In this Blender 2.5 video tutorial we jump into holiday spirit and create a present! This tutorial covers the modeling, texturing, lighting and rendering processes using a variety of techniques to come up with a final, polished image.
Discussion
44 Responses to “Creating a Present”Leave a Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Nice can’t wait to open it! (:::::::::::::::::
Hey David, First of all… Loving the tut!!! Its brilliant.
Secondly I was just wondering if you could make a tutorial on either a rainbow or a waterfall scene!!! Thanks and keep up the great work!!
hehe, thanks, but jon made this one
ahaha, sorry got muddled up!!
bahahah ooops, Sorry Jonathan. I was just looking at one of Davids Tuts and got messed up!! ooooops :/
very interesting!!! Thank you!
i noticed that you used a curve circle to give the wire the shape.
wouldnt it be easier to just make the shape with the curve options fro mteh wire?
Nice work with the lights and reflections tips in the ribbon. Thanks again Johnathan! Merry christmas to you and all CG Blender cookie stuff too.
Why use loop cuts after 12:20?
Why not just use:
Bevel Modifier (width of .2′ish) and soft edge normals (shade smooth). It also keeps the poly-count, thus the render time down.
Also. I would make the bow from just curves and extrudes by themselves.
Modeling is crazy, there is so many ways to do the same thing.
Hi,
Thanks for the tutorial, I am busy with it 29 minutes from start this happens?
http://www.sarponita.com/Free/huh.jpg
What can I do to make it smooth or good?
Maria
Hi Maria, it looks like you have a duplicate mesh there. This could be caused by having a mirror modifier on a already symmetrical mesh.
-Jonathan
Hey! Awesome tutorial!
Just a little question: what’s the difference exactly between Ambient Occlusion and Environment Lighting? I’ve been playing around with both and I get similar results.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambient_occlusion
Long story short, think of it as a “cheap” (cheap = renders faster) version of “environment lighting” otherwise known as, I think, Global Illumination.
That’s because by default ambient-occlusion is set to “add”. Which is totally stupid and should really be changed. AO and Env.Light are more or less the same thing. When you render in passes and look at AO and Env.Light you will see that they are exactly the same (except when you set Env.Light to use sky color).
Ambient Occlusion should be set to “mulitply” to give some shadows, whereas Env.Light should be set to “add” to brighten things up. Then you can balance them with the factor-sliders.
I was just wondering if there would be any benefit to using a tangent shader on the ribbon. I have not tried it yet but thought I would ask anyway.
-Hal
Great things come in small packages (pun intended).
Lot’s of really useful info in this one. Lighting, environment, materials, modeling, composition, uv’s, curves etc… nice one.
I would love to see more tuts like this on common household “real world” type stuff like this. Also more info on “ramps” in 2.5 would be cool.
Please keep ‘em coming!
You guys rock!
Jonathan, thank you for many hours of enjoyment.
I’ve watched most of your videos and love them. I used to work in Max but now Blender is my software of choice.
Thank you so much.
I’m actually going to finish this tut and put the render onto my website.
~Gary
Awesome tutorial, Like Gary I myself come from about 5 years of Maya experience off & on, but now that I actually for once (Finally) took the time to really see the power behind blender and how it really works, its become my new addiction and I just cant stop myself from continuing to unlock the full potential behind this.
Your tutorials are by far superior than most others I find on the net as well as your skill lvl when compared to others. Those shortcuts and how fast you use them? Wow, I hope to one day become as productive as I’m sure u are
Thnx alot for the awesome tutorials and keep up the great work!
Hey I thought Id take the time and upload a pic of my finished version here. Btw I didn’t bother with the tag among other things because i know I’m going to simplify this mesh for something else, still learned from it of course
Thnx Again
http://www1.picturepush.com/photo/a/4891984/640/4891984.jpg
I have a problem. Im new to blender, my cube is black and enviroment is white and i cant see reflection how can i set it right? like in step 9:05
I’m having a problem when “ripping” the top of the box off after making the loop cut. I’m selecting the appropriate edge however instead of ripping the top it rips the bottom. I’ve tried selecting the other lines however it just results in the faces clipping into each other.
Same here. Tried several times, always with the same result. I’d also be interested in knowing why, but do not let it stop you as it does not really matter for the rest of the tutorial…
Hi Jonathan,
Great one! Thanks a lot. I liked it so much I did it twice ! My bow was a mess the first time…
Quick question: how do I go about at the end, to make the whole box a single object (box+bow+tag etc… all in one). Ctrl+J with everything selected does not work for me. For some reason I get a double bow and one stripe is removed.
All i do is apply all modifiers in the stack for
whatever meshes i want to join together.
If you have an array and apply a mesh to that arrayed mesh you will
have it automatically joined and arrayed to the mesh with the array,
it would seem. Hope that helps out.
Hi Jonathan,
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I had a look at the blender wiki regarding area lamp and according to the doc, changing the size of the rectangle – as you do with your fill lights – without touching the samples has no effect (as all the energy still comes from the center of the rectangle).
I think that is correct if we were using soft shadows
from the 2 fill lamps. We turned shadowing off so no need for
upping the samples on the 2 fill lamps it would seem is why.
I just wanted to say Jonathan Williams you are
the MASTER man, heheheee i love your lessons bro.
Hey Jonathan thanks for another great video
one thing though.. i cant seem to get the loops on my ribbons to be as smooth as the ones in the video and as far as i can see the sub-surf is set up right.. any idea what might be wrong? Help would be much appreciated 
Hey Jonathan,
Can you send me a screenshot of your mesh and modifier settings?
-Jonathan
Hey Jonathan, thanks for the quick reply. I realized what was wrong thanks
id forgotten to set it to shade smooth.. oops :p
Hi Jonathan! Quick question when we add the curve circle to the cube to start creating the ribbon. When I click it, the object is called a “Bezier circle”. It looks all the same but when I add the curve modifier it doesn’t act right. Any help you can give?
Justin-
What is the curve modifier doing?
-Jonathan
First. When i click which object i want the modifier to go to, it has the “bezier curve” option. Which i know i added the curve circle as you did. When I click that. It curves around the circle, but it also has another piece to it on the bottom of the present. When I try to move the ribbon around to size it the other piece on the bottom follows with it. So whatever I do to the ribbon on top, also moves the ribbon on the bottom of the present. :/
Perhaps you could share out the .blend file? Then I can take a look at it. You can upload via http://pasteall.org
Ok. Thanks so much.
How can I paste my project so that I can upload it on there?
You can go here to upload it: http://www.pasteall.org/blend/
Ok. I put it on there. Hopefully you can see it alright.
I’ve had quite a good amount of difficulty making this, still not done, I’m stuck at 17:37. Whenever I try to select the ribbon, only one side is selected fully, the mirror side is not selected, and you said press “alt + d” to mint copy, that doesn’t work for me, or maybe I’m pressing the wrong key? Could you help me, I’d like to give this present to someone special. I’ll screen shot if you need any references. >.< thanks for your time.
nevermind sir! I’m so sorry I should been object mode to do the mint copy >.< sorry…
I tried this tut about 2 months back when I first got into blender and had trouble following, tried it again today (being a bit more experienced n all)
and got through ok. Great tut learned loads of new tips and techniques and had a good overall result…but..at the end I couldnt seem to apply any modifiers to the ribbons, something about multi user data. Do I need to apply them in a particular order or is it something else? tnx for any help guys and tnx for tut Jon
Excellent tutorial. Not sure why my shadows are so grainy though.
Wha? No cycles . . .
This tutorial was done before Cycles was released.