Blender: Introduction, Modelling and Exporting 4076/GV07: Virtual - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Blender: Introduction, Modelling and Exporting

4076/GV07: Virtual Environments (VE) MSci 4th year, MSc VIVE, EngD Will Steptoe Room 6.22, Computer Science W.Steptoe@cs.ucl.ac.uk http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/W.Steptoe

Aims

• Introduce the main concepts and practical issues in

constructing and understanding Virtual Environments, and how people respond to VE experiences.

• Use Blender to construct your VE and its inhabitants
• Export Blender content to XVR
• Develop content in XVR’s scripting language

Software

• Blender

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

• XVR

– Download: http://www.vrmedia.it – Forums: http://www.forums.vrmedia.it

• Blender -> XVR exporter script (.aam)

– Download: http://www.vrmedia.it/wikifiles/blender_scripts/aam_exporter.py – Copy to: {Blender Installation Directory}\.blender\scripts\ – Help: http://wiki.vrmedia.it/index.php?title=AAM_exporter_for_Blender – Make sure Blender is in Edit mode (TAB)

Blender: Interface

Blender: Viewport

• Acronyms

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

• Use split/join functionality to customise interface:

– Hover over separator & click RMB

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

Blender: Navigation

• Click and drag MMB to rotate the view freely
• Hold Shift and drag MMB to pan scene on the plane
• Use mouse-wheel or hold 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
• ...shortcuts for everything

Blender: 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 (whole objects) and Edit (vertices) modes – Use the TAB key to toggle between modes

Blender: Object and Edit modes

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

– Can’t toggle into edit mode if a Camera or Light is selected (not composed of vertices)

• Select an object/vertex, grab using g key and move cursor

around

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

Blender: Selection Tools

• RMB
• Press A:

select/deselect all objects/vertices

• Press B:

selection drag-box

• Press B twice:

activate circular selection tool

• Shift+LMB:

active lasso select tool

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

• 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

Blender: Other Functions

• Spacebar brings up menu similar to Maya with many functions:

– Edit mode: Add new vertices and edges to parent object – Object mode: Add new object to the scene at cursor position – Make faces from vertices (also by pressing F) – Subdivide faces

• Move the cursor crosshair (LMB) near an object and press “L” to select

associated object

• Press X:

Delete popup menu

• Press Ctrl+J:

Join Objects by selecting both

• Press Ctrl+P:

Make parent-child relationship (first selected=child)

• Button window for more manipulation functions

Blender: Materials, Textures, Rendering

• F5: Access materials and shader functions
• F6: Access texture functions

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

• F12: Render

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

Blender: Export to XVR

• Blender -> XVR exporter script (.aam)

– Download:

http://www.vrmedia.it/wikifiles/blender_scripts/aam_exporter.py

– Copy to: {Blender Installation Directory}\.blender\scripts\ – Select objects to export in Object mode – Export to XVR (.AAM) format

The End

• http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/W.Steptoe
• Room 6.22, Computer Science
• http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro
• http://forums.vrmedia.it
• http://wiki.vrmedia.it
• Task:

– Familiarise yourselves with Blender and XVR – Recreating your version of the PIT experiment