Blender: Basic Modelling 4076/GV07: Virtual Environments (VE) MSci - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Blender: Basic Modelling

4076/GV07: Virtual Environments (VE)

• MSci 4th year, MSc VIVE, EngD

Vinoba Vinayagamoorthy Room 6.22, Computer Science V.Vinayagamoorthy@cs.ucl.ac.uk http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/V.Vinayagamoorthy

Aims of the course

• Introduce the main concepts and practical issues in

constructing and understanding Virtual Environments, and how people respond to a VE experience

• Use Blender3D to construct your VE and its inhabitants

– It is FREE

• Models need to be in .aam files to comply with XVR
• Alternatives: Maya, 3D Studio Max, AC3D

Creating Objects

• It’s all in the triangles

– Vertices to Edges to Faces to Objects

WWW Stuff

• Blender3D

– Download from http://www.blender.org – Tutorials and Stuff from http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D

• Exporter plugin

– http://www.vrmedia.it/wikifiles/blender_scripts/

• “aam_exporter.py”
• C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\.blender\scripts

– http://wiki.vrmedia.it/index.php?title=AAM_exporter_for_Blender

• Export your work on the Lab machines

– Can Save your work on your Laptop

• Also don’t export into .aam in “Edit mode”

Blender3D: The 3D Viewport

Viewport: Some Useful Stuff

• Acronyms

– LMB: Left Mouse Button – MMB: Middle Mouse Button – RMB: Right Mouse Button

• Use split/join functionality to see different views

– Hover to a separator & click RMB

• Choose from a pop-up menu
• Use “View” options to set different views of the

scene

Viewport: More Stuff

• Click and drag MMB to rotate the object freely
• Press “Shift” and drag MMB to move scene on the plane
• Press “Ctrl” and drag MMB to zoom in and out of the scene

– Press “C” and “Shift + C” to find out what they do… – Press “Z” and see what happens

• Also use the “Viewport Shading” button to see the different options
• There are more but this is enough for now

– Email me interesting ones as you find them

On to Modelling

• Start with the Cube in your new file

– Notice the camera and light source

• RMB (not LMB) is used to select objects

– “Shift + RMB” to select multiple objects

• There are many modes in Blender

– Object and Edit modes – Use the TAB key to toggle between the modes

Modelling: Object and Edit modes

• Object mode allows you to scale, rotate and move an
• bject
• Edit mode allows you to do the same to the vertices of an
• bject

– Can’t toggle into edit mode if you have selected a Camera or Light

• They are edited differently
• “Ctrl + Z” = Undo last edit
• Select an object/vertex, then press the “g” key and move

(grab) the cursor around…

– Or click LMB in the middle of the transform gizmo – What happens once you click on RMB or LMB after that?

Modelling: Selection Tools

• In Edit mode

– Set of selection tools which can be used to select Vertices, Edges, and Faces – Alternatively: Use pop-up menu after pressing “Ctrl + TAB” in viewport

• Click on a vertex, then press “Shift + S” and see the pop-

up menu

– Many invaluable snapping possibilities

• Select some vertices, then press “E”, select “Region” in the

pop-up menu, and extrude vertices

– Repeat for the Vertices and Edges option in the pop-up menu

Modelling: Some Useful Keys

• “Z” can be used to toggle transparency levels to

help with modelling

• “A” is used to select/deselect all objects/vertices
• “B” is used to select multiple objects/vertices

– Press “B” twice to activate circular select tool

• Use “Shift + LMB” to active lasso select tool

– “Shift + Ctrl + LMB to activate lasso deselect tool

Other shapes and associated functions

• Adding objects: Get used to the spacebar and its pop-up menu

– In Edit mode: Adds new vertices and edges to the existing object – In Object mode: Adds completely new and separate object to the scene

• Edit objects and smooth them
• Make faces from vertices using popup menu

– Or by pressing “F”

• Subdivide faces using popup menu
• Move the cursor near an object and press “L” to select associated
• bject
• Delete popup menu accessible by pressing “X”
• Join Objects by selecting them and pressing (Ctrl+J)
• Select objects and make parent-child relationship (“Ctrl+P”)

– The first selected object becomes the child of the second one

Materials and Textures

• In Object mode, hit F5

– Access Shading functions

• Can add colours in Materials
• F6 to add Textures

– Map RGB to 000 and Render to see effect – Play around the values in Map To and Map Input

Render and Export

• In Object mode: Press F12 to render

– Remember: Rendering will be from the camera’s POV – F3 to save rendered image as a JPEG

• Next Lesson: Getting the .aam files to XVR

The END

• http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/V.Vinayagamoorthy
• Room 6.22, Computer Science
• http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro
• http://forums.vrmedia.it
• http://wiki.vrmedia.it
• TASK: Recreating your version of the PIT experiment