In this Blender 2.5 video tutorial we have some fun and show you how to model a simple palm tree using a series of modifiers and linked meshes. The tutorial also demonstrates a technique for quick and dirty outdoor rendering.
Note: this tutorial uses the official Blender 2.5 Alpha 2 release.
Note2: We are aware of the poor audio quality on this tutorial, Jonathan just moved to a new house and is working to address it.
Nice tutorial Mr. Williamson! Very nice! Just thought I’d add, you mentioned that in some cases hooks are better suited for animation than bones. As Andy Goralczyk said in his “Creature Factory” DVD, hooks are perfect for animating wires, pipes, and tubes to create a “swaying” motion. This could easily be used to make the palm tree sway in the wind. As I said, great tutorial. Wasn’t aware of either the pattern select or the apply ObData option. Definately useful! (Awsome Desktop background BTW!)
Thanks for your tutorials. They are always well demonstrated and very informative. I do have one suggestion: Would it be possible in the next tutorial to record in a room more isolated in terms of background noise? Your audio sounded muffled and there was a lot of ambient sounds which distracted from your presentation.
I realize you’re taking time out of your busy schedule to share your knowledge with us, so I apologize for sounding negative. I appreciate the work you do and the quality of your presentations. Thanks again for another great tutorial.
Very nice tutorial. You have an excellent teaching style and your sense of humor makes the videos rather fun to watch.
Hey,
Thank you so much for all your tutorials – When I startet using Blender about one year ago I gave up after 1-2 weeks because it all seemed too difficult to me.
Now I tried Blender again with these tutorials and lots of thinks are better to understand.
I try to learn Blender for interior, exterior and architecturial designs – might you do a little tutorial about one of that themes? (:
Hey Marco, for architectural design you might want to have a peek at http://www.blender3darchitect.com/
Brilliant tutorial, so much to learn in only 40 minutes. Loved the pattern selection tip, this is surely gonna be utterly useful. Also, the idea to avoid array and substitute it with likend duplicates was rather enlightening to me since I’ve encountered a similar issue recently. And I too admire the desktop wallpaper, presumably derived from Mr. Revoy’s works.. Thank you once again!
Hi, thanks for this one. Very nice. But what is going on on the background?
Some noisy activity all the time.
I’m feeling uncomfortable hearing it but not seeing
Thankyou so much for this excelent tut. I didnt know where the primitive operator model was hiding, f6, thanks. I was just about to model lots of palms via pin dup etc. (that was gunna suck), so thanks again. And I love the way you value add the tut with extra tips (like the camera constraints and lighting at the end).
Nice tutorial, with very useful tips that I did not know, like pattern selection, hooks and so on.
But something that I did not understand is why do you have to design the “end cap” at the opposite stem side? It makes no sense for me, it will be easier to have an “start cap” or something like that, that allows you to draw the beginning of the stem right in place.
Hey Jonathan thanks again, I always watch your tuts and learn a little something new each time. I thank you for not editing out mistakes as well.
Keep it up.
I must say, I’ve grown quite fond of your introductory “Hello!” before each tutorial. Keep up the good work!
And here I was thinking it was getting dull!
-Jonathan
Never a dull moment, sir!
Hey Jonathan, the copy individual modifier is in 2.49b (but not in 2.5 yet) by selecting your objects and pressing CTRL+C –> modifiers
great tutorial!
Thanks for your hard work on the tutorials.
I’m wondering though… how exactly did you select the leaves around the 6 minute mark? Is is select linked mapped to the mouse?
Sorry for posting again.
I’m also wondering how the curve modifier works exactly? For some reason when I was messing around with the axes (following this tutorial), the leaf end sometimes met with the origin and other times didn’t while the curve stayed in the same spot. This isn’t how it happens in the tutorial so is it maybe something different with the latest version of Blender? Or did I do something wrong?
Thanks.
lol… x.x
I really have to see things through before I ask. xD
Ignore that last post please.
Sorry ’bout that.
Jonathan,
your tutorial is absolutely well done, like all others you did.
But I’m getting crazy about curve modifier. Any time I attempt to apply th modifier, the leaf is deformed, in different way depending by the selected axe, but always deformed. Then I can move and tilt the curve points but scaling the end point of the curve has no effect on the end of the leaf with “-Y” axe selected.
Could you give me some addressing about my error ? I use 2.49b version of Blender.
Thanks
Ok. I gave a try to the 2.53beta version. The leaf deformation doesn’t happen on appling the modifier. While I’m still not be able to scale the end of leaf, on tutorial I see shrink/fatten status during scaling operations; in my model I instead see the standard axes-based scale status
Hi alberto, could you post a screenshot of what your problem is? I am not sure I quite follow.
-Jonathan
thank you Jonathan,
I posted 3 screenshots on http://cid-f46dbd256c72997f.photos.live.com/browse.aspx/Nuovo%20album . You’ll see I can bend and tilt the leaf but not scale the end of the leaf using neither Alt+S and S Key.
Alberto
Do not mind. All the modeling has to be realized in 2.53 version. Appling Rotation & Visual Trasform option on modifier and shape doesn’t work if done in 2.49 version of blender
I have a suggestion to make about the difficulties with the curve modifier.
It is far better to leave the path-curve unrotated, unmoved, unedited and untransformed at the beginning. Instead, only rotate the leaflet object to match the curvepath.
The reason for this is that the default values and locations are already preset to work as-is.
The workflow is as follows:
- NO transforms whatsoever on curves until everything is set up
- Only rotate the leaflet (in Object Mode, to preserve the mirror modifier settings!) and do not apply rotation (will interfere with all modifiers)
- Do not change the object location, be sure the centerpoint is at dead center of the mesh data
- Add the array modifer (the array of objects will *initially* appear right-shifted, but that will fix itself in the next step)
- Add the curve modifer, and the entire structure will re-center about the origin to fit the curve as seen in Object Mode (tweaking of the curve length can then be done as needed)
This might appear counterintuitive, but it absolutely works. It’s also an ounce of prevention vs a whopping metric ton of cure.
You know when u came to that subsurf problem/suggestion of yours a faster way wouldve been to use the shortcut keys-ctrl+1…. never mind as I was typing this you just stated it while doing something else, lol!!!
Either way great turorials, Thnx alot
Hey, I’ve try ed several times,but I cant quite figure out how to get the fronds to sway without key frames…. can you help me out?
great tutorial Johnathon! one of my favorites. I feel really good because one of the tags at the top of the video says advanced and i didn’t have a hard time with this =) lol
I am so lost from 8:50 to 9:25… what happened there. I can’t seem to follow the steps and what i end up with in object mode looks totally different when i toggle to edit mode… :s
I’ll keep trying…