[Tutorial] Blender 101 (Advanced Techniques)

[Ryu.BZ]

Alright, this tutorial will assume that you have no Blender knowledge at all, get ready.

First of all start of by opening Blender and you should see something like this. o:

Note: Your grid may look different from myne, this is because I am probably more zoomed in. To zoom in more use scroll with your mouse. (Scrolling up zooms in, scrolling down zooms out.)

Now were not going to do a completely easy sword, we will be doing The Master Sword, from Legend Of Zelda.

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Save that image to your desktop, done? Good, now in Blender click the View Button and click 'Background Image'

Then you will have a small box pop up, click 'Use Background Image' and then click 'Load', now locate the master sword image.

Now you should have you image in blender, that means your doing good so far. The image by default will have some transparency so to take it away follow what my picture says. o:

Now it should be no longer transparent. GJ if you did it right o:.
Let's start modeling. ^^

Cancel the background image box (the X on the tiny box, if you want to open it up again for w/e reason go click the 'View' button and 'Background Image'.
You will by default still have that grey square there, we don't want it because it's gay (naw, we really don't want it because were not nabs and we don't model with are own meshes =P). Press 'Delete' on your keyboard and a warning dialog box will come up and ask
'Erase Select Object(s)' just left click on that and it will be gone.
Now we want so switch to side view by going
View>Side
Now click space bar>add>mesh>cube
And something similar to what we deleted before will pop up. Like this:

Now we want to go into edit mode and wireframe mode, look at the picture to find out how:

Here is wireframe:

If you did wireframe right the square will now be SEE THROUGH (OMG WTF BBQ HAX). Now you've set everything up, gratz.

Now I want to explain a few things: You see those 4 dots on the square? Those are called vertices, now there are actually more then 4 vertices (dots) there are 8.
Wut, how is there 8?
Well see, Blender is a 3D Program and we did add a cube, to see the square (Actualy a cube) in 3D press ALT on your keyboard (hold it) and then left click (hold it) and move your mouse around, if you did that correctly it should look something like this:

Now, your's probably won't look exactly like mine because you moved your mouse differently from mine. This is just to show how to see your weapon in 3D.
Let's go back to side view, press the 'View' button and 'Side'.

OK, now lets take that Cube and move it onto the sword so if fits it. Sorta like rendering in Photoshop if you've ever done that, or tracing.

To move the cube press G and then Y for Y axis, we want Y axis so it moves to only left and right, not up and down. (make sure your cube is selected with A, if it is selected then it will be pink. You can also de-select with A, A means all but it also de-selects like I just said.)

If you did that right it should look sorta like this:

Well, that is obviously to big, we want to fit it so press S and (S means scale, you could just use S to make it smaller but I tend to use axis's more, it is a good habit to have in Blender)
If you scaled right it should be like this, you may also have to move it to make it fit, remember G is move.

Now we've got that done let's look at it in 3D (Hold ALT and then left click, hold it and move around.
It should be like this:

Because of RaGEZONE's image limit I will post in parts ._.

 

[Ryu.BZ]

Now, we are doing a blade so that is way to fat, let's make it thinner.
Go click
View>front

Yeah, that is how fat are blade is. We want to make that thinner, to do so press
S> X
and make it thinner, this is how thin I made myne. Yours doesn't have to be exactly like myne, just keep it thin since it is a blade.

Now you can take a look at it in 3D (hold alt and left click, hold left click and move your mouse around.) it's a lot thinner, eh? ;D

Go back to side view now and press CTRL and R (hold CTRL) and then press 2 and you will have 2 lines like this.

The reason we are doing this is, is so we can separate those vertices from the ones we are going to sharpen so it's actually a blade and not a cardboard master sword.

Now we want to move those new verticles (dots, lol) more to the edge so it fits like the sword.
To do this press S>Y, if you did this all correct you should end up something like this.

GJ if you got that, that is a hard step I guess. o-o
Now we are going to actually sharpen the blade, first press A so it de-selects everything, you will know it is de-selected because nothing will be pink. o:

OK, so there are a few things you need to know before we sharpen the blade out first it is how to select a individual vertices (a dot). There are quite a few ways but the one I go with most often and I recommend you to use is box select.
Box select can be used with 'B', you press the letter 'B' on your keyboard then left click and drag and you should get something like this:

Now how do we select a vertices with box select? Well we take that box select box and put it over ONLY 1 of the vertices (dot) like this:

If it is selected properly it will look like this:

Now if you have done that good job!

OK, to sharpen it press 'W'>Merge>Merge at center
then it should say something like 'Removed 1 vertices'

Now, I know it looks like we did nothing at all but go to 3D View (hold alt and then hold left click and move your mouse around.)
If it was all done right it should look like this in 3D:

 

[Ryu.BZ]

Now I want you to do that to all other 3 sides, now you may ask why don't we just select them all together and merge at center?
Well this is because Merge as center merges the vertices together. Since there are 2 vertices in 3D view because it is a cube when we merge at center it becomes one and sharp.
Now if we selected them all and merged it would become all one and wouldn't be sharp.
So now do it with the other 3 and it should look like this in 3D when your done.
(Since I can't post more images I will just give you the URL.)

Switch back to side view
View>Side
If you got that done then gratz, were almost done the blade but now you can see it is to small. So we are going to make it fit the size of the picture, using box select (B) select all these vertices

If you did it correctly it will look like this:

Now we want to move it up because that's how the blade is, to do this press G and then Z because we want to move it up. Move it up until here:

We stopped there because if we kept on moving it up it would not fit the blade, so what do we do now? It is called extruding a region. Select the vertices that we just moved if you have already not done so.
Then press E and click 'Region', it should look like this now.

Now here is a tip in Blender:
If we want to scroll up we hold shift and scroll down.
If we want to scroll down we hold shift and scroll up.
If we want to scroll left we hold CTRL and scroll up.
If we want to scroll right we hold CTRL and scroll down.

These are important to know because eventually you are probably going to need to know how to do this.

But anyways now we have extruded a region we want it to fit so we press S and then Y. Here is myne:

You can see in myne that is does not perfectly fit so I'm going to select the left side like this:

So I am going to use G and Y, I am also going to fit the rest of the blade, you do this to like myne.

Remember to play with G and S so you get it like myne, don't go on until you have it like myne. If you are having troubles feel free to ask for help in the thread.
Now that you understand this I want you to finish the rest of the top blade, like this.

Alright now let's finish the other half of the blade, move it down like this. (I now expect you can do most this stuff your-self but over here I need to show you how to make the point of the blade.)

 

[Ryu.BZ]

Now extrude the region up until here and make sure it fits like I did!

OK so now we want to make this part sharp, extrude the region and move it like this:

Now press W>Merge>Merge At Center
We did this because we don't want 4 vertices for the point of a sword, now go fit it on the sword like I have done.

Over here it does not matter if it fits exactly, as long as it fits on the inside it look look good when it's textured.
Also gratz! We just finished the whole blade, now let's do the rest and I promise the rest is easier then the blade was.

Let's start of with the handle, scroll up to the handle (shift scroll down = move up) and then go add>cylinder, press OK to this.

You should have something like this now:

Obviously we could not use that to fit the handle so we are going to rotate it at 90 degrees.
To do so press R>Y>90 and you should have something like this now:

This is still a cylinder in 3D, now move it and make it fit the handle like this.

Now de-select it and select the side at the top and move it up and then let's de-select that and do that with the bottom to so it will look like this if done correctly (G and then Z to move it up or down):

We are going to extrude the region for the top side now like this, also make it fit like the handle.

Then extrude it again like this:

Yes I extruded it twice because just once would not fit properly, do the same if it is needed.

 

[Ryu.BZ]

Now do the same with the other side, extrude and fit it. Here is how myne looks:

Now you've got the handle down, look at in 3D view. If it looks like myne (super fat lolol) then we are going to have to scale it down.

Switch back to side view (view>side) and select the whole handle with box select.

Now go to front view (View>Front) and press S and then X and make it about this big:

Go back to 3D View and it should look like this now:

We've now finished the whole handle, almost done the whole sword.

 

[Ryu.BZ]

Go switch back to side view, view>side.

Now we have the things by the handle left, go add a cube and make it fit like this:

I used rotate on the vertices closest to the top so it would fit better, R is rotate.

Now keep on extruding the region and make it fit like the reference image, here is mine:

Now in 3D it will look fat so select the part we just modeled and switch to front view:

Move that to where the other 2 parts are with
G>X
Then scale it down on the X axis and make it fit like the size of the blade:

Now it's thin, you can check it in 3D if you want. Go to Side view again make sure you have the thing we just made thinner selected.

Press SHIFT + D (this will duplicate it) and now we are going to rotate it, R>Z>180
It should look like this now:

Now move it to the other side and make it fit like this:

Now do the rest of the blade, here is mine:

Here is the texturing part, thanks to Exercitus for it. If you still do not understand look at Styx's tutorial on Blender and skip to the texturing part.
Best of luck.
http://forum.ragezone.com/f497/tuto...ced-techniques-596323/index2.html#post5190484

 

[exercitus]

Great tutorial, but advanced? Nah. o_o, it's just more time consuming then tracing. Overall, one of the best in detailed tutorials I have seen ( Thats not alot ). +thanks.

 

[Ryu.BZ]

Great tutorial, but advanced? Nah. o_o, it's just more time consuming then tracing. Overall, one of the best in detailed tutorials I have seen ( Thats not alot ). +thanks.

=P as in advanced I mean much more advanced then the Blender tutorials posted in this forum. All of them use planes, using just a plane for a weapon always ends up in fail.

 

[exercitus]

well, not all. But, yes, most do. Finally someone took the time to post a better blender tut. I tried to make one too, but I got too bored.

 

[Ryu.BZ]

well, not all. But, yes, most do. Finally someone took the time to post a better blender tut. I tried to make one too, but I got too bored.

I was really bored while writing it, lol. I was watching **** on Youtube in-between or I probably would of quit.

 

[Wucas]

i love how you did it by screeniez instead of a video.

Make sure you specify that your cylinder should not have all 36 vertz, that is the biggest problem today, keep it 12-16.

And another thing is that you should use scale/ extrude more (in my opinion), seeing that i think you under modeled the wings of the blade.....

However this is better then styx's tut by far, xD

 

[Ryu.BZ]

i love how you did it by screeniez instead of a video.

Make sure you specify that your cylinder should not have all 36 vertz, that is the biggest problem today, keep it 12-16.

And another thing is that you should use scale/ extrude more (in my opinion), seeing that i think you under modeled the wings of the blade.....

However this is better then styx's tut by far, xD

The cylinder thing I was planning to mention =P, and I wrote the tutorial pretty quickly. I even speed modelled the sword a few days ago, lol.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYrbT_xW_Iw&feature=channel_page"]YouTube - Speed 3D Model: Master Sword[/ame]

 

[Wucas]

once i get my computers vid card ill learn you son

(thats way my boss says all the time xD)

nah but neways, i can show you some things that can make modeling easier, better looking, and simpler (less faces/pollyz)

 

[exercitus]

I wanna know too. D:

@Ryu, at your speed modeling, why don't you just rotate around X/Y/Z axes and type in 180, or whatever. o_o. It's annoying using mouse to do that.

PS. Keep this tutorial ALIVE!

 

[Ryu.BZ]

once i get my computers vid card ill learn you son

(thats way my boss says all the time xD)

nah but neways, i can show you some things that can make modeling easier, better looking, and simpler (less faces/pollyz)

Yes learn me please! xD. I would honestly appreciate it if you could teach me though. ^^

I wanna know too. D:

@Ryu, at your speed modeling, why don't you just rotate around X/Y/Z axes and type in 180, or whatever. o_o. It's annoying using mouse to do that.

PS. Keep this tutorial ALIVE!

At the time I didn't know about it =P. I am learning new things in Blender pretty often. o:

 

[exercitus]

Aha, agreed.
If you want to learn more about blender, I use

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site to learn all stuff. It's helpful.

 

[Ryu.BZ]

Aha, agreed.
If you want to learn more about blender, I use

To view the content, you need to sign in or register

site to learn all stuff. It's helpful.

I'll check it out, thanks. ^^
Also only 2 people have replied ._., didn't anyone find this useful?

 

[exercitus]

Leechers, follow tutorial, then apply at random servers using this technique.
Alot won't succeed or are too lazeh.

Don't think noone finds this useful, because it is. If I had powers, I'd sticky it. ._.

BTW, you know how to uv unwrap the good way, because I want to learn it, it's too hard. Only thing I have succeeded to uv texture was a house made out of 7 faces. >.>

EDIT : PRO IDEA, change the topic name. Leave out the 'Advanced'.

 

[Ryu.BZ]

Leechers, follow tutorial, then apply at random servers using this technique.
Alot won't succeed or are too lazeh.

Don't think noone finds this useful, because it is. If I had powers, I'd sticky it. ._.

BTW, you know how to uv unwrap the good way, because I want to learn it, it's too hard. Only thing I have succeeded to uv texture was a house made out of 7 faces. >.>

EDIT : PRO IDEA, change the topic name. Leave out the 'Advanced'.

Thanks, if I could change the topic name I would. Also I don't know how to UV Unwrap, currently I am a bit busy with learning 3DS Max. o:

 

[exercitus]

Wow, this is amazing. Such a great tutorial getting no attention at all. I'm like, helloooo, this is what beginner modeleres really desired, and when they get it...