In this Blender 2.5 video tutorial we take on creating really cool blueprint graphics. This tutorial includes using the Gears add-on, creating outline-only objects, setting up the World to look like a blueprint, and more.
Note: this tutorial uses a testing build of Blender 2.5, revision 28390
Note2: we are aware of the artifacts in this video and are looking to resolve it. We appreciate your understanding.
Finally a different tutorial. It seems like they’re all the same these days. I wish I had something like this when I was starting out.
If you have any other really cool ideas we are always looking for new one!
Well something that I had trouble with before was unwrapping and texuturing a candy cane.
Jonathan Williamson or Blender Cookie Staff
A idea that I had recently had while I was day dreaming about my 2,000 piece Knex Construction set I had as a kid. One frustration I always had was that I couldn’t always build what I imagined. I never, ever had enough pieces.
One solution that I saw to this was to have a virtual system where I could build all my Knex or Lego dream projects. I lightly looked around on the web and it seams that there are other people that are doing just that with other 3D programs.
There are library’s out there for all the knex pieces for other software. Some projects even go as far as to have a system where the virtual pieces intelligently link together like in the real world. (Aid in connecting pieces as well. Smart snapping.) Some have even been able to put their constructions into 3d mechanical design software and have life like simulations of their projects.
I haven’t really looked at Lego’s being made virtual like this. I don’t doubt that its been done though.
I was wondering if you guys at Blender Cookie could entertain the thought of using Blender to build a persons lego/knex large scale projects. Simulations might be too much with high poly counts and many objects lacing together. If that was possible that would be an amazing bonus. Same with aid in snapping pieces together while editing/building your construction projects.
Maybe this has been somewhat addressed in some form or another. I am a bit new to the Online Blender Community. (But I’m a user of Blender Software of 4 years.)
I apologizes if this isn’t the best place to put this comment. If you know of a place that it would be more effective, or If you have a better idea. I would love to hear any suggestion.
- Dave
@David Have you heard of LDraw or LDD?
they both do lego. the main difference is ldd has that snapping thing, but ldraw has thousands more parts
Hey Jonathan, i think you should do a tutorial on how to make rain… like for a rainy scene that would be way awesome.
Well here’s an Idea, my dad uses a 3D software for work and you can make an entire watch, like with gears, and the software has the logic to says, ok that object hit that object so that one moves, ect. So I’ve been trying like crazy to rig a whole bunch of gears to just that, but to no avail. Help me!!
,Mariomix
14:00
Use loop-deselect tool for that. You don’t need to use paint select, selection like that might be done in just a matter of three mouse clicks.
Yeah, Blender for engineers
There is an easier way for selecting those edges that you wanted. I just made a quick video, so I will upload it to Youtube and post a link in a sec.
Ok, uploaded the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7M0k08rTPI
(At the time of this writing, the video has not yet finished processing, so I apologize if that is the case)
All the same? Who what? They have created an amazing library of tutorials covering tons of different essential aspects of a wonderful program. They’re awesome.
Great tutorial! I’ve been looking for this for a long time! Thanks Jonathan.
Hi Jonathan,
Your tutorials are really awesome and we are learning a lot. One suggestion about new idea’s is that, we would like to learn how to create a promotional video. Something like a trailer for a film or movie. How to use Blender compositor/sequencer to create effects. May be you can take an example trailer of any film and try to recreate. And this will help alot in starting to visualize composting in blender. This could be a multiple series by itself. But it will help newbies like me to think of different composting techniques possible in blender.
I second that, I’m always looking for simple composting techniques to use. I’d love to see more node techniques, like creative techniques to help the creative spark. Andrew Kramer from Video Co-pilot http://www.videocopilot.net/, has incredible tutorials. I know his site is more specific to After Effects, but I can’t help but think a lot can be achieved in Blender.
But that’s just a wish list, you guys definitely already put out a lot of amazing tutorials that have helped me tons. Thanks so much!
Tip:
Use ctrl + alt + rclick to “Edge Ring Select” edges perpendicular to the edge loops alongside the target edge.
Hope that makes sense, English is not my native language
Just try it out and you’ll get what I mean!
Hey I was not aware of that hotkey! Very handy, makes things much faster.
You select edge loops all the time. I really wondered when I saw, you wheren’t aware of that in this case, lol^^
You did certain things quite complicated in this one…
Still a nice tutorial
Heh there are always more things I have yet to learn in Blender
Oh, Kota already brought this up
Although, I couldn’t watch the video, so if you can’t see it either then what I said is what he meant
Ooops, forgot to mention, to use “Edge Ring Select”, you have to be in edge selection mode
I’m an idiot! I always forget to mention crucial information, and so I keep cluttering this bc tutorial with comments *lol*
Anyways, I just wanted to tell you that you don’t HAVE to be in edge selection mode, but if you are in vertex mode you will end up with selecting faces, or face loops which is their proper name, since 4 vertices are the same as 1 face. The same thing will happen if you first edge ring select in edge selection mode and then switch to vertices selection mode.
In face selection mode, alt + rclick and ctrl + alt + rclick do the same thing.
Again sorry if my English makes no sense
It’s a shame there isn’t a “Hidden Wireframe” option in the wire material, that would save a lot of time. It would not be very hard to implement because this is already a function in the 3D Viewport with the new “Limit Selection to View” button.
Just to add to alot of the comments about ring loop selection, what I do is in face select mode, I ring select all the faces and then change to edge select mode to deselect the outside edges leaving only the edges that we want to delete.
wow, really great tutorial. I’m a CAD designer and this was interesting to see done in blender. There is a few little things I would change. One would be you said the dimensions can be written in different sizes. Thats not true they need to see the same size and also the “8 cm” should ready “8.0 cm”. I know those are dumb things but when doing CAD drawings I would get hell for those kind of things but over all I like seeing blender do blue prints. Keep up the good work. Maybe one day blender will be able to do real CAD drawings. (I can only dream)
I have a feeling Blender will never be as productive in 2D as AutoCAD, I think it’s aimed at a totally different market. But it would be really nice to see some more CAD style functions, like prompting for a size when inserting a circle or any other object, and Dimensions.
I just made a quick blueprint styled image in Photoshop yesterday.. o.O Really, do you live inside my computer? xD Thanks for yet another great tutorial Jonathan! =)
a tutorial on ” how to make a showreel ” , tips on making a showreel
.
Thanks for the great tutorial.
Problem. I am running Blender 2.52 R28442.
I downloaded this training series zip. I reproduced everything up until the gear was loaded and before the Radius was changed. Up to that point I was in lock-step with the tutorial. I then
- saved the .blend file.
- turned off the computer.
- turned on the computer.
- loaded the .blend file. Everything looked cool: a nice gear in the center of the viewing area.
- I hit F6 expecting the gear->options dialog to reappear.
- The gear->options dialog failed to reappear.
After a break, what do I have to do to make the gear->options dialog, i.e., usually just F6, appear so I can continue with the tutorial?
Thanks,
Keith.
Any Ideas ?
Keith
Hi Keith,
The operator panel is only available immediately after adding the gear and so upon reopening your file it would be necessary to add a new gear. This is a short coming in the current system and I believe the developers are discussing some options to improve upon it.
Cheers,
Jonathan
I had to comment to some of the comments.
Yeah, I agree. All of us could have done this same exercise a zillion different and more production-efficient ways using different tools; however, the crux of this tutorial is to provide a paradigm shift from the everyday way we do things: get out of the box and do some every-day task in a totally different and unique way, even if it is productivity inefficient. Learning is doing something new, screwing-up, correcting the screw-ups, and seeing one’s creation fly.
In the classroom one is expected to be exposed to techniques to create cool new things. On the job one is beaten with a bull-whip to produce more of the same old crap as before and do it faster. We don’t want to have a confluence of these two divergent paradigms.
Keep such good tutorials coming!
That was a good tutorial. I prefer this way myself for similar things like blueprints. Keep up the good work.
That worked! This time when I installed GEAR, I did not have to hit F6. The command placed a dialog box at the bottom of the Tool Shelf under COMMAND.
For what follows, the tutorial timing marker is just under the 30.
1. I continued through your control-LMB-Drag to select the inner radii (base) to eventually make the inside solid. At this point you LMB click the “Occlude Geometry” button and appear to say: “I hit Backspace Colon Button”. At this point in my Blender knowledge, terminology is unclear. I know I misheard and misread your comment even after multiple replays. Would you clarify it?
2. I am looking at your gear. You are in EDIT mode. The cursor is at the origin. There is a BLUE arrow straight up, a RED arrow aiming almost right, and a GREEN arrow aiming almost down.
I now look at my gear. I am in EDIT mode.
- Gear->Object->Display->Name->Box Checked.
- Gear->Object->Display->Axis->Box Checked.
- Gear->Object->Display->Wire->Box Checked.
- The cursor is at the origin.
- The axis arrows are missing.
- The object name is missing.
I go to Object Mode, I have orange axis markers and the name “Gear” is showing. The colorful arrows do not appear.
Any ideas how to fix this?
Thanks,
Keith.
If you need a more technical guide to using blender for cad this should really be of interest
http://rab3d.com/rab3d/tutorial/608/tutorial_608-1.html#video
check it out
I have spent my whole professional life in design engineering. Everything there was 2D X-Y: drawings, photographs, etc. Video has done an excellent job of extended the 2D world into a 3D world by adding a temporal third dimension: X-Y-T. Photoshop CS4 has done a less than mediocre job extending the 2D still image world into 3D by adding a spatial third dimension: X-Y-Z. Blender extends the 2D world into a 4D world by adding both an additional spacial dimension plus a new temporal dimension giving X-Y-Z-T. Einstein added a temporal dimension to 3D Newtonian physics to bring the world into atomic physics. I have no idea where this is leading me. I am just trying to get my arms around the possibilities beyond the obvious 3D movie applications by learning how to use the tool.
CAD is just one “unique”, familiar, and fun entry point: using Blender tools to create 2D and 3D everyday and familiar ME spatial presentations using a 4D presentation tool to learn the tool’s detailed operation. The tutorial
http://rab3d.com/rab3d/tutorial/608/tutorial_608-1.html#video
looks excellent. That is now to be my next tutorial to work through.
Thanks,
Keith.
Very entertaining and interesting tutorial. I personally don’t think that the imperial system is retarded, although i had a good laugh, when you blurted that one out! The imperial system is based on the number 12, which can be divided twice as many ways while still yeilding a whole number, than the number 10! So it is not as self evident as you seem to think, that the European (actually French, from the French Revolution) system is superior.
Usually Blender is used to do natural looking renderings by building 3d models, first. We don’t think of using Blender to do schematic drawings that focus solely, on the salient design intentions. A simple CAD application like QCad, is far more appropriate to do simple orthographic parallel projections. However, this technique could be indispensable, if you use it to draw a more complex object, at an angle, such as a car or building, viewed at a 45 degree angle, for instance.
Hi, I have 2.5 alpha 2. However when I hit F6 I do not get the pop-up dialog. Any idea why?
Eric
Hi Eric,
Please ensure you are pressing F6 immediately after adding an object and that your mouse is hovering over the viewport. The operator panel may also be accessed via below the tool bar.
Cheers,
Jonathan
I’m just curious why you didn’t render using toon edges, wouldn’t that be easier than having to delete faces?
Hello.
I’m a beginner & appreciate your tutorials very much.
I got a problem.
When following your tutorial on Cool Blueprint, I tried to change the USER PREFERENCES, but my Blender 2.54 Beta keeps crashing! Whenever in try to get the user preferences menu, my Blender crashes!
Please advise me what to do. Thanks
what do you mean by note2, jonathan?
I am not quite sure what you are referring to?
-Jonathan
Note2: we are aware of the artifacts in this video and are looking to resolve it. We appreciate your understanding.
cool tut
i knew about the gear thing though
but not the f6 stuff!
also, to those watching, jonathan used a hotkey around 17.45 where is says ‘this edge here, and this edge here,’ the key is f.
30:00 you ‘are not sure what you did there’
you accidentally subdivided instead of removing doubles.
Hey I have been trying to make an intro for a video and what I want is a drop of ink to fall on a piece of paper and then the letters to be drawn out by themselves. I have tried to use liquid simulator and then make the letters out of the obstacle object. I have tried to have a drop, drop onto a piece of paper and then have it drawn out with a curve but it doesn’t look good. I’m having a lot of trouble with it so if you guys could make a tutorial about having a drop of ink drop onto a piece of paper and then it drawing something by itself it would be much appreciated!
Love blender cookie you guys do a great job, I just got my citizen membership and cant wait to see the exclusive videos! Keep up the good work!