+ B0009 - Blender's Vital Functions+
Instructor - Pradeep Mamgain
+ Vital Functions +
In this tutorial I will talk about Spin Command, SpinDup Command, Render Preview Window and Camera Settings.
+ Spin Command +
Spin tool is very powerful tool that you will use to create meshes of revolution. This command is found under Editing Context [F9], in edit mode.
Here we will make a wine glass. First we will load reference image in the front view and create a mesh that will represent the profile of the object. In front view choose View > Background Image to open up the background image window. Click on the load button and load wineG lass.jpg.
Create a plane, go into edit mode, press A to select all the vertices and delete them. We have deleted all the vertices but we are still inside that shape. CTRL+RMB click to start adding points. You have to add more points in the area where there is a curve in the body of the glass to make it smooth. This commands depends on the placement of the 3D cursor. Place the cursor along the center of the profile, by selection a center vertex and then pressing SHIFT+S to bring up snap menu. Choose Cursor > Selection. Set angle to 360 degrees as we want to rotate full 360 degrees. Set steps to 16, which determines the total number of spin slices. Select all verts and click on Spin button. Your mouse cursor will change to a question mark cursor. Blender is asking you which views should I use to rotate the profile? Click on the top view.
Now we have our glass. Spin operation leaves duplicate vertices along the profile. Select them in the top view and click on button, remove duplicates.
To weld two vertices, first select the verticies; hit S to scale and hold down CTRL while scaling to scale the points down to 0 units in X, Y and Z. Click on the Remove Double button. Another command you can use is Merge. Select the two points and press W to invoke the special menu, from there choose Merge. Another menu will popup, select the Merge option, At Center is generally the better choice.
+ Spin Dup +
Spin Dup command is used to create a series of copies of the object along a circle. Create a shape as shown. Place the 3D cursor at the center of rotation. Set the number of degrees and steps in Mesh tool window. Set degrees to 360 and steps to 20. When you execute the Spin Dup command, blender will place 20 copies at angle of 18 Degrees. Select the vertices you want copy and press Spin Dup command. Select the top view.
+ Rendering +
To redner your current scene, put the mosue cursor in the 3d window and press F12 on the keyborad to render the scene. You can also access it from render menu if you wanted to. If you want to save your rendered image to some location in your media, press F3 or select File > Save Rendered Image…
A quick way to get a preview of your scene that is near render-quality is to use the Preview window in the 3D viewport. To open this window, use Shift+P. The preview takes a few seconds to generate, and is updated in close to real time when you move the Preview window or the view in the window (see Figure 5.21).
+ Camera +
The 0 key on the numeric keypad switches to the active camera viewport. Dotted lines represents the safe area. Solid rectangle represents the camera, as shown in Fig 5.22. You can left click on this soild rectangle to select the camera as you select any other object.
Active camera is the camera that is used for rendering. Select the camera you want to make active and press CTRL+NUM 0 to make that camera active. Same technique you can used to make any obejct the active camera, that is useful to check the viewpoint of other objects, specially for directional objects such as spot light. To move active camera to the view, press CTRL+ALT+Num 0.
Click on the on the soild rectangle to select the camera. Camera settings are displayed in the button window.
Lens :- It represents the lens in Milimeters, if you press D button. Blender will change lens units to degrees. When you press the Orthographic button which tells blender to render in orthographic projection (No Perspective ), this will change to scale variable.
Dof Dist :- It sets distance to point of focus. It is shown as yellow cross on the camera line of sight. You must press Limits button in order to see that cross on the screen.
Dof Ob :- Dof Ob tells blender to focus camera on specified object. It overrides the Dof Dist settings. Create a plane and a cube and place them apart. Now select the camera and set Dof Ob values to Plane and Cube one by one and see the yellow dot changing, as shown in Fig 5.26.
Clipping Start/End :- It sets the clipping area for the rendering. Blender draw’s two yellow dots on the camera line of sight as shown in the Fig – 5.27. In order to see these dots Limits button should be on.
Shift X-Y :- Shift X, Y shift’s the camera view horizontally or vertically without changing the perspective.
Mist :- Mist draw a line that indicates the mist area. As shown in Figure below. Mist Limits are set in the Word Panel (Hotkey - F8). We will discuss Mist Panel Later.
Name :- Draws the name of the Active camera in the viewport.
Title Safe :- Draws the title safe zone in camera view.
Passepartout Alpha :- This draws area outside the camera’s field of view with different drarkness. You can set the opacity by dragging the Alpha slider.
Size :- Size controls the size of the camera displayed in the viewport. It does not affect the camera’s output. It is only used to increase the size of the camera icon in the viewport. This operation can also be done by the standard S key.
Aiming The Camera :- Press Shift + F to enter to “Camera Fly Mode”, move mouse around to set the aim. Press LMB to set the aim. Press RMB or scale to cancel.
Rolling The Camera :- To roll the camera, select the camera first and then press R key to rotate. The default rotation axis will be local Z axis.
Dolly Camera :- To dolly the camera, Press G key and then MMB drag. LMB to complete.
Tracking Camera :- To track the camera, Press G key and drag with LMB to set the position.+ Download Project +
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