In this Blender 2.5 Video tutorial, I go over using the particle hair system to create downey feathers.
Then using the duplicates technique to add the longer feathers, as well as their texturing and a quick rig setup.
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45 Responses to “Modeling Feathery Wings”Leave a Comment
I LOVE YOU GUYZ
Ive been searching the web to find a good enough tutorial on how to make angel wings for the past few weeks. AND here it is, as if its been made for me.
You Guys Rock!
Hnnng Aaaarghsome!!! I’ve been looking for this forever! Thank you
Here is a link to a pretty good tutorial on blender artists for modeling and rigging a more realistic bird wing that I used when I modeled a blue bird last year.
Combining the techniques from this video and the blender artist tutorial would make for a pretty awesome looking wing.
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=125664
nice find! i agree, these techniques put together would really look nice.
Great work David!
You’ve done a great job of demystifying rigging. I learn a lot with every tutorial you put out.
thanks!
Had to comment. Are you guys mind readers? I am working on this very problem right now!
i knew you’d say that
So just to look smart I went and looked up the name for the feather stems. It is called the calamus.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feathers
Great tutorial by the way. I got a lot out of it!
well if it ain’t ol’ bill nye the science guy!
thank you
huh… i thought it was called a Rachis… hrm. OH WELL!!!! stem sound easier XD
Is anyone else having issues viewing this? I can’t get it to work.
I think it may be Vimeo’s fault, though, because I can’t get anything else from Vimeo to go, either.
From what I understand, in the sculpt panel, the “Brush” section (the names with the paintbrush icons) are actually brush Presets, while the tool section are to choose the tool without using a preset. Hope that makes sense.
Another thing, when you were changing the scale of the planes for the feather duplifaces. One trick is to select one of the planes, turn on proportional editing, set the falloff to random, then scale making sure that the selection ring is around all of the planes. The only drawback is that the planes have to be separate objects, then you would have to join them (CTRL + J) after to make them one object. But the advantage is having great variation with a small amount of work and this also works with rotation and translation.
Nice tip, thanks.
And thanks David for this great tutorial, you might have made the wing look a little better by cranking up transparency at the tips, making them less sharp but overall the techniques presented are really great and helpful.
Hi, nice tutorial but I have a big problem, if I go to the Particle Mode BLender was stopped working :/, I using Blender 2.52 svn r28522 from graphicall.org but so also does the oficial Aplha 2 Blender from blender.org. I have Windows 7 32bit. Can anyone help ?
Amazing tutorial.. tanks a lot.. I feel like making a bird now
Is there any way to export a .eps to gimp? I’m fifteen and don’t have the money to spend of photoshop… thanks anyone who can help
You can import either an svg or eps into gimp. I personally would use svg (default) because I could open it in Inkscape (opensource vector program like Illustrator) so I could change the size, style, etc. of the lines, then open in Gimp.
Yo! Very helpful tutorial! Also PS part was very handy too because I’m not a master with creating right textures.
Great tut David. I just had a thought. A way back I saw a videotut on how you could fill a garden model with flowers and such by first modeling a few individual objects and then ‘painting’ them onto the mesh. Unfortunately I cannot find it at the moment (though someone here will probably know about it and help me out here by posting the link). Anyway, it seems like that approach could also be used together with the one you described here.
Ha! Found it: http://vimeo.com/3841078
Yeah this tutorial of Kernon’s is awesome, I thought of using this technique as well.
I found a little tip for those of you who don’t have Photoshop, like me. Instead open Gimp use Filters > Render > Clouds > Difference Clouds… Set the detail to max and click “New Seed” and generate. Do that 10 -12 times with a new seed each time. This gives us something nice and random. Now Filters > Distort > Shift… Select “Shift Vertically” and set the amount to something high, I have mine set to the max of 200 pixels. Now just pick back up after where the use of the Photoshop Fibers filter. Hope that helps.
I got part of this idea from here. http://www.chainstyle.com/tutorials/fibers.html
Subsurf and multires are pretty much the same thing, The only difference is that multires lets you have multiple subsurf resolutions (hence the name) that you can quickly swap between to edit at various levels of detail. So there is no reason to use both, if you just need a single level of subsurf, stick with subsurf. If you want to jump back and forth between 2 or more specific levels of subsurf, then you use multires.
awesome, thanks for the clarification
Thanks for this fun and “all-round” tutorial. It covered quite some areas of 3D/Blender. I realy enjoyed redoing it myself. Cheers!
I have encountered a problem while following your tutorial, i have gotten as far as exporting the UV in order to open it in PS. The problem i have is blender wont seem to save the EPS file nomatter what i try. I followed the tutorial to the letter but when you EPS file appears to be saved mine doesnt and blender does not come up with any errors stating there was a problem.
any ideas anyone?
Why is this blender different from the one I downloaded?
Was it my impression or you were thinking of Rolling Stones Paint it Black? (around 28:13)
Anyway, great video. Your good stuff has been very useful to me.
Keep em comin.
AAAArrrrghg! I really want to watch this video, but it’s not displaying on my computer. Ive tried turning off the filter, Inslatting a new flash player, and just about everything else I can think of, but I still can’t get it to play?! If anyone has ANY idea whats going on, please help. …… please.
…I will come to agree with Ian on the difference between Subsurf and Multires modifiers…it reminds me of that slight difference there,between the “Mesh smooth” (or “Turbosmooth”…it’s about the same) and the HSDS (Hierarchical Sub Divisions Surfaces) modifiers in 3DS Max (the HSDS being the equivalent to Multires in this case…)…even,perhaps,of that difference between the “Smooth Proxy” object and the “Subdiv” object in Maya software…different naming conventions for a tool that provides the same flexibility allowing the user to interchange and to get back and forth through diverse L.O.D.,hence Multires’ great importance as the tool of choice when sculpting a mesh…and this is,perhaps,why using both of them (having both of them simultaneously activated in the modifiers stack) is something that is not recommended,as a good practice,in general…but,again,maybe I’m wrong…:)
…as for the tutorial >>> it is just AWESOME,imho!…very well structured and “unfolded” in a way that makes even a beginner to feel less frustrated and more comfortable…having that said,I think that Dave is both a great artist and a great teacher at the same time…and also a man who really KNOWS what he is doing with Blender…thank you Dave!…
i have a problem if i add a plane i can only select 1 thing either it’s the my wing or my feather.
please help
Excelente Tutorial… Gracias
Thank you David.
Great work! easy to follow!
One More thing please.
I have copied over the Dupli feathers to the left side, along withe the armature and wing mesh.
But the left feathers are still controlled buy the right Armature. I have tried everything i can think of, Can anyone help please.
Have to say Great tut again!
Thanks
Hi,
thanks here is my little bird made with your tutorial.
I hope you like it. Please comment!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUQU_KluJGQ
Your tutorial is really good!
Do you know a place to find free textures of real birdfeathers?
All i could find with google were pics of feathers with lots of things in the background
That is pretty sweet and thanks for sharing. Dig it!
I’m having trouble viewing the video, do I have to get vimeo plus?
No you don’t – you should be able to view the videos fine here, but worse case you can view them directly on vimeo.com.
What browser are you using, and is it just this video or others?
Okay, I know it’s been a long time since this tut was published…but I can’t figure something out! When I try to make the feather a child of the plane, I get two problems. First, duplifaces makes the new feather enormous, and I have to CTRL-A to apply the scale. Then, when I try to SHFT-D to duplicate the plane, all it duplicates is the plane and the origin point that’s stuck to the feather. But I know it’s parented because moving the plane moves the feather. If I select both the feather and the plane and hit duplicate, it duplicates the whole thing but gives me a new isolated feather too. Help?
This is a fantastic tut…can’t wait to finish my wing!
Pretty same problem I have too. I think that new versions of Blender have some issues about it..
GIMP does not yet have a ‘fibers’, um. thing. What you can do is access GIMPressionist and make your adjustments there and get it to do the same sort of thing.
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Just because you can’t imagine it, doesn’t mean it isn’t so!
Look at this doc that I found http://nccastaff.bournemouth.ac.uk/jmacey/MastersProjects/Msc05/mnewport_MastersThesis.pdf
It explains modeling and using 3d feathers very thoroughly
Excellent post! Finally identified thie information and facts that I was seeking for – all here!
I would absolutely love the win this white ultralight reflective hat!!! Soooo cute As I have mentioned on other comments, I am in desperate need to build my workout wardrobe he he! Love this!!!