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A warning about me and the Notes

What Blender does

What I know

What the
notes cover

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What We Will Cover in these Notes

1. Navigating the screen layout 10. Appearance, II

2. Viewing in 3D 11. Vertex Sculpting

3. Moving things around in 3D 12. Vertex Painting

4. Modeling, I 13. Keyframe Animation

5. Appearance, I 14. 3D Printing

6. Modeling, II 15.Stereographics

7. Rendering 16. References

8. Particle Systems

9. Physics Animation

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1. Navigating the
Screen Layout

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Full Screen Layout View
Control
Object Tools Main Menu Object Properties (‘n’) Outliner
(‘t’) Property-specific Options

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The Object Tools Menu
Select

Cursor

Move

Rotate

Scale

Transform

Annotate

Measure
Toggled on and off with the ‘t’ key

Add Cube
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The Add Menu

This is the Add tab – you will spend a lot of time here!

Create geometry

Create lights

Create other cool stuff

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The Add→Mesh Menu

You will especially spend a lot of time here!

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The Sidebar Panels

Toggled on and off with the ‘n’ key

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The Blender Interface Widgets
If Blender shows you something that looks like this …

… you are expected to click a button to put yourself in a particular mode

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The Blender Interface Widgets

If Blender shows you something that looks like this …

… you are expected to click in the box to bring up something else,

like this

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The Blender Interface Widgets

If Blender shows you something that looks like this …

… you are expected to turn features on and off by clicking in all or none of
the checkboxes

If Blender shows you something that looks like this …

… you are expected to make a choice of just one of these options

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The Blender Interface Widgets

If Blender shows you something that looks like this …

… you are expected to either left-click in the box and (keeping the left button
down) drag the mouse left-right like a slider, or single-click in the box and
type in a new value

If Blender shows you something that looks like this …

… you are expected to click in the box

and then select from the resulting list

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The Blender Interface Widgets

If Blender shows you an “Apply” button …

… it means that you can click this button to get rid of your original model and
replace it with a model that has the edits you have just made

If Blender shows you this icon (with or without the word “Open” …

… it means that you can click this button to open a file

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The Blender Interface Widgets

If Blender shows you something that looks like this …

… you are expected to click in the box and select from a

list of other objects in the scene

If Blender shows you something that looks like this …

… the red color is telling you that you haven’t yet entered
enough information in this panel

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The Blender Interface Widgets

If Blender shows you something that looks like this …

… it allows you to hide and unhide something (the Outliner is where you use
this most often). Hiding an object is useful for decluttering your scene.

Hint #1: If you no longer want an object in the scene, hiding it for a while before
deleting it is usually a good thing. It is surprising how often you need something
not long after you deleted it. 

Hint #2: If you hide something, don’t forget that you have hidden it. It is pretty
freaky to be certain that you once created something, but now you can’t find it
anywhere in the scene. 

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The File Menu
Start a new Blender scene (thus closing the
scene you currently have open)

Open a previously-created Blender scene (thus

closing the scene you currently have open)

Save the current scene in a file

Bring elements from another Blender file

into this scene

Bring an image or object in from somewhere else

Send an image or object to somewhere else

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The Difference Between New, Open, Link, and Append

New closes the scene you currently have, then initiates

a new Blender scene.

Open closes the scene you currently have, then reads

in a previously-stored Blender scene.

Append leaves the scene you currently have open,

and adds elements of a previously-created scene into it.

Link is like Append, but every time you open the scene
again, it will look at the file you are Linking from to see if
changes have been made, and if so, will bring those
into the scene instead of the first ones.

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The Edit Menu
Control-Z or Edit→Undo are two of your best friends!

You can also select Undo History and go

back in time to several commands ago

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The Render Menu

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The Help Menu

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Blender Windows

When Blender launches, there are four sub-windows visible. But

Blender has 23 Possible sub-window types that you can bring up
and change the size of.
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Changing the Border Line on Blender Windows

To change a sub-window boundary, left-click on the horizontal or vertical

border line, wait for the cursor to change to a double-arrow, then move the
mouse up/down or left/right.

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Adding a New Blender Window

To change a sub-window boundary to create a new window, hover over the

boundary, wait for the cursor to change to a double-arrow, then right-click.
This menu will pop up. Select Vertical Split or Horizontal Split and move
the mouse up/down or left/right. This will create a copy of a Blender sub-
window that you already have.

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Changing the Type of a Blender Window

“This will create a copy of a Blender sub-window you already have.”

Well, what good is that?

Blender sub-windows have a type, designated by the icon in the upper-left corner.

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Changing the Type of a Blender Window

Clicking the down arrow, will bring up the list of the 23 types you can
change that sub-window into:

Congratulations! You have now added a new Blender sub-window to your display.
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Deleting a Blender Window

To delete a window, hover over the boundary, wait for the cursor to
change to a double-arrow, then right-click. This menu will pop up.
Select Join Areas and move the mouse up/down or left/right. This
symbol shows you which window will be eliminated when you click the
mouse button.

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2. Viewing in 3D

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3D Coordinate Systems

Y
Y

X
X
Z
Left-handed Right-handed

Blender uses this convention

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The Coordinate and Viewing System

• Right-handed coordinate system

• X = Red
• Y = Green
• Z = Blue
• Middle mouse button (MMB) – orbit (rotate)
• Shift MMB – pan
• Scroll wheel – zoom
• View → Viewpoint → Left, Right, …
• View → Area → Toggle Quad View
• View → View Perspective/Orthographic
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The View Menu

The View Menu gives you access to lots of ways to

change how you are viewing the scene

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Rotating About a Particular Object

If you would like to be able to rotate

the entire scene around a particular
object, click on the object and then
select:

View → Frame Selected

You can also hit the period (.) on

the number pad on the keyboard.

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Toggling Between Perspective and Orthographic Views

Orthographic

Perspective
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Toggling Between Perspective and Orthographic Views

In orthographic, lines that are parallel in 3D

remain parallel on the screen. Objects appear
to be the same size as they get farther away.

In perspective, lines that are parallel in the 3D depth

direction appear to converge on the screen. Objects
appear to get smaller as they get farther away.

“Vanishing Point”

Use perspective when you want a more

realistic view (which is most of the time).

Use orthographic to see if things

separated
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Toggling Between Perspective and Orthographic Views
Use perspective when you want a more realistic view (which is most of the time):

scene.blend

Use orthographic to see if things separated in depth are the same size:

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Single View vs. Quad View

Computer Graphics Or hit Control-Alt-q

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Setting the initial Rendering Mode

On the vertical
strip of icons on
the right, click
this one:

And then be sure the Render Engine is set to Eevee for now.
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Setting the initial Display Mode
Viewport
X-ray Wireframe
Shading Rendered

No
X-ray

Use Viewport Shading to start.

It gives good generic lighting.
X-ray

Later, when we cover Rendering,

we will use Rendered lighting,
but not now.
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3. Moving Things
Around in 3D

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 We will get into this in more detail later, but just so that you48
have something on the screen, here is the Add Menu

These are all the different geometry things you can add
into the scene. We will cover many of them, but not all.

This group is the meshes.

This group is the curves.

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The Add→Mesh Menu

The UV Sphere, Torus, and

Monkey are my favorites

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Summary of the Mesh Objects

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Coordinate System Conventions

• Right-handed coordinates
• Right-handed rotation rule
• Angles are in degrees

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Right-handed Rotation Rule

+ X
+

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Selecting an Object to Work On

LMB-click on the object you want to select. It

will then be highlighted with an orange outline.

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Selecting Multiple Objects to Work On:
Two Ways to Do This

1. Hold down the Shift key while RMB-clicking

2. LMB a rectangular region around objects

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Moving Things By Clicking and Dragging

Translate (“grab”)

Rotate

Scale

Use Global or Local

Coordinate System
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Global and Local Coordinates

Global Local

Global Coordinates Local Coordinates

align with the screen align with the object

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Saying How to Move Things by Using the Keyboard

• LMB click to select an object

• Grab: g
• Rotate: r This is important – you will use this a lot!
• Scale: s
• Grab using global axis: g → x, etc.
• Grab using local axis: g → x → x
• Pick all but a particular axis: g → X, g → X → X, etc.
• Grab a specific distance: g → x → 12.25 <return>
• Rotate a specific angle: r → x → 45 <return>
• Scale a specific factor: s → 2.0 <return> The arrows (→) mean “and then hit”
• Scale a specific factor: s → x → 2.0 <return>
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You Can Also Use the Sidebar Panel

Computer Graphics
Hit the ‘n’ key to toggle this panel on and off
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Applying the Transformation
When you transform an object, Blender doesn’t change the object’s coordinates.
It keeps the object’s original coordinates plus a record of the transformation.
So, for example, if you scale an object by 2.0, Blender remembers it like this:

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Applying the Transformation
If you want to actually alter the object’s coordinates, choose Object → Apply

You can pick a specific

transformation to apply, but
most of the time it is easiest
to select All Transforms

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Applying the Transformation
Once you apply the transformation, the Object Properties Box looks like this:

Before After
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The Outliner
In the upper-right portion of the screen
is the Outliner. Like the name implies, it
shows an outline of your scene.

It is sometimes nice to have a summary

of the scene so you can remind yourself
of what all is in it.

Also, if your scene is cluttered, you can

select on object by left-clicking on its
name in the outliner as opposed to
selecting it in the scene.

Double-clicking on a name will allow

you to rename that object to something
more sensible than, say, “sphere”

Also, you can use the outliner to hide

certain objects. Just click on the eye
icon to hide/unhide.

Hint: If you hide something, don’t forget that you have hidden it. It is pretty freaky to be
certain that you once created something, but now can’t find it anywhere in the scene. 
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The 3D Cursor

You have probably noticed that when you start up Blender, there is a mysterious
cursor positioned at the origin.

This is Blender’s 3D View Editor Cursor.

With this, you can point anywhere in space.

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Positioning the 3D Cursor

One way to position the 3D View Editor Cursor is to click on

the Cursor icon and start left-clicking around the scene.

When you are done, be sure to let go of the 3D Cursor by

clicking here

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Positioning the 3D Cursor

But, it is hard to get the 3D Cursor exactly where you want it to be. For example, if
you want to position the 3D Cursor at the corner of the cube indicated by the
yellow dot, LMB click on it. But, upon rotating, you realize that it is at the wrong
depth. So, get a view roughly 90˚ from the last view, and click again. You might
have to do this a couple more times.
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The 3D Cursor
You can also automatically position the 3D Cursor using the Object → Snap menu

For example, choosing Cursor to Selected will move the 3D Cursor to the median
point of the object you have most recently selected. Choosing Selected to Cursor
will move the selected object’s median point to where the 3D Cursor is.
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A Use for the 3D Cursor – Arbitrary Pivot Point

Suppose you then wanted to rotate the cube about

the yellow corner point. After positioning the 3D
Cursor there, you would then go to the Pivot
Center menu and select 3D Cursor. Rotations
and Scaling will now take place around the yellow
corner.

Later, you probably want to change the pivot point

back to Median Point.

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Another Way to Set the Arbitrary Pivot Point

Select the object, tab to Edit Mode, select all vertices (‘a’) and translate
them (‘g’).

In Edit mode, the pivot point stays put while the vertices move.

Tab back to Object mode, and rotate the object to confirm that the pivot
point has changed.

In contrast, in Object Mode, the pivot point moves with the vertices.

The little orange dot is the

pivot point.

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4. Modeling, I

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The Add Menu

These are all the different geometry things you can add
into the scene. We will cover many of them, but not all.

This group is the meshes.

This group is the curves.

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The Add→Mesh Menu

The UV Sphere, Torus, and

Monkey are my favorites

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When you Add a Mesh, a Small Menu Appears
in the LL Corner

UV Sphere

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When you Add a Mesh, a Small Menu Appears
in the LL Corner
Try clicking on it.

The small menu lets you modify how the last thing you did works. In this
case, the most important thing it is doing is letting you change the polygon
resolution of the sphere. But, this menu only exists until you do
something else. After that, the ability to change these values is gone.

Personally, I like changing these two

values to 64 and 32, respectively.

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Summary of the Mesh Objects

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Making the Mesh Objects Look Nicer
Blender is able to play a graphics trick to make your
curved geometry look better. Select the object
(LMB) then click the RMB and select
Shade Smooth. To go back, select Shade Flat.

Flat

This doesn’t actually change any geometry –

it’s just a really good computer graphics
display trick. There are other ways to truly Smooth
create smoother underlying geometry.
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How to Find Out How Detailed a Mesh Object Is
In the overlay menu,
turn on Statistics

The number of Vertices, Edges, Faces, and

Triangles show on the left side of the screen

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Duplicating an Object from the RMB Menu

Select the object (LMB) then click the RMB and select
Duplicate Objects. This leaves the new object right on
top of the old object and leaves you in Grab mode. Just
move the mouse to separate the two objects.

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Mirroring an Object
Oftentimes you want to create an object that is identical to itself but is
symmetric about an axis. This type of operation is called mirroring.

Create an object, in this case, Suzanne the Monkey.

Let’s say that we want to mirror this object left-right (y).

Select the monkey, right click, then select Mirror,
and then select Y Global.

Before

After

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Editing a Vertex, Edge, or Face on a Mesh

Tab
Click here, or hit the
Select and edit:
key, to get into Edit Mode
A vertex An edge A face

Using the Tab key is so common, that “tab” has become a verb in the
Blender community. As we like to say, “Just tab over into edit mode.”

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Editing a Vertex

Be sure you are in vertex-editing mode

Left click on a vertex

Hit ‘g’ (grab) and move the mouse

You can also hit ‘x’, ‘y’, or ‘z’ to restrict motion

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Editing a Vertex with Proportional Editing
Be sure you have Proportional Editing enabled

LMB click on a vertex

Hit ‘g’ (grab) and move the mouse
You can also hit ‘x’, ‘y’, or ‘z’ to restrict motion

The mouse Scroll Wheel changes the size of the

Circle of Influence

You can also LMB select an edge or a

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Subdividing and Smoothing Really Show the Difference
Between Localized and Proportional Editing

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An Unexpected Use for Proportional Editing
Create a Plane, then go to Edit Mode, then box select all the edges, then click on
Edge  Subdivide and subdivide it several times

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An Unexpected Use for Proportional Editing

Enable Proportional Editing, then go one widget to the right and change the kind
of Proportional Editing from Smooth to Random

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An Unexpected Use for Proportional Editing
Go to Edit Mode, select a vertex, and lift it along with those around it

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Deleting

In Edit Mode, you can delete

things. For example, here
four faces have been
selected. Right-click and
select Delete Faces from the
pop-up menu

Here’s what you get:

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Dissolving

You can also right-click and

select Dissolve Faces from
the pop-up menu

In which case, you get this:

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5. Appearance, I

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The Button Properties Menus
Tells you that we are in the Button Properties Menu

Render Properties

Output Properties

View Layer Properties

Scene Properties

World Properties

Collection Properties

Object Properties
Clicking one of these brings up a
Modifier Properties much more detailed menu of options
Particle Properties

Physics Properties

Object Constraint Properties

Object Data Properties

Material Properties (colors)

Texture Properties
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Using the Material Properties Menu

Click on this … to get this

Then, click on New

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Using the Material Properties Menu

To make our lives simpler for now, click here

to turn off Use Nodes mode

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Using the Material Properties Menu

Use Nodes mode has been turned off

Clicking in here brings up a color wheel

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Controlling Shininess
Turn Use Nodes off

Most matte

Most glossy
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The Color Wheel

Click in here to change

Click in here to change
the Value (brightness)
the Hue and Saturation

Hue is angle around the wheel

Saturation is the radius

These are the possible ways

the color will be defined

If you know the color definition

numbers you want, you can
type or slider them here

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Color Scales

Red-Green-Blue Hue-Saturation-Value Hexadecimal

Eyedropper
(lets you select a color you see somewhere else on the screen)
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RGB Additive Color Scale

R
R = Red
Y=R+G
G = Green
B = Blue
G W = White
M=R+B W=R+G+B

C = Cyan
M = Magenta
C=G+B Y = Yellow
K = Black

Blender’s RGB scale lets you give the red, green, and blue
components in the range 0. – 1.

Blender’s hexadecimal scale lets you give the red, green,

and blue components in the range 00 00 00 – FF FF FF
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Hue-Saturation-Value (HSV) Color Scale

120º
Hue

White
White 0º
Saturation

240º

Value Black

Blender’s HSV scale lets you give the hue, saturation,

and value components in the range 0. – 1.
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Subtractive Colors (CMYK)

R = Red
G = Green
M B = Blue
W = White

G B C = Cyan
M = Magenta
Y = Yellow
K = Black
C

R G B

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Subtractive Color (CMYK)

C
R = Red
B=C+M
G = Green
M B = Blue
W = White
G=C+Y K=C+M+Y

C = Cyan
M = Magenta
R=M+Y
Y = Yellow
K = Black
Y

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Color Printing

• Uses subtractive colors

• Uses 3 (CMY) or 4 (CMYK) passes
• CMYK printers have a better-looking black

R = Red
G = Green
B = Blue
W = White

C = Cyan
M = Magenta
Y = Yellow
K = Black

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Changing the Color of Individual Faces

Let's say that we have created and colored

this yellow cube and you want to color the
front face red instead.

With the yellow cube selected, add

another color.

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Changing the Color of Individual Faces

Now select the yellow cube and Tab into Edit

Mode. Tell Blender that we will be selecting faces.

Let go of all faces by clicking in an empty area and

then click on the front face.

Click on the Material Properties menu icon

From this list, select the new color you want

this face to be.

Click Assign

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Changing the Color of Individual Faces

You have now changed the color of an

individual face.

I especially like this for highlighting the

results of Boolean operations:

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 104
So Far We Have Been Using Viewport Shading

We have gotten pretty

good views of our
objects without having
to position light
sources, cameras, etc.

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 105
We Could Switch to Rendered Shading

But, that would

require us to position
light sources,
cameras, etc. We’re
not ready for that yet.

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 106
But, here comes MatCap, a More Creative Use of Viewport Shading

Click on Viewport Shading and then click on the

down-facing arrow

Studio Lighting is what you have been using.

Instead, select MatCap, which stands for
“Material Capture”.

Then, click on the sphere.

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 107
Up Pops a Lot of Material Options!

C A

Try them, especially the shiny ones!

A B C

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 108

6. Modeling, II

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 109
Adding 3D Text

Select Add → Text

It ends up giving you the fairly-useless line “Text”

To change the text string, tab into Edit mode. The white rectangle
acts as a text cursor. Backspace over “Text” and type your new text.
The return key will let you enter multiple lines.

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Changing the Style of 3D Text

So far, not very 3D, huh?

Tab back to Object Mode, click on your text,
then click on this Font button

Go to the Geometry
sub-menu

Extrude: give the letters height

Depth: bevel the top and bottom
Resolution: round the bevel

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Changing the Look of 3D Text

From here on, your 3D text acts like any other 3D object.
It can be grabbed (translated), rotated, and scaled.

It can be colored, too.

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Edit Mode Subdivision
The Edit Mode subdivision feature adds more vertices, but doesn’t do any sort
of smoothing (like the Subdivision Surface Modifier does). So, when you are
done, you will have more vertices to sculpt with, but, in Object Mode, your
object will look exactly the same as it did before.

1. Object Mode 2. Tab into Edit Mode

3. Get Ready to Edit Faces

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 113
Edit Mode Subdivision
4. Right-click Subdivide
5. You now have more vertices

6. Tab back into Object Mode

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 114
A Multi-Vertex Picking Hint
First, make this model:
1. Object Mode → Add → Mesh → Cylinder
2. Tab to Edit Mode → RMB → Subdivide
Edit a vertex

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 115
A Multi-Vertex Picking Hint
Now, LMB-sweep over these vertices. (I call them
the “equator” or the “belt”.)

But, if you do that, you will only end up selecting the

front vertices, that is, the ones you can see.

The trick is to go into X-ray Mode, by clicking here.

This will now let you select

all the points in the belt.

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A Multi-Vertex Picking Hint
Why do that? Well, if you have those vertices selected and you hit
the s key (for scale) and move the mouse, then you can get this:

Or, this:

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A Multi-Face Picking Hint
To create this model:
1. Add → Cube
2. Tab to Edit Mode → RMB → Subdivide → Subdivide

Suppose you want to select an entire row of faces in order to

“fatten the belt”. You could select all the faces individually
(LMB → Shift-LMB). But, here’s a better trick

1. Click on one face in the row

2. Alt-LMB on another face down the row

Computer Graphics Face Select Mode

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A Multi-Face Picking Hint

Scaling (‘s’)

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 119
A Face Picking Hint
Similarly, if you put yourself into face-picking mode:

And click on the top face of the cylinder (don’t need

the belt and don’t need to be in X-ray Mode for this):
And hit the r and z keys (for rotate about the z axis)
and move the mouse, then you get this:

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Intentionally Joining Two Objects

Let’s say that you have two objects and want to join them together so
that you can act on them as one object.

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Intentionally Joining Two Objects
Easy! LMB on one, then Shift-LMB on the other, then hit RMB → Join
(or Control-’j’ on the keyboard). The orange “selection outline” now
goes around both objects and the outliner shows just one object.

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Separating Objects By Loose Parts
Select the Joined object. Tab over to Edit Mode. Then hit the ‘p’ key
(“Partition”). You will then have three options on how to partition the joined
object. If you select By Loose Parts, then the Joined object will be
partitioned based on the original primitives that made it up.

Before

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Inset Faces (aka, Offset Curves)
Often you want to create a “face-within-a-face”. In Blender, this is called an
Inset Face. (CAD systems often call this sort of thing an Offset Curve.)

In Edit Mode, select the top face.

Then, either RMB → Inset Faces,
or click on this icon on the left side:

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Inset Faces (aka, Offset Curves)
With the LMB, push the little handle down
until the Inset Face is the size you want.

At this point, you can select the inner face and hit
g and z (grab in the z direction) to do this, or this.

Try rotating or scaling the inner face.

You can also create a new inset face inside the inset face you just created.
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Extrude Tool
Start with a cube

Select X-ray mode and select

all vertices

Tab into Edit Mode.

Click on the Extrude Tool

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Extrude Tool
I like XYZ mode so that you can extrude in any direction

Grab one of the +’s and pull

You can even keep doing it

When you get back to Object Mode, you will find

that all of these are part of the same object.
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Spin Tool

Start with a cube translated

along the x axis (gx)

Tab into Edit Mode.

Click on the Spin Tool

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Spin Tool
Pick the number of duplicates to make

Pick the axis/axes about which to spin

Be sure all of the object’s vertices are selected.
Grab one of the blue +’s and rotate

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Vertex Groups
Using a group of vertices together is very useful. It is used for editing (like we are doing
here), but also to pin certain vertices for cloth animation, to grow hair for hair simulation, and
to rig objects for animation.
For that reason, Blender allows you to select the
group and give them a name for later. This is
called a Vertex Group.
3. Click the + to add this as
a new Vertex Group

1. Select the vertices in Edit Mode (Shift-LMB)

2. Select the Object Data

Properties button
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Vertex Groups

4. Double-click on whatever the default

name is (“Group” in this case) and type in a
descriptive name for this Vertex Group

5. Click Assign

From now on, this group of vertices can be selected just by selecting
the name from the list of Vertex Groups and clicking Select.

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Extruding Faces – three ways
First, tab into Edit Mode. Then select one or more faces. Then right-click and select:

Extrude Individual Faces (cracks in between skyscrapers)

Extrude Faces Along
Normals (push each face
perpendicular to the surface)

Extrude Faces (push each face

along the group average
perpendicular to the surface)
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Shrink/Fatten and Push/Pull
Find this edit icon in the column on
the left side of the screen. Click it
with the LMB and leave the button Shrink/Fatten and Push/Pull are very much like extruding
down for a couple of seconds. faces. Here are the differences:

Extruding lifts the selected faces along their normals. It

leaves behind a “cliff” that connects them to the surrounding
faces.

Shrink/Fatten lifts the selected faces along their normals, but

leaves behind a “ramp” connecting those faces to the
surrounding ones.

It will then expand into both of these Push/Pull essentially scales the selected faces around their
commands, and you can pick the centroid.
one you want:
For example, suppose we start
with this object and these
selected faces

Every one of the edit-icons that has a little

arrow in the lower-right corner expands in this
same way. Check ‘em out!
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Extrude, Shrink/Fatten, and Push/Pull

Extrude Shrink/Fatten Push/Pull

Out

In

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The Button Properties Menus, Again
Tells you that we are in the Button Properties Menu

Render Properties

Output Properties

View Layer Properties Clicking one of these brings up a

much more detailed menu of options
Scene Properties

World Properties

Object Properties

Modifier Properties

Particle Properties

Physics Properties

Object Constraint Properties

Object Data Properties

Material Properties (colors)

Texture Properties
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 The Modifiers Menu 135

Modifiers don’t actually change an object’s

permanent geometry – just the object’s appearance
on the screen. The geometry only gets permanently
changed if you click the Apply button

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 The Edit Modifiers 136

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 The Generate Modifiers 137

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 The Deform Modifiers 138

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 The Physics Modifiers 139

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 The Hair Modifiers 140

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 141

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 142

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 143

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 Blender Modifiers 144

Modifiers don’t actually change the object’s

permanent geometry – just the object’s appearance on the screen.

You Create You Apply a You See a

an Original Blender Modified Object
Object Modifier on the Screen

Cube with
Bevel Modifier
in Edit Mode

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 The Modifiers Menu 145

Modifiers don’t actually change the object’s permanent

geometry – just the object’s appearance on the screen.

Example: Here a cube has been beveled (one of the Modifiers). In Edit Mode
you can see both the beveled cube and the original cube. You can edit the
vertices and the new shape will get beveled as you edit.

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My Favorite Modifier -- Subdivision Surface
This modifier increases the number of polygons in your object. At the same time, it
smooths your object out. Be careful! It very quickly increases your polygon count.

This controls how much to subdivide.

Here we’ve changed this value from 1 to 2.

Fun: try it on a cube!

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Deleting and Moving Modifiers
Oftentimes you have a list of several Modifiers that are used with a single object. The
Modifiers take effect in the order that they are in the list. To change this, you can:
• Delete a Modifier
• Move a Modifier elsewhere in the list and thus change how it modifies the object

Delete this Modifier

Move this Modifier elsewhere

in the list of Modifiers

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Making Your Modifier Effect Permanent
Despite the name, Modifiers do not actually modify the object’s underlying coordinates.
They create an “alternate representation” that you can see. Most of the time, this is good.
It lets you edit the underlying coordinates and have the Modifier then use them. If you want
the Modifier to change the object’s underlying coordinates permanently, bring up this sub-
menu and click on Apply.

Click here

To bring up this menu.

Then click on Apply.

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Bevel Modifier

Beveling causes edges to be

rounded instead of sharp

How much to bevel

Smooth shading makes bevels look much better!

No beveling Segments = 1 Segments = 2 Segments = 3

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Remember Venn Diagrams (Boolean Operators)?

Two Overlapping Shapes Union

Intersection
Difference

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 Booleans (also known as Constructive Solid Geometry) 151
Think of them as Venn diagrams in 3D!

Two Overlapping Solids Union

Intersection Difference
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Boolean Modifier
“Block minus Cylinder”

1. Select the cube

2. Click on Modifiers
3. Click on Add Modifier→Generate →Boolean
4. Specify the Difference Operator
5. Specify the Cylinder as what to the difference with
6. Click Apply

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Boolean Modifier

Select the cylinder, hit it g (grab) and slide the cylinder away

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The Resolution of the Second Object Determines the
Resolution of the Resulting Surface

First object Resulting surface Second object

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Remember 3D Text? One Fun Thing to do with
Booleans is to Attach Text to a Block
Warning: if you want to use
Start with a block and the text:
text with Booleans, do not
Bevel the text. That is,
leave the BevelDepth
setting equal to 0.

You cannot directly Boolean with text, so you

must first convert the text to a mesh:
RMBConvert ToMesh

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Now Boolean the Text with the Block
Union

Difference

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The Mirror Modifier
Let’s say that you want to create a mirror image of the monkey, but by using a Modifier,
the mirror monkey will be linked to the original monkey so that any edits you do to the
original will automatically end up in the mirror object.

But, that mirrored object will reflect about the object origin, this
little dot right here. Which means that you will end up with
something like this, which is probably not what you wanted.

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The Mirror Modifier

So, the first thing we need to do is to move the object away from the little dot.
You do this by Tabbing into Edit Mode and grabbing all the vertices and sliding them (gy).
In Edit Mode, the dot doesn’t move when you do this:

Now, Tab back to Object Mode, add the Mirror

Modifier, and select Y.

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The Mirror Modifier
So, now if you sculpt the original object, the mirrored object will get the same edits.

This is often good for creating a full object by only

creating one half of it (e.g., a car) and mirroring it.
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Array Modifier
The Array Modifier is used to duplicate an object according to a particular
pattern. Suppose we want to turn a block into a staircase. We start with
the block and add an Array modifier. Apply button (if we want
to make this permanent)

The duplication count

How much to offset each duplication.

It can be Constant, that is, based on a
number of units. Or it can be Relative, that is,
based on a number of size-of-this-object

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Array Modifier to Make Stairs

Move each block in Y and Z

to make the next stair step

How many total steps to make

→
Y

X
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 162
Screw Modifier

Before

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 163
Wireframe Modifier
Turns each polygon into thick lines outlining each polygon

How thick to make the thick lines

But, these lines have thickness, keeping this as a Mesh.

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Modifier Order Matters !
Subdivision Surface, then Wireframe

Wireframe, then Subdivision Surface

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 165
The Lattice Modifier

Add a UV Sphere

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 166
The Lattice Modifier

In Edit Mode, select a group of sphere vertices and assign them as a Vertex Group

Hints:
1. Select the vertices in Orthographic and X-ray display modes
2. Double-click
Computer Graphics on the default name of the Vertex Group to give it a better name
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The Lattice Modifier
Click the Lattice button and (perhaps) add more lattice detail.
Add a Lattice to the
scene.

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The Lattice Modifier

Add a Lattice Modifier to the sphere.

Tell it the name of the lattice and the name of the Vertex Group to use

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The Lattice Modifier

In Edit Mode, grab vertices and slide them:

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 170
The Shrinkwrap Modifier

Turn on both X-ray Mode

and Wireframe Mode

Add a UV Sphere and a

Cone. Either scale the
sphere up or scale the
cone down so the cone is
inside the sphere.

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The Shrinkwrap Modifier

Click on the sphere and

select the Shrinkwrap
Modifier

Select the cone

as the Target

Adjust the Offset value. Positive values make most sense,

but negative values are fun too!

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The Shrinkwrap Modifier

Offset = 2

Offset = 1

Offset = 0

Offset = -1

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The Build Modifier
I suspect this is more applicable to engineering-
ish objects, but it fun no matter what. Let’s use
our old friend Suzanne the monkey.

Go to Modifers → Select Modifer → Build

You get the following Modifer box. All the values
are good defaults:

At this point, Suzanne has disappeared. What!? To bring her back, grab the
blue animation time slider and slowly move it to the right:

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The Build Modifier

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The Displace Modifier
This Modifier pushes vertices out perpendicular
to the surface. I would describe it as “puffing out
the object”.

Go to Modifers → Select Modifer → Displace

You get the following Modifer box. If your object
suddenly looks weird, don’t worry! Set this value to 0:

Now, slowly increase to Strength to be greater than 0. What happens? Is it

possible to set it to a value less than 0? What happens?
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The Displace Modifier

Strength = 0.0

Strength = 0.3

Computer Graphics Strength = -0.3

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Texture Pattern Displacements
Remember the texture “name”
(Texture.002) – you will need it later.
Click on the Texture
Property button Select which texture you want for
the displacement pattern.
I like Voronoi because of the cells

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Texture Pattern Displacements
Create an object, add a couple of levels of Subdivision
Surface Modifier, then add a Displace Modifier.

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Texture Pattern Displacements
Displace Modifier

Click here and select the

texture name from before.

Select Normal (in computer

graphics, normal means
“perpendicular to the surface”).

Experiment with different

values of Strength.

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Texture Pattern Displacements

Strength = 0

Strength < 0

Strength > 0
Aren’t you glad you didn’t have to sculpt this yourself? 
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 181
You Can Also Go Back to the Texture Pattern
and Change Some Things There

These two are especially

fun to play with!
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 182
Metaball Objects
Metaball Objects are another way to 3D model:

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Metaball Objects
The cool thing is that, if you move (g) them close enough,
they will “glom” into a single object

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Metaball Objects

There is a special Metaball properties

menu to control their characteristics:

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Metaball Objects
But, Metaball Objects are not meshes, so you cannot do a lot of the cool editing
that you can with meshes. But, you can turn such an object into a mesh by
selecting Object → Convert To → Mesh from Curve/Meta/Surf/Text

After tabbing into Edit Mode

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Parent-Child Relationships in Modeling
Many times, one object is connected to another
object. In modeling, this is called a Parent-Child
relationship. (It is also sometimes called a
Hierarchical Relationship.)

When the Parent moves, the Child moves with

them.

When the Child moves, the Parent is unaffected.

This is really useful !

Child

Parent

You can create as many levels of Parent-Child

To do this in Blender:
relationships as you want: As the song goes:
1. Move the Child’s pivot-point to where you “The foot bone’s connected to the ankle bone, the ankle
want it connected to the Parent bone’s connected to the leg bone, the leg bone’s
2. Select the Child piece connected to the thigh bone, …”
3. Shift-select the Parent piece
4. Hit Control-’p’ on the keyboard
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Parent-Child Relationships in Modeling

If you rotate the blue (child) piece, then just it will move

If you rotate the yellow (parent) piece, then both it and the child piece will move

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Importing Objects from Other Places

Select File → Import

Collada = export format from game

modeling systems

Stl = 3D printer format

3ds = format from Autodesk 3D Studio

Obj = Probably world’s most common

export format There are a ton of .obj
models for free on the Internet!
Google the phrase:
free obj files

.obj files are also pretty straightforward to create.

So, if you have a shape in mind and can write a
computer program to generate it, you can write
your own .obj file and Import it into Blender.
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Importing Objects from Other Places

File = dino.obj

You can get this file from the web page:

http://cs.oregonstate.edu/~mjb/blender

As-is, flat shaded

Subdivision surfaced
+
Smooth shaded

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Importing Objects from Other Places

Abusively edited

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Importing Objects from Other Places

Here are some places to find OBJ files to use yourself:

• https://www.blenderkit.com/asset-gallery?query=category_subtree:model%20order:-created
• https://polyhaven.com/
• http://thefree3dmodels.com
• https://free3d.com/3d-models/star-wars
• http://lodbook.com/models
• http://people.sc.fsu.edu/~jburkardt/data/data.html
• https://sketchfab.com/features/free-3d-models
• http://www.turbosquid.com/Search/3D-Models/free/obj

Links checked: July 12, 2024

Or Google the phrase: "free obj files"

The blenderkit link also provides a Blender plugin. If you

install it into Blender, then you can search for OBJ files
without ever leaving Blender.

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Exporting Objects to Other Places

Blender has a number of file formats it knows how

to export to. If you are looking for a nice, general
one to experiment with, try the .obj format.

Just be sure to use the RMB menu to select

Shade Smooth first

Select File → Export → Wavefront (.obj)

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Exporting to an OBJ File

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Exporting to an OBJ File
This is the Blender file-output selection dialog box:

OBJ-specific settings
(see next slide)
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OBJ-Specific File Settings

In the export dialog, be sure to click on

• Write UV Coordinates
• Write Normals
• Write Triangulated Mesh

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7. Rendering

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On-screen Rendering Mode

We have been using this one. Now switch to this one.

This one gave you good This one will give you a pretty-
generic lighting so you could good preview of what happens
model without worrying about when you actually render the
light sources. scene. But, we now have to deal
with Rendering specifics.
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Rendering
“Rendering” is Blender’s process for creating really high-quality images. Click on Render →
Render Image or hit the F12 key (you might have to hit the fn key at the same time). The
rendering operation can often take some time, depending on how complex your scene is.

scene.blend

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Rendering Properties
Clicking on the Rendering Properties button will allow you to set various
rendering parameters. The one you care about the most is Sampling
resolution.

You want at least some Anti-Aliasing, which

is done by making more than one sample per
pixel. 64 and 16 are good values.

The rest of these are interesting,

but not needed right now.

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Output Properties
Clicking on the Output Properties button will allow
you to set various rendering parameters. The one
you care about the most is pixel resolution.

These are OK values, but you can improve your

rendering speed by making them smaller. Don’t
make them smaller by changing the 1920x1080,
make them smaller by changing the 100%.

Notice that the image aspect ratio being

used here is 16:9 (=1920:1080). This is the
most common aspect ratio today for TVs
and computer monitors.

The rest of these are interesting,

but not needed right now.

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What is Anti-aliasing?

Not Anti-aliased Anti-aliased

4x 16x

Anti-aliasing is a good-news bad-news joke.

Good news: the scene looks much smoother
Bad news: the scene takes longer to generate
Good news: you probably want to do it anyway
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Anti-aliasing is Implemented by Oversampling
within Each Pixel

4x 16x

NVIDIA

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Lighting

Let’s say that you are in Solid Shading Mode You now change to Render Mode and get this:
and your scene situation looks like this

Blech! Why is the bottom

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 204
Lighting

The answer is that Solid Shading Mode doesn’t require your scene to be lit but
Render Mode does.

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Lighting

By default, your scene has a single light in it.

It looks like this.

If you can’t find it, try zooming out.

If you still can’t find it, select it in the Outliner.

This is like any other object.

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Lighting

A light is like any other object. It can be LMB clicked on (or

selected in the Outliner). It can be grabbed (g) and moved
around. Moving it around will change how the lighting looks.

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Lighting

But, to make this work better, you

probably want to add more lights.

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Lighting

There are four types of Lights that you can Add

1. A Point Lamp shines light in all directions. The light is local to the scene. This is usually
the best type of light to start out with.

2. A Sun Lamp appears to come from a single direction and its rays are parallel. This acts
as if the light is very far away.

3. A Spot Lamp is like a Point Lamp, but only shines in one particular direction.

4. An Area Lamp is light coming from a finite surface, like most lights really are.

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Lighting – try this

1. Add another Point Light

2. Position the Light (‘g’).

3. The Point Light has no obvious local

coordinate system, so it just uses the
global coordinate system.

4. As you move the Light, you will see

the lighting of the scene change

5. You will probably have to rotate the

scene (MMB) to get the light position
where you think it should be. Or, you
can also toggle the Quad View
mode (Control-Alt-q).

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Lighting – Quad View

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Lighting – Quad View

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Lighting – Properties

This preview shows how the

Light spreads out

What color to make the Light

How bright to make the

Light shine.

Be sure this is clicked on in

order to get this light to cast
shadows

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Lighting – What does it Mean to Have a Colored Light?

LB White Light
LG
LR

ER MR
What the E MG
G
eye sees
EB MB Green Light
What the material
can reflect

ER = LR * MR
EG = LG * MG
EB = LB * MB
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Lighting – Principles

In modeling, rendering, and animation, there are two major roles that lights play:

1. Key
2. Fill

Let’s say we want to put a spotlight on the

Monkey (and who doesn’t?). We add a Spot
Light. We position it over the Monkey and angle
it down, like this. This is our “Key Light”. It does
what we most want to do.

We render and get this.

The Key Light is working really well, but the rest

of the scene is too dark. We now need to use
one or more Fill Lights.

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Lighting – Principles

We Add a Point Light and position it over the scene. Because we are in Render
Mode, we can interactively see when we have it positioned well.

The scene looks much better. But, there are still two problems.

1. The rest of the scene is now bright enough that our “star” is no longer highlighted.
2. The Fill Light is casting another shadow which is distracting.
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Lighting – Principles
So, we make two adjustments to our Fill Light:

We lower its brightness.

We un-click here to force it to not cast

shadows.

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Rendering

The view that is rendered is not the same orientation that you see on the
screen. It is from the Camera position, which needs to be set separately.

If you the Camera icon, LMB click on it.

If you don’t see it, zoom out some. If
you still don’t see it, click on the Camera
in the Outliner.

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The Camera

Where the eye is looking towards

The “up vector”

The eye’s
position

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The Camera
The camera is just like any other object in the scene.
1. It can be selected with a LMB click
2. It has its own local coordinate system attached to it.

Note the local coordinate system for the camera:

• X is to the right of where the eye is looking

• Y is the up-vector
• Z is opposite of where the eye is looking

This is useful to know. For

example, to dolly the camera in or
out, select it and then move it in
its local coordinates:

g→z→z

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Aligning The Camera to Your Current Screen View
But, if you like your current screen view and want to move the camera there, just do this:
View → Align View → Align Active Camera to View

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 Setting a Background Color 221

Click on Color and dial in

Click on the World Properties button
the background color

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 Screen Space Ambient Occlusion 222

Ambient Occlusion is a great computer graphics trick in which crevices are

artificially darkened, heightening the sense of 3D-ness. You must be using the
Eevee renderer to make this happen.

Before

After

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 Bloom 223

Bloom is a rendering technique that emphasizes lighting “flares”. You must be

using the Eevee renderer to make this happen.

Before

After

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 Screen Space Reflections 224

Screen Space Reflections are a quick way to generate the appearance of internal
reflections in your object. You must be using the Eevee renderer to make this happen.

Before

After

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 Superimposed Wireframes 225

I don’t know why I find this so pleasing to look at. I just do.

Before

After

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Triggering a Rendering

What you see on your screen

Computer Graphics What you see on the separate render window

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What You See in the Separate Render Window

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Saving a Rendered Image to a File

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 229
Saving a Rendered Image to a File
Amount of compression Image file type

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 230
Saving a Rendered Image to a File
Different image file types
(PNG is good if you don’t have any preference)

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Saving a Rendered Image to a File
If this is called Compression, then smaller numbers will give
you a larger image file with greater image quality.

If this is called Quality, then larger numbers will give you a

larger image file with greater image quality.

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Saving a Rendered Image to a File
There is an important trade-off between image file size and the image Quality you set.
There is also a trade-off between image size and web page download time.

JPEG: 10% Quality setting JPEG: 100% Quality setting

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 233
Importing an Image into PowerPoint

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 234
Importing an Image into HTML (i.e., a web page)

Add this line to your HTML file:

<img src=“ball.png”>

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 235
Another Type of Rendering

There is an additional internal renderer called Freestyle. Suppose you start with
this scene:

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 Another Type of Rendering 236

You render it, and the

image looks like this:

Now, go to the Render Properties

menu and turn on Freestyle

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Freestyle Rendering
You render it again, and now you get this:

The computer graphics world calls this Non-Photorealistic Rendering, or NPR.

It is good for illustrations where you want to see objects and outlines more than
you want to see realism.
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Freestyle Rendering

If you look under the View Layer Properties

button, you will find a lot of Freestyle
adjustments that you can make.

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8. Particle Systems

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Particle System Examples
Paramount
Pixar

Disney/Pixar

Sony/Marvel
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Particle System Examples
(Particles don’t have to actually be particles.)

20th Century Fox

Disney

Computer Graphics Disney

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Particles Bouncing Off Other Objects

particles.blend

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Particles– The Setup
1. Select the 2. Click the + sign to start a new particle system
object to emit the
particles from, then
click this property
button
3. Set the number of
particles

Optional: Set the particles’

initial velocities – see the
next slide

Optional: Set the

rendering properties -- see
two slides from here

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Particles – Expand the Velocity Dialog Box

The velocity perpendicular

to the surface

The velocity parallel to the

surface

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Particles – Expand the Render and Viewport Display
Dialog Boxes

What material definition

to color the particles with

What particles to draw (this

is fun to change!)

If you like physics, change

this to velocity

Start with a small size, like

this, but then experiment

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Click here to at the bottom

of the screen start the
particle animation

Hit the ESC key when you

want it to stop

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Particles Bouncing Off Other Objects

1. Draw a plane to bounce particles from

2. Click the Physics Property Button
3. Click on the Collision option
4. Turn on the animation

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Particles Bouncing Off Other Objects

Physics properties of the surface

being bounced off of
Bouncing particles

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Something fun – Tip the Plane

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 250
Something Fun – Put Something Else in the Way

Need to make it a
Collision surface too.

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More Fun – Make the Particles Another Object

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 252
To Blow particles, We need a Force Field –
Attach it to an Empty Object
Ironically, one of the most useful objects is
the one you can’t see. Blender calls this an
Empty.

It’s invisible on the screen, but you can

treat it like a real object, and can attach
forces to it. These forces will influence the
behavior of other objects.

Find the Empty under the Add tab at the

top of the screen. When you click on it, this
sub-menu pops up.

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We need a Force Field – Attach it to an Empty Object

Surprise! Even though it is invisible, an

Empty has a shape!

For this exercise, pick the Single Arrow

On the screen, it will look like this:.

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Blowing the Particles -- Force Fields

A really good use for Force

Fields is to blow particles and
cloth around

With the Empty Object selected, click on the

Physics icon and then click on Force Field

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Position and Orient the Empty
Using the usual object-rotate commands, orient the Empty so that it is pointing
at the particles.

Hint: it is easiest to position it in Global Coordinates (g → x) and easiest to

rotate it in Local Coordinates (r → x → x) .
And, under Force Field Type,
select Wind

You will use this to change the

Strength of the wind

It will look like this on the screen:

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Blowing the Particles
Turn on the animation (Control-’a’). You can adjust the orientation and the Strength
of the Wind while the animation is playing to get just the effect you want.

Computer Graphics blowing.blend

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Particle Systems for Hair
1. Select the 2. Click the + sign to start a new particle system
object to emit the
hair from, then
click this property
button
3. Select Hair

4. Set the number of

strands
5. Set the hair length

6. Set the number of

segments per strand

7. Apply physics to
the hairs

8. Set the rendering

properties

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It Will Start Out Looking Terrible

Try
Computer Graphics setting the Hair Length to something small-ish like 0.5 or 1.0
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Making the Hair Droop

Turn on and expand

Hair Dynamics

Start animating to start

the hair-droop simulation

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Animating the Object and the Hair

At this point, I like to keyframe-

animate the object with the hair.
Here Suzanne is translating and
rotating, as the hair movement
is showing.

Start animating

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Making the Droop Permanent

Get the droop the

way you want it
Select Modifiers – a Click on Convert to Mesh.
ParticleSystem modifier will This will turn the hair into a
already magically be there mesh object.

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Making the Droop Permanent

Before clicking Convert After clicking Convert

But this new mesh is

independent of the object that
particle’d it. To make them one
object again, select both and
hit RMBJoin (or Control-j)

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Making the Droop Permanent

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 264
Boids Particle Systems

Boids are a special particle system

technique to simulate living things that
naturally want to group together duch as
flocks of birds, schools of fish, etc.

As before, create an object and attach

a particle system to it. Select Emitter
for the type. Under the Physics tab,
change Newtonian to Boids.

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Boids Particle Systems

Select the Boid Brain tab.

Click the plus sign (+),

Select Follow Leader from the menu,
and use the arrow symbols to move it to
the top of the list

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Boids Particle Systems

Create a new object and animate it

(keyframe or physics). This will become the
“leader” that the boids will follow. If you
want to see it, leave it visible. Otherwise,
turn its eyeballs off in the Outliner.

Now select the object that the boids were

created from. In the boids menu area,
click in the Object area and select the
name of the object you animated.

Now, turn on animation and watch the

boids follow that object.

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Boids Particle Systems

The boids now follow the leader

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Boids Particle Systems

If you just want to see the boids and not the

emitter object, go to the Viewport Display
tab and click the Show Emitter checkbox off
off

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9. Physics Animation

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 270
Quick Physics Cheats

Original Scene

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 271
Quick Physics Cheats

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 272
There are Eight Types of Physics Simulations

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 273
Rigid Body Collision Example

dominos.blend

dominos.mp4

Set this up using what you know about

modeling.

Slightly rotate the left-most domino to the right

so that it will tip and start the sequence.

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Let Blender Know You Want to do Rigid Body Physics

Click on the Scene

Properties Button
Set Gravity
(this value indicates gravity
points downward and has a
value of -9.8 meters/second2)

Be sure this is turned on

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Tell the Physics which Objects will be Involved
For each object that will be pulled by gravity (the dominos and
the ball), select the object, click on the Physics Property
Button, click on on Rigid Body, and set the Type to Active

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Tell the Physics which Objects will be Involved

For each object that will not be pulled by gravity but

will still be involved in the collisions (the floor),
select it and set the Type to Passive

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Turn the Animation On

Hit the Escape key to stop the animation

dominos.blend

dominos.mp4

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Setting Gravity

In order to do physics animations, Blender needs to have an idea of what Gravity

is. The acceleration due to gravity near the surface of the earth is 9.81
meters/sec2 (pointing down), which also equals 32.2 feet/sec2.

You can set this by clicking on the Scene Properties Button and then scrolling
down to the Gravity dialog area.

This is the default, but you can set Gravity to anything you want, including turning it off
completely, or making it point upwards, or making it point sideways.

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Gravity on Other Worlds
The acceleration due to gravity is not the same on all worlds. It depends on the
mass of the body and its radius.

For fun, try setting the gravity to the Gravity Acceleration that other bodies have in
our solar system:

Gravity Acceleration
Body (m/sec2) g’s
Mercury 3.70 0.38
Venus 8.87 0.90
Earth 9.81 1.00
Moon 1.62 0.17
Mars 3.71 0.38
Jupiter 24.79 2.53
Saturn 10.44 1.06
Uranus 8.69 0.89
Neptune 11.15 1.14
https://www.universetoday.com/35565/gravity-on-other-planets/

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Gravity on Other Bodies

Or, invent your own planet! Pick a different “m/sec2”.

21st Century Fox

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Another Cool Thing: Modeling Cloth

Pixar Pixar: Geri's Game

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Modeling Cloth – Start with a Cube and a Grid
There is a difference in what different Mesh types
will do. This needs to be a Grid – not a Plane!

Scale the Grid by 3 (s3) and move it in z (gz)

cloth.blend

cloth.mp4

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Modeling Cloth -- Enable Collision with the Cube
1. Select the cube.
2. Then go to the Physics Property Button.
3. Then click on Collision

You don’t need to set any other parameters (unless you want to)

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Modeling Cloth – Subdivide the Grid into More Pieces
If you select the grid and tab over to Edit 4. Back in Object Mode, select the grid, then
Mode, you will see that it is already select Modifiers.
subdivided somewhat. To act as a cloth,
we’d like it subdivided some more. 5. Then click Add Modifier and select
Subdivision Surface.
6. Change the Viewport parameter from 1 to 2

7. Click the Apply button.

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Modeling Cloth – Tell the Grid that it is Really a Piece of Cloth

8. Select the grid.

Then go to the Physics Property Button.
Then click on Cloth.

You can get away without changing any of

these parameters, but, at some point, you will
want to experiment with different values of
Stiffness and Damping.

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Modeling Cloth – Run the Animation
9. Select the grid, RMB, then select Shade Smooth.

10. Start the animation.

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Baking the Cloth Animation

Why does the animation run so slowly?

That is because it is computing the
simulation while it is animating.

Instead, tell it to precompute the

animation. You do this by selecting the
Bake button (and waiting and waiting).

Now try animating.

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Cloth Animation with Color, Texture, and Lighting

cloth.mp4

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 289
What if You Want the Cloth to Retain its
Animated Shape Forever ?
That is, supposing you have used a cloth animation to drape a
tablecloth over a table and now want to leave it that way.
You start with this:
Then, with the cloth selected, go to the
Modifier menu. You will see the Cloth modifier
already magically there. Select the down arrow
and click on Apply.

Animate to
get this:

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Cloth Animation: Pinning Vertices
One of the many fun parts of cloth animation is pinning
some of the vertices. There are lots of reasons to do this,
such as to pin the edge of a flag to its flagpole, or to pin a
cloth to a clothesline.

To do this, Tab into Edit Mode, Shift-LMB the vertices to

be pinned, and create a Vertex Group from them. (This
was described in more detail in the Modeling section of
these notes).

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Cloth Animation: Pinning Vertices
In the Cloth section of the grid’s Physics
menu, select the name of the Vertex Group to
be pinned.

When you re-animate, those vertices will be

stationary.

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Rendering an Animation

Render Animation kicks off the View Animation brings up a separate window
rendering of all your animation and plays back your animation.
frames in order

Hint: if this is just a test render, and you have

lots of time-consuming visual effects going on,
you might cut down the resolution and/or the
number of rendered frames to speed things up.

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Cloth Flag Animation: Pinning Vertices
We previously had this note-slide in which we looked at
creating a vertex group that would become pinned in
place. This slide shows what we did before for
pinning the cloth horizontally. Starting on the next
slide, we will pin a column of vertices to create a flag
waving.

To do this, Tab into Edit Mode, Shift-LMB the vertices to

be pinned, and create a Vertex Group from them. (This
was described in more detail in the Modeling section of
these notes).

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Cloth Flag Animation: Pinning Vertices

Create a grid, scale it up, rotate in to be vertical, and subdivide it in Edit mode.

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Cloth Flag Animation: Pinning Vertices

Still in Edit mode, switch to Orthographic mode and rotate so the cloth is
perpendicularly facing you. Unselect everything (click in empty space) then
box-select one column of vertices.

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Cloth Flag Animation: Pinning Vertices
Click on this icon.

Find the Vertex Groups area. Click on the plus sign (+) then
click on Assign. You can leave these vertices labeled as
Group, or give them something more descriptive, like Column.
Tab back to Object Mode. Go back to Perspective Projection.

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Cloth Flag Animation: Pinning Vertices

With the cloth selected, go to the Physics icon and select Cloth.
Scroll down to the Shape tab and set the Pin Group to whatever
name you gave your column of points (Group, here).

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Cloth Flag Animation

Color and texture the cloth any way

you’d like, and turn on the Animation.

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To Blow Cloth, We need a Force Field –
Attach it to an Empty Object
Ironically, one of the most useful objects is
the one you can’t see. Blender calls this an
Empty.

It’s invisible on the screen, but you can

treat it like a real object, and can attach
forces to it. These forces will influence the
behavior of other objects.

Find the Empty under the Add tab at the

top of the screen. When you click on it, this
sub-menu pops up.

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 300
We need a Force Field – Attach it to an Empty Object

Surprise! Even though it is invisible, an

Empty has a shape!

For this exercise, pick the Single Arrow

On the screen, it will look like this:.

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Blowing the Cloth -- Force Fields

A really good use for Force

Fields is to blow particles and
cloth around

With the Empty Object selected, click on the

Physics icon and then click on Force Field

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Position and Orient the Empty
Using the usual object-rotate commands, orient the Empty so that it is pointing
at the particles.

Hint: it is easiest to position it in Global Coordinates (g → x) and easiest to

rotate it in Local Coordinates (r → x → x) .
And, under Force Field Type,
select Wind

You will use this to change the

Strength of the wind

It will look like this on the screen:

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 Cloth Flag Animation: Adjusting the Amount of Fluttering 303

In the Empty object, increase the

Strength and the Wind Factor.

In the Cloth object, scroll down to the Field Weights

and increase the Wind.
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 Cloth Fluttering Flag Animation 304

fluttering.blend

fluttering.mkv

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 Cloth Fluttering Flag Animation  305

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 Dropping an Object on the Cloth 306

Setup this scenario:

1. Have an object hovering up in the air

2. Add a Grid object and scale it up
3. In Edit Mode, subdivide the Grid a few times
4. Select the 4 corner vertices of the grid and place them into a Vertex Group
called Corners (see how to do this a few slides back)
5. Back in Object Mode, select the grid and hit RMBShade Smooth

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 Dropping an Object on the Cloth 307

Select the object hovering up in the air:

Go to the Physics menu and select Soft Body
In the Soft Body sub-menu:
1. Uncheck Goal
2. In the Edges sub-menu:
• Set the Push and Pull each to 0.999
• Set Bending to 1.00
3. In the Self Collision sub-menu
• Check Self Collision

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 Dropping an Object on the Cloth 308

With the hovering object still selected:

Go to the Physics menu and select Collision
In the Collision menu:
1. In the Softbody & Cloth sub-menu
• Set the Damping to 0.75

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 Dropping an Object on the Cloth 309

Select the cloth grid, then:

Go to the Physics menu and select Cloth
In the Cloth menu:
1. Open the Shape sub-menu and
select the Corners Pin Group
2. Open the Collisions sub-menu and
check Self Collisions

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 Dropping an Object on the Cloth 310

With the cloth still selected:

Go to the Physics menu and select Collision
Then, in the Collision sub-menu:
1. In the Softbody & Cloth sub-menu
• Set the Damping to 0.75

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 Dropping an Object on the Cloth 311

Click on the Play button in the animate controls

The cloth sags and the object plops into it

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 312
Setting up a Fluids Simulation –
Create the Domain Object
Step #1: Create the Domain, the volume in which the fluid will be
simulated. Here, I scaled the default cube by 3 in X, 3 in Y, and 5 in Z.
Step #2: With the cube selected, go to the
Physics menu, click on Fluid, select Domain, and select Liquid

fluidmonkeycone.blend
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 313
Setting up a Fluids Simulation –
Create the Domain Object
Step #3: Scroll down in the Physics-Fluid menu
until you find the Mesh tab.. Turn it on.

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Setting up a Fluids Simulation –
Create the Flow Object
Step #4: Create a mesh object that will be the original location and shape of the
fluid. A UV-Sphere works well. A monkey works even better!  This object
must lie totally within the Domain. You should probably toggle into wireframe
mode so you can see inside the Domain.

Position this object near the top of the Domain.

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Setting up a Fluids Simulation –
Create the Flow Object
Step #5: With this object selected, go to the Physics menu, click on Fluid,
select Flow, and select Liquid

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Setting up a Fluids Simulation –
Miscellaneous
Step #6: Miscellaneous Things:
• Change the color of the Domain object (cube) to the color you want the fluid to
be. Feel free to change the Metallic and Roughness parameters as well.

• Change the shading type of the Domain object to Shade Smooth

• Hide the Flow object (monkey?) by clicking off its eyeballs in the Outliner

• Select the Domain object, go to the Physics menu, scroll down until you see
this: Be sure Liquid is turned on. Now, go here and select the other option. It
doesn’t make a huge difference which one you pick, but changing the option
resets the fluid simulation.

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Running the Fluids Simulation

Step #7: Run the animation! Go to Viewport Shading mode and hit Play.
The first time through will seem slow because it is computing the frames
and storing them. After that, the animation will be much smoother because
Blender is playing back your frames.

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Adding a Barrier

Step #8: Add some shape (a cone perhaps) into the middle of the Domain.
Give it a color and the proper shading type. Then, go to the Physics
menu, click on Fluid, and select Effector.

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Adding a Barrier

Step 9: Select the Domain object, go to the Physics menu, scroll down until you
see this again: Go here and select the other option. It doesn’t make a huge
difference which one you pick, but changing the option resets the fluid simulation.

Step 10: Hit Play!

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10. Appearance, II

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Procedural Texturing

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Procedural Texturing

1. Leave Use Nodes

turned on.

2. Select Principled BSDF

(probably already selected)

3. Here, where you would

normally select a color, click
on this little circle

4. From that pop-up menu,

select Voronoi Texture (or
one of the others)

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Procedural Texturing

4. From that pop-up

menu, select
Voronoi Texture (or
one of the others)

5. Change the Scale

to change the size of
the Voronoi cells

6. Try changing the

Randomness as well!

7. As before, changing
Metallic and Roughness
affects the shininess.

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Blender has these Built-in Procedural Textures

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Image Texturing

Start with a UV Sphere being shown in Render Preview mode

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Image Texturing

Says that you want to read

a texture image from a file

Click here to open an image file

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Image Texturing

worldtex.bmp is a good texture to try!

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Image Texturing

worldtex.bmp is a good texture to try!

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Image Texturing
Sphere Tube

Cube Flat
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Places to Find Good Texture Images

https://www.shutterstock.com/search/texture

https://ambientcg.com/list?sort=Popular

https://www.freepik.com/photos/texture

Links checked: June 19, 2024

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Turning on the Cycles Renderer

We have been using the Eevee renderer and have gotten some very nice
results. But, we can do even better with the Cycles renderer.

In the Rendering Properties

menu, select Cycles instead
of Eevee.

And then select GPU Compute

instead of CPU (it's faster!).

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Turning on the Cycles Renderer
Then, right below that, turn on Denoise

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Selecting the GPU Options
Select EditPreferences
In the Preferences menu, select System. These are
your GPU options. All might work on your system, or
none might work on your system. Depends on what
graphics hardware you have.

Try them all to see which you have and which give the fastest Cycles
render. On my system, OptiX is fastest, followed by CUDA, and HIP
and oneAPI aren't available.
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 Back to Cycles: Let’s Say That We Want to 334

Render This Scene

Cube and Monkey are opaque

Sphere is both reflective

and refractive

Plane has a checkerboard

texture on it

Scene has lighting and

shadows

Sphere is both reflective

and refractive

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Making the Sphere Reflective and Refractive

Combine refraction and reflection effects

together with the Mix Shader

How much to mix each shader

First shader is Glass to get the refraction

Transmission color

Index of Refraction

Second shader is Glossy to get the

reflection
No inherent color in the reflection

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Putting a Checkboard Pattern on the Plane

1. Leave Use Nodes turned on.

2. Select Principled BSDF

(probably already selected)

3. Here, where you would

normally select a color, click on
this little circle

4. From that pop-up menu,

select Checker Texture (or one
of the others)

5. Here you can select the two

colors making up the
checkerboard
6. Change the scale to change
the size of the checkerboard
squares
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Onscreen and Rendered Results with Eevee

On-screen

Rendered

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Onscreen and Rendered Results with Cycles

On-screen

Rendered

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 Rendered Results with Cycles 339

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 Rendered Results with Cycles 340

You may have noticed some “sparkling” in

the rendered image on the previous slide.
That is a natural artifact of the path-tracing
algorithm that Cycles uses. In computer
graphics, this is called “render noise”.
Blender has a denoising feature. All you
have to do is turn it on in the Denoising
tab of the Render Properties menu.

No Denoising Denoising
1 minute, 39 seconds
Computer Graphics 2 minutes, 14 seconds mjb – July 15, 2024
 Rendered Results with Cycles 341

No Denoising Denoising
1 minute, 39 seconds 2 minute, 14 seconds

BTW, I don’t recommend you turn Denoising

on for the Viewport display. It really slows
down your interaction when using Cycles.

X
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What is Ray-Tracing?

It starts at the eye:

Splat!

The pixel is painted the color of

the nearest object that is hit.
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What is Ray-Tracing?

It’s also straightforward to see if this point lies in a shadow:

Fire another ray towards each light source. If the ray

hits anything, then the point does not receive that light.
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What is Ray-Tracing?

It’s also straightforward to handle reflection

Normal
Vector
Angle of
reflection

Angle of
incidence

Fire another ray that represents the bounce from the

reflection. Paint the pixel the color that this ray sees.
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The Physics of Reflection

Normal (Perpendicular) Vector

θi θr

Law of Reflection:

 r  i
Angle of reflection = Angle of incidence

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What is Ray-Tracing?

It’s also straightforward to handle refraction

Normal
Vector

Fire another ray that represents the bend from the

refraction. Paint the pixel the color that this ray sees.
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The Index of Refraction, η
Air The Index of Refraction (IOR) is a measure of how
much light slows down as it passes through a
particular material.
η1 The larger the IOR, the slower the speed of light in
that material.
The larger the change in IOR, the more the light
will bend as it passes from one material to another.
η2

Water
Snell’s Law of Refraction says that:
Or:

Notice that there are certain combinations of the η’s that require
sinΘ2 to be outside the range -1. → +1., which is not possible.
This indicates that the refraction has actually become a reflection.
Computer Graphics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snell’s_law mjb – July 15, 2024
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The Physics of Refraction

Material B
θB

Material A
θA
Material Index of
Refraction
Vacuum 1.00000
Snell’s Law of Refraction: Air 1.00029
Ice 1.309
sin  B  A Water 1.333

sin  A  B Plexiglass 1.49
Glass 1.60
Diamond 2.42
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refractive_index
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Common Indices of Refraction
Material Index of
Refraction
Vacuum 1.00000
Air 1.00029
Ice 1.309
Water 1.333
Plexiglass 1.49
Glass 1.60
Diamond 2.42

Something New: Moissanite

=2.62

https://discover.charlesandcolvard.com/our-brand/everything-you-need-to-know-about-moissanite-vs-diamonds/
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You Can Also use a Mix Shader to Blend Glass
and a Texture

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11. Vertex Sculpting

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Vertex Sculpting
Vertex Sculpting is, well, sculpting vertices. But,
in order to do this well, we need a lot of vertices.

Start with a UV sphere mesh object.

Tab over to Edit Mode.

RMB → Subdivide → Subdivide

When you get back to Object Mode, the sphere

won’t look any different than before because you
just subdivided the polygons, not smoothed
them. If you had wanted smoothing, you could
have used the Subdivision Surface Modifier.

Now go to Sculpt Mode.

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Vertex Sculpting

Lots of new options will appear at the top:

Brush Radius Brush Add Material (+) or Brush

(I like 25-100, depending on the Strength Subtract Material (-) Characteristics
size of the object) (height)

Stroking Surface Falloff Symmetry Control

Characteristics from the Center (I recommend you
of the Brush click all of these off
(I like Smoother) for now.)

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Vertex Sculpting
Add material
Go back and forth over the object with the
brush to increase the sculpting effect
Subtract material

Sculpting usually looks better if you

quick get over into Object Mode,
RMB → Shade Smooth

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Vertex Sculpting Options

I like this one

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Vertex Sculpting Options
Brush Meaning
Blob Change the local mesh into a spherical shape
Brush Moves vertices in or out
Clay Like Brush, but lets you set a plane of action
Clay Strips Like Clay, but uses a cube to limit the action
Crease Creates ridges by pulling/pushing vertices and pinching them
Fill/Deepen

Flatten/Cont Push/pull vertices towards a plane

Grab Grab and move a single vertex
Inflate/Deflate Like Brush, but vertices are moved in the direction of their normal
Layer Like Brush, but the height is capped
Mask ??
Nudge Slightly push vertices in a certain direction
Pinch/Magnify Pinches vertices towards the brush’s center
Polish ??
Scrape/Peak Like Flatten?
Sculpt Draw Moves vertices in or out
Smooth Smooth a region by averaging out vertex coords
Snake Hook Pulls vertices along the brush’s path
Thumb Like Nudge, but over a larger area
Twist Rotate a single vertex
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Vertex Sculpting with Dynamic Topology (“Dyntopo”)
This cool – you are really going to like this!

Set the Sculpt Set Radius Set Brush Add Material (+)
Mode to Draw to 20 Strength to 1.0

Surface Falloff from the Center

of the Brush to Smoother No Symmetry Click Dyntopo on
(if you get a message,
just click OK)

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Vertex Sculpting with Dynamic Topology (“Dyntopo”)

And, have at it!

Set Dyntopo Detailing to

Brush Detail

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Vertex Sculpting with Dynamic Topology (“Dyntopo”)
How does Dyntopo Mode make such a smooth sculpt?
Let’s look at this in Sculpt Mode and then in Edit Mode:

Computer Graphics That’s why it is called Dynamic Topology! mjb – July 15, 2024
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12. Vertex Painting

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Vertex Painting
Vertex Sculpting is, well, sculpting vertices. But,
in order to do this well, we need a lot of vertices.

Start with a UV sphere mesh object.

Tab over to Edit Mode.

RMB → Subdivide → Subdivide

When you get back to Object Mode, the sphere

won’t look any different than before because you
just subdivided the polygons, not smoothed
them. If you had wanted smoothing, you could
have used the Subdivision Surface Modifier.

Now go to Vertex Paint Mode.

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Setting up for Vertex Painting

Be in Solid Shading mode

Brush Color Brush Radius

(I like 25-100)

Brush Intensity Brush Stroking Surface Falloff

Characteristics Characteristics from the Center
of the Brush
(I like Smoother)

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A Word on Brush Size

Note: the brush size does not scale with

zooming in or out. It stays the same size.

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How Does Vertex Painting Work?

The “paintbrush” only drops “paint” when a vertex is inside the

circle brush. This means that the paint does not smear along a
nice line but looks splotchy like this.

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How Do We Make it Less Splotchy?

Two approaches:
1. Make the object look smaller. That way more vertices will end
up inside the brush circle.
Computer Graphics 2. Use Subdivide or Subdivision Surfaces to add more vertices
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Making Your Vertex Painting Show Up

Be in Rendered Shading mode

Click on the small circle and select

Mix (Legacy) from the pop-up menu

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Making Your Vertex Painting Show Up

Then click here and select Color Burn or Multiply

from the pull-down menu
(“Mix” will change to whichever you picked)

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Making Your Vertex Painting Show Up

Click here and select a

color for the sphere

Click on the small circle and select Color Attribute

from the left column of the pop-up menu
Click and adjust the value of
Fac (the interpolation Factor)

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The Fac Parameter Tells Blender What to do
on the Parts of Your Object that have both
an Object Color and a Paint Color

Multiply Multiply Multiply

Fac = 0.00 Fac = 0.50 Fac = 1.00

All Object Color Half of Each All Paint Color

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Have a Nice Day!

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13. Keyframe Animation

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Keyframe Example

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/ieee_pilot/articles/05/ttg2009050853/figures.html

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Keyframe Animation

Keyframe animation is a technique that goes all the way back to the beginning of
hand drawn animation (e.g., Walt Disney). Senior animators would specify key
positions for the animated characters and then more junior animators would fill in
the frames in between. This became known as keyframing and in-betweening.

Blender allows you to create the keyframes and gets the computer to do the in-
betweening. Here, we will keyframe-animate the monkey as she slaloms around a
group of colored cubes:

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Keyframe Animation

Select the Animation workspace from the list at the top. This creates a
screen layout that looks like this:

This makes your screen look like this. These new sections are:

3D Viewport Window – what you are used to

Camera View Window – what you will see if you Render

Computer Graphics Timeline Window – keeps track of what frame number we are on.
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Keyframe Animation

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Keyframe Animation
Slide the timeline indicator to what frame number you want to set, position the
object (grab, scale, rotate) how you want it to be (grab, scale, rotate), and
RMB → Insert Keyframe (or hit the ‘i’ key). From the pop-up menu, select
Location, Rotation, and Scale, indicating that you want to record location, rotation,
and scale factor.

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Keyframe Animation
Do it again: slide the timeline indicator to what frame number you want to set,
position the object how you want it to look, and RMB → Insert Keyframe (or hit
the ‘i’ key). From the pop-up menu, select Location, Rotation, and Scale,
indicating that you want to record location, rotation, and scale factor.

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Keyframe Animation
After a while, your timeline will look like this:

Then, click here and change the type of display to the Graph Editor:

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Graph Editor

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Keyframe Animation
Your Graph Editor window should now look about like this.

Note that Blender has filled in the in-between values for you. (This is the “In-Betweening”.)

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The Graph Editor Window
Click on the triangle. This gives you access to the curves.
Clicking on the eye toggles whether or not you can see a curve.
Clicking on the name of the curve makes that the current curve. You can then edit it.

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The Graph Editor Window

Shortcuts when the cursor is in the Graph Window:

Shortcut What it does

LMB Select a keyframe dot
Scroll wheel Zoom in and out of the Graph
MMB Pan the Graph
Shift-scroll wheel Pan in Value (vertical)
Shift-MMB Pan in Value (vertical) and Time (horizontal)
Control-MMB Scale in Value (vertical) and Time (horizontal)

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Animation Mischief 

Hit the ‘n’ key. Like in the 3D View, a Number Panel pops up.

Click on the Modifier tab.

Then click on Add Modifier.

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Animation Mischief 
Select Add Modifier.
From the list of Modifiers, select Noise.

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Animation Mischief 
Use this menu to change the noise parameters scale and strength.
Notice what this does to the curve.
Now play the animation.

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Two Characters Interacting

To avoid a collision, the monkey jumps up and the cube squishes

anim2.blend anim2.mp4

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Animating the Camera and the Lamps

Cameras and Lamps are just like any other object. As you have seen, they can be
positioned. They can also be keyframe-animated. Like other objects, just select them and
hit the ‘i’ key to insert a keyframe.

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Animating (almost) Any Parameter
One of the many cool things about Blender is that you can do more than just
keyframe-animate the objects, you can also keyframe-animate the parameters you
are setting. For example, suppose you want to animate the Metallic-ness. To set a
keyframe for this, right click on the Metallic box and select Insert Keyframe from
the pop-up menu. Do this for two keyframes and then animate.

Frame 0 Frame 60

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Animating a Human-ish Form
Start with this …

… and turn it into

a Blender model:

model.blend
modelmoved.blend

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Animating a Human-ish Form
But, it’s more than just a collection of parts!

Be sure that the origins of the different parts are where you want the part to pivot around.

Then establish the proper parent-child relationships.

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Animating a Human-ish Form
Now tell Blender to do all rotations around each part’s origin

Selecting this …
causes object
rotation to happen
about the
previously-set
origin

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Animating a Human-ish Form

Now try rotating the

individual parts. Be sure you are rotating in
local coordinates, e.g.,
r→y→y

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Rigging for Animation

There is a time-honored tradition in stop-

motion animation to use an internal
support, called an armature, to help
position the object at each frame.

Digital animation has adopted the same

technique, and has even retained the same
terminology, armature.

The process of creating this digital

armature is referred to as Rigging.

Laika

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Rigging for Animation
Let’s say we have a cheesy noodle character named Mac.
We would like to rig him to bend.

The first step is to create Mac’s geometry. In this case,

one cylinder was Boolean-subtracted from another and
then was Edit → Subdivide’d a couple of times.

The second step is to go to the Add tab on the Object

Tools and click on Armature. This brings up the sub-
menu here.

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Rigging for Animation
Grab the armature just like you would any other object and position it next to Mac.
(I scaled it up a couple of times to make it more visible.)

This is what the pieces of a Blender

armature look like. The three sections of
one of these bones are the root, the body,
and the tip.

Tip

Body

Root

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Rigging for Animation
We could put lots of bones in place to animate Mac, but, for simplicity
we will just use two.

Tab into Edit Mode, select the Armature, then select Extrude. Lift
up on the plus sign. This will add a second armature on top of the
first and connect them tip-to-root. Click here to let go. Tab back to
Object Mode.

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Rigging for Animation
In the Outliner, you can see the bones you have created.

Also, in the Properties buttons, you will see that there are now
Armature and Bone buttons.

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Rigging for Animation

When you click the Armature Properties button, a bunch of new information comes up.
The most important for right now is in the Viewport Display tab:

Try these. They

change the appearance
of the Bones.

Click on Names. It puts the

name of the Bone next to it so
you know which one is which.

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Rigging for Animation
It’s always good to name your Bones. In the Outliner, double-left-click on Bone.001 and
rename it Top. Double-left-click on Bone and rename it Bottom. Your display now looks
like this:

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Rigging for Animation
We next need to make the armature a Parent and the object (i.e., Mac) its Child.
Select Mac and then shift-select the armature. (The order is important!)

To create the Parent-Child relationship, hit Control-P. In the pop-up menu, select
Armature Deform With Automatic Weights

To verify that this worked, the Outliner will show

that Mac is now part of the Armature.

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Rigging for Animation
Almost there – the last step is to assign which vertices on Mac will be deformed by the
Bottom Bone and which will be deformed by the Top Bone. These groups do not need to
be mutually exclusive – they can (and should) have vertices in common.

Earlier in these notes we talked about selecting multiple vertices and Vertex Groups.
We are going to do that again. We are going to put some of Mac’s vertices into a Vertex
Group called Bottom, and some into a Vertex Group called Top. These must match the
names of the respective Bones exactly,

1. Select Mac
2. In the properties area, select the Object Data Properties
3. Tab into Edit Mode
4. Select View → Perspective/Orthographic to place
yourself in orthographic display mode
5. Turn on the X-ray button at the top
6. Hit ‘a’ to unselect everything

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Rigging for Animation
7. Use the Border Select to select the top 2/3 of Mac’s vertices
8. Create a Vertex Group with them called Top by clicking on Top and then clicking on Assign
9. Hit ‘a’ to unselect everything

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Rigging for Animation
10. Use the Border Select to select the bottom 2/3 of Mac’s vertices
11. Create a Vertex Group with them called Top by clicking on Bottom and then clicking on Assign
12. Hit ‘a’ to unselect everything
13. Turn off X-ray mode and go back to Perspective
14. Tab back to Object Mode

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Rigging for Animation
Select the Armature and go to Pose Mode.

Select the different Bones and try grabbing, rotating, and scaling them. Obviously, a
serious Mac animation will require more than two Bones! Bone transformation can be
keyframed just like transformation parameters of any other object.

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Rendering an Animation

This brings up a separate window and plays back

This kicks off the rendering of all your animation.
your animation frames in order

Hint: if this is just a test render, and you have

lots of time-consuming visual effects going on,
you might cut down the resolution and/or the
number of rendered frames to speed things up.

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Rendering an Animation to a File

First, go to Output Properties

Before saving the animation rendering, you

need to specify the file name to put the
animation into. In my case, this was:

C:\tmp\mjb.avi
and the type of file format that it is to have

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Rendering an Animation to a File

Here are the animation file types that Blender supports.

Here is how large a 100-frame

animation of the monkey turned
out to be.

Movie File Type File Size Displayed? Import into PowerPoint?

AVI JPEG ~5 MB Yes Yes
AVI Raw ~607 MB Yes Yes
FFmpeg Video ~200 KB Yes Yes

Note: this scene is simple and compresses well. The mileage you get may vary.

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Importing an Animation into YouTube

YouTube accepts videos in AVI and MPEG formats

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Importing an Animation into PowerPoint

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Animation Tricks

1. In this example, we added the first keyframe, then the last

keyframe, then three keyframes in the middle. Sometimes
it is easiest to work that way. Other times it is easier to add
them in sequential order.

2. Sometimes it is easier if you initially add a bunch of

duplications of the object in various positions to get a feel
for the motion, edit those positions as you see fit, and then
use them as keyframe positions.

3. Extending from each keyframe dot is a line. That line can

be twisted to change the slope of the curve at that
keyframe. Select the dots at the end of that line and move
them.

4. The Camera position and the Lamps can be animated too.

For each, define an Empty object, force the Camera or
Lamp to follow it (it’s one of the Constraints), then animate
the Empty. Be sure to give the Empty a descriptive name –
all Empties look alike.

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John Lasseter’s Principles of Animation

1. Squash and Stretch -- Defining the rigidity and mass of an object by distorting its
shape during an action.
2. Timing -- Spacing actions to define the weight and size of objects and the
personality of characters.
3. Anticipation -- The preparation for an action.
4. Staging -- Presenting an idea so that it is unmistakably clear.
5. Follow Through and Overlapping Action – The termination of an action and
establishing its relationship to the next action.
6. Straight Ahead Action and Pose-To-Pose Action -- The two contrasting
approaches to the creation of movement.
7. Slow In and Out -- The spacing of the inbetween frames to achieve subtlety of
timing and movement.
8. Arcs -- The visual path of action for natural movement.
9. Exaggeration -- Accentuating the essence of an idea via the design and the action.
10. Secondary Action -- The action of an object resulting from another action,
11. Appeal .-- Creating a design or an action that the audience enjoys watching.

John Lasseter, “Principles of Traditional Animation Applied to 3D Computer Animation

Computer Graphics”, Computer Graphics, Volume 21, Number 4, July 1987.
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14. 3D Printing

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In the Beginning, Manufacturing was “Subtractive”

1. The whirling drill bit follows a 3D path

2. Chips of metal (or wood or wax) fly
3. A block of metal becomes a part

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3D Printing is Additive
“3D Printing” is defined by some sort of “additive” process.
The current trend in desktop 3D Printing consists mostly of
systems that deposit layers of molten plastic:

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Examples of 3D Printing

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Portland’s Laika uses Color 3D Printing for
Stop-motion Movies

Kubo and the Two Strings

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The 3D Printing Geometry File
3D Printers are fed a file called an “STL File”, which lists all the
triangles in the object. Blender (as well as all CAD systems) can
produce this type of file for you.
solid

facet normal 0.00 0.00 -1.00 In this particular file, these

outer loop coordinates were in units of
vertex -2.000000 -2.000000 0.250000 inches.
vertex -1.980000 -1.980000 0.250000
vertex -1.980000 -2.000000 0.250000
endloop Some 3D Printers still use
endfacet inches, but most now use
millimeters.
facet normal 0.00 0.00 -1.00
outer loop Check! It matters!
vertex -2.000000 -2.000000 0.250000
vertex -2.000000 -1.980000 0.250000 Note: there are 25.4 mm/inch
vertex -1.980000 -1.980000 0.250000
endloop
endfacet

...

Computerendsolid
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 Advice on 3D Printing 418

Don’t make the part too big – it will take a

long time to 3D print. It's nice if you can fit
several models in a single run.

Try to rotate the part so the smallest

dimension is vertical. It’s stronger that way,
and it builds faster. Worse

Better
The 3D Printer will like it better if the part
gets smaller as it goes up, not the other way
around.

Don’t design the part with long, thin edges.

They will likely snap right off.

Don’t make walls too thin – they might break.

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Object Rules for 3D Printing

Rule #1: The object must be a mesh and consist only of triangles.

1. Select the mesh object

2. Modifiers→Add Modifier→Generate→Triangulate →Apply

RMB→Convert To→Mesh to turn a Meta object or 3D Text into a mesh first

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Object Rules for 3D Printing

Rule #2: The object must be a legal solid. It must have a definite
inside and a definite outside. It can’t have any missing face pieces.

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The Simplified Euler's Formula* for Legal Solids
*sometimes called the Euler-Poincaré formula
2 3

7
6 F–E+V=2

F Faces
0 1 E Edges
V Vertices

4 5

For a cube, 6 – 12 + 8 = 2 

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Watch Out for Overhangs!

This layer will fall to the plate

These layers will build fine

Note that if you build it upside-

down, it will probably work fine

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Watch Out for Overhangs!

Some 3D printers handle this by

leaving unused material in place to
support the overhangs

Some 3D printers handle this by using

software to add “support structures” to
the overhangs

Some 3D printers handle this

better than others… 

http://twistedsifter.com/2013/08/when-3d-printing-goes-wrong/
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Object Rules for 3D Printing

Rule #3: You can’t make a new object by simply overlapping two
objects in 3D. If you want both shapes together, do a Boolean
union on them so that they become one complete object.

Overlapped in 3D Boolean union

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What Happens if You Do Overlap Objects?
Here’s what one of the 3D Printers in the OSU Library did:

Overlapped in 3D Boolean union

Computer Graphics
Not bad – it could have been lots worse …
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Object Rules for 3D Printing
Rule #4: Each edge in the mesh must bound 2 and only 2 triangles
(this is known as the Vertex-to-Vertex Rule). If this is not true, then
your model has cracks in it.

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Installing the Blender 3D Printing Add-on

Select Edit → Preferences

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Installing the Blender 3D Printing Add-on
Select Add-ons → Mesh: 3D-Print Toolbox

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Installing the Blender 3D Printing Add-on

Hit the ‘n’ key to see the sidebar menu.

The 3D Print Toolbox will be a tab like this.

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The Blender 3D Printing Toolbox Add-on

Selecting your object and then

clicking on Check All will give
you this nice list of problems
Blender thinks you will have if
you try to 3D Print this object

Selecting Clean Up will try to

fix the problems

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The Blender 3D Printing Toolbox Add-on
Tab over to Edit Mode.
Click in an empty area to unselect everything.
Then click in all the places that show problems.
Blender will light up the object in the places that
provoked that problem, giving you a chance to fix them.

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Output for 3D Printing

To export an STL file for 3D Printing:

1. Select the triangulated mesh object

2. File→Export→Stl (.stl)
3. Navigate to where you want to save
the file
4. Give it a filename that ends in .stl
5. Click Export STL

.stl is the most common 3D printing file

format

“STL” stands for Stereolithography

The word “stereolithography” comes from

the Greek words for “3D” and “writing”.

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Want to see 3D Printing in Action?
Oregon State University’s library has 3D Printers for use by OSU students.
To see them via webcam, go to: http://webcam.oregonstate.edu/3dprinter

Click here to see the live, streaming view.

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15. Stereographics

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Stereoscopy is not new – it’s been in common use
since the 1950s

Life Magazine

But, with virtual reality and 3D movies being so popular, stereoscopy

has made a big comeback. And, you can get at it through Blender!

For more information on stereoscopy, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereoscopy

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And, even longer than that in stills

Newport Maritime Museum Portland Art Museum's Ansel Adams Exhibit

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We Humans have Binocular Vision

In everyday living, part of our perception of depth comes from the slight difference
in how our two eyes see the world around us. This is known as binocular vision.
We care about this because computer graphics can simulate that slight viewing
difference and thus create the binocular viewing of a synthetic scene.

OSU's 16th President Dr. Jayathi Murthy

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Step #1a – Be Sure You are Using the Eevee Renderer, not Cycles438

Open the Render Properties menu

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Step #1b – Turn the Stereographics On

Open the Output Properties menu

Enable the Stereoscopy

checkbox and open the menu

Select Stereo 3D.

Be sure these are

both checked

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Step #1c – Turn the Stereographics On

While still in the Output Properties menu …

Click on Stereo 3D.

Pick one of these here

Red-Cyan is good here if

you picked Analglyph
before. On the screen, the
display will always be a
Red-Cyan anaglyph. This
menu controls how it will be
drawn when you write a file
Computer Graphics
after a Render.
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Step #2 – Set the Stereo Cameras
Select your Camera (in the scene
or in the Outliner) and then open
the Camera Data menu

Any of these will work

well. I’m kind of partial to
Off-Axis or Tow-In.

These are interesting to

experiment with. They control
how deep the stereo focuses
and how easy the stereo
images are to converge.

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Step #3 – Tell the Renderer to Produce both a
Left and Right View
Open the Object Properties menu
(hit ‘n’ on the keyboard) and click
on the View tab

This tells the Renderer to produce both

a left and right view, and to make a
red-cyan stereopair from them

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Step #4 – Render → Render Image

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Red-Cyan Glasses
No, they are not red-blue glasses!
No, they are not red-green glasses!
They are red-cyan glasses!

The universal convention is:

• Red goes over the left eye
• Cyan goes over the right eye

If you want to buy your own red-cyan glasses, my go-to is:

https://www.3dglassesonline.com/products/anaglyphic/

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Step #5 – (if you want): From the Render window,
write out a Stereographics Image File

This assumes you have already

done the other steps

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How Deep your Scene Appears to be into and out of the
Computer Screen -- Setting the Convergence Plane

Select your Camera (in the scene or in

the Outliner) and then open the
Camera Data menu

The Convergence Plane Distance

controls how much the scene appears to
exist behind or in front of the display
screen. Use a small distance to make the
scene look like it is living in the monitor.

Use a larger distance to make the scene

look like it is living in the air in front of the
monitor. (Don’t go too crazy with this – it
will look less cool than you are expecting.)

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How Deep does the Scene Appear to be into and out of
the Computer Screen? Setting the Convergence Plane

The Convergence Plane is in front of the object –

the object will appear to be inside the monitor

The Convergence Plane is behind the

object – the object will appear to be in the
air in front of the monitor

I like placing the Convergence Plane

about 1/3 of the way through the object
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There are many ways to display the correct view into
the correct eye

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16. References

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Blender References I Like
http://cs.oregonstate.edu/~mjb/blender

http://blender.org

http://www.blender.org/education-help/

http://www.blenderguru.com/

John Blain, The Complete Guide to Blender Graphics: Computer Modeling and Animation,
Seventh Edition, CRC Press, 2022.

Ruan Lotter, Taking Blender to the Next Level, Packt, 2022.

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Camp Blender
http://cs.oregonstate.edu/~mjb/blender

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0
International License
Mike Bailey
[email protected]

Computer Graphics mjb – July 15, 2024

blender4.1.pptx