Blender 3D Basics 3rd Edition

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License.
© 2004, 2006, 2009 third edition by James Chronister. This document may be reproduced in whole or in
part without permission from the author. Feel free to use this manual for any and all educational
applications. I enjoy emails from other educators, so please let me know how you’re using the book.
You may not bundle this tutorial with any software or documentation that is intended for commercial
applications (marketing for a profit) without expressed written approval from the author. Inquiries and
comments can be directed to jchronister@cdschools.org. This document, and other information, can
be found at http://www.cdschools.org/cdhs/site/default.asp. At this site, look under “Academics” in
“Drafting and Design Technology”.
Information regarding the Blender program and development can be found at www.blender.org. Blender
users can also find information on how to use the program at www.blenderartists.org. Daily Blender
news can be found at: www.BlenderNation.com.
Table of Contents
Introduction ........................................................................................... 1
Rendering and Animation Basic Concepts.................................... 2
Basic Key Commands ........................................................................ 4
Chapter 1- The Blender Interface ..................................................... 6
The Blender Screen
Window Types
Open, Saving and Appending Files
Packing Data
Importing Objects (from other file formats)
Chapter 2- Working with Viewports (windows) ............................. 12
Creating Viewports
Changing Window Type
Moving Around in 3D Space
Chapter 3- Creating and Editing Objects ....................................... 17
Working with Basic Meshes
Using Main Modifiers to Manipilate Meshes
Edit Mode- Mesh Vertex Editing
Proportional Vertex Editing
Joining/Separating Meshes, Boolean Operations
Chapter 4- Materials and Textures .................................................. 35
Basic Material Settings
Halo Settings
Basic Texture Settings
Using Images as Textures
Displacement Mapping
Chapter 5- Setting Up a World .......................................................... 50
Using Color, Stars and Mist
Creating a 3D Cloud Background
Using an Image in the Background
Chapter 6- Lighting and Cameras .................................................... 56
Lighting Types and Settings
Camera Settings and Options
Chapter 7- Render Window Settings ............................................... 61
Basic Setup Options
Rendering a JPEG Image
Creating an FFMPEG Movie File
Chapter 8- Raytracing (mirror, transparency, shadows) ............ 65
Lighting and Shadows
Reflection (mirror) and Refraction (transparency)
Chapter 9- Animation Basics ............................................................ 68
Timing, Moving, Rotating and Scaling
Working with the IPO Window & Auto Keyframing
Animating Materials, Lamps and World Settings
Chapter 10- Adding 3D Text ............................................................... 76
Blender 3D Text Settings
Converting to a Mesh
i
Table of Contents (continued)
Chapter 11- NURBS and Meta Shape Basics ................................. 80
Using NURBS to create lofted shapes
Liquid and droplet effects using Meta Shapes
Chapter 12- Modifiers ......................................................................... 83
Subsurf (mesh smoothing)
Build Effect
Mesh Mirroring
Wave Effect
Boolean Operations (cutting and adding)
Chapter 13- Particle System and Interactions .............................. 88
Particle Settings and Material Influence
Using the Explode Modifier
Particle Interaction With Objects and Forces
Using Particles for Hair
Chapter 14- Child-Parent Relationships ........................................ 98
Using Child-Parented Objects
Adjusting Object Centers (pivot points)
Chapter 15- Working With Constraints .......................................... 101
Tracking To An Object
Following Paths and Curves
Chapter 16- Armatures (bones and skeletons) ............................ 106
Using Armatures to Deform Meshes
Creating Vertex Groups
Using Inverse Kinomatics (IK) and Other Constraints
Chapter 17- Relative Vertex Keys (shape keys) ........................... 112
Creating Mesh Keys
Using Action Editor Sliders
Chapter 18- Object Physics ............................................................... 116
Using Soft Bodies
Creating Cloth Effects
Creating Fluid Effects
Chapter 19- Working With Nodes .................................................... 123
General Node Information
Using Nodes for Depth-Of-Field Camera Effects
Chapter 20- Creating Springs, Screws and Gears ....................... 128
Duplicating Meshes to Create Screws and Gears
Using Mesh Editing to Create Revolved Shapes
Chapter 21- Game Engine Basics (real-time animation) ............ 132
Setting Up The Physics Engine
Using Logic Blocks
Applying Materials
Using Game Physics in Animation
Chapter 22- Video Sequence Editor ................................................ 138
Producing a Movie From Individual Clips and Images
Adding an Audio Track
ii
Practice Exercises
1. Viewports ...................................................................................... 16
Chapter 2 Practice Exercise-Multiple Viewport Configuration
2. Creating Objects ........................................................................ 20

Chapter 3 Practice Exercise- Create a Sculpture
3. Basic Editing .............................................................................. 25

Chapter 3 Practice Exercise- Modeling a Landscape and Lighthouse
4. Boolean Editing .......................................................................... 33

Chapter 3 Practice Exercise- Adding Windows to the Lighthouse
5. Applying Materials .................................................................. 37

Chapter 4 Practice Exercise- Adding Materials to the Landscape
6. Applying Textures ..................................................................... 45

Chapter 4 Practice Exercise- Texturing the Landscape and Lighthouse
7. Adding a World ........................................................................... 53

Chapter 5 Practice Exercise- Creating an Environment for Your Scene
8. Lighting and Cameras ............................................................... 59

Chapter 6 Practice Exercise- Lighting Up the Landscape Scene
9. Rendering an Image ................................................................... 64

Chapter 7 Practice Exercise- Saving a Picture of the Landscape Scene
10. Raytracing ................................................................................... 67

Chapter 8 Practice Exercise- Reflection and Refraction
11. Creating an Animation .............................................................. 73

Chapter 9 Practice Exercise- Adding Motion to the Landscape Scene
12. Creating 3D Text ......................................................................... 79

Chapter 10 Practice Exercise- Company Logo
13. Meta Shapes ............................................................................... 82

Chapter 11 Practice Exercise- Create a Droplet Effect
iii
Practice Exercises (continued)
14. Using Modifiers ........................................................................ 87

Chapter 12 Practice Exercise- Common Modifiers Exercise
15. Particle Systems ....................................................................... 97

Chapter 13 Practice Exercise- Adding Rain to Your Landscape
16. Creating a Robot Arm ................................................................ 100

Chapter 14 Practice Exercise- Animate a Robotic Arm
17. Camera Constraints .................................................................. 102

Chapter 15 Practice Exercise- Make a Camera That Follows the Arm
18. Paths & Curves .......................................................................... 105

Chapter 15 Practice Exercise- Extruding Shapes and Following Paths
19. Creating a Skeleton .................................................................. 111

Chapter 16 Practice Exercise- Create a Hand With Armatures
20. Vertex Keys ................................................................................. 115

Chapter 17 Practice Exercise-Cheesy Actor Monkey
21. Making A Flag ............................................................................ 119

Chapter 18 Practice Exercise- Using Soft Bodies to Make a Flag
21. Water ........................................................................................... 122

Chapter 18 Practice Exercise- Splashing Water with Fluids
22. Depth-Of-Field ............................................................................ 125

Chapter 19 Practice Exercise- Using Nodes to Show Camera Blur
23. Gear Design ................................................................................ 131

Chapter 20 Practice Exercise- Create and Animate a Set of Gears
24. Real-Time Animation ................................................................ 137

Chapter 21 Practice Exercise- Smash an Object Through a Wall
25. Movie Producer ......................................................................... 140

Chapter 22 Practice Exercise- Create a Presentation of All Your Work
iv
Introduction
About Blender
How can Blender be free?

People usually associate freeware software with the terms “bad”, “with limited features” or
just a “demo”. Blender is fully functional. It works as an open-sourced, community development
program where people from around the world contribute to its success. Blender is a
rendering\animation\game development open-sourced freeware program maintained by the
Blender Foundation and can be downloaded, free of charge, from www.blender.org. The goal
of the foundation can be summarized as follows:
“The Blender Foundation is an independent organization (a Dutch “stichting”), acting as a
non-profit public benefit corporation, with the following goals:
• To organize a fund raising campaign in order to finance the €100,000 one time license
fee
• To give the worldwide Internet community access to 3D technology in general, with
Blender as a core
• To establish services for active users and developers of Blender
• To maintain and improve the current Blender product via a public accessible source
code system under the GNU GPL license
• To establish funding or revenue mechanisms that serve the foundation’s goals and
cover the foundation’s expenses”
Blender website (blender.org)
Blender can be a difficult program to learn with limitless possibilities. What do you teach in
the time you have to teach? That’s a tough question because you can’t teach it all. This tutorial
book is designed to get you up and running in the basics of creating objects and scenes and
animating. The best advice I can give you about learning this program is Don’t Give Up! Any
rendering and animation program has a tough learning curve and Blender is no exception.
After a few weeks, things get easier. This tutorial has been developed to be used in conjunction
with daily lesson planning and demonstrations. Because of this, some areas of Blender have
not been described as fully as they could be. If you are using this guide as a stand-alone
teaching or “self-help” tool, you may need to seek additional help from reputable places like
www.blender.org and www.blenderartists.org to make sense of things. These sites give you
access to help forums and tutorials. There are literally thousands of Blender users world-
wide that browse the forums to give and get advice. Make use of that vast knowledge base!
Version Information:
The current release at the time of this printing is version 2.49. Since Blender is developed by
a worldwide pool of individuals giving freely of their time, releases can happen in as little as 4
months and as much as 1 year. Because of such a large number individuals contributing to
Blender, major changes can occur between releases showing substantial improvements.
1
Rendering and Animation
Rendering and Animation Basics
RENDERING:
A rendering is a pictorial output of a 3D scene or object. Features like materials,

lighting, oversampling and shadows control the effects and quality of the rendering.
The more of these features you add, the more realistic your scene become, but also
lengthens rendering times.
Materials and Textures:
You can control the way an object appears by applying color and textures. Materials
provide realism with added effects. You an control glossiness (specularity), self-emitting
lighting characteristics, transparency and pattern repetition. Raytracing can provide
reflection (mirror) and refraction( transparency) effects. Textures can be made from
any scanned photograph or drawn object in an image-editing or painting-type program.
Images in almost any format (jpeg, bitmap, png) can be used. Blender also has many
built-in texture generators that can simulate a variety of surface characteristics such
as wood, marble, clouds, waves and surface roughness.
Lighting:
Lighting provides the realism to your scene through reflections and shadows. You can
control the type of light, intensity and color. Some lights can give a “fog” or “dusty” look
with a halo or volume lighting effect. Illumination distances can also be set.
Cameras:
Your camera is your point-of-view for the scene. Just like a real camera, you can control
lens length to achieve close-ups or wide angles. Clipping distance can also be set to
control how far and near the camera sees. Depth-of-field can now be controlled using
nodes.
ANIMATION:
An animation is a series of rendered images that form a movie. The quality of your
movie is controlled by all of the above mentioned features including frames per second
(fps), output size, file type and compression. The most common method of animation
is called keyframing. Key frames are created at various points in the animation while
the computer generates all of the transition frames between the two keys. Basic
animation options include changing size, rotation and location of objects.
2
Rendering and Animation
Time Factors:
In order to animate, you must first set the length of your animation in frames and your
frames per second (fps). The length in time can be calculated from these.
Frame Rate Options:
NTSC- U.S. and Japan video standard of 30 fps
Film- Movie standard of 24 fps
PAL- European video standard of 25 fps
Custom- set your own fps
*We typically use a frame rate of 25-30 fps depending on computer speed or if we
plan to save the file to DVD. Hit the “PAL” or “NTSC” setting buttons for these.
Creating Keys:
A key is placed at the beginning and end of a desired move, size change or rotation of
an object. Think in terms of how long you want a change to occur and relate it to your
fps. For example, if you want an object to move from point A to point B in 2 seconds
and you have 30 fps, place 2 keys 60 frames apart.
Following Paths and Objects:
In most animation programs, a camera can follow a path or object (or both) as it moves.
This feature saves a lot of animation time and reduces the number of keys needed.
Output Options:
We typically save our movies in MPEG format for Windows. This type of file plays
easily on most media players and at a high quality. Depending on how you plan to use
your movie (i.e. on the web, saved to DVD, played in a presentation), you may wish to
use different formats. Examples include Apple Quicktime and Windows AVI formats.
Different formats also allow you to adjust the quality settings. For example, AVI formats
can be compressed using a variety of compressors called CODECs.
Real-Time Animation (Blender only):
Real-time animation allows you to add physical properties to your objects and use the
keyboard and other features to control them. You can create actors, change masses,
control dampening (friction), set force and torque in x, y, and z planes and create
relationships with other objects within the scene. With time and practice, interesting
3D games and real-time architectural walk-throughs can be created.
Blender allow you to use the physics engine to create animation tracks. You can now
use the physics to create realistic falling, rolling, etc. animations and use them in movies.
3
Basic Key Commands
Basic Blender Commands
This is just a partial list of Blender commands. Please visit the Blender.org website for more details.
TAB key- Toggles between edit mode (vertex editing) and object select mode. If you’re in
edit mode when you create a new object, it will be joined to the selected object.
Ctrl “Z” The global UNDO command. With each press, one step will be undone (up to 32 steps
possible by default). If in edit mode, it will only undo editing steps on the selected object.
Alt “U” Brings up a list of Global UNDO steps to choose from (default- last 32 steps you’ve done).
“Z” key- Toggles view from wireframe to solid.
Alt “Z”- Toggles a texture/shaded view.
“R” key- Rotates an object or selected vertices.
“S” key- Scales a selected object or vertices.
“G” key- Grabs or moves the object or selected vertices.
“A” key- While in edit mode it’s good for selecting all vertices for commands like remove
doubles and subdivide. “A” twice will clear selected and reselect.
Alt “A” Plays animation in selected window. Your cursor must be in that window for it to play.
Ctrl “A”- After an object has been resized and/or rotated, this can reset the object’s data to 1 and 0.
“W” key- Brings up a “Specials” menu while in edit mode of specific edit mode options.
Shift-“D”- Duplicates or copies selected objects or selected vertices.
“E” key- While in edit mode, selected vertices can be extruded by pressing E.
“O” key- The “O” key (not zero) will put you into proportional vertex editing while in edit mode.
“B” key- Gives you a box (window drag) to select multiple objects. In edit mode, works the
same to select multiple vertices, but hitting “B” twice gives you a circle select that
can be sized by scrolling the mouse wheel. Press LMB to select, press wheel to deselect.
Space Bar- Brings up the tools menu where you can add meshes, cameras, lights, etc.
Number Pad- Controls your views. “7” top, “1” front, “3” side, “0” camera, “5” perspective, “.” Zooms on
selected object, “+ and –“ zoom in and out. The + - buttons also control affected vertices size
in proportional vertex editing.
Mouse- Left to manipulate (LMB), right to select (RMB), center wheel to zoom and rotate view. If you
hold down “shift” and center wheel you can pan around on the screen.
Shift Key- Hold down the shift key to make multiple selections with the right mouse button. Holding
down the Shift key while clicking in a text box allows for easier keyboard entry of numbers.
Arrow Keys- Used to advance frames in animation. Left/right goes 1 frame at a time, up/down goes 10
frames at a time.
“P” key- While in edit mode, pressing P will seperate selected verticies. In object mode, pressing P
will cause you to enter into the game (real-time) mode. Press Esc to exit game mode.
ATL/CTRL “P”-Creates or breaks child/parent relationships. To create C/P relationships, hold
down shift key and select child first, then parent. Hit Ctrl P. To clear a relationship, do the
same except hit Alt P.
“U” key- In Object Mode, brings up the Single-User menu to unlink materials, animations (IPOs),
etc. for linked or copied objects.
“M” key- Moves selected objects to other layers. Mirror in edit mode, “M” will give you a mirror
command (all verticies selected, then press x,y,z for axis of mirror).
“N” key- Brings up the numeric info. on a selected object (location, rotation and size). Info.
can then be changed in the window.
Ctrl “J”- Joins selected objects together.
“F” key- Makes a face in edit mode of the selected vertices. You can only select 3-4 vertices at a
time to make a face. By selecting 2 verticies and pressing F will close shape.
Shift-”F”- Makes all faces on a selection of closed verticies (as opposed to only one face with F).
Ctrl “F”- Brings up a “Face Specials” menu with other face options.
“X” or Delete- Delete selected objects, vertices or faces.
“K” Key In edit mode, K will bring up the Knife tool menu with specific options for slicing faces.
Shift- “S” In both edit and object modes, this will give you options to locate objects or the cursor to
assist in precise placement.
4
Basic Key Commands
Function Keys- F1-Load File; F2-Save File; F3-Save Image; F4-Lamp Buttons; F5-Material
Buttons; F6-Texture Buttons; F7-Animation Buttons; F8-Real Time Buttons; F9-
Edit Buttons; F10-Display Buttons; F11-Last Render; F12-Render
“I” Key- The “I” key is used to insert animation keys for various things. Objects can be
animated with basic Rotation, Location and Size keys and combinations there of.
If your cursor is down in the buttons portion of the screen, animation keys can be
added to lights, materials and world settings.
Ctrl “T”- Used to create a Track To Constraint to make one object follow another (like a camera with
a target).
Ctrl “S”- Used to Save your Blender file
Alt “C”- Used to convert meshes, text and curves. For example, text can be converted into a
mesh for other transform options.
“Shift” “Space” Toggles between multiple screens to full screen of active viewport.
Ctrl “0”- If using multiple cameras, this will switch to the selected camera. (Number pad
“0”)
Armatures- Meshes can be controlled by “bones” or armatures. Create a mesh with vertices
at the joint locations, then create an armature string within it. Child/Parent the
mesh to the armature using the armature option. You can then animate the
armature in Pose Mode.
Ctrl-Tab- Puts you into Pose mode for manipulating armatures.
Import/Export- Blender accepts .DXF and VRML(.wrl) files. Just use the OPEN option from the
file menu to insert these types of files into an already existing scene. When
inserting other Blender files or objects into another scene, use the APPEND
option from the file menu and select the appropriate options. Multiple objects can
be selected with Shift-Right mouse button.
Springs/Screw-Blender can create these objects in the edit buttons. You need a profile of the
object, the cursor at the center of revolution, and 2 vertices to show the length of
the revolution. The profile and the length vertices need to be in the same object.
All vertices need to be selected when performing the operation. You will also
need to be in the front view. There are several tutorials to help with this
operation. Results are great!
Multiple Viewports- To create multiple viewports, move your cursor over the edge of the
viewport (to start, you only have the drawing window and the button window-
move your cursor to the break between them). Right click on the break and select
split area.
Basic Button Panels
These buttons change depending on
left-hand button options
Game Logic Buttons Shading Buttons Edit Buttons

(F4 Key) (F5 Key) (F9 Key)
Object Buttons Scene Buttons

Scripting Buttons (F10 Key)
(F7 Key)
5
Chapter 1- The Blender Interface
The Blender Screen
When I first looked at Blender and read some tutorials I thought that this looked easy and
made sense. After taking the program for a test run, I decided to forget about it for a while
because I couldn’t make anything. The interface is different than any other programs I’ve
experienced before. I thought I’d try again and after a few week however, things began to
make sense and I realized the potential of the program. Here’s what you are looking at when
you open the program:
User Preferences Window
3D Window
Cube and 3D Cursor
Lamp
Transform Widgets Camera

Window Type Menu
Mode Layers Buttons Window
You are looking down at a scene consisting of a cube, lamp and a camera (top view). The
cube is a basic mesh object to give you something to look at, a lamp to illuminate the scene,
and a camera to show the scene. Older versions of Blender may open with different scenes
(a plane instead of a cube and a light), but the idea stays the same. The 3D cursor in the
middle of the cube is used to locate where new items will be placed. It can be
moved around on the screen by clicking the Left Mouse Button (LMB). Along with
familiar pull-down menus like other programs, you have a viewport along the
3D Cursor bottom that changes every time you select a different button. This ”Buttons Window”
can be changed around, but for now, lets keep it where it’s at.
Blender works with layers much like other programs where objects can be placed in different
layers and displayed as needed. It’s a good idea to get comfortable with layers because as
6
your scenes get bigger, turning layers on and off help with the speed of your work and being
able to see things better. To change things between layers, select the object with the Right
Mouse Button (RMB) and type “M” for move. Try it with the
cube and change layers. By the way, if you put it in a layer that’s
turned off, it will disappear. To turn that layer visible, click on that
button. To turn on multiple layers, hold down “Shift” and click on
the buttons. Layers containing objects will display a dot.
RoboDude Asks:
“How do I select multiple objects in Blender?”
Hold down the “shift” key while using the RMB (Right Mouse Button).
Window Types
Blender has a variety of different window types and every window can be set to any type. For
example, your initial screen has 3 windows, the top one with the toolbars, the 3D window, and
the bottom buttons window. You can set all 3 of them to display the
buttons if you like (but I’m not sure why you would want to). The various
window types are as follows:
The window types that we are most interested in right now are:
•File/Image Browsers- comes up automatically on

demand in most cases
•Node Editor- applies render effects
•Buttons Window- for commands
•User Preferences- menus and options
•Video Sequence Editor- join movies and effects
•UV/Image Editor- for applying game textures
•Action Editor- for animations
•Ipo Curve Editor- also for animations
•3D View- to see our work and model items
The User Preferences Window

If you place your mouse on the line between the 3D window and the User Preferences Window
(at the top), hold down the Left Mouse Button (LMB) and drag down, you will expose a number
of setting options at the top of the screen:
7
Settings of interest to us at this time in the User Preferences window-
• View and Controls- tool tips and mouse settings
• Edit Methods- how things are linked and duplicated, undo settings
• Language and Fonts- text style and sizes
• System and OpenGL- change some system settings
• File Paths- tells Blender where to look for certain things
ToolTips Mouse Operations Widget Controls

View & Controls
Global Undo (Alt-”U” keys) Linked Data

Edit Methods
Keyboard Options
Game Settings System & OpenGL
(for laptops)
Click on folders to set paths- File Paths

This will help later so Blender goes straight to these folders when needed.
If you would like these changes to always be in place whenever you start Blender, press the
Ctrl- “U” keys and save as User Defaults. You will need to use the LMB and click on the
actual words “Save User Defaults” for the save to occur.
Be careful to only use this setting at the beginning of a drawing session and on
your own personal machine (not school computers). If a drawing is open at the
time, that drawing will automatically open every time you use Blender. It will be-
come the default scene and replace the cube, lamp and camera basic setup!
8
Open, Saving and Appending Files
Blender utilizes commands similar to other pro-

grams when it comes to saving and opening your
work with a few exceptions. Blender can use the
“Open” command to open Blender (.blend) files
and the “Append or Link” command to bring in
elements from other Blender files into another
Blender file. The open command can be used to
import VRML (.wrl) and .DXF files from other pro-
grams. These are generic file interchange
extentions that most programs can work with.
Blender also has extensive Import and Export
options in the file menu.
The Save Command

When you first start working with Blender, it seems almost impossible to figure out how to
save your work. The file interface almost resembles old MS-DOS. Also, every time you save
over an existing file, your previous save becomes a back-up file and is saved with a new
extension (.blend1). This always gives you a back-up if a problem occurs.
Here’s what you see when you hit the save command:
Path where work will be saved

File name typed here
“P” takes you back to the parent directory (back 1 folder)
Hold down mouse (LMB) to view all drives for this computer
After you type the file name, & hit enter, hit save
Files and folders at the current location
9
The Append or Link Command
When you need to insert elements from one Blender (.blend) file into another one, you need to
use the Append or Link command from the file pull-down menu. While in Append, you need
to navigate to the Blender file you wish to insert from, then select what you want to append into
the open file. You can append anything from cameras, lights meshes, materials, textures,
scenes and objects. For most purposes, use the Object option. By appending objects, any
materials, textures and animations that are linked to that object will automatically come in with
it. Right Mouse Button (RMB) clicking on objects will select\deselect them. Typing “A” will
select them all. After you select all objects to append, click the “Load Library” button in the
upper right corner of the screen.
The Link option allows you to link to another Blender file rather than inserting it into the open
file. This option allows for changes to the linked file that will be automatically updated when
the other file is opened.
Packing Data
If you plan to open this file on other

computers, you will need to select the “Pack
into .blend file” option in the file menu
under “External Data”. Textures and
sounds are not automatically included in
your Blender file in order to keep the file size
down. Every time your file opens, it looks
for the textures and sounds and places them
into your model. If it can’t find the files, you
won’t have any textures and sounds. If you
pack data, those files are included with the
.blend file so they can be opened anywhere,
however, your file size may explode. When
data is packed, a small package shows up
on the top of your screen letting you know
that the file is packed. You can also unpack
data to bring the file size back down.
10
Importing Objects
One of Blender’s strong points is the program’s ability to accept several generic types of 3D
files from other programs. The most popular used are:
VRML (.wrl) files- Many programs are able to export their files as
VRMLs. SolidWorks is a good example that we use.
These files import into Blender without any problems
in most cases.
.DXF files- A very popular file format for exporting and sharing.
AutoCAD and SoftPlan architectural software
traditionally exports with .dxf formats. Again, Blender
usually accepts these files flawlessly.
To save a file as one of these types from another program, you will need to find an export
command or a “save as” option. This will vary dependig on the program you are using. Refer
to that program’s help files. To import a VRML or DXF file into a Blender scene, open a new
drawing or one you wish to insert the object(s) into. You will simply need to use the Open
command in the File pull-down menu. The program knows that you are trying to open something
other than a .blend file and will insert it into your current scene. Now you need to find the
object(s) you just inserted. Depending on how that object was drawn, it may need to be resized
or rotated.
With every new release of Blender, the import/

export format options list grows. This makes
Blender much more compatible with a variety
of other 3D modeling and animation software
programs. You should be able to find a format
in the list that will work with your other programs.
When importing Blender files into other Blender

files, remember to use the Append command
instead of import. In the Append command, se-
lect the file, then select what you would like to
bring into the current file. You will usually want
the “Objects” option.
11
Chapter 2- Working with Viewports
Creating Viewports (also called windows)
Most times, you need more than one 3D window to work with since you’re trying to locate
objects in three dimensions. Most rendering and animations programs allow for multiple
viewports along with graphical views of various data. Blender allows the same. Remember
that Blender starts with 3 viewports that are set to User Preferences, 3D Window and the
Buttons Window. You can change the size of any of these windows by using the LMB and
draging on the line between the viewports. You will notice the ar-
row pointer changes to a double headed arrow while over the line.
In order to split the screen and create another viewport, while
the cursor is over the line, Right Click (RMB) and select “Split
Area”. Drag the line to a desired location and size. By moving the
mouse to either side of the viewport line, you select the side to
split. Joining viewports together works the same way. There’s no
limit to the number of times you can split your windows. I like to
traditionally work with 2 views like the example shown below. I use the left view to flip between
my principle views (top, front, side) and the right view for camera view and animation tracks
(which we’ll discuss later).
Windows can also be split

along a vertical line. Some
3D programs traditionally
give you 4 viewports that are
set-up as front, top, right side,
and perspective or camera
views. Basically, it is up to
what you want to work with.
12
Changing Window Types
Now that you’ve added some viewports, remember that the viewport can be
changed to a different type (refer to page 7). As you become more familiar with
Blender, you will need to use the IPO, Action Editor windows and more.
The Buttons Window Option:
Traditionally, Blender has placed the Buttons Window at the bottom of the screen, but has
recently given us an option to arrange them vertically on the side like some other 3D programs
out there. This has been done in an effort to make learning the program easier for new users.
You first need to split your 3D window in half, then select the Buttons Window type from the
menu.
Looks good, but needs some ad-

justment. The buttons are arranged
horizontally and off the screen. To
change the arrangement, Right
Click (RMB) in the window and se-
lect “Vertical”. Adjust the windows
to a desired size and use the plus
and minus keys on the number pad to

zoom in and out on the buttons to get
them sized to fill the screen. Hold down
the mouse wheel (don’t scroll) to move
the buttons around. The only problem
with this method is that the buttons at
the bottom of the window are still off
the screen. In order to access those
buttons, you need to hold down the
center wheel on the buttons and drag
the buttons around. I still prefer the but-
tons window at the bottom of the
screen, but this is another option avail-
able.
13
Moving Around in 3D Space:
In a 3D program, not only do you have to worry about where you are in 2 dimensions (height
and width), but you also need to consider depth (how close or far away). Before you can work
in 3D space, you should have some skills in 2D drawing and layout. Moving around in the
3D window is controlled by the mouse and the keyboard number pad. Think of a
standard 3-view orthographic drawing- top, front and right side views. These views match up
with the number pad 7,1 and 3 keys (look at their arrangement on the keyboard- just like the
views). Put your cursor in the 3D window and try typing those numbers. Typing “0” will put you
into camera view (what the camera sees).
limits of what the camera sees
The camera is represented by 3

lines. The outer solid line is what
you can click to select the camera.
The outer dashed line represents
the limits of what the camera can
see. The inner dashed line helps
with centering your scene. If you do
not see the inner dashed line box,
you can change this in the edit but-
tons that will be discussed later.
The number pad 5 key will toggle you between perspective and orthographic views. The
number pad arrow keys (2,4,6,8) will rotate you around in 3D space. The “+” and “-” keys on
the number pad will zoom in and out. The number pad “.” (period) key will center your view up
on the selected object on your screen.
The mouse serves a number of functions. The Left Mouse Button (LMB) will move the 3D
cursor around on the screen and for dragging windows for selecting objects. Wherever the
3D cursor is located is where the next item you create will be placed. The 3D cursor serves
other purposes that we will discuss later. The Right Mouse Button (RMB) is used to select
object or vertices (in edit mode). The mouse wheel serves 2 purposes. Scrolling the wheel
zooms in and out (like the + and - keys). Holding down the mouse wheel will let you rotate the
view. Holding down Shift and Mouse Wheel will let you pan around on the screen.
RoboDude Says: Practice using these controls before moving on to

other lessons. Without getting a grasp on working in 3D space, you
will have a difficult time creating and modifying objects.
Now that you know what you’re looking at and how to move around on the screen, we can
begin making objects in Blender!
14
Typical Views and Buttons:
Here are some typical views used to model in 3D and the buttons on the number pad to go
along with them. In order to make them work, you need to have the “Num Lock” button pressed.
Get use to working with the principle views (top, front, side) in orthographic mode when locating
the 3D cursor. You will usually need to check the location of the cursor in at least 2 views when
placing objects.
Top View
(7 key)
Free-rotation
orthographic view
Side View
(3 key)
Front View
(1 key)
Camera View
(0 key)
Perspective Views
(5 key toggles between
orthographic and
perspective views)
15
Viewports Practice Exercise
In order to get some experience with these commands, set up a screen with four viewports
using a top, front, side and camera or perspective views as displayed below:
Top View Perspective or Camera View
Front View Right Side View
Be prepared to be able to demonstrate the following techniques to the instructor when asked:
• Panning around on the screen

• Zooming
• Changing window types
• Centering the view on a certain object
• Switching views (top, front, side, camera, free-rotate)
** Call the instructor when finished**
16
Chapter 3- Creating & Editing Objects
Working with Basic Meshes
Now that we know how to move around in Blender, let’s start doing some basic building and
shaping. In this chapter we will talk about creating basic shapes and using modifiers to form
them. There are a lot of different types of things to draw in Blender. Right now we will only
discuss Meshes.
Start a new drawing in Blender and save it in your “My Documents” directory. Call it Sculpture.
In Windows XP, in order to get to your “My Documents” folder, do the following:
1. Go to File- Save
2. Select the C: drive (see page 9 in Open, Save, and Append section)
3. Click on the “Documents and Settings” folder, find your login folder.
4. In your folder you will find “My Documents”
5. Type in the file name (Sculpture), hit enter, then “Save”
RoboDude Asks: Why do I keep losing my work?

Blender will not prompt you to save you file when exiting the program.
Remember to always save your work often!
Placing Objects On Your Screen

The 3D Cursor (bullseye) location is used to place
new objects. Use the left mouse button to move the
cursor in 3D space When you have it in a good
location, press the Space Bar to bring up the insert
menu. Select Add, then Mesh and select UV Sphere.
You will then be asked how many segments and rings
you want. You can change these by draging the mouse
in the block or by holding down the Shift key and
clicking in the box. This will allow you to type in a
number. You can keep it
at 32 for now. After that,
your sphere will be
displayed on the screen.
Edit Mode
Object Mode
When you place an object in Blender,
it comes into the scene in Edit Mode. There are basically 2 states
in Blender- Edit Mode and Object Mode. Edit mode is intended
for modifying the shape of the object by selecting vertices on the
object. Object mode affects the object as a whole. The Tab but-
ton toggles you between the two. After inserting an object into
your scene, press the Tab key to exit edit mode. Otherwise,
the next object you create will be joined to that mesh!
17
Another way to switch between Edit and Object mode besides
using the Tab key is to use the Mode menu at the bottom of the
3D screen. Notice that there are a few more modes than just Edit
and Object. Some of these will be dicussed in later chapters.
Precise 3D Cursor Placement
To precisely place the 3D cursor, use the

“Shift-S” keys for options to move the cursor
to objects, grid, and vice-versa.
Mesh Types
When pressing the space bar and choosing to add a mesh, you will notice several mesh
types (often called primitives) available. They are:
Plane- A simple two-dimensional shape. Can be sub divided and used with
proportional vertex editing to make nice hilly terrain or shaped.
Cube- Basic 3D shape. Nice object to start with to shape into rectangles and
other shapes.
Circle- Won’t display as a 3D object unless filled, but can be extruded and
shaped.
UV Sphere-A sphere generated with rings and segments, like the latitude and
longitude of the earth.
Icosphere-A sphere generated with triangular shapes. Like Epcot
Center
Cylinder- Like a can, with ends closed, but if you leave the ends off, it is a tube
Cone- Basic closed cone shape.
Grid- Can be used and extruded like the plane.
Monkey- A fun shape that someone decided to include in the mesh

list.
Empty Mesh- A mesh without any visible verticies, edges or faces
Torus- A donut shape.

RoboDude Asks: Why are all my meshes joined together?
Remember that whenever you create something new, it enters your
scene in Edit Mode. Any new objects you create while in edit mode
for the previously selected object will be joined to that object. After
you create a new object, remember to hit the “Tab” key to exit edit mode.
Also, remember that a new object will be created where the 3D cursor is
located.
18
Using Main Modifiers to Manipulate Meshes
Before we look at actually changing the shape of the meshes and turning them into other
shapes, we should become comfortable with creating, moving, rotating and scaling basic
meshes. The three main modifying commands used in Blender (in Object mode) are:
“G” key- move or grab and object
“S” key- sizing or scaling an object
“R” key- rotating an object
If you would like to do any of these operations through an exact

number (i.e. rotate 90 degrees on the X axis or size something to
a specific number), type the “N” key to bring up the Numeric
Window (Transform Properties).
RoboDude Says: If you would like to move something along a
straight axis line (X,Y,Z), enter the Move command and drag the
object the direction you wish to go. Press the mouse wheel
(don’t scroll, press it like a button). The object will lock on a
straight line. In the Move command, you can also type X,Y, or Z.
Using the Transform Widgets
A relatively new feature to the program is the transform widget menu. Rather than typing R,S
or G to manipulate an object, you can turn on the widget feature and simply grab the axis you
wish to change. You can also change the motions to reflect Global (normal X,Y,Z planes) or
Local (X,Y,Z planes in relation to the object) movement.
Grab directional lines with LMB to manipulate
Move Button Rotate Button Scale Button
Global/Local Widget On/Off

Setting
19
Create a Sculpture Practice Exercise
Create a sculpture using at least 1 of every type of mesh found in the Add-Mesh menu (do
not use grid or circle). Remember to exit edit mode (Tab key) after every object you
create. Use a plane for the ground and scale it large. Divide your 3D window into two so
you can have one working view and one camera view. Use the RMB to select objects on the
screen. Experiment with sizing and rotating objects. New commands:
Size (“S” key)- to change the size/scale of the object.

Rotate (“R” key)- to rotate the object.
Move (“G” key)- to change the location of objects.
Shaded (“Z” key)- used to toggle the window from wireframe to shaded
view.
Remember to make use of the number keys 1,3 and 7 to change your principle views!
Also play with the camera location and angle to get a nice view!
** You do not have to make a monkey-this is just an example of using the meshes! **
20
Edit Mode- Mesh Vertex Editing
After you have created a mesh, you can go into Edit mode (Tab key)
and change its shape. In edit mode, you can work with the shape’s
individual verticies (mesh intersections) to create the shape you want.
You know you’re in edit mode when you see pink or yellow dots on the Edit Mode for Sphere
selected object. Pink dots are unselected verticies while yellow dots
are selected verticies.
RoboDude Asks: How Do I UNDO a mistake?
Pressing CTRL-Z will take you back 1 step at a
time (edit or object modes). ALT-U will show you a
list of steps.
Object Mode for Sphere
Selecting Verticies:
While in edit mode, to select a single vertex, RMB click on the vertex. To select multiple
verticies, hold down the Shift key while RMB clicking on them. To drag a window around
verticies, type “B” key and drag a window to select. Typing the “B” key twice will bring up a
circular selection tool that can be sized by pressing the “+ or -” keys on the number pad.
Scrolling the center mouse wheel will do the same as “+ and -” keys. Pressing “Esc” will get
you out of the circular selection tool. In order to select all verticies or deselect currently
selected ones, hit the “A” key (for all) once or twice.
Edit Mode Selection Options:
By default, you are selecting
verticies, but you can also select
edges and faces.You can find
these options at the bottom of the
Vertex Select Edge Select Face Select
3D window while in edit mode.
Basic Modifiers: In solid view mode, this button will
hide back faces
After selecting the verticies, you can use the same basic modifiers we talked about in the
previous exercise (“G”-grab or move, “S”-scale, “R”-rotate).
Creating More Verticies:
Sometimes you need to add more verticies to some or all of the mesh in order to manipulate
it to your desired detail. To do this, you must first select all the verticies you wish to split, then
look at the bottom Buttons Window and find the edit button (looks like a plane in edit
mode). Find the
Subdivide button and
click it as many times as
you need to.
21
Specials Menu:
In edit mode, pressing the “W” key will bring up a shortcut menu that will give you
a variety of editing options. Most of these options can also be selected in the
edit buttons as discussed on the previous page.
Center Points:
Every object you create in Blender has a small dot somewhere in the object (by
default, usually in the center of that object). This is the object’s center, or pivot
point. Beginners in Blender often get these center points moved around to points
other than where they want them. This happens because they move all the verticies of the
object in edit mode, but the center point fails to move. If you want to move an entire object,
hit tab to get out of edit mode and into object select mode. Using the “G” key to move
the object in this mode will move the center point along with the object. If you ever need to
relocate an object’s center point, move the 3D cursor to the desired center location, then find
the “Center Cursor” button in the edit buttons. This will change the object’s center location. If
you select “Center”, The object’s data (points and faces) will move to center around the
object’s center. If you select “Center New” , the program will move the center point to the
object data’s mathematical center.
Viewport Shading
Usually by default, the viewport is set to Solid shading. Many times, you will
need to work with your objects in Wireframe mode. All shading does is
changing the way you see your objects. Shading also affects the way you
can select verticies in edit mode. In solid shading, only visible verticies can
be selected. In Wireframe, all verticies can Wire
be selected. To change between
Solid and Wire modes, press the “Z” key
or select the shading mode from the
toolbar.
You will notice several other shading Solid

options in the menu. Experiment with the
other options.
22
Using the Set Smooth-Set Solid Options and Auto Smooth
Set Smooth Set Solid
As you add objects and view them in Solid shad-

ing, you will notice that circular objects are not being displayed smooth. In the Edit buttons,
you will see two buttons labeled Set Smooth and Set Solid. These 2 buttons not only
effect the way things look on the screen, but how they will be rendered in a final image. Be
aware that the appearance of objects on the screen are not displayed at the same
quality as a final rendered image. The computer needs to conserve memory because
3D applications can be very memory intensive on your computer. There are other smooth-
ing options available in the Edit panel, but they will be discussed in a later chapter. Auto
Smooth is used to smooth objects when faces meet at a certain degree or less. This is a
great feature when Set Smooth does not work properly alone. To use
Auto Smooth on an entire object, hit the Auto Smooth button. To smooth
just a selected area, enter edit mode, select the verticies you wish to
smooth, then hit Auto Smooth.
Extruding shapes:
Shapes can be lengthened by selecting a group of verticies, then by pressing the “E” key
and confirming by clicking “ok”, you will make a duplicate of those verticies. They can then be
“G” (moved), “S” (scaled), and “R” (rotated). Blender has added a few more options to the
extrude menu. Feel free to experiment with them. The one that you will usually want to use is
the Region option. When you select the region option, the verticies will be extruded along a
locked axis. To free the verticies so you can move them in any direction you wish, click the
Center Mouse Wheel once or twice (don’t scroll, press the wheel like it’s a button). Below is
an example of a cube, extruded from the right side several times using scale and rotate.
Basic Cube
Extrude is a great command for making long tubes and tunnels. It is also good when you don’t
want to subdivide an object too much in order to add detail.
23
Proportional Vertex Editing:
Proportional Vertex Editing is used to create a flow

in the shape when editing vertices. To turn
proportional vertex editing on, press the “O” key
while in edit mode or by selecting the small circle
button on the toolbar. Note: you will only be able
to select this option while in edit mode. You
have several options for effecting
verticies in proportional editing. We
usually use Sharp or Smooth falloff,
but feel free free to experiment with
the other options.
Proportional Vertex Proportional Vertex Sharp Falloff Smooth Falloff Small Area Large Area
Editing “Off” Editing “On”
RoboDude Asks: How do I control the number of verticies affected?

By pressing the “+ and -” arrows on the number pad or by scrolling the
center mouse wheel.
Knife Tool:
The Knife Tool allows you to split edges differently than the subdivide
command. To use the knife tool, type “K”, choose your option, draw your
line and then hit “Enter” on the keyboard to create the cut.
Creating Ground:
You can use proportional vertex editing to create flowing landscape easily.
The first thing you need to do is create a plane in the top view (7 key). While
in edit mode, make sure all verticies are selected (verticies are yellow). You
can use the “A” key to select them all. Press “W” key for specials menu, then
select “Subdivide”. Do this a few times. Select a single vertex somewhere
near center.
Next, switch to a front view (“1” key on number pad) and press the “O”
key to enter proportional vertex editing mode. Select sharp or smooth
falloff depending on what effect you want. Type “G” to grab (move) the
vertex. Use the “+ -” keys on number pad or scroll mouse wheel to
change the size of the selection.
Experiment with different size selections and different falloffs.
To see your final work in a smooth display, exit edit mode (“Tab”
key) and ,with the object selected, go to the edit buttons and
find the “Set Smooth” button. This will smooth the mesh in display
and final output. Finally, hit the “Z” key to shade your view.
24
Basic Editing- Landscape and Lighthouse
Over the next several chapters, we will be developing a nice landscape scene in an effort to
build your Blender skills while you become more comfortable with the program. Below is an
example of what we will be completing:
This is the basic scene, but as you work through the chapters, you will be encouraged to add
more elements and details to your lighthouse and landscape to make it your own. We will
eventually add rain to our “stormy night at sea” scene and animate the water, light and camera.
The first thing we need to do is create a new Blender scene and save it as “Landscape
Scene”. Again, we will be using this file for the next several chapters, so keep it safe and
save often! Split the workspace into 2 viewports as shown on
the next page. We will use the left viewport for working in and
the right one for camera and 3D views.
While in the top view (number pad 7) erase the initial cube
from the scene, then add a plane from the mesh menu (space
bar- add- mesh- plane).
25
This plane will be used for our ground. Our next step is
to scale it up a bit. To do this precisely, we will use the
numeric input window (transform properties). With the
plane selected and out of edit mode (tab), press “N” to
bring up the transform window. Press the “Link Scale”
button and set the Scale X number to 10.000. The Link
Scale button will change them all. Close the Transform
window (x).
Next, go back into edit mode (tab) and make sure all
verticies are selected. Press the “W” key for the Specials
menu. Select “Subdivide Multi” and set the number to
40. Your plane should have 40 subdivisions.
Selected
Deselect all verticies using “A” and
press “B” twice for the circular
selection tool. While holding down the
LMB, select half the verticies as
shown. Keep the edge random
similar to what is shown so it looks
like a rough shoreline. If you select too
many verticies, remember that by
Deselected holding down the mouse wheel, you
can deselect verticies.
Now switch to the front

view (number pad 1).
Your plane will now just
look like a line. Type “G”
to grab and move the
selected verticies. Move
them up about 2 Blender
grid blocks. You may want
to type “Z” to keep the
move locked to the verticle
axis. Use your right side
viewport to spin around
and get a nice look at the
landscape.
26
Now it’s time to make some fine
adjustmenst to the mesh to make the cliff
edge a bit more random. Turn on the
proportional editing button (only visible
in edit mode- small bull’s eye) and ex-
periment with different types of falloff.
Select single verticies, “G” to grab and
scroll the mouse wheel to change the af-
fected areas while moving.
Randomly pull the edges of the

cliff up and down to different
levels. You may even want to do
some of this with proportional
editing off. Try selecting a few
verticies back on the high flat
land and create some hills.
Leave a flat area close to the
cliff to place the lighthouse
later.
The scene’s looking better, but a bit angular. Exit edit mode
(tab) and go to the edit buttons. There you will find the “Set
Smooth” button. Press it and you should see a much better
looking landscape (you must be in object mode to see the
smoothing).
Now it’s time to set up the camera. We

will start by adding an Empty object.
An Empty is basically used for targeting purposes and does not
render as a visible object. Press Space Bar- Add- Empty.
After adding the Empty, RMB click on the camera to select it. We
will now add a Tracking constraint to the camera to always point
toward the Empty. With the camera se-
lected first, hold down the Shift key and
RMB click on the Empty. Both objects will be highlighted. Press
Ctrl-T and add a “TrackTo Constraint”. You will notice a dashed
line between the two objects indicating the link. RMB click on the
camera so only the camera is selected. Type “G” to move the
camera. It should always be pointed toward the Empty. If the link
appears to work backwards, it means you had the Empty se-
lected first. Use the UNDO command to back up and try again.
27
It’s time to place the camera and Empty into good rendering locations. You will need to use
the move command (“G” key) and place the Empty and camera using your principle views of
Top (#7), Front (#1), and Side (#3). Try to get the camera low so it looks as though you are
viewing the shore line from a boat. Place the Empty on the cliff line. Use the picture below to
frame up your view. You do not want to see any edges on your rendering. Use the “F12” key
to render out a picture.
Camera View
(0 on the number pad)
Use Shift “D” to

duplicate the light if
your scene seems
dark when rendered
Here is the final render. We’re still missing water, textures and a few other things, but it’s a
good start. Feel free to develop and refine the landscape contour any way you wish. The
more time you spend with it, the quicker you will become comfortable with the program and
the more realistic it will become.
Save the scene and start a new

Blender file (I hope you’ve been sav-
ing every few minutes anyways). We
are finished with the landscape for
now and will now begin developing
the lighthouse as a separate scene
that we’ll add to the landscape at a
later time. Save this new Blender file
as “Lighthouse”.
28
Now it’s time to start shaping a lighthouse using the Extrude and Scale commands. Begin
by deleting the default cube and add a Circle (Space Bar- Add- Mesh- Circle) in the Top
View (#7). Use the default set-
ting of 32 verticies, radius of 1,
and Fill off. These setting will be
fine for what we are making. De-
pending on what you are mak-
ing and what it will be used for,
you may require more or less
verticies.
You will now need to switch to the Front View (#1) so the
circle appears as a line. Make sure all verticies are selected
(yellow) and press “E” to Extrude, se-
lecting the “Only Edges” option. As
you extrude, you will need to press the
“Z” key to lock your movement verticle.
Extrude the lighthouse 2-4 Blender grid
blocks high and LMB click to place
them. Hit “S” to Scale them in slightly. This is your lighthouse- feel
free to adjust sizes as desired. Remember to stay in the front view
throughout this process! Rotated views will cause a distored light-
house.
It is now time to make the small

walkway around the top. Press “E”
to extrude again, then “S” to scale immediately (no LMB click
in between). Pull your mouse away from the lighthouse and
scale the walkway outward as desired. LMB click when you
have a good size. Remember, you can always UNDO if it
doesn’t seem right. Extrude
again to give the walkway
some height. You will then Extrude and Scale again to re-
duce the size back inward.
Continue extruding and shaping to get the light area and the
roof. The point of the roof will actually have 32 verticies which
you could scale very small so that it appears to be a single
point, but we will use a Specials command in the next step
to correct this.
29
You now need to turn the top into a point. With the top 32
verticies selects, press “W” to bring up the editing short-
cut “Specials” menu. Select the “Merge” option and “At
Center”. It will tell you that 31 verticies are being removed,
leaving only one.
Move your camera to a location that displays the lighthouse

well and press “F12” to render an image. The lighthouse
looks good, but angular. It will take more than Set Smooth
to make it look good. Some edges actually need to stay
sharp. This is where Auto Smooth becomes important.
Exit edit mode (tab key). In the Edit Buttons, press the
“Auto Smooth” button, then the “Set Smooth” button. Ig-
nore how the lighthouse look on the screen. Render a pic-
ture with “F12” to see the results. You will notice a degree
angle below the Auto Smooth button. Leaving it a the de-
fault of 30 degrees should work well, but feel free to ex-
periment with other setting. Basically, this setting deter-
mines which faces are smoothed and which ones are kept
sharp.
Finally, press “F12” to render

a picture and check your re-
sults. If you haven’t saved
your file, do so now and re-
member to save often. We
are finished with our light-
house for now. If you have the
time, feel free to modify the
lighthouse, change the style,
add more features, etc.
30
Joining/Separating Meshes and Boolean Operations
Now that you have some experience with basic editing, here’s a few more options:
Joining Meshes:
To join 2 or more meshes together, Hold down the “Shift” key to select
them, then press “Ctrl” and “J” to join them. They will retain any
materials you have placed on them, but will be one object.
Separating Meshes:
In order to break up a mesh, you need to be in edit mode (Tab Key) and
select the verticies you wish to separate from the rest of the mesh. With
verticies selected, type the “P” key (I like to think of it as partition) and
select your option. You also an option to separate all loose parts.
Deleting Vertices/Edges/Faces:
If you want to make a hole in a mesh, select the verticies, edges, or faces you wish to remove,
then hit the “Delete” key.
Adding Faces:
Sometimes, you need to fill in holes in a mesh by creating your

own faces. To do this, go into edit mode and select the verticies
you wish to face together (you are limited to 4 verticies in a
group). With verticies selected, hit the “F” key. A face will be
formed. Here is an example of 2 cubes joined
together with a space that needs filled between
them. In edit mode, select the 4 verticies (hold
down shift key and right click on them), then type
F. A face will be created. If a shape or area is
closed, you can select more than 4 verticies and
use the Shift-F option to auto-face the area. Ctrl-
F will give a Face Specials menu of options.
Bevel Command:
In edit mode, bevels (chamfers) can be applied to an object by

bringing up the shortcut menu (W key) and selecting bevel. Bevel
may not work on complex objects however.
31
Boolean Operations:
Boolean operations allow you to cut or join meshes by using

other meshes. There are 2 ways to do this in Blender. The
first method is older and less reliable. This is done by selecting
the 2 meshes (not in edit mode), then typing the “W” key. You
will see the options “Intersection, Union, and Difference”.
You will also see 3 Modifier options which will allow you to
keep the 2 original objects, but will modify their shapes
according to how they intersect each other. Below, you will see the results of each:
Basic shapes (before boolean

operation)- Cube selected 1st Basic shapes (before boolean
operation)- Cylinder selected 1st
Intersection Option Intersection Option
Union Option Union Option
Difference option Difference option
RoboDude Says: When using the older Boolean operations, a new

object is created while the original shapes are retained. You will need
to delete or move the original shapes to view the newly created shape.
Boolean Modifier Option
The newer, more reliable method is the Boolean modifier panel. This
is just another way of creating a Difference, Union or Intersect. To
add a modifier, select the ob-
ject you wish to modify, then
go to the Edit buttons
, Modifier Panel, then
select Boolean. In the modi-
fier panel, type the name of
the other mesh, select Differ-
ence, Union or Intersect and hit
Apply. The mesh should show
the operation.
To find the name of a mesh, select
the mesh. The name will be displayed
in the lower left of the viewport.
Names are Case Sensitive!
32
Boolean Editing - Lighthouse Windows
To begin this exercise, start by opening up your Lighthouse file from the last exercise. We
are going to use Boolean operations to cut some simple windows in your lighthouse.
Begin by adding a cube (Space Bar-

Add-Mesh-Cube) to your scene, exit edit
mode, and scale it to an appropriate size
and shape. Using your principle views of
#1,#3, and #7, place the cube in a good
location for a window. With the cube still
selected, make note of the cubes name,
displayed in the lower left corner of the
viewport. We will need to know that name
later (case sensitive-so note capital
letters).
Now select the Lighthouse and go to

the edit buttons. Find the Modifiers
panel and Add a Boolean modifier.
Remember that there are two methods for Boolean operations in Blender. We are using the
newer method of adding a modifier since it has received the most recent amount of work
and upgrades.
33
Boolean Editing - Lighthouse Windows
Below, you will see the information needed to complete the Boolean operation.You first need
to type the name of the mesh you are cutting out in the Ob: box. The default option above
that block is Intersection which will probably give you something you don’t want. It will re-
move everything not shared by the two shapes. Don’t worry- you can continue to make changes
before you hit the “Apply” button. Try all three Boolean options to see the results. The one
you probably want is
“Difference”. You
should notice the mesh
change to reflect the
cut-out of the cube. If
the mesh appears cor-
rect, hit the “Apply” but-
ton which sets the
mesh permanently to
that shape and re-
moves the modifier
from the list. Move the
cube from the light-
house and render
(F12) a picture to see
your results.
RoboDude Asks: Why can’t I enter the mesh name in the OB: block?
Reason #1- Check to see if you need capital letters. Reason #2- you
forgot to select the lighthouse and still have the cube selected.
After completing the first win-

dow, move the cube around
to other points of the light-
house and cut a few more win-
dows. You can even try creat-
ing other window shape be-
sides cubes for your model.

34
Chapter 4- Materials and Textures
Materials and textures are what change your model from being gray to brilliant. You can add
color, make things glow, become transparent like glass or make them look like brick, grass,
stone, metal, fabric, wallpaper, etc. There’s a lot to cover in this chapter so let’s get started.
Basic Material Settings

Shading Material Add New
You must always add a material before you can add a texture.
To add a material, first select the object you want to work with.
Then click the “Shading” button and then “Material”. Then click
the “Add New” button. You will see more options open up. The
material block is used to change some of the physical
properties of the object in how it looks. If you plan on using just
straight color and no texture, this is where you set the object’s color. The panels can float
around so they may not be in this order, but here is where you also set other properties like:
Up/Down Arrows- Panel Visibility-
Material Sample- hold down mouse click on the Texture Settings-
shows you a button to display allsmal triangle to Specularity and this panel opens up
sample of your your materials collapse/expand Hardness- con- after you put a tex-
a panel. trols if the mate- ture on to go with
material Sample Type-
Name your rial is glossy or your material
different ways to
material here flat (reflective)
display sample
Color Sliders- Emitter- gives

use these sliders Alpha Setting- use to the object some
Halo Effects-
to get the color make something transpar- self-emitting light.
opens up options
you want. ent. Works when the “Z
in the Shaders
Transparent” button is
panel that give the
pressed in the “Links and
verticies in your Ambient Color-
Pipeline” panel.
object a star-like if ambient lighting
appearance. Color Picker- By clicking on a is on in world, con-
color box beside the sliders, the trols amount
color picker window will pop up
allowing another adjustment.
These are the setting most used under the basic materials panel. There are several we haven’t
discussed here, but feel free to experiment with them to see what they do. There are also
raytracing settings in this panel that will be discussed in a later chapter.
RoboDude Asks: How can I see all the panels on the screen?
At times, you will notice that the button panels are wider than the screen.
Zoom in and out by pressing +/- on the number pad with cursor in window.
35
Transparency Using Z-Transparent
The easiest way to make something

transparent in Blender while still
maintaining a fast render speed is
to use the Z-Transparent feature
and controlling the Alpha setting. In
the Links and Pipeline panel, se-
lect the ZTransp button, then slide
the Alpha control down. Press the F12 button to render an image. If you need features like
distortion (refraction), then you will need to use Ray Transparent. Refraction is the effect you
get like looking through a magnifying glass or a crystal. Avoid using Ray features at this time.
They are discussed in a later chapter.
Halo Settings:
By using Halos on objects, you are basically only making the verticies visible when rendered.
Halo effects give you a star-like image on every vertex. Sometimes, it adds a nice effect to
take a plane and delete all verticies except for one. This one vertex can be used like a
shooting star or a “Tinkerbell” effect in an animation. Tie it to a particle effect (discussed in a
later chapter) and you can produce some interesting results. When you press the “Halo”
button in the material panel, here are your options:
Halo Size- used Rings, Lines, Stars- add
Halo Sample Material Color to determine the different features to your
size of your halo halo effect
effect.
You can control the Seed Pattern- used to

Halo, Line and Ring Turn on the Halo effect Numbers of Rings, generate a different
colors individually under “Render Pipeline”. Lines, and Stars pattern of effects
Different Halo Settings: Halo sizes can also be animated to give

Rings, Lines and the effect of growing or shrinking. Anima-
Rings Only Lines Only Star Only
Star turned on tion basics are discussed in a later chap-
ter. There are also some other options with
halos not discussed. Halos are also used
to control the size and appearance of par-
ticles in smoke and fire effects. These will
also be discussed in a later chapter. Feel
free to experiment with other features.
36
Applying Materials-Landscape
It’s now time to add some color and water to you project. Open your “Landscape Scene”
model that you created in the Basic Editing chapter. Render a picture with “F12” and it
should look something like this:
Lots of gray.... In this exercise, we are

just planning to experiment with mate-
rial colors and settings. We will also
add a plane to the scene to act as the
water. In the next activity, we will add
some texture to it.
With the landscape plane selected, go to the Material

Buttons and select “Add New”. It is good to get into the
habit of naming your materials in the MA: block in the
“Links and Pipeline” panel. By default, it will be “Mate-
rial”, probably with some zeros and numbers after it.
Create an appropriate name.
Find the RGB sliders and adjust them to

a shade of green. I know this doesn’t look
too realistic at this point, but we will ap-
ply a nice soil/grass texture in the next
exercise. For now, you’re just working with
material basics.
Another way to adjust the color is to use

the “Color Picker” discussed previously. Click on the color swatch to the left of the “Col”
block (to the left of the red slider). Since ground usually isn’t glossy, Take the “Spec”
(Specularity) down to zero (or almost zero) under
“Shaders”.
37
Now that you’ve adjusted the color and specularity in the materials panel, Press “F12” to
render a new image.
Looks better than gray, but still

needs more work. We will apply
a texture to the mesh in the next
exercise. Remember that you al-
ways need to place a material on
an object before you can add a
texture. For future reference, if we
were planning to apply an image
(picture) as a texture, you would
not need to adjust the color. How-
ever, you would still need to ad-
just specularity as needed.
We’re now ready to add some water to our scene. For this we need to add a Plane from the
Top View (#7) (Space Bar- Add- Mesh- Plane).
After adding the plane, exit edit mode (tab) and

Scale the plane to about the size of your ground.
Switch to the Front View (#1) and move the plane

to a location somewhere between the top and
bottom of your landscape rise. Press F12 to
render an image and check for appearance.
Make sure that you do not see the edge of the
plane in camera view.
Water Plane
38
Now it’s time to add a new material to the water plane exactly as we did for the landscape.
Add a new material, name the material and adjust the sliders for a shade of blue. Keep
Specularity up for this material since water should have a gloss.
Finally, render a picture using “F12”. Your sceen should now look similar to the one below. A
green landscape with blue water.
39
Basic Textures Settings
After you create a material and would like to add some kind of texture to the object (i.e. brick,
carpet, woodgrain, etc), you then click on the Texture button beside the Material button.
After you click the “Add New” button, you have some choices in the texture buttons.
First, you need to decide if you wish to use one of Blender’s preloaded texture generators or
provide your own JPEG image as
a texture. Blender is capable of
using any JPEG (.jpg) image Texture Sample
whether created in a paint program
or is a photographic image.
Blender can even place a movie
on an object as a material!. This is
a good effect if you want to add
animation within your animation.
What the texture is Browse data
linked to block arrows
RoboDude Says: You can’t add a texture unless you’ve already added
a material. Material and Texture properties work together!
Built-in texture Blender’s Built-In Textures:

generators
Let’s say you want to use one of Blender’s built-

in textures. For now, we just want to look at
Clouds, Stucci, Magic, Marble and Wood.
These can produce some interesting effects with
a little practice. When you click one, another panel
opens to the right with more settings. Each texture
Name
Texture here has different tools available to work with, but
some similarities are present in most:
Most of Blender’s texture options
deal with turbulence and noise
(randomness of the pattern) The
wood texture also has some fea-
tures dealing with the pattern of the
wood grain (bands and
rings). After you place the
texture, you still need to go
back to the Materials But-
tons to fine tune the look
on your object. The Stucci
Many textures have a texture involves a little more
“Noise Basis” for
different effects
work and will be discussed
later in this chapter.
40
After you place a texture on your object, you need to go back to the Material Buttons to
adjust the texture. For demonstration purposes, let’s use the Marble texture. After you put the
texture on and go back to the Materials Buttons, this is what you see:
Wow- the sample block looks nice, but I don’t often see much
purple and gray marble around. Time to set the colors. You
can set the base color in the material color sliders. To get rid
of the purple, you need to select the “Map To” tab and adjust
the sliders. Now you need to set the size of the texture. To do
this, click on the “Map Input” tab (beside the “Map To” tab).
In there, you will find Offset (Ofs) and Size X,Y, and Z sliders.
The Offset sliders will move the texture in different directions
on your object. The size keys default is 1 (100%). You can
adjust the sliders to increase or decrease the size of the tex-
ture. To keyboard in exact numbers for the slider val-
ues, hold down the “shift” key and LMB click in the box.
This works for all Blender key entry boxes. For most
cases, adjusting the X and Y sliders is sufficient. Press “F12”
to see your rendered scene and make adjustments from
there. With practice and patience, you will be able to make
adjustments easily.
RoboDude Says: Hold down “Shift” and LMB click in any number box
to type a number. This is the easiest way to access the number.
Stucci Texture:
The stucci texture provides interesting effect on the surface of your object. In the Texture
Buttons, select it as you do for any of the other texture generators and adjust the settings.
Next, go back to the material buttons and click the “Map To” tab, click the “Nor” button for
normal. You will see a “Nor” slider that will adjust the amount of the effect. Play with the
setting to get a bumpy effect. Turning the setting way down can also give you a grainy effect.
41
Using JPEG (.jpg) Images as Textures
The basic texture generators are nice, but not complete. Most of the time you need to place
textures like grass, brick, metal, fabrics and such into your model. Anything that can be
saved as a JPEG image can be used as a texture in Blender. If you want to put a picture
of your face on an object- you can! Movie files can also be placed on an object as a material.
To use a JPEG as a texture, add a material as before, go to the texture buttons and select the
“Image” option. When you select this, another panel opens that looks like this and the options
we want to look at: After loading an image
Rotate 90- if your or movie, you will see
image points the more options in this
The Image Button wrong direction panel
Load Image Button- hold down the “Ctrl” key and click
X and Y repeat- used to duplicate button to bring up the image window (thumbnails of
your image into a pattern images). Just clicking the button without the control
key will only bring up a text list- no pictures.
By using the Control key and clicking the Load Image button, you see a list of thumbnail
images at the current folder. Without holding the control key and just pressing the Load
Image button, you will only see a list of file names without the thumbnails. Browse through
your folders to get to your images. Blender can be set to always look to the same folder when
you click the load image button (see page 8). Select Image, then click this
“Select Image” button
When loading an image or movie, the Image
panel will display this:
Type of image or Delete, reload or
movie selected load another image
Set the number of

frames to play of
the movie. The
small arrow will
load all frames.
Tweak the movie with Make the movie

offset and start frame. play in a continu-
ous loop.
42
Once you’ve loaded the im-
age, adjust your setting.
There you can make addi-
tional corrections to the im-
age. Other textures can be
loaded onto your object for
combined effects (i.e. Stucci with a loaded jpeg image) by clicking on an empty texture chan-
nel in the list, then clicking the “Add New” button. When you finish in the texture buttons, go
back to your Material buttons to make additional adjustments. Switch to the “Map Input” tab
and look at the following settings: Specularity, Hardness and Emit-
settings discussed before, will ef-
fect your end results
Different ways to wrap the texture around your Offset and Size ad-
Important object. Watch the sample as you try it. Flat, justments as dis-
Stuff ! Cube, Tube, Sphere cussed before effect
your image
Mapped Flat will

cause the image to
map on the top of the
object and stretch
down the sides
Mapped Cube will

cause the image to
map on every face
(even if it is circular)
Mapped Flat Mapped Cube

Mapped Tube will
cause the image to
map around the ob-
ject and stretch on
the top and bottom.
Mapped Sphere will

cause the image to
compress at the top
and the bottom as
the sphere circum-
ference shrinks.
Mapped Tube Mapped Sphere
43
Displacement Mapping:
Displacement Mapping is using a texture effect to deform the mesh. Basically, you can make
a cube, sphere, etc. look wrinkled without having to move verticies around to do it. To start,
create a cube or sphere. If you start with a cube, go into Edit Mode (tab) and select all
verticies, press the “W” key to get the Specials Menu, and subdivide a few times.
Displacement works off of verticies so if you don’t have it subdivided a few times, you won’t
get a good effect. Next, put a material and a texture on the object. I used the cloud texture in
Blender. Go back to the Material Buttons and render a sample (F12). This is what I get:
Nothing that we haven’t already experienced in this chap-

ter so far. Now, go to the “Map To” panel and find the “Disp”
button to turn on Displacement. You will find a slider at the
bottom of the panel called “Disp”.
Change the setting and re-render
(F12). Displacement basically works
on varying colors in the texture. This
is also controllable.
Displacement Off Now you can see the effect

of displacement. If you cre-
ate an image using only gray,
white and black in a pro-
gram like paint, you can con-
trol where the image is dis-
torted. Gray is the base
Paint Image
Displacement On
Here are the effects of the paint image on the objects mapped with
the Cube wrap. The quality of the cuts and extrudes is determined
by the subdivision (verticies) on the mesh.
RoboDude Aks: I’ve worked with all these settings, but the texture still
won’t map correctly- what’s wrong? Textures can be affected by rotation
and scaling of objects. Try pressing Ctrl-”A” to reset scale and rotation.
44
Applying Textures-Landscape and Lighthouse
Let’s start by texturing your lighthouse. Open your “Lighthouse” model, switch to a front
view (#1), and enter edit mode (tab). Make sure you are in wireframe view (“Z” key). Deselect
all verticies using the “A” key (remember- deselected verticies are pink, selected verticies
are yellow). Zoom in on the top portion of your lighthouse.
Begin by box selecting (“B” key) the top of the lighthouse (roof
only) as shown. We will seperate these verticies from the rest
of the mesh, making it easier to apply a different material and
texture to that part of the lighthouse. Press the “P” key to
partition (seperate) and choose the “Selected” option. The top
of the lighthouse is now a
seperate mesh.
Now select all the verticies that

form the walkway with box
selection and seperate them
using “P”.
Lastly, select all the verticies that

form the lighted area of the
lighthouse and seperate them
using “P”.
Exit edit mode (tab) and zoom out to see the entire lighthouse.
The base of the lighthouse should be selected. Go to the
Shading and Material buttons. Select “Add
New”. In the “Links and Pipeline” panel, name
the material LH Base. Take the “Spec”
(specularity) setting down to 0.1. This will
keep the gloss down. We do not need to set
a color in the RGB sliders since we will be
applying an image texture to the mesh.
45
Now it’s time to add a stone image in
the texture buttons. You will need to find
a texture to use. You can search the
internet for free stone textures, look
through the Blender websites, or go to
http://www.cdschools.org/cdhs/site/
default.asp and look under
“Academics” and “Drafting and Design
Technology” for a compiled zip file.
Once you have some saved images, go
to the Texture buttons and select the
Image option. To see thumbnails, hold
the Ctrl key while clicking the “Load”
button. Pick your image and hit the
“Select Image” button at the top. Hit F12
to render an image like the one below:
Looks a bit distorted. Since Materials and

Textures work together, let’s go back to the
Materials buttons to make some changes. Under
the “Map Input” tab, change the mapping from
Flat to Tube. Render another picture and you
should see an improvement.
The image should now wrap

around the lighthouse nicely,
but the stones may be a bit
large. The image may also
look a bit flat. It would be nice
to simulate some depth to that
stone texture.
46
Go back to the Texture
buttons and find the
Xrepeat and Yrepeat
settings. Change them
from 1 to a higher
number. For this
example, we used 3 for
each, but depending on
the texture you used, it
may be different. If your
image shows a bad line
at the seams, try
clicking the Mir buttons
by each repeat setting.
This will mirror the
image to minimize
repeats.
Now it’s time to try to give the texture

some depth. Go back to the
Materials buttons and click on the
“Map To” tab. Find the Nor
(normals) button and the Nor slider.
Turn on Nor and watch the preview
panel as you adjust the Nor slider.
You will notice simulated depth.
Some images work better than
others. Render an image and adjust
as desired.
Continue texturing all other parts as desired following these steps. It’s your lighthouse so
use your imagination. After all parts are textures, it is time to cut some windows around the
top so the lighthouse beam can shine out. We will do this easily by deleting faces in edit
mode.
delete groups of 3 First, select the tube mesh and enter edit mode (tab).
faces
Change from selecting verticies to faces. (see page 21).
You will need to select every 3 faces and delete “faces”. You
will leave 1 face (as the post between the windows), and
delete the next 3 faces. Continue all the way around. Since
there are 32 divisions, it should work out perfectly all the
way around.
47
With the faces deleted, exit edit mode and render
a picture. Your lighthouse should look something
like the picture to the right.
Now that we’re done texturing and editing the

lighthouse, it’s time to join the meshes back
together. In object mode, select all the meshes by
RMB (right-mouse-button) clicking on them while
holding down the Shift key. Hit Ctrl-J and confirm
the operation. The lighthouse should once again
be a single mesh. You should also have a final
rendered view,
fully textured!
Now it’s time to save the

“Lighthouse” file and bring up the
“Landscape Scene”. It’s now time
to find a nice grass/dirt texture to
use on our ground and repeat the
same process we used for the
lighthouse. Since we already have
a material from the previous
lesson, we can use it. Take
Specularity down since it shouldn’t
be shiny. Add a new texture and
load an image of your choice. Use
the X and Y repeat setting as
needed and apply Nor (normal) to
show depth. You may want to keep
this image Mapped Flat. Here’s
the final result:
48
Let’s work on the water now. Select the
plane representing the water. Again, use the
material we previously created. Keep
Specularity high since water is glossy. We
will be using Blender’s built in cloud
generator instead of an image for this one.
Go to the Texture buttons and add a Cloud
texture. If you render a picture, you will see
the original blue and the pink color. Go back
to the Materials buttons and change the
secondary color in the Map To panel to a
slightly different shade of blue/gray.
Remember that our goal is to have a stormy

night so pick colors that would reflect that
type of scene. Adjust both colors for the best
effect. Adjust the Nor (normal) setting to
show waves and render an image to check.
Go back over to the Texture buttons and experiment

with different “Noise Basis” options to get a desired
look for your waves.
Some will look better
than others.
That’s it for now, The rendered

image should look like a fair
water texture for simple set-
tings. We will come back in a
later chapter and animate
some waves. Remember to
SAVE !

49
Chapter 5- Setting Up a World
Using Color, Stars and Mist
You’ve created a nice scene for your lighthouse, but we’re missing a really nice background.
Depending on which release of Blender you’re running, you will either have a black background
or a blue background. This is due to the fact that some releases do not start with a world set-
up initially (black) and newer releases start with a blue background (a basic world set-up).
Blender gives you some basic options in the World settings. You can control the colors of the
top and bottom (Zenith and Horizon), stars, fog or mist, clouds and, of course, loading
JPEG images. In order to create a new world, select the “Shading”
button, then “World”. If a world has not
already been placed in your scene, click and hold on the arrow
keys and select “Add New”. This will give you a basic world with a
blue horizon and a black zenith. Press the “F12” button to render Add New Arrows
your scene. You have some basic options that you can set in the
world buttons. Here’s what you see:
Use the Real but- Horizon Color- Zenith Color- sets Texture Setting-
ton to give you sets the color of the the color of the top some options to use
movement when the bottom of the scene of the scene (the when placing texture
camera moves middle blends) images.
Ambient Color- gives you an over- Mist Settings- gives Star Settings- used
all lighting effect. Good if you have you a fog effect. Can be to create a space
only a few lights and still want every- used as a consistent scene. Can control
thing to be illuminated fog or one that fades distances and size.
from ground
Mist
When using Mist, You will need to set both the Ze-
nith and Horizon Sliders to the color of the mist
you desire (middle gray for a real fog), turn on the
mist button, then adjust the Start (start from camera
distance) and Dist (depth of mist). You also have a
Height setting to vary fog height. The Misi slide can
adjust intensity.
RoboDude Asks: I put a Mist in my scene, but when I render, I can’t

see anything-Why?If you render a blank image with the F12 button, the
Dist. setting needs to be higher. The fog is too thick to see through!
50
Stars
When using Stars, you will need to set both the

Zenith and Horizon Sliders to black (for a space
scene). Turn on the Star button and adjust the Star
Dist (distance between stars) and the Min Dist
(starting distance from camera). You can also set
Star Size and Color Noise.
RoboDude Says: Remember that

you are creating an infinite 3D
star field. If you change the
Camera’s distance or set the dis-
tance between stars too low, you
may slow the computer to a crawl
by making it try to calculate too
many stars! Try a different Noise Basis for
different looking clouds. The
Creating a 3D Cloud Background Voronoi F2-F1 looks nice.
To set up a scene with clouds,

create a world as described
above. Set all of the Zenith sliders
to one (all the way to the right).
Keep the Horizon at a blue color.
Now, go to the texture buttons and
create a new texture using
“Clouds” (you will notice that the texture will be linking to the world and not a material- if not,
press the World button) Go back to the World buttons, go to the “Texture and Input” panel
and adjust the Size X and Y sliders to get the effects that you want. If you plan on moving the
camera in your scene, you may want to hit the “Real” button. You will also want to make sure
the “Blend” button is pressed.
Size X and Y- Adjusting these

can stretch out the clouds for
a more realistic look.
51
Using an Image in the Background
If you plan to use an image in your world settings, use one that is large and high quality. Low
resolution images have a tendency to be grainy and unrealistic. To use an image, create a
world as described before, then go to the texture buttons. This time, select the “Image-
Load Image” options to select your image (described in the Materials and Textures chapter).
Go back to the world settings. In Blender version before 2.4, the sample will look horrible!
Take your Zenith color sliders all up to 1(white). After you do this it should look much better.
If you hit “F12”, the background image shows up, but may look like a black-and-white image.
In order to correct this you need to go to the “Map To” panel and select “Zen Up”. You may
also want to hit “Paper” by the preview. This should correct the problem and display the
proper colors. In the newest version of Blender, it looks like this feature has changes and you
may need to press the “Zen Do” button also.
Final rendering with an image in the world.
52
Adding a World to Your Landscape
Open your “Landscape Scene”. Before we add a world
to your scene, we need to Append your lighthouse into
the scene. Append was discussed back in Chapter 1
(page 10) and is used to bring elements from one
Blender file into another one. With the Landscape Scene
open, go to “File” and “Append or Link”.
Find and select your

“Lighthouse” file.
In the append window, select “Objects” which will take

you to all of the objects in the lighthouse file. You should
only see a camera, a few lamps and the circle object
that represents the lighthouse. If you see more than one
object, you might have forgotten to join the meshes back
together. Go back into the lighthouse file and do that
before you append. RMB click on the mesh Circle that
represents your lighthouse to select it, then click
the”Load Library” button.
Your lighthouse will now be in

your landscape scene. It will
probably need to be scaled
and moved to a good location.
Always work in your 3
principle views (#1,3,7) to get
it accurately moved and
scaled. Try for something like
this final rendering.
53
It’s time to add a world to our scene. Feel free to experiment with any of the settings, but we
are actually looking for a “dark and stormy night”, say, at late day or dusk. I imaging it being
foggy, with a billowing effect.
Start by going to the World buttons and

delete the default world by hitting the “X”
by the name block, then “Add New”.
Since we want a fog, set the Horizon

and Zenith colors to 2 slightly different
shades of gray. To do this, you cna click
on the color swatches and pick the gray
from the menu blocks.
Turn on the Mist button and start with a Dist setting

of about 25. Render the image and make
adjustments as needed. Your goal is to be able to
see the lighthouse, but a bit foggy.
You should get a render that

looks something like this.
54
This foggy scene looks good, but it would be nice to see some depth. Many times, a fog can
appear “billowy” with varying density. For this, we will add a Cloud Texture. Go to the
Texture buttons and add
a Cloud texture. Make
sure World is selected
by the preview. Try
different Noise Basis
settings to get the look
you want.
At this point, go back to the World buttons, render an image and make adjustments as
needed. You can adjust the sizes of the cloud texture, adjust the colors, work with the mist
settings (Dist, Misi). You may also want to go back to the texture settings and adjust the
Noise Basis. We will animate this fog rolling by in a later chapter.
55
Chapter 6- Lighting and Cameras
Lighting Types and Settings
When you create a scene in Blender, you start with a few basic elements that will include a
camera, but may or may not include a light. Remember that what the camera sees is what will
render out as a picture or movie depending on what you tell the program you want as a final
output. To get a simple rendered view, press the “F12” key. This will open a window that will
display the rendered output of what the camera is focused on. If the picture is black, you do
not have a lamp or the lamp settings or placement is incorrect. To exit the render window,
press the “Esc” key.
In most cases, you will need more than one lamp in order to properly illuminate your scene.
Most scenes usually require 3-4 lamps. Be careful not to use too many lamps! The different
types of lamps available for you to use are as follows:
Lamp- Basic Blender Lamp- shines all directions

Area- Provides large area lighting (like a classroom). Can be scaled.
Spot- Shines a direct angle of light
Sun- Provides an even angle of light, regardless of placement from objects.
Hemi- A wider light, much like area lights.
In traditional Blender rendering, only spotlights are able to cast shadows. However, with the
introduction of Raytracing (discussed in a later chapter) all lamps can cast shadows.
Lamp Settings:
To create a lamp, position the 3D cursor in a desired location and press the “Space Bar”
and select Lamp, then type. The lamp will be placed on the screen. You now have several
options to select. With the lamp selected, click the Shading button and Lamp
button to bring up the adjusting options. Here’s what you see:
RoboDude Says: Instead of adding too many lights, experiment with
the Distance and Energy settings!
Distance and Energy Setting- how bright and
Lamp Types-choose the style
how far the lamp shines
Lamp Name Lamp Color Shadow and Spotlight Settings
There are other lamp setting available, but for now, these are the basics.
56
Spotlight Settings:
Spotlights are unique in that you can simulate a foggy scene with them and cast shadows in
the traditional Blender program. Raytracing (discussed in a later chapter) can cast shadows
for all lamp types, but because of the more complex rendering calculations that need to be
performed, renders much slower. If you watch professionally made animations on T.V., you
will see that raytracing with reflections is not always used because of the rendering time. It is
only used when needed. You can do the same thing. Here are your spotlight settings:
Samples and Steps
Select Buffer Shadow- Spotlight Si and Bl- sets the spotlight
control quality and
traditional, faster beam angle and edge softness
effects
spotlight settings
Lamp Color, Distance,

Clip Start and End- These
and Energy as before need to be set to just include
Buffer Size-higher
Halo and Halo numbers mean the objects that need to cast
Intensity- gives smoother shadows shadows. If clip start is too far
and controls a above the objects or if clip end
smokey effect it too far away, shadows won’t
work.
In order for the shadows to display in your render

window (F12), you need to tell the program to ren-
der shadows if it isn’t set to do so already. Click on
the Scene and Render buttons found in the bottom
and find the Shadows button. If Ray is
turned on, turn it off at this time.
RoboDude Asks: I have Buffer Shadows on and set to render, but

why do my shadows look bad?
If your shadows do not render well, experiment with the Clip Start, Clip End
and Shadow Buffer settings.
Experiment with the different types of lights you have available. Different lights can be used to
get different effects. As mentioned before, try not to add too many lights to your scene. It is
better to keep it down to 3-4 and play with their locations and setting, rather than flood the
scene in light. Think of it in terms of real lighting situations.
57
Cameras:
By default, your scene already has one camera and that is usually all you need, but on occasion
you may wish to add more cameras. You add more cameras by hitting the Space Bar, like
creating all other objects discussed up until now. To change which camera is active, you
need to select that camera and press “Ctrl” and number pad “0”. This changes the active
camera.
Like all other objects in Blender, you can adjust the camera settings as well. With the camera
selected, click on the edit button. Here are some of the settings options you have:
Lens- Set-up a lens length much like a real camera. 35mm is a good, safe setting, but
wide and tight angle setting work for different needs.
Clip Start- How close an object can get to the camera and still be seen.
Clip End- How far away objects can be seen by the camera. In very large scenes, this
needs to be set higher or things “disappear” from view.
Size- How big to draw the camera on the screen. You can also control size with scale.
Ortho- Used to set the camera from showing a true-life perspective view to an
orthographic view.
Show Mist- Used to give you a visual display of how far the camera sees if using
Mist (discussed in Chapter 6).
Limits- Draws a line in the scene to help you visualize the camera’s range
Name- With all objects, the name of the object or camera can be displayed on the
screen, but this will display the name in the camera view.
Title Safe- Displays the inner dashed box to help with placement of objects and text.
Passepartout- Shades the area on the screen outside of the camera’s view. You can control
the darkness of the shaded area with the Alpha slider.
Shift- Pushes the camera’s view in a direction, without changing perspective.
Dof- (Depth-of-field)- Used with nodes to blur foreground and background objects.
This will be discussed in the “Working with Nodes” chapter.
58
Lighting Up Your Landscape
What is a lighthouse scene without a light
shining out through the fog? Open your
“Lighthouse Scene” and place the 3D
cursor directly in the middle of the lighthouse
where the spotlight should shine. Use your
3 principle views (#1,3,7) to place the cursor
in a good location. After the cursor is located,
check to see if you are in the front view (#1)
and add a Spot Lamp (Space Bar-Add-
Lamp-Spot).
After the lamp is added, go to

the Lamp buttons (Shading-
Lamp) and adjust the Spot Si
slider to about 10. This will give
you a narrow beam that is
about 10 degrees wide. In the
top view, rotate the lamp to
point to the left to give you a
nice rendered view. Also turn
on the Halo button. Render an
image. Fine tune the spot light
with Distance and Energy
setting and the Halo Intensity
slider.
Your final rendering should

look something like the
image on the right. Looks
good, but something is
missing. There should be
something in the middle of
the lighthouse emitting that
light. We’ll do something
simple, but effective for
that next.
59
Lighting Up Your Landscape
Now it’s time to add something in the middle of that lighthouse. Basically, we’re going to
add a mesh with a single vertex and place a Halo Material on it.
keep and move to Start by making sure the 3D cursor is still in the middle
center of the lighthouse top. If it isn’t, an easy way to get it
there is to select the spotlight and hit “Shift-S” and
select the option “Cursor to Selection”. This is a
great command to use and use often. In the top view,
add a plane. Delete all but one verticie. Move that
remaining verticie to the center of the lighthouse. After
erase you move the one verticie, exit edit mode.
Now go to the Materials buttons and Add a new

material. Press the Halo button and go to the Shaders
panel. Here, you will see some Halo settings. Adjust
the Halo Size (try 1.0 or more), turn on Rings and Star,
and try adding more Rings and Stars. You may want
to try adjusting the Hardness and Add sliders.
Your end result should

look something like this
with a ring and star in the
center of the lighthouse.
You may need to darken
your world setting a bit to
get the best effect.
Call the
instructor when
finished
60
Chapter 7- Render Window Settings
Basic Setup Options
The render window is where you tell the program what you want as an output for your scene.
Do you want a JPEG picture image or a movie? What size do you want the output to be? Do
you want a high quality output or a draft style format? Do you want shadows or Raytracing
effects? How about motion Blur? If you’re doing a movie, how many frames-per-second do
you want the movie to run? Last, but not least, where do you want to save the file? All of these
issues are addressed in the Render Buttons. Obviously, the higher the quality of the output,
the slower it will render and the larger the file size will be when finished. For a review of
rendering and animation basic, refer back to pages 2 and 3 in the manual. Now, click on the
“Scene” and “Render” buttons so we can get started.
The Rendering Interface and Settings:
There are many options that need to be addressed in order to save your work as an image or
movie. Some of these feature will be discussed in more detail in later chapters. For now, we
are just interested in saving basic images in JPEG (.jpg) format and movies in the Windows
(.mpg) movie format. Be aware that other options exist and more are added every few releases.
#2 #3
#1 #4 #5 #6 #7
#8 #9 #10 #11 #12 #13 #14 #15

#1. File name and saving location- Click on the small file folder icon to create a
file name and select a save location. It’s a good idea to type the .mpg (movie file) and
.jpg (image file) after the name you give the file. This keeps Blender from adding
numbers after your file. (Blender does this to show which frames were rendered)
#2. Render Button- This is the same as pressing “F12” to bring up the render window.
#3. Render Engine- Blender is creating support for other external renderers. Keep
this set to “Blender Internal” to use Blender’s internal renderer.
#4. Additional Settings- Right now we are only interested in the “Shadows” button and
the “Ray” buttons. Use the shadows button if you’ve used lights that cast shadows
(spotlights). The Raytracing button will be discussed in the next chapter.
#5. Animate Button- Press this button to actually make the movie or sample files of
your animation. Get ready to sit for a while because this is what takes some time
depending on the size of your animation. Use this after all your other settings are
complete.
61
#6. Size X and Y- This is the final size of your rendering or animation in pixels. You can
set them manually here or select a preset size.
#7. Preset Rendering Sizes- Pressing these buttons will set up #6 for you. We usually
select the “NTSC” size which sets the image to 720 x 480 pixels. This is considered
US and Japan DVD quality.
#8. Render Window Location- These buttons determine where the render window is
displayed on the screen when you hit “Render” or “F12”. If you wish to change the
location, close the render window, then change location. When you render again, it
should be displayed at the new location.
#9. OSA (Oversampling)- Oversampling improves the quality of your output. We
normally turn it on and set it to “8”. This gives you a nice output without much loss in
rendering time.
#10. Motion Blur- Use this if you have something moving fast and want to simulate a
blur effect. Don’t forget to play with the settings.
#11. Output Percentage- We normally don’t mess with these, but if your image doesn’t
seem to be the right size, check to make sure you didn’t take it off of 100%. The
Preview button in the preset sizes will change the percentage for quicker renders.
#12. Play Button- After you animate something, you can watch it in Blender by pressing
this.
#13. “Start” and “End” Frames- This is how you control which frames render in a movie.
#14. File Type Menu- This is where you select the type of file you want for your output.
Select a “JPEG” if you want a single image and “FFMPEG” for a movie. If you
select a JPEG, then set the quality option under the box. If you are selecting an FFMPEG,
you are creating an MPEG2 file by default, but can change to others. You also have
several other types of output files available, but these are the two we use most.
#15. Frames Per Second- This is an important one to set at the very beginning when
you begin animating. Frame rates between 15 and 30 work well with the standards
being 25 and 30 (see page 3). Hitting the NTSC button will automatically change this
to 30fps. New animators often have trouble animating things at a normal speed. Either
things happen too fast or too slow. This gets better with practice.
RoboDude Says: Experiment with these settings to become

comfortable with them. It’s sometimes best to work and model with
small output sizes, then render at higher settings.
Rendering a JPEG (.jpg) Image
In order to render a simple JPEG image, set up all of the options previously discussed. It is
important that the file type is set to JPEG. For single pictures, it’s nice to have a high quality
image because time isn’t as important when you’re rendering a single image as it is when
rendering a movie. Press the “F12” button or “Render” button to bring up the render window.
With the render window up, Press “F3”. This will open the file save window. Here is where you
give your file a name and set the location. Remember to type .jpg after the name of the file
so it saves properly. Windows will not know what to do with the file if the .jpg
extension is missing and Blender may not put it on for you.
62
Creating an MPEG Movie File
In chapter 9, you will be creating your first computer animation. After you create all of you
objects, apply materials and textures, and create your animations, you will be ready to make
a movie file of your scene. Here are the steps to saving that movie file:
Seven Easy Steps to Create an MPEG Movie File:

(our settings)
1. Select “NTSC” (or whatever your output choice) in the Format Panel.
2. Change the file type from JPEG to FFMpeg.
3. Make sure that OSA is ON.
4. In the OUTPUT panel, click on the top file folder and set the path and name of the
movie file. Remember to type “.mpg” at the end of the name or Blender will put a
bunch of numbers on the end of the file (the frames rendered).
5. Check the “Sta” and “End” frames for the length of the animation. Also check the
frames per second setting.
6. Check to make sure the Shadow and Ray buttons are on or off (depending on you
output wishes).
7. Finally, hit the ANIM button to animate your movie.
Now just sit back and relax. The movie may take a while to compile (minutes, hours, days
depending on complexity and computer speed) since it needs to render each and every
frame of the movie.
Additional Mpeg video
#4 and audio options
#3 #6 #7 #1
#5 #2
63
Rendering- Saving a Picture of the Landscape
Open your Landscape file and set up a good view for rendering to a JPEG file. Set your
render options for the following:
1. Select file output type as JPEG, set quality to 100%
2. Turn on shadows
3. Turn on OSA and set to 8
4. Click the NTSC button to render an image at 720 x 480.
5. Name your file: Landscape Image.jpg
Double check all other settings as per the chapter descriptions, render image (F12) and
save the image (F3). Don’t forget to add .jpg to the end of the file name! We will soon be
using the animation setting so begin to become familiar with those adjustments. We will be
using them within the next few exercises.
Additional Exercise:
Render your landscape at the “FULL” size setting in the preset rendering size options. After
you save it, open the picture in a program that allows you to set it as your desktop background
(i.e. Windows Picture and Fax Viewer).
64
Chapter 8- Raytracing
Raytracing is such an important addition to Blender that it has been placed in its own chapter.
Raytracing is used to produce mirrored and reflective surfaces. It is also being used to create
transparency and refraction (bending of images through transparent surfaces- like a magnifying
glass or a lens). With raytracing, all Blender lights can cast shadows if you desire. Raytracing
can produce some stunning effect, but can come at a high cost in rendering times. Use it
only where needed. Don’t try to raytrace everything. The professionals don’t even do that.
Watch any 3D show on T.V. and you will see it being used selectively. You can get some great
shadow and texture effects with Blender’s traditional spotlights and material settings at a
fraction of the render times.
To get raytracing to work, you need to go to the Render

Buttons and turn on “Ray” (for Raytracing- see previous
chapter). Now you are ready to apply some of the raytracing
features to your objects. Until you do that you won’t see any
difference in your renders.
Lighting and Shadows
To get a ray shadow for a lamp, select the lamp you want
to cast shadows (all types work with raytracing), go to the
Shading and Lamp buttons, find the “Ray Shadow” button
and activate it.
When you activate ray shadow, you will see a few setting for most of the lamp types. You will
see “Soft Size” settings for edge softness and “Samples” for improved quality.
You will notice a few extra setting options for a ray spotlight. Spotlight Si, Spotlight Bl, and
Halo Int work the same as they do for a buffer shadow spotlight.
65
Reflection (mirror) and Refraction (transparency and distortion)
To create a mirror, or reflective surface on an object, select that object and add a material.
You can also add textures to an object and have a mirror surface. In the material buttons, you
will find a panel called “Mirror Transp”. All of the raytracing features are found in that panel.
Press the “Ray Mirror” button and experiment with the reflection settings. The Ray Mir slider
controls the amount of mirror. A full slider would be a perfect mirror.
For Transparency, press the “Ray Transp” button to activate it. Two main adjustments are
IOR (Index of Refraction) is used to create the Lens effect and bends light. Fresnel is used to
control the amount of transparency. There are some other setting that you may feel free to
experiment with, but these are the main settings.
Mirror Settings: Transparency Settings:
Turn transparency on/off
Turn mirror on/off
RayMir- sets the degree of IOR- (index of refraction)- used
mirror to provide distortion through a
transparent object
Fresnel- controls degree of
mirror Fresnel- set how transparent
the object is
Depth- controls quality
Depth- controls quality. If you
Max Dist- controls how far away are looking through a multiple
things reflect in the surface. layed object (like a drinking
glass), this will help with real-
What the mirror should fade to istic transparency.
pas the Max Dist.
High mirror setting to make Transparency with IOR for

the monkey look like chrome refraction
Ray shadow on light
Light mirror setting on

the floor
66
Raytracing Practice Exercise
Since we don’t have many objects that would work well with mirror/transparency in our
lighthouse scene (except the water, which would create a slow rendering), we will create a
new scene for our raytracing exercise. Create any model you like using any meshes you
wish and apply materials and textures. The scene must contain:
1. At least one lamp with Ray Shadows.

2. At least one object with Ray Transparency.
3. At least one object with Ray Mirror.
When finished, render an image and save it as a JPEG image.
67
Chapter 9- Animation Basics
Timing, Moving, Rotating and Scaling
Now that we know how to make stuff and make it look good, it’s time to figure out how to move
it around in your scene. Another name for an animation is Interpolation (Ipo). Remember
this term because Blender uses the Ipo name in many different window areas to relate to
animation features. This is a big area with lots of things we can do and talk about. Many of the
features available will become understandable with practice and by getting beyond the basics.
This is a highly developed area in Blender therefore new features will more than likely be
available before this document can ever be printed. For this reason, we will deal with the
basics. The first thing we need to do is go back and re-read the section on Rendering and
Animation Basics (pages 2-3).
Current Frame- You can change the current frame by holding down the “Shift” key
and LMB clicking in the box. You can then type in a new number and will go to that
frame. You can also use the “Arrow Keys” to move along the timeline. Up/Down arrows
move 10 frames at a time, Left/Right arrows move 1 frame at a time.
Frames Per Second (fps)- set this to an

adequate number. NTSCis 30 fps.
After you set up your scene and set the Frames/Second in the render button area, consider
what you want your “actors” to do and how long they should take to do it. One of the problems
that beginner animators experience is making the motions occur in an appropriate time.
Remember to look at your frames/second when animating and relate it to time. For example,
if you want something to take 3 seconds to make a complete “walk around circle” on the
screen and you are running at 25 fps, you need to complete the animation in a total of 75
frames. RoboDude Says:
If an object doesn’t seem like it rotates prop-
Moving, Rotating and Scaling: erly with animation keys, try pressing Ctrl-A
to reset the object’s scale and rotation.
These are the 3 basic modifiers to use on an object in animation. When you
create keyframes in Blender with these modifiers, Blender will figure out all the
inbetween locations on the other frames. To insert a key on an object, go to the
frame where you wish to place the key, move, rotate or scale the object, then
press the “I” key to “Insert Key”. Make sure your cursor is in the 3D window
when you push the “I” key. The menu to the right pops up. You have 3 main options
for now- Loc (location), Rot (rotation) and Size (size or scale) and
combinations of these. We’ll talk about the Mesh option in a later chapter. Select
the key option of what you’ve done to the object. Now, advance to the next frame where you
want to put a key (i.e. frame 25 if you want a movement to occur after 1 second), move, rotate
or size the object, then press “I” to insert another key.
68
Continue placing keys along your timeline to create your animation. For the most part, loca-
tion and size keys work flawlessly, but care needs to be given to rotation keys. If you try to
rotate an object too far in one set of keys, the object may not rotate in the exact direction you
want it to. It may rotate oddly. Try small angular steps while animating rotation keys. There are
ways to control this better and tools to simplify this process that will be discussed later.
Viewing Your Animation:
There is a simple way to view your animation without having to render out a movie. Take the
current frame number to the place where you want to start viewing the animation.Place
your cursor in the 3D window you wish to view your animation and press the “Alt” and “A”
keys together. The animation will play in the 3D window where your cursor is located. Blender
will attempt to display the movie at the correct frames-per-second, but may be unable to do
so due to scene complexity or image settings (solid or wireframe -Z key).
Movement may not be exactly how you planned it. Blender automatically defaults to trying to
create a smooth flow through the keys you’ve place. This can be changed and will be discussed
later.
Working With The IPO Window:
Animation is difficult to do without some basic knowledge of the IPO

Window. If you are working in a split 3D window screen (as previously
discussed), change the right hand viewport to the IPO Curve Editor
Window Type. In this window you will see your animation represented
in a graphical form. Location, Rotation and Size X,Y, Z tracks are
displayed. You can zoom in/out and pan in this window with the center
mouse wheel. You can also select a track and press the “Tab” key to
edit individual keys on the timeline.
Right now, you are looking at the Object’s

animation keys, but you can animate a
lot of different things in Blender, including
materials and world settings. To view the
different types of animation tracks, select
the “Ipo type” window.
To animate material and world settings, place your cursor down in

the buttons window while in the world or material settings. Press
“I” to insert keys. You will see a variety of options available to you.
69
As mentioned before, when you create an animation for an object, Blender automatically tries
to “smooth” the path of animation through your key points. You have ways of controlling the
results of the path. One way is to click on the path(s) you want to modify in the IPO window
and, with the cursor in the IPO window, type “T” for type. You
have 3 options:
Constant- Gives a square waveform, like turning it on
and off. No smooth flow.
Linear- takes a straight path from point “A” to point
“B”. Solves problems of animations swinging
way out of where you want it to go, but jerky
motion at key points
Bezier- The default type which tries to make the motion
through the points smooth.
Every application may require a different type and can be
frustrating to work with until you get some practice.
Animation path of a cube with 3 keys placed at Animation path of a cube with 3 keys placed at
shown locations with Bezier path type selected. shown locations with Linear path type selected.
Path is smooth, but curves way out. Path is straight, but jerky at key points.
There is another way to keep the bezier type, but control the flow. It
requires you to go into the track in edit mode and adjust verticies on
the graph individually. first, select the track you wish to modify (Loc,
Rot, Size- X, Y, or Z) and press the “Tab” key to go into track edit
mode. When you do that, each key will be displayed as 3 points.
By grabbing (“G” key) an end of the “3-point spline”, you can move
and size it to get a different flow through that point. This technique
requires some skill and practice. Key points can also be moved to
different locations using this method (change a key from one frame
to another.)
RoboDude Says: If you ever need to start over with an animation, you
can erase all the animation tracks in the Ipo window and start over. To
select all tracks, hit the“A” key once or twice.
70
Extended Modes:
When you need to animate something with

repetitive motion (wheel spinning, person
walking, etc.), you do not need to keep adding
keys along the path. All you need to do is create
one cycle of the motion you want to duplicate,
find the animation path in the Ipo window you
wish to duplicate, then select “Curve” from the
menu. In the flyout menu, find “Extend Mode”
and select the type you want. It will then
duplicate the motion along the path. Again,
experiment with the various types. Use
“Extrapolation” to show circular motion like a wheel turning. “Cyclic” would be good for a
walking or swinging motion.
Automatic Object Keyframing:
I have noticed problems in the last two releases with the Auto Keyframing option
in the top “User Preferences “ menu. The alternate method for activating Auto
Keyframing is to create an additional viewport somewhere on your screen and change
the Window Type to Timeline. In this viewport, you will see standard play, rewind, fast-
forward buttons along with a Red, Record button. By pressing the red button and selecting
“Add/Replace Keys”, every movement will be recorded to an IPO. You will not need to
press the “I” key. Start by moving, rotating or sizing in frame 1 (or wherever you want the
animation to start), change to your next keyframe location and move, rotate or size again.
Continue down the timeline as needed. Go back to the beginning and hit “Alt-A” to see
the animation.
RoboDude Says: Remember to turn off Auto Keyframing when you

don’t need it on. It’s too easy to mess up your animation! Also, re
member that Blender can UNDO (Ctrl-Z), but Blender will not remind
you to save your work. Save your file and save often!
This section dealt with basic object animation. Deforming meshes, following paths, creating
bone structures (armatures) and creating child-parent relationships will be discussed later.
Animation can be a frustrating thing to perfect. Practice is the best way to learn it and by
asking questions.
71
Animating Materials, Lamps and World Settings
Now that you know the basics of animating objects, we can now look at some of the things we
can animate in materials, lamps and worlds. First, we select the object or lamp we want to
create an animation effect on, then go to the appropriate lamp or material buttons, with the
cursor in the buttons window, press “I” to insert key, and select our option.
Material Animation Options:
RGB- Color can be animated to change .

Alpha- Transparency of an object can be animated.
Halo Size- A halo can grow or shrink in an animation. Setting a
Halo to zero will make it fade out or in completely.
Offset- If a texture has been applied, it can appear to move on
the object in an X, Y and\or Z direction.
Size- The X,Y,Z size of a texture on the object can be animated.
All Mapping- Use this to set all possible adjustments in one step.
Lamp Animation Options:
RGB- Color can be animated to change .

Energy- The intensity of the lamp can be changed and even set to
zero to go on or off.
Spotlight Size- The angle of the spotlight beam can be sized during
animation. Go from wide to narrow beam or vice-versa.
Offset- If a texture has been applied to the lamp (yes, an image
or movie can be projected), it can appear to move on the
beam in an X, Y and\or Z direction.
Size- The X,Y,Z size of a texture on the lamp can be animated.
World Animation Options:

Zenith RGB- Color of the zenith (top) can be animated. Great for
simulating sunsets.
Horizon RGB- Color of the horizon (bottom) can be animated. Again,
great for simulating sunsets night scenes.
Mist- Fog effects can be animated for interesting effects.
Stars- Star effects can be animated.
Offset- If a texture has been applied to the world, it can appear to
move on an X, Y and\or Z direction. Great to show cloud
movement.
Size- The X,Y,Z size of a texture on the world can be animated.
RoboDude Says: Remember that animations can be seen in the Ipo

window by changing what types of Ipos are seen in the window!
72
Animating Your Lighthouse
Open your “Landscape Scene” file and go to your scene buttons. It’s time to animate our
“dark and stormy night”. We will start by making the correct setting to do a movie. First,
review the “7 Easy Steps to Creating a Movie” found on page 63. Follow those steps and
name the output movie file as “Stormy Night.mpg”. Also set the End frame to 200. Our
movie will be 200 frames long, or 6.6 seconds at 30 fps.
The first thing we plan to animate is the camera. We will do a short, simple movement of the
camera coming closer to the shore. In the top view, select the Camera. Make sure the camera
is at a good location and does
not render any edges of your
planes. At frame 1, hit “I” to
insert a Loc (location) key.
Now use your arrow keys to

move to frame 200. Move the
camera closer to shore, hit “I”
to insert another location key.
The motion doesn’t need to be

much. we don’t want the boat
moving too fast! Go back to frame
1 and hit Alt-A while your cursor
is in the camera viewport. You
should see the camera animated.
Press Esc to stop playing the
animation. Save your file.
Now we’re going to animate the spotlight rotating in the

lighthouse. In the top view, select the spotlight. At frame
1, press “I” to insert a Rot (rotation) key. It doesn’t matter
at what angle the spotlight is starting at in the animation.
73
Go to frame 30 (one second) and rotate the spotlight 45
degrees. To do this, type “R” to rotate, then type 45 on the
keyboard. Press “Enter” or LMB click. The lamp will have
rotated exactly 45 degrees. If you want the lamp to spin the
opposite direction, type - after the 45. Use your left arrow key
to go back to frame 1. You should see the lamp spin back to
it’s original position.
In order to keep the lamp spinning consistently the entire

animation, we could attempt to continue along the time line,
inserting keys every 45 degrees and 30 frames, but that would
get boring very fast. Instead, we will use an Extend mode in
the IPO Curve window.
Change the right side window to the IPO Curve window

and find the animation track that shows change over
time (should be the Rot Z curve). RMB click on the
curve to select it. In the Curve menu, select Extend
Mode and Extrapolation.
This will cause the curve to extend infinitely in both

direction, rotating constantly at that speed. Change this
window back to the 3D View window type and press
Alt-A to see the animation. The lamp should spin the
entire time.
74
Now it’s time to animate the water. We want to create some rolling waves, not too fast or
slow. This is a little trial-and-error. I’ve tried to take some guess work out of the process. To
begin, select the Water Plane and go to your Materials buttons. Go to the Map Input tab
and find the Ofs (offset) keys for the texture. We
will animate the Ofs Z number. Because we used
a 3D texture and not an image to create the water
effect, it can be animated to give the illusion of
motion.
At frame 1, and with your cursor in the materials

button area, press “I” and insert an Ofs (Offset)
key. This will set the animated offset to zero at
frame 1. At frame 1
Now advance to frame 50 and change the Z Ofs number

to 0.1. This will cause the water to “roll” up slightly. Again,
with your cursor in the buttons window area, press “I”
and insert an Ofs (Offset) key. This will cause the texture
offset to roll from frame 1 to 50. Since we can’t really hit
Alt-A to see the animated texture in the window, we have
to wait until we animate a movie to see the speed and
At frame 50 effect. If you place your cursor in the buttons window area
and hit “Alt-A” you will see the number changing in the
“Ofs Z” block.
Now we need to go to the IPO Curve
window to Extrapolate the curve over time.
In order to see the material animation
curves, we need to change the view of the
IPO type from Object to Material. Find the
aimated curve and select it (should be the
Ofs Z curve). Go to the Curve menu,
Extend Mode and select Extrapolation.
This should extent the curve, just like we did
for the lamp.
That’s it for animation for now. We have
animated the camera moving, the lamp
spinning and the waves rolling. Later, we will
add some rain using particles. You can always
change to a preview size to animate faster and
check your wave effects. Check your movie
setting and press Animate in the Scene
buttons. Sit back and wait for your movie to
animate.
75
Chapter 10- Adding 3D Text
We’ve discussed creating a lot of objects so far, but 3D text can be considered a very important
element to add. There are 2 ways to create text for Blender scenes. One way is to use the
built-in text generator. The other method is to use an external program to generate the text
and import it into Blender. Each method has its benefits and disadvantages. Text made in
Blender can be easily changes by entering edit mode (“Tab” key) and 3D features can be
changed by making adjustments in the edit buttons. Text made in an external program like
Elefont may give you additional options and different fonts.
Blender 3D Text Settings
To create text in Blender, select the location of your text with the 3D cursor, then press the
“Space Bar” to “Add”. Select “Text”. The word “Text” appears on the screen in edit mode.
Change the text and exit edit mode (“Tab” key). Go to the Edit
Buttons . Extrude the text and make any other necessary
adjustments. By pressing the “Z” key and the “Set Smooth” button,
you can see the effects of the settings on the screen. Text can easily
be changed by entering edit mode again.
Load Font- select

Closed or Open your font here (see
Justification
Shape (Front/Back) details below)
Set Smooth 3D Features- Here you select the Style Options- Size and Letter Spac-
Button thickness and width of the extrude ing, Shear (italic), Linedist (spacing
that makes the text 3D. between lines) X,Y Offset (moves
text up/down left/right of center point)
Blender will use the fonts that you have loaded with your
system. If you are using a Windows computer, fonts will be
found on the C: drive in the Windows folder. You should
see a folder there called Fonts. You will only be able to use
fonts that are marked with a small square. Some of these
fonts may become distorted when extruded into a 3D
shape.
76
Creating Text on a Curve
Blender text has the ability to follow a Curved Path.

In order to create curved text, hit the Space Bar,
select “Add”, “Curve”, then “Path” (or any other
curve shape). The curve will come into the scene in
edit mode. Shape the curve as desired, then hit
Tab to exit edit mode.
After you create the text, go to the Edit Buttons

Curve Path
and find the box “Text On Curve”. Type the name
of the curve (found in the lower-left corner of the
viewport when the curve is selected- remember that
names are case sensitive). The text will take the
shape of the curve. You may need to change the
Text that will follow curve spacing of the text so it flows properly.
RoboDude Says: When extruding text for normal titles and labels, be
careful not to extrude the text too thick. It may effect how well the text
can be read.
Converting Text Into a Mesh
At times you may need to convert text into a mesh for certain pur-
poses (i.e. using a Build Effect discussed in chapter 12). To con-
vert text into a mesh, press “Alt-C” to convert it first into a Curve or
Mesh. In edit mode, the text will now display with verticies.
At times, you may feel limited with Blender text (although it seems to improve with each new
release). In these cases, you may wish to use an external 3D text program like Elefont which
saves files in standard DXF format, then import them into your Blender file.
77
Using Elefont for 3D Text (external program)
A popular program to use for creating 3D text for Blender models is a freeware program
called Elefont available at www.armanisoft.ch. This is a simple-to-use program that saves
the file as a .DXF format. Any program that can export 3D text files as .DXF should also work
fine. Remember that Blender accepts files that are saved as .DXF and VRML(.wrl). For the
purpose of this activity, we will be discussing Elefont. Here are your options in Elefont:
T- Font selection,
style and size. You Text Window- Type your text
can only use True- sample here.
Q- Sets the quality of Type-Fonts (TTF)
the curve (more or less
faces) (hold down LMB
on button, drag left/
right)
E- Extrude Depth (hold

down LMB on button,
drag left/right)
e- Brings up extruder
window to see text
B- Bevel type- options for
putting a bevel on your
text.
S- Bevel Scale (size of

bevel) (hold down LMB
on button, drag left/
right)
F- Export (save) file to
DXF format
H- Help information
After you create and save your 3D text, open Blender and go to the “File” pull down menu.
Select “Open”. This acts like an import command for non-Blender files. Find your file and
open it into your Blender scene. This text acts like any other mesh in your scene. Add materi-
als and textures and modifiers as needed. If you need all the letters connected together,
select them all by clicking on them while holding down the “Shift” key. Once all the letters are
selected, Press “Ctrl” and “J” to join them.
EleFont text in Blender in Edit Mode

where verticies are shown
EleFont text in Blender with “Z” toggled

to show a shaded view.
78
3D Text-Company Logo
Create a new Blender scene and set up the views any way you wish. You will be creating a
company logo of your choice with text. Keep it simple and utilize meshes, textures, lighting
effects and raytracing to enhance your scene.
When you finish setting up your scene, render a JPEG image and save it to your directory.
Note: The text you see in the scene below was placed on a Bezier Circle Curve. If you
leave the circle in the scene it will render faced. The text was converted into a mesh, then
the curve deleted. The water was created the same way we did the water in the lighthouse
scene (with much less Normal) with ray mirror added.
79
Chapter 11- NURBS and Meta Shape Basics
When you press the “Space Bar” and select “Add”, you will notice other object types beside
meshes, cameras and lights that can be created. Two types of objects that can be created
are Surfaces (NURBS) and Meta Objects. A lot can be said about surfaces, but for this
tutorial, I want you just to become aware that they are there and describe some basics about
them. Meta objects have been expanded to a variety of shapes and can be used to give you
a “liquid metal” effect where the objects “pull” together as they become close to each other.
Using NURBS to Create Lofted Shapes (surfaces)
If you look at the Surface menu, you will see a variety

of shapes that can be created. These shapes can be
use as they are or converted to meshes so you can
work with traditional verticies. To convert a surface into
a mesh, select the object and press the “Alt” and “C”
keys. Click on “Mesh”. You can do a lot with NURBS
and there are several tutorials on-line describing them,
but for now, we will just work with a NURBS Circle to
create an interesting looking tunnel.
Creating a Lofted Tunnel
This process will take several profiles of a NURBS Circle and connect
them together. First thing you need to do is create a NURBS Circle.
To do this, press the “Space Bar”, select “Add”, then “Surface” and
“NURBS Circle”. The circle comes in in edit mode. Select the points
and shape the circle a bit. After shaping, exit edit mode.
Change your view so you are looking down

on the circle. Use the “Shift-D” keys to
duplicate the circle several times. Then rotate
your view so you can select each circle and
edit the shapes in edit mode (Tab key).
After shaping the circles, exit edit mode and
select them all by RMB
clicking on them while holding the “Shift” key.
To join them together, press “Ctrl” and “J”.
For the final step, press “Tab” for edit mode,
“A” for all verticies,
then “F” for face.
Your result should be
a lofted object. If
you need it to be a
mesh, press “Atl” and “C”.
80
Chapter 11- NURBS and Meta Shape Basics
Liquid and Droplet Effects Using Meta Shapes
Up until a few releases ago, Blender only had the

capability to make one Meta shape- a ball.
Interest grew, programmers added other shapes
and cleaned-up the code. You can now make
several different meta shapes in Blender. They
all work with the same principle. As the shapes
get close to one another, they begin to “pull” and
flow together. Meta shapes can be animated like
other objects and can be textured. Raytracing
settings like reflection and transparency can also
create some stunning effects. Meta shapes are created like other objects, except that the
first shape acts like a parent to the other shapes. As that shape is moved, the others display
a rotation.
RoboDude Asks: Why are all my Meta Shapes joined together?
Remember to exit edit mode after the creation of each meta shape
(Tab key). Otherwise, all shapes will be joined together.
There are a few options for Meta shapes that can be controlled in the edit buttons. Experi-
ment with them and try to make some renderings and animations.
81
Meta Shapes Practice Exercise
Create a new Blender scene and set up the views any way you wish. Create a plane and
some Meta Shapes. Place materials and textures on the plane and Meta Shapes. Experiment
with the raytracing features and apply a miror and transparency effect.
When you finish setting up your scene, render a JPEG image and save it to your directory.
Feel free to create an animation also.
82
Chapter 12- Modifiers
With the release of version 2.4, some essential items in Blender have been completely reor-
ganized. Some of that reoganizing has occurred with the Modifiers used in Blender. They
have all been placed in a common area to make things easier. To access the Modifiers,
select the object you wish to add a modifier, then go to the Edit buttons. Under the Modifi-
ers Panel, select “Add Modifier”.
The Modifiers we plan to

look at in this chapter are:
-Subsurf
-Build
-Mirror
-Wave
-Boolean
Subsurf (mesh smoothing)
Subsurf is used when you would like to smooth out a mesh more than the “Set Smooth” button
or the “Auto Smooth” will do without having to subdivide the mesh more. Subsurf will split your
mesh faces a number of times, but will not add more verticies to the mesh. This means when
you enter Edit mode, the mesh remains simple. See the example of the monkey head below:
Set Solid
Monkey head without

Subsurf Set Smooth Subsurf set to Level 1
Subsurf Modifier Applied
RoboDude Says: Don’t subdi-

Subsurf set to Level 2
vide higher than needed or you
may slow down the computer
processes!
83
Build Effect
The build effect is nice for simulating something building linearly along time in an animation.
Text is a good example of something you may want to use with a build effect. Blender generated
text cannot be built unless it has been converted into a mesh (see page 59), and even then, it
may not build correctly. Elefont text may be a better option to use.
The first step in creating a build effect is to have a mesh that

you would like to build. For this example, we will use this
EleFont text. A high vertex count is usually needed for a
nice effect. Notice the location of the object’s “center” point.
You may need to move this to get the effect you desire
depending on what you plan to do with the object (discussed
in the basic editing chapter). When bringing text into Blender from EleFont, the letters will all
be separate objects. Be careful when joining them together. You need to join them together in
a straight sequence (hold down the shift key and start at one end and select the letters in
sequence-don’t jump around). After all letters are selected, press “Ctrl” and “J” to join them.
Jumping around when selecting them to join will cause it to build oddly. You may need to
experiment with this a few times to get a good effect.
With the object selected, go to the Edit buttons, select the Add Modifiers tab and select the
Build option from the list. You will have 2 things to set- the Length and the Start Frame (how
long do you want it to take to build and when in the animation do you want it to start). You
have another option dealing with Randomized settings you can experiment with.
RoboDude Says: Don’t be alarmed if the object disappears when you

select build. You will only see the amount of it that should be there on
your current frame. Press “Alt” and “A” to see it animated on the
screen.
Build at frame 1 Build at frame 50 Build at frame 100
84
Mesh Mirroring
Blender has a new mirror command under Modifiers. You can still mirror using “M” in Edit
Mode, but now you have another option. For an example, below is a cube we will use for
mirror. The cube was Subdivided in Edit Mode, modified with a few points, and the Center
Point of the object moved to outside of the shape. The mirrored object will use the object’s
center as the axis of revolution (These features can be reviewed on pages 22-24).
Cube modified to
show mirror
Cube’s Center Point
Cube after mirroring
on the X axis
Merge Limit- Used to

allow the mesh to
automatically connect
faces that are close XYZ
together Hit “Apply” to

Mirror axis
set the mesh
Wave Effect
The wave effect can be used to make something look like it’s swimming like a fish or blowing
in the breeze among other things. Again, you need to start with something that has a good
vertex count. For this discussion, I will use the Elefont text and a plane. The text already has a
high number of verticies, but the plane does not. With the plane selected, enter edit mode
(Tab key) and select all verticies (“A” key). In the Edit buttons find “Subdivide” and press
it about 3 times. You can also subdivide while in edit mode by pressing the “W” key and
selecting Subdivide from the menu. Exit edit mode (Tab key). Here’s what we have so far:
Once again, with the object selected, go to the

Edit buttons, Add Modifier, then click the “Wave”
button. Place your cursor in the 3D window and
press “Alt and “A” to see your animated wave
effect. Hit escape to exit. Here’s the basic wave
effect on the text and plane:
85
The basic wave settings have the object in Cyclic mode and
waving on the X axis and Y axis.These can be set to achieve
different effects along with the height and width, start time and
length of effect. You can also control the starting time and length
of animation.
Boolean Operations (cutting and adding)
Discussed earlier is the Boolean modifier panel. This is just another

way creating a Difference, Union or Intersect. We briefly discussed
this operation back on page 32. To add a modifier, select the object
you wish to modify, then go
to the Edit buttons ,
Modifier Panel, then select
Boolean. In the modifier
panel, type the name of the
other mesh, select Differ-
ence, Union or Intersect and
hit Apply. The mesh should show the operation.
To find the name of a mesh, select

the mesh. The name will be displayed
in the lower left of the viewport.
Names are Case Sensitive!
Boolean operations became important to Blender as a better way to modify a mesh with
another mesh. Like other 3D programs, if you wish to drill a hole in an object, you create a
cylinder to subtract from the mesh. The old Boolean operations create a massive amount of
new faces and verticies. The newer code does a nicer job with this aspect.
86
Using Modifiers Practice Exercise
Create a new file and call it Modifiers. Create a scene using any objects and materials you
wish. Place at least one of each of the following modifiers in your scene.
- Subsurf
- Build Effect
- Mesh Mirroring
- Wave Effect
- Boolean Operation
Render a 200 frame movie of your scene when finished.
Wave
Mirror
Boolean Difference
Build
Subsurf
87
Chapter 13- Particle Systems and Interactions
Particles have received a lot of attention in recent releases. This is probably the nicest and
most flexible of the effects. When you turn an object into particles, it can be used to simulate
snow, fire, smoke, clouds, sparks, hair and much, much more. When an object is turned into
particles, it no longer exists as a solid shape and releases particles as per the settings you
used on it. With particles, you can set the size (using halo), texture, color and transparency
through the material buttons. You can set the particles to come off the object in a sequence
or randomly by using random setting in the particle panel. Particles can be set to be pulled
using X,Y, and Z forces. You can control the number of particles, how long the particles live,
when to start and end, if they have a starting speed and much more than we will describe in
this chapter. Like all of the other features we’ve discussed, experimentation beyond this chapter
is the best way to learn.
Particle Settings and Material Influences
For our example, let’s

create a UVSphere
and keep the seg-
ments and rings at 32.
With the object se-
lected, go to the Ob-
ject buttons, Then se-
lect the Particle But-
Object Buttons Particles Button
tons, click the “Add
New” button in the Par-
ticle System Panel. A new particle system will open in the panel and look like this:
For those of us that have been using Blender for years, this is a big change. The particle
settings were once in one large panel. Now they have been split up into several seperate
panels- Particle System, Physics, Visualization, Extras/Children.
Particles can be deflected off other objects, be blown by the wind, be displayed before they
are built and many more options. Our next step is to examine the settings available in the
particle panels. We will only be working with the basic options in this chapter.
More detailed information about particles can be found here:
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:Manual/Physics/Particles
88
Particle System Panel
This panel basically displays all options relating to how the particles are displayed. Here’s
what we are interested in at this time:
Name- Name particle Delete- Start over if
systems, like materials needed
Verts/Faces- Sets where
Amount- Total number
the particles will be
of particles in the entire
emmitted from
animation
Start and End- When do Random- This will ran-
you want the effect to domize how particles are
start and end. emitted
Life- Sets how long each
particle should live after Random Life Use this to
it is created. slightly vary when particles
die.
You will notice a tab called “Bake”. This is where you can tell Blender to save the effects when
you animated. When hitting Alt-A (must be on frame 1), the animation is saved as a Cache
(meaning, saved to memory) and “Bake” will save the animation to a folder that will remain
unless the particle system is changed.
Physics Panel
This panel displays the features you can use to provide animation to the particle sytem. Here’s
what we are interested in at this time:
Object- If the object is
animated, the object can
effect the starting speed Rotation- Dynamic mo-
Normal- Gives the par- tion of particles
ticles a starting speed
(blasts outward)
Texture Emit- Use a tex-
ture to define how par- Force X, Y, Z- Push or pull
ticles are emmitted. the particles in a given di-
rection
Visualization Panel
This panel let’s you control how the particles appear

on the screen. Are they a point, line, or other object?
You can also control if you see the mesh (not just
particles, but the original mesh), and particles that
have died or not yet “born”. Needless to say, there
are a lot of options and people have come up with
interesting ways to use particles. You can find some
nice tutorials on line.
89
Let’s work with our example. Make sure the sphere we created is not in
edit mode (Tab key) and is selected. Add a particles effect and change
the Normal setting (Physics Panel) to about 2.0. This will give the
particles a starting speed causing them to “blast out”. Move your cursor
to the 3D window and hit “Alt-A” to see the animation. (make sure you
are on frame 1)It should look something like this:
The particles come off in a pattern. This may be what you desire, but if
you’re making a flame or explosion effect, you need a more random
release of particles. To do this, press the
“Random” button in the Particle System panel.
This will reandomize the sequence and when
re-animated with “Alt-A”, it will look like this
example:
Material Influence on Particles:
Particles emit their own light so it isn’t necessary to have lamps in the scene to see them
when rendered, however, you will need to add a material to them to give them color and to
control their size and transparency.
If you look at the scene we

created so far, we have a camera
and a sphere with a particle
effect and the sequence has
been randomized. If we change
our current frame to a higher
number like frame 50 and press
the “F12” key to render, this is
what we see:
We see a randomized particle system without a material added to it. The particle size may be
adequate for your needs, but in order to control size, we need to add a material and use the
halo effect. You may also need to select “Z Transparent” and adjust the “Alpha” to set a
transparency effect for the particles. The transparency effect is ideal for flame effects where
you use multiple objects with particles on them and add different colors to get a realistic
looking flame. You can also create other effects with lines, rings and stars in the particle
settings.
RoboDude Asks: Why can’t I see any particles when I use the arrow
keys and render an image? If you’ve made changes to your settings, you
need to go back to frame 1 and hit “Alt-A” to recalculate to the cache. You
can also “Bake” the animation.
90
Here, I’ve taken the sphere and placed a material on it. With the “Halo” button pressed,
change the halo size to affect the size of the particles. Color, lines, and stars can also be
adjusted.
The halo size needs to be adjusted for the size of your scene
and what you are using the particles to simulate. For example,
smoke needs a smaller particle count and a larger halo set-
ting and a Z Transparent and Alpha setting very low so the
smoke looks transparent. Fire may need a higher particle count
and a smaller halo setting to look good. Depending on what
you want, you can turn on the rings, stars and lines in the halo
settings. For a review of Halo settings, refer to page 36.
Particle Interaction With Objects and Forces
There has recently been a lot of development in how particles can react with other objects
and forces like wind. Particles can now “bounce” off of other objects and act like sparks or
droplets. To show how these features work, we will create a scene with a Sphere and a
Plane with the sphere above a scaled up plane as shown below:
Next, with the Sphere selected, Go to the Object buttons and

add a Particle System. In the Physics panel, set the AccZ
Force to -3.00. This will “pull” the particles in a downward
direction.
Place your cursor in the 3D window and press “Alt”-

”A” to see the animation. You should see particles drop
from the sphere and fall through the plane.
91
The next step is to stop the particles from falling through the plane. Now, select the Plane and
hit the Physics Button (beside the Particles button). Find the “Collision” tab and press the
“Collision” button. Place your cursor back up into the 3D window and press “Alt-A” to see
the effects of collision
(remember- you must
be on frame 1) The
particles should not
pass through the
plane anymore, but
bounce rather high.
Physics Buttons
To minimize the bouncing, select the plane again and take the Dampening up to 1.00.
Again, you will need tgo back to

the 3D window and press “Alt-A”
again to recalculate the animation
to see the correct physics. Now
the particles stop at the plane and
don’t bounce anymore. Experi-
ment with these settings for other
effects.
By experimenting with the other

particle and collision settings and
by applying a material with Halo
Lines and Stars, you can simu-
late sparks bouncing off an object with high quality results.
Wind
Blender allows for particles to be influenced by Wind. To cre-
ate a wind effect, you need to create an object that will act like
the wind. An Empty is a great object to use for that. An empty
is displayed on the screen as a 3-axis icon that does not ren-
der as an object. It is great for a number of tasks
An
Empty
that will be discussed in later chapters. To cre-
ate an empty, place the 3D cursor where you
would like the wind to come from, press the Space Bar and “Add” and add an
“Empty”.
92
Select the Empty, then, in the Object and Physics but-
tons, select “Wind” in the drop-down options under the
“Fields” panel.. You will see some setting in the wind but-
ton to control the effect. Change the Strength setting to
about 20.00. After you do this, the empty will have some
circles displayed on it to represent
the wind flow. You may need to ro-
tate the empty so the wind blows
toward the particles. After rotating the empty, press
“Alt-A” again in the 3D window to recalculate the ani-
mation. Wind strength can be animated. That will be
discussed in “Chapter18- Object Physics”.
Empty with wind

Particles being
rings
blown to the right
Sample Particle Settings
Here are some sample settings for various uses for particle systems. These settings demon-
strate objects that have not been scaled up or down. The numbers given in these examples
are based on a 100 frame animation. If you lengthen the animation or change the size of the
objects, you will need to adjust things like the total number of particles, forces and starting
speeds. These settings can be “tweeked” to your own personal preferences. They are just
intended to get you to a starting point. You can also find some nice tutorials for even more
detailed effects on line.
Snow
Subdivide a plane 3-4 times (or more) and “Randomize” the verticies. Snow will need to fall
slowly so we show a small negative Z force. Place a material with a Halo on the plane and
adjust the size of the Halo. Change the following settings:
93
Fire
This is the best use of particles. Start with a UVSphere and put a material on it. Go with a
yellow or red color. Add a Halo effect and set the Halo Size to 1.2. We are using a positive Z
force this time to lift the particles upward. Random life also gives the flame a bit more
randomness. For a good fire effect, add several objects with particles on them and give them
different colors of red, blue and yellow. You may even want to use
Transparency on them.
Simple Fireworks
Start with a UVSphere and go with a yellow or red color. Add a Halo effect and set the Halo
Size to 0.5. You may even want to experiment with Halo Lines and Stars. For a good final
result, you may even want to scale the sphere down in size. We “blast” all of the particles out
in 1-2 frames with a high random life, use the Normal to throw the particles outward and -Z
force to pull them down.
As long as the link is good, here is a nice tutorial on making a more realistic display:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro/Fireworks. You can also search for
some good tutorials.
RoboDude Says: Practice using these setting to become comfortable

with them!
94
Using Particles for Hair
Particles can be used to produce hair with great results. To start, lets add a monkey head
from the meshes menu. So we don’t produce hair on the entire monkey head, let’s create a
vertex group of the top faces of the monkey head
(we’ll make a mohawk). Go into “edit mode” and
switch from “Vertex” selection to “Face” selection.
Select the faces for the hair, add a “New” vertex
group, name it “hair” and hit the “Assign” button. This
will assign those faces
to the group. Exit edit
mode and add a par-
ticle system to the mon-
key. Switch the type
from “Emitter” to
“Hair”. Make the ad-
justments shown be-
low:
Amount to 500 Normal to 0.2 Emitter on to see Arrows to select

Random On Random to 0.1 monkey head the vertix group
Click “Set Editable” so we can
shape the hair later
We have some hair, but it doesn’t look very good at this point. Lets shape it up a bit.
95
Let’s shape up the hair a bit, but first, lets smooth out the monkey head. Hit “Set Smooth” in
the Edit buttons and add a “Subsurf” Modifier. You will also see a “Particle” modifier auto-
matically added for you. Now it’s time to shape the hair. If you didn’t press the “Set Editable”
button in the particle but-
tons before, do it now. At
the bottom of your 3D
viewport, change from
Object Mode to Particle
Mode. You will see your
hair with point on the ends.
It is important that you keep

these verticies selected
during the shaping process
(use “A” for all). To see your
shaping tools, Press “N’ to
bring up the panel. Play with
the different options and
strength.size sliders. Use
your mouse to shape the
hair.
Change from Object Mode
to Particle Mode
Play around with your material setting and look

for the “Strand” setting where you can change the
width and other features of the hair. Remember
that hair can be effected by wind and gravity set-
ting.
96
Particle Systems- Rain in Your Landscape
Now it’s time to add some rain to your stormy night. Open up your “Landscape Scene”.
Start by adding a plane in the top view and scale it up a bit larger than your ground. Move it
up high enough so it is not visible in the camera view. While in edit mode, press “W” and
select “Subdivide Multi”. Set the number to 20. Your scene should look something like this:
Now it’s time to

add a “Particle
System” to
make it rain.
Since we want it
to be raining at
frame 1, we
need to start the
rain at some
point before that (-100). We also want the rain drops to last the entire animation, be random,
and appear to be effected by the wind. Try these setting. Press “Alt-A” often to check your
results (remembering to always be on frame 1).
This is a pretty simple rain effect,

but quick and easy for our scene
and works well. Experiment with
material setting for a nicer look.
When finished, render an image

and save it as a jpeg. If time per-
mits, feel free to animate your
scene.

97
Chapter 14- Child-Parent Relationships
So far, we’ve talked about making and editing objects, making them look good and how to
render and animate them, but how do we make things like humans or robots or anything else
move about that have several parts connected together? This is where child-parent
relationships become useful. It allows us to link things together without actually joining them.
This allows the individual parts to move about, but still follow a “master” object.
The concept of child-parent relationships is used in all animation programs and it involves an
object assigned the role of a child and an object assigned the role of a parent. If the parent
moves, rotates or scales, the child must do so too. On the other end, a child can move,
rotate or scale without affecting the parent. An example would be: a hand is the child of
the forearm while the forearm is the child of the upper arm and the upper arm is the child of
the torso. Therefore, if the forearm moves or rotates, the hand must follow and if the upper
arm rotates, the forearm and hand both must follow. If the torso moves, the entire arm must go
with it. This is how you keep a body or machine from going to pieces!
In order to make child-parent relationships in Blender,

you need to hold down the “Shift” key to select multiple
objects. Select the child object FIRST, then select
the PARENT object. The child object is always Child Object-
selected first. If you have a string of objects that need selected first
to be child-parented together (like the arm example),
you can only do 2 parts at a time so start at the end of
the chain and do the hand and forearm first, then
forearm to upper arm and so on. After selecting the 2
objects, press “Ctrl-P” to make parent. You will see a
Parent Object-
dashed line drawn between the pivot points of the 2 selected second
objects. This shows a child-parent relationship.
RoboDude Asks: I did the Child and Parent selection backwards- How
do I undo them? In order to delete a child-parent relationship, select both
objects and press “Alt” and “P” to clear parent. This is good when you make
a mistake!
Look at the example on the next page. If we want to child-parent a few cylinders together to
make a robot arm, create a cylinder and stretch it out in edit mode by moving one end of
verticies. Remember to pay close attention to the object’s pivot point. If the object needs
to pivot like an arm, you will need to keep the point at one end of the cylinder. Always pay
close attention to the object’s pivot point in any case. It’s easy to forget about it when moving
verticies around in edit mode. You can use the “Center Cursor” option in the edit button to
locate the pivot to the 3D cursor’s location. After you shape one cylinder, exit edit mode and
press “Shift-D” to duplicate it several times. Locate the cylinders and double check their
pivot points. Moving the pivots after child-parenting them together may cause the objects
to move. Start at the end and select the first 2 objects. Press “Ctrl-P” to make the relationship.
Check it out to see if it’s correct and go to the next set. In the next set, the previous Parent
object now becomes the Child object. Make a simple animation to check the function.
98
Chapter 14- Child-Parent Relationships
Parent Object
Object Pivot Points- Child Object
RoboDude Says: You can child-parent almost any object including

cameras, empties and lamps.
Review of Moving Object Center Points
In the basic editing chapter, we discussed how to move center points of objects. You were
also cautioned about moving an object while in edit mode because the verticies will move,
but not the object’s center point. To move the center point of an object, select the object,
place the 3D cursor in the location you want the center point to go, and press the Center
Cursor button in the Edit Buttons.
Object’s Current Pivot Point
3D Cursor moved to where we

want the object’s center point
to go
Don’t forget about the “Shift-S” command. It is useful for finding exact
locations of object or selected verticies. Also useful for moving things
around.
99
Creating a Robot Arm Practice Exercise
Create a new Blender scene and set up the views any way you wish. Your job is to
design a robotic arm that is child-parented together and animated. Create all
components using planes, cubes, spheres and cylinders. Place materials on all objects
and develop a good scene with plenty of lighting.
After you create your scene, develop a 150 frame animation of your robotic arm
moving in all directions.
Challenge exercise:
Try to make your robot arm pick something up off the plane!
100
Chapter 15- Working With Constraints
Tracking To An Object
There are times you want to “constrain” or “follow” a certain object in your scene. New
constraints are being developed in Blender, but for now, we will just be talking about the most
common one used to keep the camera focused on an object- the “Track To” constraint. The
tracking constrain is useful in animating by saving you a lot of time and frustration trying to
place location and rotation keys on the camera in an effort to try to keep your target centered.
When used in conjunction with Paths (discussed in this chapter), you can create very smooth
animation paths. Objects besides cameras can also be used with tracking.
To set up a simple camera tracking constraint, Select the camera first, then the target while
holding down “Shift”. Press “Ctrl-T” and select “TrackTo Contraint”. Sometimes it’s
convenient to target an Empty object (created in the Add menu, like we used in the lighthouse
scene). This allows you to move your target around in your scene so the camera can focus on
one object for a while, then move to something else by moving the target in that direction. You
also have an influence option where the camera will track solidly to the object or allow some
flowing of the camera.
Constraints Menu
In the Object buttons you will see a panel marked “Constraints”. This menu continues to grow
with each release and gives you a variety of constraints and limitations for objects. Depending
on what you need in your scene, you can do a variety of contraints. Experimentation and
internet research will help you with those specific needs.
101
Camera Constraints Practice Exercise
Open the Robot Arm scene you made in the last exercise and add a camera constraint. You
may target any part of the robot arm you like or create an Empty and target the camera to
that. In the scene below, the camera was targeted to the gripper head.
After you create your scene, develop a 150 frame animation of your robotic arm
moving in all directions with the camera also doing some movement.
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Following Paths and Curves
Sometimes you need to have an object flow along a smooth path in an animation. For example,
it would be easier to have a spaceship flow along a line and angle and bank along that line
then it would be for you to insert location and rotation keys throughout the animation. Paths
and Curves are found in the same Add menu and can not only be used to create animation
paths as discussed above, but can also be used to create extrusions. To create 3D extruded
objects, you need to create a 2D sketch of a profile and a path for that shape to follow along.
In this chapter, we will be working with both.
Following Paths
Your first step is to create a path. Any type of Curve in the Add
menu can be used as a path, but let’s use the Path option. Hit the
Space Bar, select Add, Curve, then Path. You will then get a path
on the screen in Edit mode with several points. Shape the path as
desired, add more verticies through
Subdivide if necessary and exit
Edit mode.
There are several ways to get the camera, object or lamp to follow the path. For now, we’ll
stick to the traditional way by creating a child-parent relationship. Select the object first,
then the path (the parent). With both objects selected, press “Ctrl-P” to make a parent. You’ll
have 2 options: “Normal Parent” and “Follow Path”- select the “Follow Path” option. You
will see a dashed line between the 2 objects. Press “Alt-A” to see the animation along the
path. In order to get the object exactly placed on the line, move the object and place it. Right
now the object’s animation is exactly 100 frames long and doesn’t turn to follow the path. To
correct this, make sure the path is selected and go to the Edit buttons. here’s what you see:
You basically have 3 options for the object following along this path. They are:
Path Length- frames it take to travel
Curve Path- will the object follow the path
Curve Follow- object curves along the path.
After you press the Path Follow button, the camera
needs to be rotated and adjusted to the correct
direction. After that, it will follow the path.
If you adjust the path length and hit “Alt-”A” again, you would expect the animation to change
it’s length, but it doesn’t. There’s a hidden “Speed” path that is hard to find the first time you try
this. With the path selected, change the window type to the IPO window. You will then need to
change the IPO type to Path. Delete the Speed track. See the next page:
RoboDude Says: You can close a path by typing “C” in edit mode.
You can switch the direction of the path by pressing “W” while in edit
mode.
103
You will see the “Speed” After you select and delete the
track after you switch the speed path, the path length op-
IPO type to Path. tion will work in the Edit buttons.
Sometimes you don’t want the camera to follow along the path, but look at an object as it
flows along the path. This is where you would want to use the Curve Path, but not
Curve Follow. Instead, you would put a Track To constraint on the camera so it looks toward
an object as it moves along the path.
Other Curve objects can be used as paths also. For example,

if you want a circular path, select the Bezier Circle option from
the Curve menu. The Curve Path button is not automatically
pressed when you child-parent the object to the circle
though, you must go into the edit button and do it
manually.
Using Curves for Extrusions
You can create a shape and extrude it along a path in Blender. For our
example, we will shape a Bezier Circle and extrude it along a Bezier Curve.
First, create a Bezier Circle from the Add-Curves menu and shape it into
an interesting object. Feel free to add more points with the Subdivide
command. Second, create a Bezier Curve and shape it into some shape.
Bezier shapes form differently and use spline points. Experiment with them to get the feel of
working with them. Go to the Edit buttons and name both objects in the OB: block. Finally,
select the Bezier Curve and go to the Edit buttons. You will see a BevOb: box. Type the
name of the circle there. You will see the shape extruded along the curve! You can still shape
the circle and the curve (in edit
mode) and scale the objects.
You can convert the new shape
into a mesh to make it easier
to work with by pressing the
“Alt-C” keys
104
Paths and Curves Practice Exercise
Create a new Blender file and name it Paths. Develop a path for your camera that goes
around a shape that you extruded along a curve. Use the extruded shape as the target for
the camera so that as the camera flows along its path, it is always focused on the object.
You may need to adjust the object’s center point in order for the camera to properly
focus on the object. (refer to the basic editing chapter). Add materials to all objects. If you
would like to close your extruded shape (not open on the ends) try this: Convert the extrusion
into a mesh (“Alt-C”), go into Edit mode and select the end verticies. Type “E” to extrude,
then immediately type “S” to scale. Scale the new verticies to close off the end (You can
also type “W” and select “Merge at Center”). . If you would like it to look like a pipe with
some wall thickness, enter Edit mode and select all verticies. Press “E” to extrude and “S”
to scale slightly.
Save a 100 frame animation when finished.
Challenge exercise:
After you do the required exercise, make a new one. Before you extrude your shape along
it’s curve, duplicated the curve and use it for the camera path. Place the path directly in the
middle of the extruded shape to make the camera flow through the “tube”.
105
Chapter 16- Armatures
Using Armatures to Deform Meshes
Blender’s animation capabilities are great for most object animation except when you want
to animate something bending like a person in motion or a tree bending in the breeze. This
calls for a mesh to deform which can’t be done with traditional modifiers. We can deform a
mesh in 2 ways in Blender. One way is to create a skeleton and have it deform a mesh
(armatures) and the other method is to move the mesh verticies in edit mode and create
sliders that deform the mesh (relative vertex keys). This chapter deals with creating
armatures. The armature feature in Blender is constantly under development. For this
discussion, I will stick with the fundamentals. More information can be found at www.blender.org
or at www.blenderartists.com.
The first thing you need to do is create a mesh that has a few groups of
verticies where you would like the object to bend. Any mesh will work and
to get additional verticies you can either extrude or subdivide. Be careful
not to create too many verticies. It may slow your model down considerable.
Let’s use a cylinder to create an arm. I will use a cylinder set at the default
divisions of 32. Next, I will change to a front view and box select the top set
of verticies and Extrude them up. I prefer to use extrude rather than
subdivide to keep the vertex count down as low as possible. As I extrude
the verticies, I am also using Scale to shape them.
Next, place the 3D cursor directly at the bottom of the

shape you just made. Hit the Space Bar, then Add
followed by Armature. You will immediately see a
bone begin to form at the cursor location. Type “G” to grab the top of the
bone and lengthen it to a desired size. Move your cursor up to lengthen
the bone and click where you would like the joint to be.To create another
bone at the top of the first one, press “E” to extrude another bone from
the first one. If you run out of room to drag the mouse up, just click
wherever and hit “Esc” to stop making bones. As like all other objects
you create, you are in edit mode. To adjust the top bone to get it in the
correct position, RMB click on the top of the bone. The small circle
highlights. Press “G” for grab to move it. When finished, press “Tab” to
exit edit mode. Double check the armature to make sure that the ends
and joint are well aligned. To add more bones, hit Tab to enter edit mode
again and Add Bones with the Space Bar.
Your next step is to create a child-parent relationship between the mesh

and the armature with the mesh being the child and the armature being
the parent. Hold down the “shift” key and select the mesh first, then the
armature. Press “Ctrl-P” to make parent. Select the option to “Parent to
Armature” since the armature is both of the bones together. You will then
get some options as to how to create the vertex groups that will move with
each bone. For now, use the “Name Groups” so the computer will figure it
106
out and give vertex group names. Sometimes this will not work if verticies
are close together (like several fingers on a hand). Verticies from one finger
may get grouped with bones from the finger beside it- not a good effect!
We will discuss changing your vertex groups later. That’s it! Time to test
your model!
To create entire skeletons or other complex armature structures, you can do the fol-
lowing:
Join meshes together to form one mesh for an entire body. This can be done using
the boolean “W” key or by just selecting them all and pressing “J” to join. Make sure
they are all set up with materials and textures before you do this and some of the
textures may need readjusting. This must also be done before you child-parent
any of the meshes to an armature.
Create all of your individual armature sets and join them together as you do meshes
or work with child-parent relationship with the bones.
To animate you armature:
It’s time to animate our “arm” model. To

do this we must get into “Pose Mode”.
Change the Mode option from Object
Mode to Pose Mode. This can also be
done by pressing “Ctrl” and “Tab”
together. Select a bone to work with by
RMB clicking on it. Type “R” to rotate it. If
everything went well, the mesh should
move with the bone. Place animation keys in the various frames as
before to create an animation.
Automatic Keyframing with Armatures:
Placing animation keys on a complex armature system can be time consuming and very easy
to miss a bone in a frame when you need to place a rotation key on 20 bones. That’s why
there’s an automatic keyframe option in the top User Preferences window. Pull down the top
menubar to expose the setting. Select “Edit Methods” and turn on the Auto Keyframing
button, “Action and Object”. This will automatically place keys on every bone that has been
moved in a particular frame. Remember to turn it off when finished or it can cause some
major problems. If this is still inoperable, refer to page 71 on Auto Keyframing.
107
RoboDude Says: Even if a bone isn’t moving on a particular frame,
move it slightly so the automatic keyframing places a key on it. Other-
wise, it may move when you don’t expect it to because it was missing
a key. Experiment with the features to become familiar with them.
Creating Vertex Groups:
As mentioned before, sometimes when verticies are close together, Blender may have a
dificult time creating clean vertex groups automatically. You will need to define the vertex
groups manually. First, create your mesh and armature, then child-parent them to “Use
Armature” as before, and again, select “Name Groups”. The computer will name the groups
for you and also try to assign verticies to bones. For now, we will discuss naming and making
your own groups.
For this example, I’ve created a mesh we’ll call Finger. I then created an armature and duplicated
both to create 2 fingers. The next step is to Join (“Ctrl” and “J”) the 2 armatures together, then
do the same for both meshes. Child-parent the mesh to the armature,
select the “Name Groups” option.
Now we need to see the names of each bone in the

armature so we can assign verticies to them. Select
the armature, then go to the edit
buttons and find the “Names”
button. Pressing it will cause the
names of each bone to be
displayed on the screen. The will
most likely show up as Bone,
Bone.001, Bone.002, and so on.
You will need to place these names exactly as shown.
Now select the mesh and go into Edit Mode (tab key). In the
edit buttons, you will notice a group of buttons for creating/
assigning Vertex Groups (this block of buttons will only be displayed if you’re in edit mode).
Select the group name for the bone you are working with. If you ever need to create a new
group, press “New”. Remember that each bone will need a group and the group name must
match the bone (i.e.Bone.001, Bone.002).
Our next step is to select the verticies that need to be

assigned to that bone. If a group of verticies is right at
the joint, they need to be selected for both bones. After
selecting all the verticies that belong to that bone, press
the “Assign” button. You’ve now made a vertex group
108
for that bone. Do this for all bones. When finished, exit edit
mode and select the armature. Press “Crtl”-”Tab” to enter
Pose Mode and test out the armature. If you need to modify
any groups, you can go back into edit mode on the mesh to
make corrections.
Remember we discussed the benefit of selecting the “Name

Groups” option when parenting the mesh to the armature?
It will save us a step in naming all of the vertex groups.
Using Inverse Kinomatics (IK)
Inverse Kinomatics is used when you wish to manipulate a skeleton by

simply grabbing (G key) the end bone of a chain and moving it with all of
the connected bones following along. Inverse Kinomatics is constantly
under development and has a lot of options available depending on what
you want them to do. Visit www.blender.org for more details.
For our example, make a Cylinder in the top

view, switch to the front view and Extrude and
Scale the object several times to look like the
example.
Next, move the cursor to the bottom of the mesh and Add an
Armature. Use “G” to grab the top of the bone and move it to the
first joint. Press “E” to extrude another bone to the second joint.
Repeat two more times to create a 4 bone armature.
Child-Parent the mesh to the armature with “Crtl-

P” and select the “Name Groups” vertex group
option.
Go into Pose Mode and rotate the bones to

check the vertex groups to make sure they
were assigned properly.
109
If everything checks out with pose mode, keep the last bone selected and go to
the Object buttons. Find the Constraint panel. Under “Add Constraint” you will
see a variety of options that apply to armatures. You can limit bone rotation/loca-
tion and scale, track it, stretch it, etc. For this ex-
ample, select the “IK Solver” constraint. Try mov-
ing the end bone. You should see it deform all the
bones in the chain. You can also lock the bone to
an object that will deform the entire chain.
Additional Armature Settings:
Here are a few more options that have been added to make armatures a little easier to work
with: Basic Auto- Inverse Kinomatics
Option
X-Ray- to see the armature when the
meshes are being displayed in Solid
Different ways to display

Display the names of bones
the armatures
110
Creating a Skeleton Practice Exercise
Create a new Blender file and name it Hand. Create a

UV Sphere for the hand and a cylinder for the finger. Use
Extrude to lengthen the finger and provide verticies at
the joint (one joint only). Duplicate the finger to make a
total of 3. Shape the sphere with Proportional Vertex
Editing (“O” key). Join all meshes together. Create a 2-
bone armature for each finger and Join them together.
Child-parent the mesh to the armature set and create vertex groups (you may or may not
be able to use the automatic setting). Place a material
on the mesh. Add lighting and create a 100 frame
animation of your scene.
Challenge exercise:
Try to use armatures to animate some other object.
Try a simple body that walks.
111
Chapter 17- Relative Vertex Keys
Creating Mesh Keys
We’ve discussed deforming a mesh with an armature, but what if you want to deform a mesh
in other ways like have it flatten, move a mouth, blink an eye, etc. and have a way of repeating
that motion whenever needed? Some of these things can be done with armatures, but
sometimes it’s easier to set up a slider that at one end, represents the mesh in one form, and
at the other end of the slider, shows the mesh fully deformed. See the example below:
Action Editor
Window
Mesh deformation using Sliders in the Action Editor Window can be a difficult process
because it requires you to shape your mesh in edit mode moving verticies. With practice, this
can become a worthwhile tool that will enable you to make quick and high-quality animation
like the professionals do. If you notice in the above example, there are several sliders that
cause different motions. By using combinations of them, a wide variety of motions can be
produced (for example, surprise and squint will combine the motions). These are great
tools for making a character speak, blink and show expression.
The first step in creating Relative Vertex Keys (RTVs) is to start with a mesh you wish to
deform. For our case, we’ll create a UV Sphere set at the default
segments and rings of 32. Split the 3D window into 2 viewports
and set the right-hand viewport to the Action Editor Window. This
is another type of animation control window where animation keys
you create are shown as marks on the timeline. Keys can be
duplicated and moved here. When we create our RVKs, they will
be shown here as slider bars.
Let’s go back to the left-hand viewport (still set to the 3D view window) and begin creating
RVKs. Unlike normal animation that requires you to move to different frames along
the timeline, we will be creating all our different sliders and mesh deforms on frame
one. After the sliders are all created for our mesh, then we will use them in the Action Editor
window along the timeline. With the sphere selected, make sure you’re NOT in edit mode,
but in object select mode. (Tab key). Hit the “I” key to insert a Mesh key. In older versions of
Blender, the first time you hit the Mesh key for that object, you will
option in older Blender versions
get an option for Relative Keys or Absolute Keys. Select the
Relative Keys option. You won’t get this option in 2.41 and
up. You will automatially be making Relative Vertex Keys.
112
Using Action Editor Sliders
Once you hit the Mesh Keys button, the word click triangle to
Sliders is added in the Action Editor window see sliders
after you change the Editor Mode to
“ShapeKey Editor”. However, no sliders have
been added to the list as of yet. Now, with your
cursor in the 3D window, press “I” to insert again a second time and select “Mesh” again.
A “Key 1” (or may display no name)slider show up in the list. It’s now time to define that
slider. Now, go into Edit Mode (“Tab” key) and modify the verticies however you want. When
you exit edit mode, the slider will now deform the mesh. To create another slider, Insert
another mesh key while NOT in edit mode, then hit “Tab” to enter edit mode and modify
the mesh. When you again exit edit mode, the slider will be set. Here’s an example:
In object mode, press “I” to Enter edit mode (Tab) and Exit edit mode (Tab), mesh
insert a Mesh key modify mesh goes back to basic state,
slider now functional.
Slider is now set to create the

mesh change at any percent-
age from basic state to fully
deformed. When you adjust
the slider, a key is placed on
the timeline at the current
frame. To animate, just change
If you do not see
the current frame and move
your sliders, click
the slider. No need to press
this triangle to
“I” to insert a key at that frame.
make them visible
The basic thing to remember about RVKs is that in order to create the slider, You must
insert the key in object selection mode, then enter edit mode (Tab) to modify the
mesh. When you exit edit mode, the slider is set. Repeat the process to create all your
sliders.
In order to name your RVK sliders, place your cursor over
the name of the key you wish to change and press “N” for
name (or click on the slider). This window comes up where
you can name your slider. You can also adjust the min. and
max. of your slider.
113
New RVK Creation Panel for 2.40
With the release of version 2.40, you have a new way to create Relative Vertex Keys in the
Edit buttons. Instead of pressing the “I” key to create a mesh key, follow these steps:
Select the mesh you wish to apply RVKs to, then, in the Edit buttons, find the Shapes panel.
Click the “Add Shape Key”. This is the same as you hitting the “I”, then mesh key the first
time, but not creating any sliders in the previously discussed process.
Now press the “Add Shape Key” again. The first RVK Slider will be displayed. At this point,
enter edit mode and modify the mesh. When finished moving verticies, exit edit mode (the
verticies will return to their original positions) and the slider will now be operational. They will
also be displayed in the Action Editor window.
You will see that this panel only replaces what

we did using the “I” to insert mesh keys as dis-
cussed on the previous pages. It just gives us
another option to use.
114
Mesh Keys- Cheesy Actor Monkey
To test your mesh key and facial expression skills, we are going to animate the monkey
talking and making expressions. Start a new file and call it “Mesh Keys”. Switch to a front
view, delete the initial cube, then add a monkey head. Add a SubSurf modifier (from the
edit buttons) and press “Set Smooth”. Split your screen into 2 windows and set the right
side up as an Action Editor window and change the display type to ShapeKey Editor.
Let’s add a shape key to the monkey’s eyes. We’re going to make him look surprised.
Start by pressing “I” to Insert a Mesh Key. Remember to click the small arrow by Sliders to
see the keys we are about to make. Press “I” again to make the first slider, then enter edit
mode to shape the eyes. Select only one vertex above each eye and turn on Proportional
Editing. Scroll the mouse wheel to changed the effected area as you move the verticies up.
After shaping the monkey, hit Tab to exit edit mode. the Monkey should return to normal
shape and the slider should change his expression.
Two selected verticies
Click triangle to see sliders
Proportional Editing
Continue adding mesh keys to bring the monkey to life using proportional editing. Add
another slider to the eyes making him squint. Add a slider to move the ears. Add one to his
mouth. When you are finished, animate a short movie making making expressions.
115
Chapter 18- Object Physics
Creating Fabric and Wave Effects
One of the newest and best fea-

tures added to Blender in recent
releases is Soft Bodies. Soft
Bodies are used to simulate fab-
ric, “jello”, and water. A mesh can
deform a soft body mesh (cloth-
ing on a model or a boat in the
waves). The Soft Body, Cloth, and Fluid Simulation features are found in the Object and
Physics buttons.
To create a simple animation of a plane with Soft Body applied to it
to act like a sheet deforming to a sphere, create a plane above a
sphere as shown to the left. In edit mode, subdivide the plane 4-5
times. Soft Body shapes need a lot of verticies to look good. While
still in edit mode, select all of the verticies and, in the Edit but-
tons, create a new vertex
group (keep the name as
just Group). Set the
weight to 0 and hit Assign. This will give all of the verticies
a weight of 0 meaning they will not be anchored and be
able to fall. Now deselect all of the verticies except the 2
left-hand outer verticies. Take the Weight up to 1 and
hit assign. This will anchor these verticies (like the cor-
ners of a flag). Exit edit mode. It’s now time to go to the
Object and Physics buttons and hit the Enable Soft
Body button as displayed below.
You now need to set a few things to see some animation.

First, set Gravity to about 9.8 (earth settings) and select
the vertex group: Group under the “Use Goal” setting.
You are now ready to see the Soft Body in action! Place
your cursor in the 3D window and
hit “Alt-A” to view the animation.
(you may want to shade the view)
The plane should fall through the
sphere and stretch quite a bit
from the 2 anchor points. Not
quite what what we want, but a
start.
116
We now need to “stiffen” the fabric so it doesn’t stretch out
of shape. Under “Use Edge”, click the box called “Stiff
Quads” which sets the “spring” or elasticity of the verticies.
If this number is taken to 0, the shape will stretch out of
control (try it). We want to set this at about .60 for both
Pull and Push so it does not stretch much. Try to animate
the window again. You should see a difference. Now it is
time to cause the fabric to interact
with the sphere. Select the Sphere
and turn on Deflection in the
Fields and Deflections panel.
Take Dampening up to 1. This will
cause the plane to react with the
sphere. This will slow the com-
puter down considerable when
hitting “Alt-A”, but look at the ex-
ample to the left. In order to see the
animation correctly, you will probably need to select the plane again
and go to the softbody panel and hit “Free Cache” to clear the memory.
It looks good, but still passes through
the object slightly. To improve this,
you can Subdivide the Plane more
and/or use a Subsurf modifier on
the plane. Experiment with the settings
to get a good result. You can also
speed up the process by using a sphere with fewer verticies. Once you
have an effect you like and want to save the process, you will need to “Bake” the animation
settings. To do this, select the Plane, then go to the Collison panel. Set the Start and End
frames you wish to bake and hit the “Bake” button. When it finishes running through all the
frames, hitting the “Alt-A” button will be faster plus you will be able to cycle through all frames
and see the animation. If you need to make changes, you will need to “Free Bake” the anima-
tion, make the changes, and “Bake” again.
Using Forces to Manipulate Soft Bodies
Besides collision detection with other objects, Soft Bodies can be manipulated by forces like
wind. To demonstrate this process, delete the sphere from the scene (to speed things up)
and add an Empty to the left of the plane. We will be using the Empty to act as the wind.
Remember that an empty will not render as an object and
works great for this type of application. With the Empty se-
lected, go to the Fields panel
and change the Fields to
“Wind”. Set the Strength to
about 1.0.
117
The wind may not be pointing in the right direction and may need
rotating to point to the plane. Do that at this time. Hit “Alt-A” to
animate the view. The wind is probably
so strong that it almost blows the plane
away. Try changing the Strength of the
wind to about 0.4 and re-animate. The
effect should look much better. If you let
the animation run long enough, you will
start to see the plane slow down in movement and just stay blown
out to the right. To fix this, you will need to animate the Strength of the wind or add animation
keys to the Empty to change it’s direction. To add animation keys to the strength, you will
need to create a curve in the IPO window.
To Create A Strength Curve In The IPO Window
Split your screen and turn one into the IPO Window. With the Empty selected, find the
FStrength IPO track and select it. To put a track on it, Hold down the Ctrl key while LMB
clicking at the desired point on the graph (frame 1 at zero strength, frame 100 at about .2
strength). Change the curve type to Linear (T key) and add more points with the Ctrl-LMB.
Move the points around to vary wind strength. Re-render your scene to see the effect.
Soft Bodies can be used for a number of events.

Even though we used it to simulate cloth here, it
works for “Jello” effects as well. You will need to
review other documents and experiment with
the setting to discover what can be done.
Blender also has some new work in Cloth and
Fluid Simulation which we will cover next.
118
Making a Flag Practice Exercise
Create a new file and call it Flag. Create a cylinder and sphere for the flagpole and a plane
for the flag. Create a vertex group for the flag with all verticies (except the 2 that contact the
pole) to a zero weight. The two corner verticies at the pole should be set to a weight of one.
Setup a Soft Body effect for the plane as discussed and add a wind effect. Vary the wind
with an IPO curve on the FStrength track. Place materials and textures on all objects.
When finished, create a 200 frame animation of your scene.
Wind Empty
119
Cloth Effects
Cloth settings work similar to Softbody setting. We did a flag as a Softbody where cloth could
have been used. The major difference is that there are several preset materials to choose
from, or you can set your own. These effects allow you to add clothing to a model and have it
react to movement. The trade-off is time. These effects can add a great deal of time to your
renders. A detailed discussion can be found at the Blender Wiki.
If you set up a vertex

group like we did in
Preset fabrics
softbodies, click this
button to use it
Fluid Effects
Fluids have received a lot of attention in the past few releases of Blender. To create a fluids
scene, you need a few basic elements (and some not necessary):
The Domain- the part of you scene that will actually contain the fluid simulation. Usu
ally a box (cube).
The Fluid- The object that represents the actual liquid.
An Inlet- the element in the scene that supplies the water (like a faucet).
An Outlet- not necessary, but allows the fluids to drain and limits fill.
Obstacles- Things that get in the way. An object that the fluid
reacts with.
Let’s start by modeling a simple fluid scene. Start a new Blender

file and add a UV sphere (keep the default settings) to the scene.
Scale the sphere down a bit so it fits completely in the cube as
shown. With the sphere selected, go to the Object and Physics
buttons and enable Fluids and use the sphere as the Fluid. Next,
Select the
cube and
make it the
Domain. Remember the domain holds the
fluids in the animation and all fluid anima-
tion must occur in the domain. Before we
Bake the settings, go to your Scene but-
tons and shorten the animation so it runs
about 70 frames instead of 250.
120
Now, with your animations shortened to 70 frames, go back to your
fluid buttons, select the cube and hit “Bake”.
Blender will probably appear to freeze, then
the animation will begin to calculate (this is
why we only went with 70 frames). In your
top menu bar, you will see a status bar go-
ing and the frames that are completed. When the animation is com-
plete, you should be able to hit “Alt-A” to see the animation play
through. Your model should look something like the one shown below. The rendering looks
pretty good, but could be smoother. by hitting “Set
Smooth” in the Edit buttons and applying a “SubSurf”
modifier, it begins to really look good.
The next thing you may want to do is get rid of the sphere, but
rather than erase it, select it, hit “M” and move it to a layer
you’re not using. As you work with your animation, you may
want to note where the Bake function is saving your anima-
tion frames and clear that folder out from time to time.
Finally, Add a nice material to

your fluid. Try some texture,
transparency, and mirror set-
tings.
121
Fluids Practice Exercise-Splash!
Let’s make a new Blender file and call it “Splash”. Start by deleting
the initial cube in the top view and adding a circle. Set the circle
settings to 15 verticies and click the “Fill” button.
Switch to a front view and begin extruding

and scaling the circle to shape a simple
cup. When you reach the top, scale the
verticies inward and shape the interior of
the cup. Again, keep the cup simple so our
fluids simulation remains relatively man-
ageable. After you
model the cup, go to the
edit buttons and add a
SubSurf modifier, also hit “Set Smooth”. The cup
should now look something like this rendered:
Now it’s time to add a cube and scale it to 4.00 units

using the “N” key. Center the cube up around the
cup. After adding the cube, add another UV
Sphere and place it above the cup, but still within
the cube. Remember, all animation must remain
within the domain (cube). Check all views to make
sure the sphere is contained in the cube and over
the cup.
Before we animate, go to the Scene buttons and

change the End Frames of the animation from 250 to 70. Now, go to the Object buttons,
Physics panel and enable Fluids. Set the Cup as an Obstacle, the Sphere as the Fluid,
and the Cube as the Domain. With the cube selected, press the “Bake” button and wait for
the animation to calculate. After calculations, press “Alt-A” to check the animation. If it doesn’t
work well, hit “Ctrl-Z” to get back to the point where you see the cube again and experiment
with some of your settings. If everything worked well, add some nice materials to your ob-
jects. Place the sphere
into an unused layer
and Subsurf the water.
**Call the instructor

when finished**
122
Chapter 19- Working With Nodes
Nodes are relatively new to Blender and open the door to new rendering and post-production
possibilities. Nodes are used as a way to add effects to your materials and renders in the
final output. Nodes are changing quickly. For the most up-to-date information and detailed
discussions of nodes, review the information at blender.org on the wiki.
Accessing Nodes
In order to use nodes, you need to first set a window to the Node Editor
window type. To see your results when you render an image, you will
also need to press the “Do Composite” button under animation in the
Render buttons. At this point, you will see a big blank area in the nodes
window. To turn nodes on, click on the “Com-
posite Nodes” button and “Use Nodes” at the
bottom of the window.
If you have rendered a picture (F12-if not, do so now), you will see 2
boxes displayed in the window. A Render Layer
block and a Composite block with a line connect-
ing the two. This is showing how the render con-
nects to the composite output. Right now, you won’t
see any difference because we haven’t done any-
thing yet. The job is to add blocks between the two,
modifying the output to what you desire. The op-
tions are limitless so here we will just review some
basics.
RoboDude Asks: How do I erase the connection lines between blocks?
Just use your mouse to drag a window over the line and it will erase.
If you press the “Add” button at the bottom of the Nodes window, you will see several catagories
of nodes that can be placed in the sequence. They are:
Group- user-defined blocks of nodes

Distort- changing the shape of the image
Matte- mattes that can mask off image areas
Convertor- cahange formats, seperates colors
Filter- enhance or blur images
Vector- changes intensity and reflections
Color- color, brightness, contrast, transparency settings
Output- displays results as a small image
Input- adds an image or a value to the node map.
New nodes are being added with every new release with greater potential for quality render-
ings.
123
Chapter 19- Working With Nodes
Before we begin making changes, you will see several “connection” points on the blocks.
The basic output connections on the render layer block are:
Image- this is the output connection from the renderer to the node
composite.
Alpha- represents the transparency settings of the rendered.
Z- represents depth of pixels from the camera.
This is a basic rendered view. Below are some sample

composite images:
Black and White output

using an RGB to BW
Convertor Node.
Inverted output using an

Invert Color Node.
Camera lens output us-

ing a Lens Distortion
Distort Node.
The possibilities are limitless using nodes. You can also create material effects with nodes.
Search for some creative tutorials using nodes on the web.
124
Depth-of-Field Practice Exercise
In my opinion, simulating depth-of-field using nodes is one of the nices additions to Blender.
Depth-of-field is the blurring that occurs from camera setting where objects in front of, and
behind, the focal object are out-of-focus. Open your “Landscape Scene” file for this exer-
cise. Although we won’t be seeing much blur in this scene, it will add a nicer effect to the
rain. It will also show you how to set up blur for future projects. First thing we need to do is
work in the top view, shading to wireframe, and camera selected. With the camera se-
lected, go to the edit buttons. Here, we will make a few adjustments to the settings. Let’s
make the lighthouse be the depth-of-field focus throughout the animation. The other option
is to set an actual distance, but since our camera is animated, that would cause the light-
house to go out of focus. To focus on the lighthouse, you will need to know the Name of the
lighthouse. Select the lighthouse to see the name displayed in the lower-left corner of the
screen. Now select the camera again and type the name (case sensitive) in the Dof Ob:
box. The name of my lighthouse is Circle.001. You will also want to show the “Limits” of the
camera. This will give you a line showing the camera’s limits along with a small “Plus”
marking the camera’s focal point.
Focal Point
It’s now time to set up the nodes to render the depth-of-field.
125
It’s time to change your
viewport to the Node
Editor window. Then,
click the “Composite
Nodes” button and
“Use Nodes”. Don’t for-
get to hit the “Do Com-
posite” button in the
Render buttons. Ren-
der an image. Your
screen should look
something like this:
Delete the connection between the 2 panels and set up the following node set:
Add a “Map Value” panel from the Vector node set.
Add a “Defocus” panel from the Filter node set.
Adjust your setting to match these:
Click “No zbuffer

button so fStop option dis-
plays
The “Map Value” panel is used to adjust the pixels related to distance from camera and
connects to the “Z” on the Render Layer panel and Defocus panel. The image Out/Ins
connect as shown. Adjust the fStop to a low number. Like a camera, a low fStop means
little is in focus beyond the target. A larger number will give a larger focus range. MaxBlur
sets the amount of blurring while a high Samples setting will give you a better quality im-
age. Feel free to experiment with different setting. When you are finished, render an image
and save it. If you have time, try an animation.
126
Here are the before and after pictures of the landscape scene.
Here is the motorcycle scene

used earlier with depth-of-field
applied using nodes. The
MaxBlur was set to 20 with the
focal point of the camera at the
headlight.
**Call the instructor when

finished**
127
Chapter 20- Creating Springs, Screws and Gears
Duplicating Meshes to Create Screws and Gears
So far, we see that Blender has many features that are found in almost all 3D computer
programs like the ability to extrude along paths, subtract and add meshes through boolean
expressions and now we will examine revolving-type commands. The commands used for
these effects are found in the Edit Buttons and are visible when in Edit Mode. The process to
get them to work can be confusing to beginners. Here’s what you see:
Spin Duplicate
Spin Duplicate will take a group of verticies and copy them around the 3D Cursor location.
For our example, I will use a modified cube to make a gear. Step 1 is to shape a cube into a
simple gear tooth in edit mode. While in edit mode, select all verticies and review the following
settings: Cube shaped into simplified gear tooth At time, you will get a question mark
by your cursor when you use these
commands. Just click in the 3D win-
dow to see the results.
With all verticies selected and everything

3D Cursor location at set to these numbers, hit the “Spin Dup”
center of gear. button and see the results. You will need
to experiment with sizes and number of
steps to get a good gear without any
overlaps. Remember that edit mode has
an Undo command. If it isn’t right, just
hit “Ctrl-Z” and it will go back to your one
gear tooth. Make sure all verticies are still
selected and try again with some differ-
ent settings. To fill in the gear and make
it look realistic, add some cylinders to fill
it in. You can
also add a nice
touch by using
Boolean Differ-
Degrees to go Steps- number of in- Turns- how many ence to cut holes
around- set to stances. In our case times to go
around. We only
in the body of the
360 for a full number of gear
circle teeth. want 1 turn for a gear.
gear.
128
Spin
The Spin command operates similar to the Spin Duplicate command, except that it works
more like a revolve-extrude command. You can take a plane or a circle, shape it, then
revolve it around the 3D Cursor location. For our example, we started with a Mesh Circle in
the Top View, then we placed the 3D Cursor at a desired location. Enter edit mode and
select all verticies. Switch to the Front View and select the “Spin” command in the edit
buttons. Notice how far it extrudes and the number of steps. Undo (“Ctrl-Z”) the spin so you’re
back to your basic shape again and change degrees to 360 and steps to 30. Make sure all
verticies are selected and try again. Here’s our results:
Circle that has been shaped in edit

mode. 3D Cursor to left of shape for
center point.
All verticies selected, switched to
frontal view and spin command Final results of Spin com-
used. mand
Using Mesh Editing to Create Helix Shapes
This is the most complex of the 3 tools. This tool can be used to represent any type of
helix object. Springs, threads on a bolt, worm gears, etc. can be done with a little work
once you know how to use it. The Screw command only works in the Front View (number
pad 1) so switch to the front view to develop a spring.
In order to create a spring, you need to start with a Mesh Circle in the front view. Like the
other spin tools, you need to place the 3D Cursor in the location where you want the
center to be located. Now you need to create a line that will represent the spacing in
the turns (for threads on a bolt, the line is short so the threads are close together, for a
spring with a large space between loops, draw a longer line). To create the line, add a
Mesh Plane to your scene and delete 2 of the verticies. Size the line that is left to what
you need for your model. Join the line and the circle together so that it is one object.
For the best results, place the line you created in the center of the revolved mesh (beside
your 3D Cursor). The verticies can be moved or adjusted in edit mode. Here’s an example
of your model:
Here are the 2 verticies that
form the line to controls Circle that forms profile of
spacing the spring. Any shape can
be used.
3D Cursor location
129
Set the Degrees to 360, Steps to 16 or higher (depending on the smoothness you want)
and Turns to how many loops you want (I’ll set it to 8). Select All verticies (including the 2 that
form the line) and select the Screw button. You should see a spring on your screen. If some-
thing needs adjusting, press “Ctrl-Z” to undo in edit mode to go back to your basic shape and
try again. Here’s our results:
You will notice a shape in the middle of your
spring. That shape is created from the verticies
you used to designate the length of each loop.
You placed this shape in the middle so it is easier
for you to select these verticies in edit mode and
erase them. Switch to a
top view and enter edit
mode. Select the
verticies and hit “De-
lete”. Now you’ll just
have your spring on the
screen.
Other Shapes:
Here’s how you can create some other things:
A Worm Gear created

using a subdivided
plane as the profile and
the line set to equal
twice the height of the
gear profile. A cylinder
has been added
through the center to
give it a solid
appearence.
Bolt and screw threads

can be created with a
plane shaped into a tri-
angle and the line for
spacing set to exactly
the same length as the
base of the triangle. To
make a pointed screw,
grab the end thread
verticies and scale it
with proportional vertex
editing (“O”) for a nice
look.
130
Gear Design Practice Exercise
Create a worm gear and a spur gear to mesh with each other using the information
discussed in this chapter. Add materials, textures and appropriate lighting. Make a 200
frame animation of the grears turning. Try to make them mesh perfectly! Remember
the Extend Mode options available in the IPO Window. All you need to do is create a
small section of the animation and let the computer do the rest!
131
Chapter 21- Game Engine Basics
We’ve seen that Blender is a powerful 3D rendering and animation program up to this point,
but so far, all of the commands that we’ve looked at are in most high-power animation
programs. The big difference is in the cost of the program and some features. One thing
(besides price) that makes Blender stand out from the others is its integrated Real-Time
animation features (aka. the Game Engine). The program integrates real-time motion with
physics and logic blocks. For example, you can set your gravity in the world buttons, add
friction and force settings to your materials, turn objects into actors and move them around,
then have them react to other objects in the scene.
You can create games that look as good as professionally produced 3D games and real-
time architectural walk throughs where doors can open and close as you approach them. The
best part of this is that it can all be done without computer programming skills. There are
other freeware game creation programs out there, but most require some programming
knowledge. Programming skills in Python scripting are helpful in Blender, but not necessary.
This chapter cannot hope to cover everything you need to know about the game engine. We
will only look at how to texture your models and describe the interface and logic. We will also
look at the game engine’s ability to be written to an animation IPO curve. For a more detailed
description, review the Blender downloaded tutorial on the game engine. It is well-written
and describes all of the basic command options.
The Blender game engine has seen a great deal of development over the past few releases.
The most recent has been a complete reworking of the texturing system. It is now more
confusing, but gives much more flexibility. The original game engine physics module is called
Sumo, which is still available for selection, but all recent work uses the new module , Bullet.
Bullet is showing a great deal of promise with accuracy and the ability to be used to create
animation IPO tracks from the action.
Setting Up the Physics Engine
The first step to using the game engine is to set it up. To do this, go to the Shading and World
buttons. Under the Mist/Stars/Physics tab you will set the engine to Bullet. You can also set
the Gravity at this time. Most likely, these setting will already be selected for you.
132
Using Logic Blocks
Let’s make a simple scene consisting of a plane and a sphere and set the sphere above the
plane. Modify the sphere by pulling one vertex out to form a nose. This will let us know which
way is forward when we move it around. Add a material to each one and feel free to set colors
for each. We will use a different process for setting textures
on the objects than we do for rendering. We are adding
materials for physical properties (friction, elasticity).
Here’s what we have so far:
DYN (Dynamic) set-

tings in the material
buttons
Select the sphere and go to the Game Buttons (little purple pacman button). Here’s what
you see in the buttons window:
Actor Button- to turn the
object into “live” actor.
Add Property- used when you Sensors, Controllers and Actuators- The “brains” of the game
want something to happen in your engine. Think of it as Input-Process-Output where data is fed
scene. Soomething will happen in, the computer processes it and something happens. There
when it senses this property. are a lot of options in these commands.
Let’s turn our sphere into an Actor. Click on the Actor button and choose Dynamic. Look at
the important options now available:
Damp: motion dampening-
Actor Size (Radius)-
keeps the object from con-
You will notice a dashed
tinuing forever when you stop
line circle around the
applyiing force. I like to set
shere when you change
this to around 0.4
this. This is the actor
Bounds- changes the size.
shape of the actor from RotDamp: rotational dampening-
sphere (from radius) to Mass- how heavy you keeps the actor from spinning forever.
other shapes. actor is. I like to set this to about 0.8
133
Move your cursor into the 3D window and press “P” for play. If the sphere is above the
plane, it will fall to the plane showing you that it is now an actor. Click the “Add”
buttons under Sensors, Controllers and Actuators. By holding the LMB down on each
block, you can change it’s type. Change the sensor block from Always to Keyboard.
Next, connect the blocks
together. Once you change
the sensor to keyboard, you
will see a block for Key.
click in that box and type
the key you want to use.
For our case, we’ll use the
“Up Arrow”. We will tie a
force to the up arrow so
that when we press it, the
sphere will move forward.
Now we’ll apply a force to the actor. You will see three col-
umns in the Motion block. They represent X, Y, and Z. The
best way to change numbers in these blocks is to hold down
“Shift” and click in the box. In the Force block, Let’s change
the Y number to 10. This is where you need to experiment
with numbers. If a block doesn’t move it in the direction you
desire, change it back to zero and try a different one. If it moves on the right axis, but the
wrong direction, try a negative number. Once you get this motion right, add another row of
block under the Sensors, Controllers and Actuators, connect them and adjust your setting to
go backwards. To make the object turn left and right, work with the Torque settings and use
the left/right arrow keys. There are a lot of options in these buttons. To get a more detailed
description of them, refer to the Blender Game Engine documentation available to down-
load from the Blender website.
RoboDude Says: If you want to move some-
thing that isn’t an actor, use Loc and Rot num-
Applying Materials bers. If it’s an actor, use Force and Torque.
Before the release of version 2.48, game texturing was a pretty easy process. Materials and
textures used in rendering and animation were basically different from UV texturing used in
the game engine. With the introduction of new features and more crossing over between
rendering and game texturing, the developers have pulled many of the features together which,
in my opinion, have caused some confusion. The reason for treating game texturing differently
stems from the concept that things in a game need to be kept simple in order for the game to
run smoothly and many feature in normal render texturing can slow game play down
considerably. UV textures can basically be “mapped” onto the mesh faces which minimize
texture calculations while in game play. While traditional textures can be used in the game
engine to some degree, I will focus on the more traditional UV mapping process here.
134
You already know that you can apply a material to an object and it
will display in the game engine First, start by making sure you are
in Textured Draw type (Alt-Z will also get you there). For my scene,
I will be using a basic cube to demonstrate UV texturing. Place a
material on the cube.
In textured mode and the cube selected, set one of your viewports to the
UV/Image Editor window. At the bottom of that
window you will see some options- View, Image
and some up/down arrows. The arrows are used
to browse the list of already opened images in
the scene. Use the Image menu and Open a tex-
ture that you would like to use. I will select a brick texture to use for the cube. Now go into edit
mode and switch the selection type from verticies to faces. Hit “A” once or twice to select
ALL faces. It’s time to apply the UV mapping by pressing “U” in the 3D window for the UV
Mapping option menu. For this example, I will select Cube Projection. Since we had se-
lected the texture beforehand, it will automatically display on all faces (or you can hit the
arrows and choose from a list). In the UV window, you will notice faces and verticies show up
on the texture sample. These can be moved, scaled, etc. to change the way the texture maps.
Instead of selecting all faces, we could have just selected one and applied the texture to just
that face (a difference between rendering materials and UV texturing).
Now exit edit mode and press “P” to see how your cube looks in the game engine while
running. When done, press Esc to exit play.
RoboDude Says: To keep your game as streamlined as possible, al-

ways keep your meshes as simple as possible with the fewest num-
ber of verticies and faces. Use textures to show detail when possible
instead of modeling that detail into the mesh. (i.e. windows in a build-
ing, signs on a wall)
135
The cube looks good, but we have some more options. Go to the edit buttons and find the UV
Calculations and Texture Face panels. The texture Face panel will only be visible after
hitting the “U” key to apply UV Mapping. Both panels are only visible in edit mode.
Copy- At times, press these for effects to be applied.

Light- Selected faces will reflect light for better scenes.
Invisible- Selected faces will not be seen in the game.
Collision- Actors will not be able to pass through these faces.
Two-Sided- Faces will display textures on both sides of the
face (if only one-sided, face is invisible from opposite side.
Add- Textures with dark/black areas will display those areas
as transparent. Great for text on a black background.
Alpha- textures with a transparency channel will display this.
UV Calculations are used to display the texture on a face in

various ways. For example, if you change “Cube Size”, place
your cursor back in the 3D window and press “U” again , se-
lect “Cube Projection” and the texture will reflect the changes.
There are a lot of other things that can be done beyond this discussion. Look to blender.org
and the forums for more help. Don’t be afraid to experiment!
Using Game Physics in Animation
It is possible to use the game engine physics to record an animation (IPO) curve. Now, in-
stead of trying to insert location and rotation keys for a falling (moving) object in the IPO and
3D window, you can set up a Bullet model and tell Blender to record the action to an IPO
curve for animation. No more frustration trying to make something look like it’s moving cor-
rectly in a fall/fly/bounce. Blender will do it for you! To start out, you need to set up your game
logic to do what you want. Set up your actor to be a Rigid Body actor intead of Dynamic.
Dynamic actors will not just slide around, but roll or angle when needed automatically. You
may want to set Bounds also.
When you have the action correct, go to the “Game” pull-down

menu and select the “Record Game Physics to IPO” option.
Hit the “P” button to run the action. When finished, hit the “Esc”
key. The action will be written to an IPO curve for the object
and will now work with “Alt-A” and animate! Apply materials
and textures as normal and make your movie.
RoboDude Says: Remember to turn off the

Record Game to IPO button when finished. It
will make a new curve everytime you hit Play!
136
Smash Through A Wall Practice Exercise
Create a scene similar to the one discussed in this chapter. It should include one actor and
a plane, both textured for game mode. Apply physics to the actor (Dynamic) so that he can
move forward and back, turn left and right. Create a brick (cube) and make it a Rigid Body
and apply a Box under Bounds setting to it. Duplicate it several times (Shift-D) and stack
them up. Drive your actor through them so they fall. When finished, create an IPO curve of
your action so a movie can be rendered from the scene.
137
Chapter 22- Video Sequence Editor
Producing a Movie From Individual Clips
Movies are never produced from one continuous camer shot. A movie is made up of short
clips and images combined together with sound and effects to give us an end production.
Blender has the capability of doing much of this production work. Blender can combine video
and audio together in the form of an MPEG movie, capable of being played on any media
player of saved to DVD through other programs.
Setting Up the Sequence Editor Screen
Blender has a preset screen for Sequence Editing. To ac-

cess it, go to the top toolbar and select the bottom screen
option “4-Sequence”. When you select this, your screen
will look like this:
Preview
Window
When animating your final

Empty tracks for arranging images, video, FFMpeg movie with audio, you
transitions and audio will need to go to the “Audio”
setup panel and select “Multiplex
Audio”
Timeline
Do Sequence Button
If you are familiar with programs like Premiere, this will seem familiar, if not, the process is
simple. First, set up your output options in the render buttons for what you want your final
movie to be. Press the “Do Sequence” button so you render the sequence and not the 3D
window (what the camera sees).
138
Chapter 22- Video Sequence Editor
Next, select the “Add” button above the buttons window. We are
interested in the Effect (transitions), Audio, Images and Movie
options. Select a movie or image from your files to add to the
timeline. Pay close attention to the frame markers at the ends of
the file you are inserting. Images can be lengthened or shortened
by RMB clicking on the end and using the “G” key to grab it. Mov-
ies can only be shortened. If you would like to add an Effect be-
tween the two files (like a cross-fade), overlap the files a second or
two as shown below. I like to leave a space between the files as
shown to in-
Overlap and space sert the Effect later. Continue adding im-
for Effect ages and movies as needed. When you
are ready to insert the Effects, you need
Right-click on end to hold down the “Shift” key, then select
to see current the first file in the sequence, then the
frame location
second one of the transition. Selecting
them backwards will cause the Effect to
not function properly! Go to the “Add”
menu and select “Effect” and the effect
you want to use. A simple “Cross” dis-
solve works well for most things. Place
the effect between the files. To view a sample of the move, Place your cursor up in the Pre-
view window and press “Atl-A”.
Continue down the timeline and in-
sert all transitions. If you do not wish
to use transitions, but go straight
Effect Inserted
from one image to another, simply
“butt” the tracks to one another be-
ing careful not to overlap them. To
create the final movie, RMB click
on the last image in the movie to
find out the final frame. Set this in your End frame movie output. Press the “Animate”
button in the button window. Rendering time will be faster since you are only compiling
already created images.
Full Volume (1.0)

Adding an Audio Track
Insert keys to fade in by Ctrl-
Do the same thing with your audio track. clicking in window
Be aware that some audio formats will
not be supported and that you will need No Volume (0.0)
to experiment with them. Wave (.wav)
files work best, but others are always
being added. for more consistent results, use “Audio HD” rather then “Audio RAM”. To fade
an audio track, select it, then go up into the IPO window in the upper-left corner. Hold down the
Ctrl key and click in the timeline to insert a key at the appropriate frame.
139
Movie Producer Practice Exercise
This is a great exercise to end the book with. Your job is to take all of the images and movies
you have created through these exercises and produce a compiled movie. I recommend
making a Black JPEG image to use for your first and last image (start and end in black).
Images should be diplayed for approx. 3-5 seconds with 1 second transitions.
RoboDude Says: It is best to work with movie files that have all been
rendered at the same size and frames-per-second. Problems may
occur when Blender tries to convert files that are different from the
output you have selected.
I hope that this manual has been helpful in learning this difficult, yet powerful program.
The projects that you can create in it are limited to only what you can imagine and are
willing to learn. We have covered a lot of information, but it is only a fraction of what Blender
can do. Visit the Blender forums, Blendernation.com, and Blender.org often.
Happy Blending!
140

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2. Creating Objects ........................................................................ 20

3. Basic Editing .............................................................................. 25

4. Boolean Editing .......................................................................... 33

5. Applying Materials .................................................................. 37

6. Applying Textures ..................................................................... 45

7. Adding a World ........................................................................... 53

8. Lighting and Cameras ............................................................... 59

9. Rendering an Image ................................................................... 64

10. Raytracing ................................................................................... 67

11. Creating an Animation .............................................................. 73

12. Creating 3D Text ......................................................................... 79

13. Meta Shapes ............................................................................... 82

14. Using Modifiers ........................................................................ 87

15. Particle Systems ....................................................................... 97

16. Creating a Robot Arm ................................................................ 100

17. Camera Constraints .................................................................. 102

18. Paths & Curves .......................................................................... 105

19. Creating a Skeleton .................................................................. 111

20. Vertex Keys ................................................................................. 115

21. Making A Flag ............................................................................ 119

21. Water ........................................................................................... 122

22. Depth-Of-Field ............................................................................ 125

23. Gear Design ................................................................................ 131

24. Real-Time Animation ................................................................ 137

25. Movie Producer ......................................................................... 140

How can Blender be free?

Blender website (blender.org)

A rendering is a pictorial output of a 3D scene or object. Features like materials,

Materials and Textures:

Following Paths and Objects:

Real-Time Animation (Blender only):

Game Logic Buttons Shading Buttons Edit Buttons

Object Buttons Scene Buttons

User Preferences Window

Transform Widgets Camera

Mode Layers Buttons Window

•File/Image Browsers- comes up automatically on

The User Preferences Window

ToolTips Mouse Operations Widget Controls

Global Undo (Alt-”U” keys) Linked Data

Click on folders to set paths- File Paths

Blender utilizes commands similar to other pro-

The Save Command

Path where work will be saved

Files and folders at the current location

If you plan to open this file on other

With every new release of Blender, the import/

When importing Blender files into other Blender

Windows can also be split

The Buttons Window Option:

Looks good, but needs some ad-

and minus keys on the number pad to

limits of what the camera sees

The camera is represented by 3

RoboDude Says: Practice using these controls before moving on to

Top View Perspective or Camera View

Front View Right Side View

• Panning around on the screen

** Call the instructor when finished**

Call the instructor when finished

Call the instructor when finished

Call the instructor when finished

Call the instructor when finished

Call the instructor when finished