How-To Tutorials - 3D Game Development

Getting to grips with 3D Let's take a look at the crucial elements of 3D worlds, and how Unity lets you develop games in the third dimension. Coordinates If you have worked with any 3D artworking application before, you'll likely be familiar with the concept of the Z-axis. The Z-axis, in addition to the existing X for horizontal and Y for vertical, represents depth. In 3D applications, you'll see information on objects laid out in X, Y, Z format—this is known as the Cartesian coordinate method. Dimensions, rotational values, and positions in the 3D world can all be described in this way. In any documentation of 3D, you'll see such information written with parenthesis, shown as follows: (10, 15, 10) This is mostly for neatness, and also due to the fact that in programming, these values must be written in this way. Regardless of their presentation, you can assume that any sets of three values separated by commas will be in X, Y, Z order. Local space versus World space A crucial concept to begin looking at is the difference between Local space and World space. In any 3D package, the world you will work in is technically infinite, and it can be difficult to keep track of the location of objects within it. In every 3D world, there is a point of origin, often referred to as zero, as it is represented by the position (0,0,0). All world positions of objects in 3D are relative to world zero. However, to make things simpler, we also use Local space (also known as Object space) to define object positions in relation to one another. Local space assumes that every object has its own zero point, which is the point from which its axis handles emerge. This is usually the center of the object, and by creating relationships between objects, we can compare their positions in relation to one another. Such relationships, known as parent-child relationships, mean that we can calculate distances from other objects using Local space, with the parent object's position becoming the new zero point for any of its child objects. Vectors You'll also see 3D vectors described in Cartesian coordinates. Like their 2D counterparts, 3D vectors are simply lines drawn in the 3D world that have a direction and a length. Vectors can be moved in world space, but remain unchanged themselves. Vectors are useful in a game engine context, as they allow us to calculate distances, relative angles between objects, and the direction of objects. Cameras Cameras are essential in the 3D world, as they act as the viewport for the screen. Having a pyramid-shaped field of vision, cameras can be placed at any point in the world, animated, or attached to characters or objects as part of a game scenario. With adjustable Field of Vision (FOV), 3D cameras are your viewport on the 3D world. In game engines, you'll notice that effects such as lighting, motion blurs, and other effects are applied to the camera to help with game simulation of a person's eye view of the world—you can even add a few cinematic effects that the human eye will never experience, such as lens flares when looking at the sun! Most modern 3D games utilize multiple cameras to show parts of the game world that the character camera is not currently looking at—like a 'cutaway' in cinematic terms. Unity does this with ease by allowing many cameras in a single scene, which can be scripted to act as the main camera at any point during runtime. Multiple cameras can also be used in a game to control the rendering of particular 2D and 3D elements separately as part of the optimization process. For example, objects may be grouped in layers, and cameras may be assigned to render objects in particular layers. This gives us more control over individual renders of certain elements in the game. Polygons, edges, vertices, and meshes In constructing 3D shapes, all objects are ultimately made up of interconnected 2D shapes known as polygons. On importing models from a modelling application, Unity converts all polygons to polygon triangles. Polygon triangles (also referred to as faces) are in turn made up of three connected edges. The locations at which these vertices meet are known as points or vertices. By knowing these locations, game engines are able to make calculations regarding the points of impact, known as collisions, when using complex collision detection with Mesh Colliders, such as in shooting games to detect the exact location at which a bullet has hit another object. By combining many linked polygons, 3D modelling applications allow us to build complex shapes, known as meshes. In addition to building 3D shapes, the data stored in meshes can have many other uses. For example, it can be used as surface navigational data by making objects in a game, by following the vertices. In game projects, it is crucial for the developer to understand the importance of polygon count. The polygon count is the total number of polygons, often in reference to a model, but also in reference to an entire game level. The higher the number of polygons, the more work your computer must do to render the objects onscreen. This is why, in the past decade or so, we've seen an increase in the level of detail from early 3D games to those of today—simply compare the visual detail in a game, such as Id's Quake (1996) with the details seen in a game, such as Epic's Gears Of War (2006). As a result of faster technology, game developers are now able to model 3D characters and worlds for games that contain a much higher polygon count and this trend will inevitably continue. Materials, textures, and shaders Materials are a common concept to all 3D applications, as they provide the means to set the visual appearance of a 3D model. From basic colors to reflective image-based surfaces, materials handle everything. Starting with a simple color and the option of using one or more images—known as textures—in a single material, the material works with the shader, which is a script in charge of the style of rendering. For example, in a reflective shader, the material will render reflections of surrounding objects, but maintain its color or the look of the image applied as its texture. In Unity, the use of materials is easy. Any materials created in your 3D modelling package will be imported and recreated automatically by the engine and created as assets to use later. You can also create your own materials from scratch, assigning images as texture files, and selecting a shader from a large library that comes built-in. You may also write your own shader scripts, or implement those written by members of the Unity community, giving you more freedom for expansion beyond the included set. Crucially, when creating textures for a game in a graphics package such as Photoshop, you must be aware of the resolution. Game textures are expected to be square, and sized to a power of 2. This means that numbers should run as follows: 128 x 128 256 x 256 512 x 512 1024 x 1024 Creating textures of these sizes will mean that they can be tiled successfully by the game engine. You should also be aware that the larger the texture file you use, the more processing power you'll be demanding from the player's computer. Therefore, always remember to try resizing your graphics to the smallest power of 2 dimensions possible, without sacrificing too much in the way of quality. Rigid Body physics For developers working with game engines, physics engines provide an accompanying way of simulating real-world responses for objects in games. In Unity, the game engine uses Nvidia's PhysX engine, a popular and highly accurate commercial physics engine. In game engines, there is no assumption that an object should be affected by physics—firstly because it requires a lot of processing power, and secondly because it simply doesn't make sense. For example, in a 3D driving game, it makes sense for the cars to be under the influence of the physics engine, but not the track or surrounding objects, such as trees, walls, and so on—they simply don't need to be. For this reason, when making games, a Rigid Body component is given to any object you want under the control of the physics engine. Physics engines for games use the Rigid Body dynamics system of creating realistic motion. This simply means that instead of objects being static in the 3D world, they can have the following properties: Mass Gravity Velocity Friction As the power of hardware and software increases, rigid body physics is becoming more widely applied in games, as it offers the potential for more varied and realistic simulation. Collision detection While more crucial in game engines than in 3D animation, collision detection is the way we analyze our 3D world for inter-object collisions. By giving an object a Collider component, we are effectively placing an invisible net around it. This net mimics its shape and is in charge of reporting any collisions with other colliders, making the game engine respond accordingly. For example, in a ten-pin bowling game, a simple spherical collider will surround the ball, while the pins themselves will have either a simple capsule collider, or for a more realistic collision, employ a Mesh collider. On impact, the colliders of any affected objects will report to the physics engine, which will dictate their reaction, based on the direction of impact, speed, and other factors. In this example, employing a mesh collider to fit exactly to the shape of the pin model would be more accurate but is more expensive in processing terms. This simply means that it demands more processing power from the computer, the cost of which is reflected in slower performance—hence the term expensive. Essential Unity concepts Unity makes the game production process simple by giving you a set of logical steps to build any conceivable game scenario. Renowned for being non-game-type specific, Unity offers you a blank canvas and a set of consistent procedures to let your imagination be the limit of your creativity. By establishing its use of the Game Object (GO) concept, you are able to break down parts of your game into easily manageable objects, which are made of many individual Component parts. By making individual objects within the game and introducing functionality to them with each component you add, you are able to infinitely expand your game in a logical progressive manner. Component parts in turn have variables—essentially settings to control them with. By adjusting these variables, you'll have complete control over the effect that Component has on your object. Let's take a look at a simple example. The Unity way If I wished to have a bouncing ball as part of a game, then I'd begin with a sphere. This can quickly be created from the Unity menus, and will give you a new Game Object with a sphere mesh (a net of a 3D shape), and a Renderer component to make it visible. Having created this, I can then add a Rigid body. A Rigidbody (Unity refers to most two-word phrases as a single word term) is a component which tells Unity to apply its physics engine to an object. With this comes mass, gravity, and the ability to apply forces to the object, either when the player commands it or simply when it collides with another object. Our sphere will now fall to the ground when the game runs, but how do we make it bounce? This is simple! The collider component has a variable called Physic Material—this is a setting for the Rigidbody, defining how it will react to other objects' surfaces. Here we can select Bouncy, an available preset, and voila! Our bouncing ball is complete, in only a few clicks. This streamlined approach for the most basic of tasks, such as the previous example, seems pedestrian at first. However, you'll soon find that by applying this approach to more complex tasks, they become very simple to achieve. Here is an overview of those key Unity concepts plus a few more. Assets These are the building blocks of all Unity projects. From graphics in the form of image files, through 3D models and sound files, Unity refers to the files you'll use to create your game as assets. This is why in any Unity project folder all files used are stored in a child folder named Assets. Scenes In Unity, you should think of scenes as individual levels, or areas of game content (such as menus). By constructing your game with many scenes, you'll be able to distribute loading times and test different parts of your game individually. Game Objects When an asset is used in a game scene, it becomes a new Game Object—referred to in Unity terms—especially in scripting—using the contracted term "GameObject". All GameObjects contain at least one component to begin with, that is, the Transform component. Transform simply tells the Unity engine the position, rotation, and scale of an object—all described in X, Y, Z coordinate (or in the case of scale, dimensional) order. In turn, the component can then be addressed in scripting in order to set an object's position, rotation, or scale. From this initial component, you will build upon game objects with further components adding required functionality to build every part of any game scenario you can imagine. Components Components come in various forms. They can be for creating behavior, defining appearance, and influencing other aspects of an object's function in the game. By 'attaching' components to an object, you can immediately apply new parts of the game engine to your object. Common components of game production come built-in with Unity, such as the Rigidbody component mentioned earlier, down to simpler elements such as lights, cameras, particle emitters, and more. To build further interactive elements of the game, you'll write scripts, which are treated as components in Unity. Scripts While being considered by Unity to be Components, scripts are an essential part of game production, and deserve a mention as a key concept. You can write scripts in JavaScript, but you should be aware that Unity offers you the opportunity to write in C# and Boo (a derivative of the Python language) also. I've chosen to demonstrate Unity with JavaScript, as it is a functional programming language, with a simple to follow syntax that some of you may already have encountered in other endeavors such as Adobe Flash development in ActionScript or in using JavaScript itself for web development. Unity does not require you to learn how the coding of its own engine works or how to modify it, but you will be utilizing scripting in almost every game scenario you develop. The beauty of using Unity scripting is that any script you write for your game will be straightforward enough after a few examples, as Unity has its own built-in Behavior class—a set of scripting instructions for you to call upon. For many new developers, getting to grips with scripting can be a daunting prospect, and one that threatens to put off new Unity users who are simply accustomed to design only. I will introduce scripting one step at a time, with a mind to showing you not only the importance, but also the power of effective scripting for your Unity games. To write scripts, you'll use Unity's standalone script editor. On Mac, this is an application called Unitron, and on PC, Uniscite. These separate applications can be found in the Unity application folder on your PC or Mac and will be launched any time you edit a new script or an existing one. Amending and saving scripts in the script editor will immediately update the script in Unity. You may also designate your own script editor in the Unity preferences if you wish. Prefabs Unity's development approach hinges around the GameObject concept, but it also has a clever way to store objects as assets to be reused in different parts of your game, and then 'spawned' or 'cloned' at any time. By creating complex objects with various components and settings, you'll be effectively building a template for something you may want to spawn multiple instances of, with each instance then being individually modifiable. Consider a crate as an example—you may have given the object in the game a mass, and written scripted behaviors for its destruction; chances are you'll want to use this object more than once in a game, and perhaps even in games other than the one it was designed for. Prefabs allow you to store the object, complete with components and current configuration. Comparable to the MovieClip concept in Adobe Flash, think of prefabs simply as empty containers that you can fill with objects to form a data template you'll likely recycle. The interface The Unity interface, like many other working environments, has a customizable layout. Consisting of several dockable spaces, you can pick which parts of the interface appear where. Let's take a look at a typical Unity layout: As the previous image demonstrates (PC version shown), there are five different elements you'll be dealing with: Scene [1]—where the game is constructed Hierarchy [2]—a list of GameObjects in the scene Inspector [3]—settings for currently selected asset/object Game [4]—the preview window, active only in play mode Project [5]—a list of your project's assets, acts as a library The Scene window and Hierarchy The Scene window is where you will build the entirety of your game project in Unity. This window offers a perspective (full 3D) view, which is switchable to orthographic (top down, side on, and front on) views. This acts as a fully rendered 'Editor' view of the game world you build. Dragging an asset to this window will make it an active game object. The Scene view is tied to the Hierarchy, which lists all active objects in the currently open scene in ascending alphabetical order. The Scene window is also accompanied by four useful control buttons, as shown in the previous image. Accessible from the keyboard using keys Q, W, E, and R, these keys perform the following operations: The Hand tool [Q]: This tools allows navigation of the Scene window. By itself, it allows you to drag around in the Scene window to pan your view. Holding down Alt with this tool selected will allow you to rotate your view, and holding the Command key (Apple) or Ctrl key (PC) will allow you to zoom. Holding the Shift key down also will speed up both of these functions. The Translate tool [W]: This is your active selection tool. As you can completely interact with the Scene window, selecting objects either in the Hierarchy or Scene means you'll be able to drag the object's axis handles in order to reposition them. The Rotate tool [E]: This works in the same way as Translate, using visual 'handles' to allow you to rotate your object around each axis. The Scale tool [R]: Again, this tool works as the Translate and Rotate tools do. It adjusts the size or scale of an object using visual handles. Having selected objects in either the Scene or Hierarchy, they immediately get selected in both. Selection of objects in this way will also show the properties of the object in the Inspector. Given that you may not be able to see an object you've selected in the Hierarchy in the Scene window, Unity also provides the use of the F key, to focus your Scene view on that object. Simply select an object from the Hierarchy, hover your mouse cursor over the Scene window, and press F. The Inspector Think of the Inspector as your personal toolkit to adjust every element of any game object or asset in your project. Much like the Property Inspector concept utilized by Adobe in Flash and Dreamweaver, this is a context-sensitive window. All this means is that whatever you select, the Inspector will change to show its relevant properties—it is sensitive to the context in which you are working. The Inspector will show every component part of anything you select, and allow you to adjust the variables of these components, using simple form elements such as text input boxes, slider scales, buttons, and drop-down menus. Many of these variables are tied into Unity's drag-and-drop system, which means that rather than selecting from a drop-down menu, if it is more convenient, you can drag-and-drop to choose settings. This window is not only for inspecting objects. It will also change to show the various options for your project when choosing them from the Edit menu, as it acts as an ideal space to show you preferences—changing back to showing component properties as soon as you reselect an object or asset. In this screenshot, the Inspector is showing properties for a target object in the game. The object itself features two components—Transform and Animation. The Inspector will allow you to make changes to settings in either of them. Also notice that to temporarily disable any component at any time—which will become very useful for testing and experimentation—you can simply deselect the box to the left of the component's name. Likewise, if you wish to switch off an entire object at a time, then you may deselect the box next to its name at the top of the Inspector window. The Project window The Project window is a direct view of the Assets folder of your project. Every Unity project is made up of a parent folder, containing three subfolders—Assets, Library, and while the Unity Editor is running, a Temp folder. Placing assets into the Assets folder means you'll immediately be able to see them in the Project window, and they'll also be automatically imported into your Unity project. Likewise, changing any asset located in the Assets folder, and resaving it from a third-party application, such as Photoshop, will cause Unity to reimport the asset, reflecting your changes immediately in your project and any active scenes that use that particular asset. It is important to remember that you should only alter asset locations and names using the Project window—using Finder (Mac) or Windows Explorer (PC) to do so may break connections in your Unity project. Therefore, to relocate or rename objects in your Assets folder, use Unity's Project window instead. The Project window is accompanied by a Create button. This allows the creation of any assets that can be made within Unity, for example, scripts, prefabs, and materials. The Game window The Game window is invoked by pressing the Play button and acts as a realistic test of your game. It also has settings for screen ratio, which will come in handy when testing how much of the player's view will be restricted in certain ratios, such as 4:3 (as opposed to wide) screen resolutions. Having pressed Play, it is crucial that you bear in mind the following advice: In play mode, the adjustments you make to any parts of your game scene are merely temporary—it is meant as a testing mode only, and when you press Play again to stop the game, all changes made during play mode will be undone. This can often trip up new users, so don't forget about it! The Game window can also be set to Maximize when you invoke play mode, giving you a better view of the game at nearly fullscreen—the window expands to fill the interface. It is worth noting that you can expand any part of the interface in this way, simply by hovering over the part you wish to expand and pressing the Space bar. Summary Here we have looked at the key concepts, you'll need to understand for developing games with Unity. Due to space constraints, I cannot cover everything in depth, as 3D development is a vast area of study. With this in mind, I strongly recommend you to continue to read more on the topics discussed in this article, in order to supplement your study of 3D development. Each individual piece of software you encounter will have its own dedicated tutorials and resources dedicated to learning it. If you wish to learn 3D artwork to complement your work in Unity, I recommend that you familiarize yourself with your chosen package, after researching the list of tools that work with the Unity pipeline and choosing which one suits you best.

Meeba Abraham: Hi Allan, thank you for talking to us today, why don’t you tell us a bit about yourself and your background; how did you start working with Blender? Allan Brito: Hi, and thanks for this opportunity to talk a bit about myself. Well, I’m a 29 year-old architect from Brazil. After my graduation, I started working on visualization projects, mostly on 3ds Max for a small studio here in Brazil. After two years I started teaching 3D modeling and animation and I fell in love with teaching. I still teach 3D animation and modeling at a College here. With the help of my teaching experience, I began writing manuals and tutorials about 3D animation. Eventually, I decided to write a book about Blender in Portuguese, and the book was a huge success in Brazil. Currently I`m working on the third edition of this book. With the book, I also needed a way to keep in touch with the readers and discuss about Blender and 3D related stuff. So I started a web site (www.allanbrito.com), where I regularly write short articles and tutorials about Blender and its comparison with other 3D packages. Today the web site has grown considerably, and I continue to update it with content on Blender and other 3D software tools. Meeba Abraham: How long have you been working with it? Allan Brito: My first contact with Blender 3D was in 2003. I was invited by a friend to check out a great open source software for 3D visualization. I was really impressed by Blender, its potential, and the lightweight of the software. Coming from a 3ds Max background, it was a bit hard to get used to the interface and the keyboard shortcuts, but after a few weeks I started getting used to it. After the learning process, I started to use Blender as the main tool for my projects. I can`t say that it was easy to use at first, but with time Blender simply grew on me and became my main tool for my projects. Meeba Abraham: Can you tell about some of the key features of Blender that makes it a viable option to other professional 3D software? Allan Brito: There are many features in Blender that other professional 3D suites do not have. For instance, the integrated Game Engine, which allows you to produce interactive animations, is just awesome! For 3D modeling, Blender has a sculpt module where artists can create 3D models only by sculpt geometry in a way similar to what sculpting tools such as ZBrush and MudBox provides. The node editor in Blender is also an incredible tool to create materials and for post-production. Post-production is a powerful tool in Blender. There is a sequencer editor that works like a video editor. You can cut, join, and post-process videos in the sequence editor. For instance, an animator can create a full animation without the need of any other software. Recently, the Big Buck Bunny project introduced some great tools for character animation in Blender, like better fur, a new and improved particle system, new and improved UV Mapping and much more. I strongly recommend a visit to www.blender.org to check out the full list of features, which is huge. Meeba Abraham: Why is Blender an important 3D application that an aspiring graphics artist should consider using? Allan Brito: I believe that Blender has a great set of features that can help a graphic artist create some impressive art work. Why Blender? I guess the best answer is; why not? All the features offered by other 3D animation software are also available in Blender, such as character animation, physics simulation, particle animation, and much more. And with Blender being a free software, you won’t have to get a single license and be bounded to only one workstation. Besides the features, I believe in the community nature of Blender. If you feel a tool or feature is missing, just make a suggestion to the community or make the feature yourself! Meeba Abraham: Over the years, Blender has grown in popularity. What, in your opinion, are some of the main reasons for this? Allan Brito: In the last few years Blender gained many features that only the so-called high-end and expansive 3D software had. This puts the spotlight right into Blender, and some old and experienced professionals are using Blender today, to take a look at these advanced features, and they like it. Besides the features, the Blender Foundation is doing a great job by supporting Blender and promoting it outside the community. They organize conferences and projects to show the potentials of Blender as a 3D animation package. The last open movie—Big Buck Bunny—supported by the community is a great example of that. Meeba Abraham: Since Blender is an open source 3D application, the Blender community plays an important role in its growth. Can you shed some light on the blender community? How have they helped to popularize Blender? Allan Brito: What can I say? The Blender community is great and has been supporting the development of Blender for a long time. The last open movie is a great example of what this community can do. Big Buck Bunny is a project mainly created by the Blender community. Artists could buy the DVD of the animation even before the project started. And when the animation was finished, all Blender users could buy a shiny DVD of the animation that contains tutorials and all source files of the animation. Now, what if Pixar gave away all the production files of their animations. And even of you don’t want to buy the DVD, you can still download all of the content for free from the project Web site, www.bigbuckbunny.org. This is a great example of the Blender community spirit and how much support Blender gets from around the world. Meeba Abraham: You have just authored a book on Blender; how did you find the experience? Is this the first book you’ve written? Allan Brito: Writing a book on Blender was quite a challenge for me. Even with the experience of writing tutorials and short articles about Blender, writing a book was not easy! But after a few weeks, I was able to write the chapters naturally and almost on schedule. The biggest challenge for me was to write about a subject that no one else had written about yet. In my first book “Blender 3D – Guia do Usuário” written in Brazilian Portuguese, the challenge was even bigger. When I started writing that book, there weren’t any updated documentation on Blender features. So I had to do a lot of research myself. With this book, the challenge again was to write about something that no one else has ever written. Even with a few short tutorials around, there weren`t any full set of procedures or tips for working with architectural visualization in Blender. The experience was great and I hope this is just the first book in a long series of books! I have a few ideas for writing more books about Blender and I’m already working on some of them. Meeba Abraham: How do you anticipate it will help the Blender community? Is it different to other Blender books? Allan Brito: I believe that a lot of users want to use Blender for architectural visualization but have only found tutorials and books on character modeling and animation. This book was written with architectural visualization in mind. So every example and Blender tool is described specifically with architectural examples. Meeba Abraham: You make regular contributions to www.BlenderNation.com, how did you get involved with the site and what does it offer to the community? Allan Brito: BlenderNation is the comprehensive Web site for Blender related news. So if anyone is curious about what`s going on in the Blender community, the first place to look after the Foundation Web site is BlenderNation. My involvement with BlenderNation began with my writing articles about Blender in Brazilian Portuguese for my own web site (www.allanbrito.com). A few months later, I was invited by Bart Veldhuizen to write a few tutorials and I guess they liked my work! After that I was writing articles for BlenderNation as a Contributor Editor. And I have to say that it`s really great to be a part of it, and keep the Blender community updated. The experience with BlenderNation and the books inspired me to start a new project called Blender 3D Architect (www.blender3darchitect.com) where I write articles on how to use Blender for architectural visualization along with tips and tutorials. Meeba Abraham: Thanks for your time and contributions!

Procedural Textures vs. Bitmap Textures Blender has basically two types of textures, which are procedural textures and bitmap textures. Each one has both positive and negative points. Which one is the best will depend on your project needs. Procedural: This kind of texture is generated by the software at rendering time, just like vector lines. This means that it won't depend on any type of image file. The best thing about this type of texture is that it is resolution independent, so we can set the texture to be rendered with high resolutions with minimum loss of quality. The negative point about this kind of texture is that it's harder to get realistic textures with it. Bitmap: To use this kind of texture, we will need an image file, such as a JPEG, PNG, or TGA file. The good thing about these textures is that we can achieve very realistic materials with it quickly. On the other hand, we must find the texture file before using it. And there is more. If you are creating a high resolution render, the texture file must be big. Texture Library Do you remember the way we organized materials? We can do exactly the same thing about textures. Besides setting names and storing the Blender files to import and use again later, collecting bitmap textures is another important point. Even if you don't start right away, it's important to know where to look for textures. So here is a small list of websites that provides free texture download. http://www.blender-textures.org http://www.cgtextures.com http://blender-archi.tuxfamily.org/textures Applying Textures To use a texture, we must apply a material to an object, and then use the texture with this material. We always use the texture inside a material. For instance, to make a plane that simulates a marble floor, we have to use a texture and set up how the surface will react to light and texture, which can give the surface a proper look of marble using any texture. To do that, we must use the texture panel, which is located right next to the materials button. We can use a keyboard shortcut to open this panel: just hit F6. There is a way to add a texture in the material panel as well, with a menu called Texture. The best way to get all the options is to add the texture on the texture panel. On this panel, we will be able to see a lot of buttons, which represent the texture channels. Each one of these channels can hold a texture. The final texture will be a mix of all the channels. If we have a texture at channel 1 and another texture at channel 2, these textures will be blended and represented in the material. Before adding a new texture, we must select a channel by clicking over one of them. Usually the first channel is selected, but if you want to use another one, just click on the channel. When the channel is selected, just click the Add New button to add a new texture. The texture controls are very similar to the material controls. We can set a name for the texture at the top, or erase it if we don't want it anymore. With the selector, we can choose a previously created texture too—just click and select. Now comes the fun part. Having added a texture, we have to choose a texture type. To do that, we click on the texture type combo box. There are a lot of textures, but most of them are procedural textures and we won't use them much. The only texture type that isn't procedural is the image type. We can use textures like Clouds and Wood to create some effects and give surfaces a more complex look, or even create a grass texture with some dirt on it. But most times, the texture type that we will be using will be the Image type. Each texture has its own set of parameters to determine how it will look in the object. If we add a Wood texture, it will show the configuration parameters at the right. If we choose as texture type Clouds, the parameters showed at the right will be completely different. With the image texture type it's not different, this kind of texture has its own type of setup. This is the control panel: To show how to set up a texture, let's use an image file that represents a wood floor and a plane. We can apply the texture to this plane and set up how it's going to look, testing all the parameters. The first thing to do is assign a material to the plane, and add a texture to this material. We choose as texture type the Image option. It will show the configuration options for this kind of texture. To apply the image as a texture to the plane, just click on the Load button, situated on the Image menu. When we hit this button, we will be able to select the image file. Locate the image file and the texture will be applied. If we want to have more control over how this texture is organized and placed on the plane, we need to learn how the controls work. Every time you make any changes to the setup of a texture, these changes will be shown in the preview window; use it a lot to make good changes. Here is a list of what some of the buttons can do for the texture: UseAlpha: If the texture has an alpha channel, we have to press this button for Blender calculate the channel. An image has an alpha channel when some kind of transparency is stored in the image. For instance, a .png file with transparent background has an alpha channel. We can use this to create a texture with a logo, for a bottle, or to add an image of a tree or person to a plane. Rot90: With this option we can rotate the texture by 90 degrees. Repeat: Every texture must be distributed on the object surface, and repeating the texture in lines and columns is the default way to do that. Extended: If this button is pressed, the texture will be adjusted to fit all the object surface area. Clip: With this option, the texture will be cropped and we will be able to show only a part of it. To adjust which parts of the texture will be displayed, use the Min/Max X/Y options. Xrepeat / Yrepeat: This option determines how many times a texture is repeated, with the repeat option turned on. Normal Map: If the texture will be used to create Normal Maps, press this button. These are textures used to change the face normals of an object. Still: With this button selected, we can determine that the image used as texture is a still image. This option is marked by default. Movie: If you have to use a movie file as texture, press this button. This is very useful if we need to make something like a theatre projection screen or a tv screen. Sequence: We can use a sequence of images as texture too; just press this button. It works the same ways as with a movie file. There are a few more parameters, like the Reload button. If your texture file suffers any kind of change, we must press this button for the changes get accepted by Blender. The X button can erase this texture; use it if you need to select another image file. When we add a texture to any material, an external link is created with this file. This link can be absolute or relative. When we add a texture called "wood.png", which is located at the root of your main hard disk, like C:, a link to this texture will be created like this: "c:wood.png", so every time you open this file, the software will look for that file at that exact place. This is an absolute link, but we can use a relative link as well. For instance, when we add a texture located in the same folder as our scene, a relative link will be created. Every time we use an absolute link and we have to move the ".blend" file to another computer, the texture file must go with it. To imbue the image file with the .blend, just press the icon of gift package. To save all the textures used in a scene, just access the file menu and use the Pack Data option. It will make all the texture files embedded with the source blend file. Mapping Every time we add a texture to any object, we must choose a mapping type to set up how the texture will be applied to the object. For instance, if we have a wall and apply a wood texture, it must be placed like wallpaper. But for cylindrical or spherical objects, or even walls, we have to set up in a way that makes the texture adaptable to the topology of the surface, to avoid effects such as a stretched texture. To set this up, we use the mapping options, which are located on the Map Input menu. On this menu, we can choose between four basic mapping types which are Cube, Sphere, Flat, and Tube. If you have a wall, choose the option that matches the topology type with the model. In this case, the best choice is the Cube. Another important option here is the UV button, which allows us to use another very powerful type of texturing, based on UV Mapping. Normal Map This is a special and useful type of texture, that can change the normals of surfaces. If we have a floor and a texture of ceramic tiles, the surface can be represented with smaller details of that tiling, using this kind of a map. It's almost like modeling the tiles. But everything is created using just a normal map. To use this kind of texture, we must turn on the Nor button on the Map To menu. When this button is turned on, we can set up the Nor slider to determine the intensity of the normal displacement. It works based on the pixel color of the texture. With white pixels, the normals are not affected, and with black pixels, the normals are fully translated. If you want to optimize the normal mapping, using a special texture is much recommended. Some texture libraries even have this type of normal maps ready for use. They can be called bump maps too. Here is an example of how we can use them. We take a stone texture and a tiled texture with a white background and black lines. The stone texture is applied to the floor, and the tiled texture is used to create a tiling for the floor. The setup for that is really simple. Just apply the texture at a lower channel, and turn off the Col button for this channel. Turn on the Nor button, and this texture will affect only the normals and not the material color. Any image can be used as a normal map, but we will always get better results with a greyscale image prepared to be used as a normal map. Now, just set up the Nor intensity with the slider, and see the render. Turn on positive and turn on negativeSome of the buttons on the Map To menu can be turned on with positive and negative values. For instance, the Nor option can be turned on with one click. If we click on it again, the Nor text will turn yellow. This means that the Nor is inverted with negative values. Some other buttons may present the same option.

Create Models or Use a Library? There are two possibilities when working with furniture. We can create new furniture, or use pre-made models from a library. The question is: when must we use each type? Some people say that using a pre-made model is not very professional thing but what they forget to say is that most projects have a tight deadline, and we need a quick modeling process to be ready on time. So, what's most important for professionals? Getting things done, or telling the client that all the models were created just for his project? Of course, the deadline is the most important, and your clients normally won't mind if you use pre-made models. Probably they won't even notice. So don't be ashamed to use pre-made models they won't make your projects any less professional. It's even recommended to use these models to speed-up the process, and allow you to spend more time on lighting or texturing. Is there any situation that demands the creation of a furniture model from scratch? Well, there are some. First, if you can't find the model in any library that you know, then it's going to be necessary to create it from scratch. If you are working with an architect who designs the spaces and furniture as well, you will probably have to model the furniture too, since it won't be available at any public library. Any project that deals with customized furniture will require that we work on the modeling for the furniture. Create your own libraryA good practice for anyone doing architectural visualization is to collect a lot of 3D models from public libraries for use in future projects. Keep these models for later, but don't forget to check if the author has released the models with no restrictions for commercial use. Otherwise, you must get their permission to use them. If you want to create your library, with no restrictions, why not create your own models? This could be a good exercise: take a few examples, and start creating some furniture. With time, you will have a good number of models. How to Get Started? In most cases, we have to get used to all that furniture modeling. We will have to start from scratch, with no blueprints available. The only references that we will have would be the photos, either provided by our clients, or provided from some web resources. If you have the time, visit a real store, and take some pictures and measures on your own. Sometimes, these stores will give you fliers and brochures, especially if you work with architecture. With time, you will get a lot of good reference material, and some of them come with measurements. But, if you don't know where to get started, let me point out some great web resources: http://www.e-interiors.net http://resources.blogoscopia.com http://blender-archi.tuxfamily.org/Models http://www.katorlegaz.com/ http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse The first link has a lot of reference images classified by furniture type and designer. And sometimes, they even provide free 3D models. Most models there are saved in DXF, or 3DS file formats. Appending Models Before we start to model, let's see how we can import a model form an external library into Blender. The process is very simple, and what we have to do is to use the File menu, and access the Append or Link option. There is a shortcut for that too - just press SHIFT+F1 to call the same function. With this option, we have to select file that is already in the Blender file format. This option won't import files in other formats. When we select a file, a list of elements available in that particular file will be displayed, for us to select what we want to import. In most cases, the models will be stored under Object. When we click the Object option, all of the objects available in the file will be listed. If you know the name of the object that you want to import, just select the name, and click Load Library. The object will be loaded into our scene. Here, we have two options to handle this object: Append or Link: Append: If we choose this option, the object will be merged into ourcurrent scene. Link: With this option, an external link to the object file will be created. Any modifications to the original file will be reflected in our current scene. What is the best method to use? It will depend on whether we are willing to track all modifications applied to our furniture models. Using the Link method is a great way of keeping the furniture updated, because every modification at the original file is reflected immediately in the scene in which this model is placed. However, we will have to take the original file with the scene file every time we need to put our scene on another computer. They always have to go together. But if you choose to use the Append option, things will be a bit simpler, because the object will be incorporated into the scene file. We won't have to be worried about moving the furniture file along with the scene. Always use the Append option when you want to use furniture, or any other model, saved in another Blender file. To use a furniture model saved in another file, with a type other than “.blend”, we have to use the Import option. Importing Models To import a model, the process is very simple. We must use the File menu and select, Import. Then we have to select the proper file type from the list. The best file type, and the most common for furniture blocks, is the 3Ds file format, which belongs to the old 3D Studio application. There are some other good formats that work well with Blender, such as OBJ and LWO. The 3Ds file format can store lights, and it works well with Blender. The only thing we have to take extra care about is that most models imported come with triangular faces, which are a bit harder to edit. But, if you don't need to make any modifications to the model, this won't be a problem. Append or Import?Just to make things clearer, if you download a furniture model from a web site, and it's saved in the Blender native file format (.blend), you should append the model. If you download or get a furniture model on any file format other than “.blend”, you will have to import it. Since most models aren't saved in the Blender native file format, we can safely say that almost all furniture models that you find will require an import action to be placed in your scenes. Modeling a Chair Let's start with something simple, such as a chair. Even for a simple model, it will help us deal with smaller dimensions and details. Here is an image of the model: What's the main objective of this modeling? We have to create this chair, with the minimum use of faces and vertices. A good amount of detail can be left for textures, and it's always a good choice to use a lower number of vertices and faces in a model. If you consider one model, it won't matter much. But with a large number of chairs, such as in a theater room, it can make a difference in render time. Let's get started with a simple cube. Select this cube, and change the work mode to Edit. Select all vertices and press the W key. This will open the Specials menu. Choose subdivide, just once, from this menu. This will create new vertices and edges. Once these new vertices have been created, as shown in the image to the left, below, press the A key to remove all of the objects from the selection. Now, select the vertices to the right, using the B key. Remember to change the view mode to Wireframe before using the B key, otherwise, we won't be able to select the vertices behind the visible faces. When these vertices are selected, press the X key and choose Vertices to erase only the selected vertices. Using the CTRL+R key, add a new edge loop to the model, as shown in the following image: The next step is to change the scale of our model. Rotate the view to see the model in perspective view. Select all objects and press the S key, immediately after pressing the Z key. This will make the scale work only in the Z axis. Now, select the vertices identified in the following image and erase them using the X key. Change the selection mode to Edges, and select the edges identified in the following image. With the edges selected, press the E key to extrude them. With the new faces created, we can now add some detail to the model. Select only the top edge of the previously created faces. Move this edge down just a bit. This will add a small declivity to the seat. Now, we can move on to the next extrude, which must be from the selected edges identified in the following image. I'm not using any kind of measure for this example, but if you like to work only with real measurements, remember to hold the CTRL key every time a new extrude or edge is moved. This way, all transformations will use the grid lines. For this model, I'm not using vertex snap. With the new faces created, select just the two edges identified in the following image. Extrude these edges until they reach the other side of the base model. Hold the CTRL key, while you extrude them, to help with the precision. If you already want to remove duplicated vertices, select all objects, and press the W key. Choose Remove doubles to erase any duplicated vertices. Select the edges identified in the image to keep adding more parts to the chair. Extrude the edges three times until you have the same structure showed here. Now, we have to close the top with a face. To do that, we must select all four vertices on the top. When the vertices are selected, press the F key to create a new face. The next step is to select the small side edges to create some detail. Select just one edge, beginning from bottom to top, and move it just a bit. Repeat this operation with the other edges until we get the edges positioned as in the following image. The basic shape of our chair has now been created. Now, we can make some adjustments for improving the overall proportions. Select all edges or vertices on the left side, and move them a bit to the left. This will make the model wider. Did you notice that we have modeled only half a chair? Now we can make the other half, using the Mirror modifier. Add the modifier, and choose the right axis to make a perfect copy. If the center point for the model has been moved, you might need to edit the model to create a perfect mirrored match. Don't worry if you have moved the model by accident - this can happen sometimes. Along with the Mirror modifier, add a Subsurf modifier, too. With the Subsurf modifier, we realize that this model needs a new edge loop on the left side. Just press CTRL+R, and add a new loop, as in the following image.

The next step would be to play around with Layer Modes which, I believe, is one of the most exciting aspects of graphic design. Let's leave layer “lower shine” for awhile and let's get back to layer “upper shine”, and change its layer mode to make it look more appealing and following a scheme in accordance to the color of the sphere. To do this, let's select “upper shine” layer on the Layers Window and right above the Opacity Slider is a dropdown menu containing lots of interesting layer modes, each having its own distinct advantages. You can play around and choose whichever suits your vision the best. I chose Overlay for that matter. Ever since I've started GIMPing, this layer mode has been my best friend for a couple of years already, it works like a charm most of the time.  I wonder though why on some applications, applying the overlay layer mode does different results.  As in the case of Photoshop, the closest I could get with GIMP's overlay is the Screen mode.  You've got to play around a bit and see which works best for you. Do the same thing for the “lower shine” layer, choosing Overlay as the layer mode.  Then, whenever you see fit, you can duplicate the layers to achieve a multiplied effect of the mode. I did that because it felt that something was still missing in the luminous aspect of the shine. So I selected each layer, duplicated them both and voila. To duplicate a layer, you can either right click on the layer name and choose Duplicate Layer from the choices or just press the Duplicate Button on the bottom part of the Layers Window. Duplicated Layers Next, we'll add additional highlights to better emulate specular reflections. And again, we're exploiting the Ellipse Select Tool and another new technique called Feathering. I don't know exactly the definition of feathering in CG, but as far as my experience goes, feathering is a technique from sets of tools where you soften the edges of a selection creating a subtle transition and blurred edges. Create a new layer at the top of the layer stack and call it “blurred shine”, then give it a Layer Fill Type of Transparency, just like what we did with the previous layers.  And with layer 'blurred shine” active, let's create an elliptical selection on the upper left hand part of the sphere, just where the sharp shine has been cast. Creating the Specular Selection With the selection active, right click on the Image Window and choose Select > Feather, then input a value for the feather and the unit to be used. I used 50 pixels. You might have noticed now that the selection seemed to have become smaller, and that's alright, that means you've done it right.  And with the marching ants still active, grab the Bucket Fill Tool over at the Toolbox Window or press SHIFT + B to activate it. Change your foreground color to something close to white or simply pure white, then with the Bucket Fill Tool active, click on the active selection. Tadaaaa! You just created a replica of a specular highlight, though not so close enough. What's great about feathering selections as opposed to applying a blur filter is that you only blur the selection border and not the entire selection. So, say, you have a picture of yourself and you wanted your face fade out smoothly on a vast landscape that you have photographed. Simply create a selection around your face, then apply a Feather to that selection, invert the selection and delete the outer parts, thus leaving only your face and the landscape behind (supposing you have your picture on a separate layer above the landscape layer.) Feathering the Selection Applying the Color with the Bucket Fill Whew, that was pretty quick, isn't it? I hope you agree with me on that.  If so, let's create another one, though smaller and placed just on the left of the blurred shine.  Create a new layer for this new blurred shine and name it “small blurred shine”.  Follow the same procedure for the feathering and color-filling. I used the same feather value for the smaller selection (even though it obviously is smaller), just so it almost affects the center of the selection, blurring the whole selection already, which is what I like for this part. And then, just like what we did with the upper and lower shine respectively, we'll change the Layer Modes to Overlay and duplicate the layers as we see fit.  Doing so results in this image: Blurred Shines Overlay Our sphere now looks a lot better than it had been when we first added its color. However, the shading still looks a bit flat and volumeless. To deal with that, we'll simulate the strength with which the light diffused our sphere object, creating deeper shadows on the opposite side of the light source. Duplication of layers is not only a matter of multiplying the effects of layer effects or such, but it can also be a good way to trace your changes, or better yet, as safe backups where working on the duplicate doesn't affect the original one and you can go back each time to the untouched layer anytime you want to see the differences that have been made.  But be careful though, the more layers and contents of each layer you have, the more computing memory will be consumed and will eventually cause a system slow down. Let's select the “sphere” layer and duplicate in once.  Automatically, the duplicate layer which is now named “sphere copy” becomes the active layer.  Right Click on “sphere copy” layer and choose Alpha to Selection to create a selection out of the fully opaque sphere. Next step is to shrink the selection such that we create a smaller elliptical selection inside the sphere.  To do this, right click on the Image Window and choose Select > Shrink.  Then on the pop up window that appears, type in an appropriate value for the shrinking. I chose 50 pixels. Shrinking the Selection Shrinked Selection Remember how we moved the selection last time? I believe you do. To translate/move our selection, grab the Ellipse Select Tool and activate the selection by clicking on it (clicking the middle portion of the selection makes this easier) until you see your cursor change into crossed arrows, this means you have just activated the move tool for the selection. And since the light is coming from the upper left direction, we would want to move the selection over to the location where the specular reflections are and where the lightest shading is.  Thats because later on, we'll be using this same selection to create shadows on the opposite side of the shade.  Now go ahead and drag the selection over to the upper left portion of the sphere.

In the previous article I've written ( Creating Convincing Images with Blender Internal Renderer-part1), I discussed about creating convincing 3D still images through color manipulation, proper shadowing, minimal lighting, and a bit of post-processing, all using but one application – Blender. This time, the article you're about to read will give us some thoughts on how to mimic a 3D scene with the use of some basic 2D tools. Here again, I would stress that nothing beats a properly planned image, that applies to all genres you can think of. Some might think it's a waste of precious time to start sitting and planning without having a concrete output at the end of the thought process. But believe me, the ideas you planned will be far more powerful and beautiful than those ideas you just had, when you were just messing around and playing with the tool directly. In this article, I wouldn't be teaching you how to paint since I'm not good at it, rather I'll be leading you through a series of steps on how to digitally sketch/draw your scenes, give them subtle color shifts, add fake lighting, and apply filter effects to further emulate how 3D does its job. Primarily, this all leads you into a guide on how I create my digital drawings (though I admit they're not the best of its kind), but somehow I'm very proud, I eventually gave life to them from concept stage to digital art stage. It might be a bit daunting at first, but as you go along the series, you'll notice it gets simpler.  However, some might get confused as to how this applies to other applications since we're focusing on The GIMP in this article. That's not a problem at all once you are familiar with your own tool; it will just be a matter of working around the tools and options. I have been using The GIMP for a long time already, and as far as I can remember, I haven't complained on its shortcomings since those shortcomings are only but bits of features which I wouldn't be need at all.  So to those of you who have been and are using other image editing programs like Adobe Photoshop, Corel, etc., you're welcome to wander around and feel free to interpret some GIMP tools to that of yours.  It's all the same after all, just a tad bit difference on the interface. Just like what Jeremy Birn has said on one of his books: “Being an expert user of a 3D Program, bit itself, does not make the user into an artist more than learning to run a Word Processor makes someone into a good writer.” Additionally, one vital skill you have to develop is the skill of observation, which I myself ham yet to master. Methods Used Basic Drawing Selection Addition, Subtraction, Intersection Gradient Coloring Color Mixing Layering Layer Modes Layer Management Using Filters Requirements Latest version of The GIMP (download at http://www.gimp.org/downloads) Basic knowledge of image editing programs with layering capabilities Patience Let's Get Started! I would already assume you have the latest version of GIMP installed on your system and is running properly, otherwise, fix the problem or ask help from the forum (http://www.gimptalk.com). I'm also assuming you have all your previous tasks done before sitting down and going over this article (which I'm pretty much positive you are). And then lastly, be patient. Sketch it out The very first thing we're going to do is to sketch our ideas for the image, much like a single panel of a storyboard. It doesn't matter how good you draw it as long as you understand it yourself and you know what's going on in the drawing. This time, you can already visualize and create a picture of your final output and it's great if you did, if not, it's fine still. The important thing is we have laid down our scene one way or another. You can take your time sketching out your scenes and adding details to them like how many objects are seen, how many are in focus, what colors do they represent, how are your characters' facial expressions, what is the size of your image, etc. So just in case we forgot how it's going to look like in the end, we have a reference to call upon and that is your initial sketch. This way, you'll also be affected by the persistence of vision where after hours and hours (yay!) of looking on your sketch, you somehow see an afterimage of what you are about to create, and that's a good thing! I'm not good at sketching so please bear with my drawing: After this, it's now time to open up The GIMP and begin the actual fun part! First Run After executing GIMP, this should (and most likely) be the initial screen that's going to be displayed on your screen: The GIMP Initial Screen We don't want Wilbur (GIMP's Mascot) to be glaring at us from a blank empty window all the time, do we? And right now we could go ahead and add a canvas with which we'll be adding our aesthetic elements into, but before that you might want to inspect your application and tool preferences just to make sure you have set everything right. Activate the window with the menu bar at the top (since we currently have three windows to choose from), and then locate Edit > Preferences, as seen below: Locating GIMP's Preferences GIMP Preferences Everything you see here should be self-explanatory, if it isn't, just leave it for the moment and check the manual later, since I'm pretty much sure that thing you didn't understand on the Preferences must be something we will not use here.  So go ahead and save whatever changes you did and sometimes, GIMP might ask you to restart the application for the changes to take effect, then do what she says and we should be back on the black canvas shortly after application restart. By now, we should be having three windows, the main Toolbox Window (located on the left), the main Image Window (located on the middle), and the Layers Window (located on the right).  If, by any chance, the Layer Window is not there, go ahead and activate the Image Window and go to Windows > Layers or press CTRL + L to bring up the Layer Window. Showing the Layers Window Creating the Canvas Now that everything's set up, we'll go ahead and add a properly-sized canvas that we'll paint on, which will be the entire universe for our creation at a later stage. Let's go and create than now by going to File > New or by pressing CTRL+ N. A window will pop up asking you to edit and confirm the image settings for the canvas you're creating. You can choose from a variety of templates to use or you can manually input sizes (which we are going to do).  Before that, change the unit for coordinate display to inches just so we could have a better visual reference of how big our drawing canvass will be. Then on the Width input box, type 9 (for nine inches), and for the Height input box, type 6 (for six inches) respectively. This, however, is a very subjective portion, since you can just have any size you prefer, I just chose nine inches by six inches for the purposes of this article. Clicking the Advanced Options drop-down menu will reveal more options for you.  But right now, we'll never deal with that, just the width and height are sufficient for what we'll be need. When you're done setting up the dimensions and settings, click OK to confirm (is there a chance we could chance the OK buttons to “Alright” buttons, which sounds, uhmmm, better). Creating a New Image At this moment, we should be seeing a blank canvas with the dimensions that we've set awhile back. Then just at the right window (Layers Window), you'll notice there's already one layer present as compared to the default which is none. So everytime we add a new layer (which is very vital), we'll be referencing them over to the Layers Window. Since the creation of the layering system in image editors, it has been a blast to organize elements of an image and apply special effects on them as necessary. We can imagine layers as transparent sheets overlaying each other to form one final image; one transparent sheet can have a landscape drawn, another sheet contains trees and vegetation, and another sheet (which is above the tree sheets) is our main character. So together, we see a character with trees on a landscape in one. But as far as traditional layering is concerned, digital layering has been far more superior in terms of flexibility and the amount of modes we can experiment with. New Image with Layer This time might be a good idea to save our file natively, by that I mean save it in a format that is recognizable only by GIMP and that is lossless in format, so whether we save it a couple of times as such, no image compression happens and the image quality is not compromised. However, the native format is only related to GIMP and is not known elsewhere, so uploading such file to your website will show no image at all because it isn't recognized by the browser. In order to make it generally compatible, we export our image to known formats like JPEG, PNG, GIF, etc. depending on your need. Saving an image file on its native format preserves all the options we have like selections, paths, layers, layer modes, palettes, and many more. This native format that GIMP uses is known as .XCF which stands for “eXperimental Computing Facility”. Throughout this article, we'll save our files mainly in .xcf format and later on, when our tasks are done and we call our image finished, that's the time we export it to a readable and viewable format. Let's go ahead and save our file by going to File > Save, or by pressing CTRL + S. This brings up a window that we can type our filename into and browse and create the location for our files. Type whatever filename you wish and append the “.xcf” file extension at the end of the filename, or you can choose “GIMP xcf image” from a list on the lower half of the window. Saving an Image as XCF

Throughout the years that have passed since the emergence of Computer Graphics, many aspiring artists tried convincingly to recreate the real world through works of applied art, some of which include oil painting, charcoal painting, matte painting, and even the most basic ones like pastel and/or crayon drawings has already made it through the artistic universe of realism. Albeit the fact that recreating the real world is like reinventing the wheel (which some artists might argue with), it is not an easy task to involve yourself into. It takes a lot of practice, perseverance, and personality to make it through.  But one lesson I have learned from the art world is to consciously and subconsciously observe the world around you. Pay attention to details. Observe how a plant behaves at different environmental conditions, look how a paper's texture is changed when wet, or probably observe how water in a river distorts the underlying objects. These are just some of the things that you can observe around you, and there are a million more or even an infinite number of things you can observe in your lifetime. In the advent of 3D as part of the numerous studies involved in Computer Graphics, a lot of effort has been made into developing tools and applications that emulate real-world environment.  It has become an unstated norm that the more realistic looking an image is, the greater the impact it has on viewers.  That, in turn, is partly true, but the real essence into creating stunning images is to know how it would look beautiful amidst the criteria that are present.  It is not a general requirement that all your images must look hyper realistic, you just have to know and judge how it would look good, after all that's what CG is all about.  And believe it or not, cheating the eye is an essential tool of the trade. In 3D rendering context, there are a number of ways on how to achieve realism in your scenes, but intuitively, the use of external renderers and advanced raytracers does help a lot in the setup and makes the creation process a bit lighter as compared to manually setting up lights, shaders, etc.  But that comes at a rendering time tradeoff.  Unfortunately though, I won't be taking you to the steps on how to setup your scenes for use in external renderers, but instead I'll walk you through the steps on how to achieve slightly similar effects as to that of externals with the use of the native renderer or the internal renderer as some might call it. Hopefully in this short article, I can describe to you numerous ways on how to achieve good-looking and realistic images with some nifty tools, workarounds from within Blender and use the Blender Internal Renderer to achieve these effects. So, let's all get a cup of tea, a comfortable couch, and hop in! On a nutshell, what makes an image look real? Shading, Materials, Shadows, Textures, Transparency, Reflection, Refraction, Highlights, Contrast, Color Balance, DoF, Lens Effects, Geometry (bevels), Subtlety, Environment, Staging, Composite Nodes, Story.. Before Anything Else... Beyond anything that will be discussed here, nothing beats a properly planned and well-imagined scene.  I cannot stress enough how important it is to begin everything with deep and careful planning.  Be it just a ball on a table or a flying scaled bear with a head of a tarsier and legs that of a mouse (?), it is very vital to plan beforehand.  Believe me, once you've planned everything right, you're almost done with your work (which I didn't believe then until I did give it a try).  And of course, with your touch of artistic flavors, a simple scene could just be the grandest one that history has ever seen. This article, by any means, does not technically teach you how to model subjects for your scene nor does it detail the concepts behind lighting (which is an article on its own and probably beyond my knowledge) nor does it teach you “the way” to do things but instead it will lead you through a process by which you will be able to understand your scene better and the concepts behind. I would also be leading you through a series of steps using the same scene we've setup from the beginning and hopefully by the end of the day, we could achieve something that comprises what has been discussed here so far. I have blabbered too much already, haven't I? Yeah.  Ok, on to the real thing. Before you begin the proceeding steps, it is a must (it really really is) to go grab your copy of Blender over at http://www.blender.org/download/get-blender/. The version I used for this tutorial is 2.49a (which should be the latest one being offered at Blender.org [as of this writing]). Scene Setup With every historical and memorable piece, it is a vital part of your 3d journey to setup something on your scene.  I couldn't imagine how a 3D artist could pass on a work with a blank animated scene, hyper minimal I might say. To start off, fire up Blender or your favorite 3D App for that matter and get your scene ready with your models, objects, subjects, or whatever you call them, just get them there inside your scene so we could have something to look at for now, won't we? On the image below (finally, a graphic one!), you could see a sample scene I've setup and a quick render of the said scene. The first image shows my scene with the model, two spheres, a plane, a lamp, and a camera. The second image shows the rendered version.   You'll notice that the image looks dull and lifeless, that is because it lacks the proper visual elements necessary for creating a convincing scene.  The current setup is all set to default, with the objects having no material data but just the premade ones set by Blender and the light’s settings set as they were by default. Shading and Materials To address some issues, we need to identify first what needs to be corrected.  The first thing we might want to do is to add some initial materials to the objects we have just so we could clearly distinguish their roles in the scene and to add some life to the somewhat dry set we have here.  To do so, select one object at a time and add a material. Let’s first select the main character of the scene (or any subject you wish for that matter) by clicking RMB (Right Mouse Button) on the character object, then under the Buttons Window, select Shading (F5), then click the Material Buttons tab, and click on “Add New” to add a new material to our object. Adding a New Material After doing so, more options will show up and this is where the real fun begins. The only thing we’ll be doing for now is to add some basic color and shading to our objects just so we could deviate from the standard gray default.  You’ll notice on the image below that I’ve edited quite a few options.  That’s what we only want for now, let’s leave the other settings as they are and we’ll get back to it as soon as we need to. Character Initial Material Settings   Big Sphere Initial Material Settings Small sphere Initial Material Settings   Ground Initial Material Settings If we do a test render now, here’s how it will look like: Render With Colors Still not so convincing, but somehow we managed to add a level of variety to our scene as compared to the initial render we’ve made.  Looking at the latest render we did, you’ll notice that the character with the two spheres still seem to be floating in space, creating no interaction whatsoever with the ground plane below it. Another thing would be the lack of diffuse color on some parts of the objects, thus creating a pitch black color which, as in this case, doesn’t seem to look good at all since we’re trying to achieve a well-lit, natural environment as much as possible. A quick and easy solution to this issue would be to enable Ambient Occlusion under the World Settings tab. This will tell Blender to create a fake global illumination effect as though you have added a bunch of lights to create the occlusion.  This would be a case similar to adding a dome of spot lights, with each light having a low energy level, creating a subtle AO effect. But for the purposes of this article, we’d be settling for Ambient Occlusion since it is faster to setup and eliminates the additional need for further tweaking. We access the AO (Ambient Occlusion) menu via the World Buttons tab under Shading (F5) menu then clicking the Amb Occ subtab.  Activate Ambient Occlusion then click on Use Falloff and edit the default strength of 1.00 to 0.70, doing so will create further diffusion on darker areas that have been hidden from the occlusion process.  Next would be to click Pixel Cache, I don’t know much technically what this does but what I know from experience is this speeds up the occlusion calculation.   Ambient Occlusion Settings Below, you’ll see the effects of AO as applied to the scene.  Notice the subtle diffusion of color and shadows and the interaction of the objects and the plane ground through the occlusion process.  So far we’ve only used a single lamp as fill light, but later on we’ll be adding further light sources to create a better effect. Render with Ambient Occlusion Whew, we’ve been doing something lately, haven’t we? So far what we did was to create a scene and a render image that will give us a better view of what it’s going to look like.  Next stop, we’ll be creating a base light setup to further create shadows and better looking diffusion. Soon we go!

Textures In your journey as a 3d artist, you might have encountered several (if not all) astounding works of art.  And through close inspection, you’ll notice that we barely see them without textures.  That is because textures are one of the most important aspect of 3d, but still, this doesn’t apply to all.  But adding textures to your characters, props, environment, etc. will greatly add to the aesthetic factor of your image that you wouldn’t believe it would. There are a number of ways to add texture to your objects in 3D such as UV mapping techniques, projections, 2D painting, etc.  All of these depend entirely on what kind of render are you trying to achieve.  But for the sake of this article, we’ll try to achieve some nice looking textures without having to worry about the complex tasks involved with it.  And with this, we’ll be using the ever famous and useful procedural textures to create seamless and continuously looking texture mapped over the surface of our models. More information about Procedural Textures can be found on http://www.blender.org/development/release-logs/blender-233/procedural-textures/. Now let’s add some textures, shall we? Let’s select the character model in our scene then go to the Texture tab on the rightmost part of the Material Buttons window and click Add New to add a new texture. Adding a New Texture After having added a new texture, additional windows appear allowing us to further modify how the currently added texture will affect our material.  Name this first texture as “bump” and the mapping options can be seen below. Bump Texture Mapping Settings   Bump Texture Settings Add another texture below the “bump” texture and call it “stain”.  The settings can be seen below. Stain Texture Mapping Settings   Stain Texture Settings We could have added more overlaying textures, but this will do for now just so we could see how the textures have affected our material so far.  Rendering now will only lead us to the image below. Dirtier And Better :) This time might be a good idea to change our framing and staging so we could look at it at a better perspective.  Changing the camera angle and increasing the ground plane’s scale and some adjustments on the spheres, I achieved something like this: New Camera Angle For an even better interaction from within the scene, we will adjust some material settings to simulate hard and reflective surfaces.  It’s a little unfair to give our main character some good materials while neglecting the other stuff we have.  So let’s just get on, and add some decent materials as replacement to the initial materials that both the spheres have had before. Go on and select the larger sphere and edit the current material we have so it would match that of the settings as seen in the image below. You’ll notice I added a Color Ramp to each of the materials, this is to slightly give the color a color transition as would be seen in the natural world, in addition to the current diffuse it already has. The vital part of the shading process of the Spheres is the reflectivity and mirror options as you can see in the following table:     Ray Mirror Freshnel Green Sphere 0.12 0.76 Blue Sphere 0.21 0.99     Green Sphere Material Settings   Blue Sphere Material Settings Our render would now look like this: Reflections to Simulate Mirror Effect and Smoothness To nearly finalize this part, we now deal with adding a texture to the world and varying the colors that would affect the Occlusion effect. To do so, let’s first change the Horizon and Zenith color of our World and change the Ambient Occlusion diffuse energy to the color we’ve just set by changing from “Plain” to “Sky Color”, as seen below. World Settings Rendering now will lead us to: New World Settings Render Notice the subtle difference between the previous render and the latest one where the slight bluish hue is more distinguishable. And then lastly, since we've already added some decent reflective material over to our spheres, it would be best if we can also see some environment being reflected over, to add to the already existent character as one of the objects being reflected. To do this, we're going to add a texture to our World.  This is one nifty tool in simulating an environment since we don't have to do the hard work in manually creating the objects that are going to be reflected.  Not only does it save us a lot of time but also the ease by which we can alter these environment is already a big advantage that we have at our hands. So to do this, let's go ahead and go to our Shading (F5) and select World Buttons.  Scroll to the far left side and you'll see tabs labeled “Texture and Input” and “Map To”, both of these tabs are essential in setting up our World texture so pay close attention to them. Below is an image that further shows you what we need to set up (sorry for the sudden theme change). World Texture You might have already guessed what we should do next, if not, I'll continue on.  After heading over to the “Texture and Input” and “Map To” tabs, let's first focus on what's active by default, that is, “Texture and Input”.  In this part, we'll only need a few things to get started.  First is to click “Add New” to add a new texture datablock to our blender scene, after which, let's edit the name of our texture and name it “environment”, then change the coordinates from “View” to “AngMap” to use a 360 degree angular coordinate, you'll see why in awhile. Adding a World Texture After applying these initial settings, we'll go ahead and proceed to the actual texturing process, which, as far as the World is concerned is just a very quick process.  I suppose you're still on the same Buttons window that we're on last time.  Click on the Texture button or press F6 on your function keys. Bam! Another set of Windows.  You'll see here that the texture we named “environment” awhile back is now reflected over to one of the texture slots, just like what we previously did with texturing the character we have.  But this time, instead of choosing procedural textures like Clouds, Voronoi, Noise, etc., we'll now be dealing with an image texture, as in our case, an HDRi (High Dynamic Range Image).  Our purpose in using an HDR image is to simulate the wide range of intensity levels (brightness and darkness) that is seen in reality and apply these settings over to our world, thus reflected upon by our objects.  As in our case, we'll be using high dynamic range images as light probes which are oriented 360 degrees and that's the very reason why we chose “AngMap” as our World texture coordinate. More info about HDRi can be seen at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_dynamic_range_imaging and you can download Light Probe Images over at Paul Debevec's collection at http://www.debevec.org/Probes.  Save your downloaded light probe images somewhere you can easily identify them with.  I couldn't stress enough how file organization can greatly help you in your career.  You could just imagine how frustrating it is to find assets among a thousand you already have, without properly placing them in their right places, this counts for every project you have as well . So to open up our Light Probe Image as texture to our World, click the drop down menu and choose “Image” as your texture type.  This tells Blender to use an image instead of the default procedural textures.  Then head to the far right side to locate the Image tab with a Load button on it.  Let's skip the Map Image tab for now. Image as Texture Type Loading an Image Texture Browse over at your downloaded HDR image (which should have an extension of .hdr) and confirm.  Now that the image is loaded, let's leave the default settings as they are since we wouldn't be using them that much.  You'll see on the far left Preview just how wonderful looking our image is.  But rendering your scene right now would yield to nothing but the same previous render we've had.  So if you're itching to get this image right at our scene (which I am too), go back to your World Settings and head over to the “Map To” tab just beside “Texture and Input” then deselect “Blend” and select “Hori” instead.  Kabam! Now we're all set! World Texture Mapping options And now, the moment we've all been eagerly waiting for, the Render! Yup, go ahead and render and it would (luckily) look like the image below. Render with HDRi Environment Then finally, on the next and last part of this article, we'll look on how we can even further add realism to our scene by simulating camera lenses and further enhancing the tone of the image with Composite Nodes.  

Modeling: the ear Ask just about any beginning modeler (and many experienced ones) and they'll tell you that the ear is a challenge! There are so many turns and folds in the human ear that it poses a modeling nightmare. But, that being said, it is also an excellent exercise in clean modeling. The ear alone, once successfully tackled, will make you a better modeler all around. The way we are going to go about this is much the same way we got started with the edgeloops: Position your 3D Cursor at the center of the ear from both the Front and the Side views Add a new plane with Spacebar > Add > Plane Extrude along the outer shape of the ear We are working strictly from the Side View for the first bit. Use the same process of extruding and moving to do the top, inside portion of the ear: Watch your topology closely, it can become very messy, very fast! Continue for the bottom: The next step is to rotate your view around with your MMB to a nice angle and Extrude out along the X-axis: Select the main loop of the ear E > Region Before placing the new faces, hit X to lock the movement to the X-axis. From here it's just a matter of shaping the ear by moving vertices around to get the proper depth and definition on the ear. It will also save you some time editing if: Select the whole ear by hovering your mouse over it and hitting L Hit R > Z to rotate along the Z-axis Then do the same along the Y-axis, R > Y This will just better position the ear. Connecting the ear to the head can be a bit of challenge, due to the much higher number of vertices it is made up of in comparison to parts of the head. This can be solved by using some cleaver modeling techniques. Let's start by extruding in the outside edge of the ear to create the back side: Now is where it gets tricky, best to just follow the screenshot: You will notice that I have used the direction of my edges coming in from the eye to increase my face count, thus making it easier to connect the ear. One of the general rules of thumb when it comes to good topology is to stay away from triangles. We want to keep our mesh comprised of strictly quads, or faces with four sides to them. Once again, we can use the same techniques seen before, and some of the tricks we just used on the ear to connect the back of the ear to the head: You will notice that I have disabled the mirror modifier's display while in Edit Mode, this makes working on the inside of the head much easier. This can be done via the modifier panel. Final: tweaking And that's it! After connecting the ear to the head the model is essentially finished. At this point it is a good idea to give your whole model the once over, checking it out from all different angles, perspective vs. orthographic modes, etc. If you find yourself needing to tweak the proportions (almost always do) a really easy way to do it is by using the Proportional Editing tool, which can be accessed by hitting O. This allows you to move the mesh around with a fall-off, basically a magnet, such that anything within the radius will move with your selection. Here is the final model: Conclusion Thank you all for reading this and I hope you have found it helpful in your head modeling endeavours. At this point, the best thing you can do is...do it all over again! Repetition in any kind of modeling always helps, but it's particularly true with head modeling. Also, always use references to help you along. You may hear some people telling you not to use references, that it makes your work stale and unoriginal. This is absolutely not true (assuming you're not just copying down the image and calling it your own...). References are an excellent resource, for everything from proportion, to perspective, to anatomy, etc. If used properly, it will show in your work, they really do help. From here, just keep hacking away at it, thanks for reading and best of luck! Happy blending! If you have read this article you may be interested to view : Modeling, Shading, Texturing, Lighting, and Compositing a Soda Can in Blender 2.49: Part 1 Modeling, Shading, Texturing, Lighting, and Compositing a Soda Can in Blender 2.49: Part 2 Creating an Underwater Scene in Blender- Part 1 Creating an Underwater Scene in Blender- Part 2 Creating an Underwater Scene in Blender- Part 3 Creating Convincing Images with Blender Internal Renderer-part1 Creating Convincing Images with Blender Internal Renderer-part2 Textures in Blender

In this two-part tutorial by Jonathan Williamson, we are going to look at how to model a character head in Blender. Along with basic modeling tools we will also focus heavily on good topology and how to create a clean mesh that will deform well during animation. This tutorial will take you through the whole process from setting up a background image as a reference, to laying out the topology, to tweaking the final model proportions and mesh structure. First Steps: workspace and references Before we get started with Blender character modeling, the first thing we want to do is make our workspace more efficient. The way I like to do this is to simply split my view down the center, putting the resulting left viewport in front view (numpad 1) and the right viewport in side view (numpad 3). If you're not familiar with how to split your view, please reference this short video tutorial. This allows us to work from both sides of the model at the same time without having to switch our view constantly. It also gives us more views of the model to help with accuracy and proportion. Now that we have our workspace setup, let's go ahead and bring in our background image for reference. Today we are going to use a simple, rough drawing of mine that has a front and side view. Anytime you are working from references (which should be almost always!) try to get as many angles as possible. This is particularly important when we work from photo references. Here is the drawing: To place the reference into the background of your workspace: Go to View > Background Image Click Use and Load to navigate to your image. Do this with both viewports. The next step is to adjust the X and Y positions to line up your image, it's best to align the center of the head from both views with the Central Axis point (where each of the three axis' meet.) Modeling: mirroring and structure With our workspace and references set up it's time to start modeling. The first thing we want to do is add a mirror modifier to the default cube so that we only have to work on one side of the model; anything we do will be mirrored across the central axis. But, before we do that, we need to add a central loop of vertices to our cube, along with deleting one half. This way we don't mirror our cube on top of itself. You can do this by: Going into Edit Mode with Tab Hit Control + R to activate the Loop Cut tool. Cut a new loop, vertically, along the cube by clicking the MMB when you see the purple line with your mouse hovered over the cube. From the Front View, make sure everything is deselected with A and then select the left-most vertices and hit X > Delete Vertices The last thing we need to do before we start modeling is adding a mirror modifier for symmetry: Go to the Edit Buttons (F9) and click Add Modifier > Mirror Click Do Clipping We are now ready to really get down to business! Modeling: edgeloop structure The single most important thing to remember while modeling a character head is the structure of your mesh. This is referred to as "topology." Edgeloops, or continuous lines or circles of edges, are the primary concern with topology. Proper edgeloops allow your model to deform well during animation; they also make tweaking and detailing your model much easier! To get started: Select the back side of the cube X > Delete Vertices We do this because we want to work from a single face. What we are going to be doing is laying out a series of edgeloops to map out the structure we want for the mesh. Let's start at the chin by moving our remaining face with G to line up with the reference from both view. Due to the variations in our drawing it is going to be necessary to compensate between the views from time to time. What we are now going to do is use the Extrude tool to lay out our loops. To do this: Select the two outside vertices with Shift + RMB Hit E > Only Edges to extrude. Extruding will automatically place you into grab mode, which allows you to place the newly created edge where you want it. In this case, along the jaw bone. You can use Rotate, Scale and Grab to help you position the edges. When you're done you should have something like this: We can continue using this same technique to get the following for the top of the head: As you can see, we are starting to define the structure of the mesh and the shape of the head, much as a traditional artist would use reference lines to sketch out a head. Before we go too much further, we need to go ahead and map out the eye, as it is one of the most important areas of the head, and it's topology is essential the rest of the mesh. To do this we are going to add a circle from the Front View: From the Front View, left click in the center of the eye to position the 3D Cursor Hit Spacebar > Add > Mesh > Circle Use 8 Vertices and a Radius of 0.500 Next you want to use your translate tools (grab, rotate, scale) to postion each of the vertices to fit the shape of the eye socket: Now with everything selected (A): Hit E > Only Edges Then immediately hit S to scale in. Use this same technique for around the nose and the mouth: That's it for the structure, this will then allow us to connect all the areas and not have to worry so much about getting the topology right as we have just laid out the major areas.