In this Blender 2.5 video tutorial we go through the process of creating a cool battery scene from start to finish. This tutorial covers modeling, texturing, lighting, and rendering. The materials and rendering are done with LuxRender 0.8RC3.
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Discussion
62 Responses to “Creating a Battery in Blender and LuxRender”Leave a Comment
Good tutorial
When you modeled batery why you dont use screw modifier?
Because there is always thousand ways to make the same thing, and he choosen one
A bit behind with the citizen copy?
Hey Shane,
Sorry bout that – Download is added and ready to be delivered.
I just want to say, i highly appreciate these tutorials!
This battery tutorial with Luxrender was great.
Nice to see you use Pixelmator, it’s a wonderful program, it looks great, is fun to use and is quite cheap. And it keeps getting better for each version. To bad Win/Lin can’t use it to.
good tutorial thanks !!!
just great, loved it.
I feel like having a crack now at some photo realistic renders, thanks so much, great follow on to the water+glass luxrender tut, fantastic!
Jonathan, thanks for the tut, always a pleasure, but I like to tell you that since LuxRender 0.8 RC3 I think, you have again the posibility to use several materials in just one object by vertex assigning. If you like to check it out just download this link, it’s a WIP but it does still shows the posibility.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1227056/battery.blend
thanks again
Thanks Jonathan for the tut and thanks Lalo for the tip!!!
Enjoyed very much doing this tutorial!
Cheers!
hello could you give us a tutorial on how to make a perfect tire and realistic please ?
Car tire tutorial:
http://www.blenderguru.com/how-to-make-a-car-wheel/
Hi, Jonathan Williamson
Thanks for this tutorial.Good chance to explore deep into LuxRender pontential.
My result after 8 hours of rendering.
http://browse.deviantart.com/?q=gallery%3Ahaqzaf%2F9410305#/d3gxb2z
Hi, here is mine:
http://ivichanm.deviantart.com/art/My-Batteries-209840918
I made a little change to it and i decided to render it within Cycles instead LuxRender
I don’t know why but i couldn’t apply an image texture to the battery body, then i let it with solid color.
Thanks again for your tutorials!!
P.S: Is a bit noisy render, but my computer is a little bit old and it takes a lot of time to render
Rendered with Cycles: http://www.pasteall.org/pic/show.php?id=12686
What in the computer causes the render to go quicker? Processor speed, memory, or the graphics card?
Jeremy Deighan
Primarily the processor speed, but memory matters in complex scenes, because if it’s too small it can slow you down (as it has to use disk cache). Also, the newest LuxRender has the option to use the GPU (I didn’t manage to get it to work though), and then the GPU matters (normally it doesn’t).
GPU of course means the graphics card (Graphics Processing Unit)
Ok cool.
What about baking and physics/simulations? Since those are running through the 3D viewport does that mean that the memory plays more of a role than when in rendering?
Also, would you suggest running a command/terminal prompt whenever possible for rendering?
Jeremy Deighan
I don’t have enough technical knowledge, but I believe it’s the same as with rendering: the CPU speed is the key factor, although memory might be more critical than with rendering, as the simulation has to stay in memory. But I don’t see why memory should be more important just because something runs through the viewport. As for the graphics card, it probably only matters when you want to e.g. interactively move the scene around while baking or playing the simulation. I wouldn’t expect a much faster simulation just because there’s more RAM (unless you actually run out of RAM, then adding more obviously changes things), whereas a faster CPU definitely affects speed. That’s what I think, but I can’t swear by it.
As a image editor what do you think about expression design 4 for creating logos.
First! Okay, maybe immature, but hey, live a little.
More seriously, another great tutorial. I had tried Blender a couple years ago, and couldn’t get the grasp. I had spent time in the Wiki, bought books, and watched tuts everywhere. Never clicked. These are connecting synapses I didn’t realize I had!
Haha! Next time I need to refresh the page before ‘firsting’.
Olhem o meu: http://i1129.photobucket.com/albums/m509/lukoloko1/pilhas_final.png
Muito obrigado amigo, só não ficou melhor por que meu computador não tem placa de vídeo! Mas ficou muito bom! Até o próximo tutorial… Later.
Here’s my take:
http://i411.photobucket.com/albums/pp197/ubuntufreak/batteryScene.jpg
Inspired by a quote from The Secret: “Everything in the Universe is Energy”
Hello Jonathan,
First thank you so much for your awesome tutorials !
I tried a lot of time to check addon luxrender checkbox unsuccessfully.
I have just install a graphicall buid and fortunately I can set on the checkbox. Great ! I can now learn luxrender with your amazing tutorials. But I haven’t tried luxrender yet, cause I have this message in the console when I launch blender. I have tried to put pylux.pyd in a lot of directories without success. Do I have to fix this issue or can I use it in a way ? Maybe I can use luxrender just external ?
found bundled python: C:\PROGRA~1\BLENDE~1\Blender\2.57\python
[Lux 2011-May-24 12:45:19] WARNING: Binary pylux module not available! Visit htt
p://www.luxrender.net/ to obtain one for your system.
[Lux 2011-May-24 12:45:19] (ImportError was: DLL load failed: Le module spécifi
é est introuvable.)
Thank you for your time.
Jacques
Why when i click P and want to separate selections my blander crash. Its stop working
. How to fix that?
Thanks Jonathan!!!
Here is my result after 2.5 hours of baking with LuxRender
http://i.imgur.com/sjmoT.png
Nice result Kevin!
-Jonathan
Hi, to All,
Thanks Jonathan Williamson,
Another try,Link.
http://browse.deviantart.com/?q=gallery%3Ahaqzaf%2F9410305#/d3h52mh
rendering time-one hour 35 minutes.
More confidence in handling LuxRender,mesh based lighting tweaking.Creating battery label texture.
Thanks Jonathan, your tutorials are very very cool.
Thank you, glad you like it
-Jonathan
Hi from Czech Republic,
here is my render: http://cgi.neolker.cz/battery-final.jpg
Thanks J.W.!
Martin Wolker alias Neolker
Nice Tutorial jonathan! keep it up. Can i request? can you do a tutorial about bump mapping using an image in luxrender? for example a wood texture. ive been trying to do it but i didnt get what i want. I think having a video tutorial for this one will be able to help me and others a lot. Thanks
Great tutorial , nice done Jonathan !\nAlso congrats for your work dudes , quite impressive results inspired by this tutorial .. I’ve changed my mind about posting my try ..
\n Lux render is a great free tool for rendering , but it takes forever to work with it though .
here we go , my three used batteries \nhttp://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/594/bat15vglossy.png/
Hey, I was wondering how did you get Luxrender to automatically render the image outside of Blender? I can’t figure out how to make the external Luxrender automatically render the same image Blender is rendering with the internal Luxrender.
(Are the settings for this under the “Luxrender Engine Configuration” panel?)
Ok, ignore all the above, I got it to open, but with a slight problem. Every time I render, I get this message:
[2011-06-11 15:22:43 Severe error: 47] Parsing error in file ‘Blender_Battery.Scene.00001.lxs’ at line 3: syntax error
I’ve tried different rendering different Blender files I have with the same result. What’s wrong?
I am not positive but it sounds like this may be a version issue. Have you updated to the latest LuxRender and LuxBlend?
-Jonathan
I very much would like to follow this tutorial but I’m having difficulties with LuxRender. Everytime I try to render I get an error saying OpenCL.dll is not found. >.<
Anyone know how to rectify this?
Oh, I’m using Blender 2.57b and LuxRender v0.8
This likely means that you need to update your video card driver. That or your video card does not support OpenCL (GPU acceleration), in which case you need to get the “No-OpenCL” version of LuxRender.
-Jonathan
Ah! Thank you for that!
Indeed, my card doesn’t support GPU acceleration. Nasty basic little thing! Ha! I’ll go grab and install the more useful version of LuxRender, for me.
Thanks again!
Hiya,
I’m not sure if it’s mentioned above, but you can assign multiple materials to an object using vertex groups in LuxRender.
Is it a way to apply text ( logo ) on a glass surface ? let’s say those batteries were made from glass .. maybe what Aaron mentioned above can help doing that ?
You can use a mix material to blend a glass material with a logo material: http://www.luxrender.net/wiki/LuxRender_Materials_Mix
-Jonathan
Yeah,
Using vertex groups would probably not be the way you’d want to go, depending on the look you’re going for.
Looking into UV mapping and using alpha mapping is probably what you’d be wanting.
By the way, I mentioned above that you can use vertex groups in LuxRender. This is for version 0.8 – I have no idea about previous versions, as I’ve never used LuxRender until recently (so that’s the version I’m using).
I just thought I’d mention that incase anyone is using an older version and is getting a headache trying to find the options. =P
Thank you for answering me so fast !
I don’t want to mix the jars on this topic , maybe you can find a minute to check the “Creating a bulb part 1″ comments , concerning this and some more ..
Thanks again !
I’m not really sure where to post this, but I’m having some issues with this tutorial at about 13:30 in the video. Jonathan is explaining the lighting groups for LuxRender in the Blender World configuration. When I click the Add button, it only creates the checkbox and text field. There is no gain option or remove button. I also can’t add any further light groups.
I’m running Blender 2.58.1 r38019 (64-bit, Windows) with LuxRender 0.8 (64-bit, with OpenCL). LuxRender itself seems to be integrated OK with Blender because when I render image it starts processing it in LuxRender as expected.
I noticed that when I click the Add button, the console window kicks out this:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.58\scripts\addons\luxrende
r\ui\world.py”, line 139, in draw
property_group = lg
File “C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.58\scripts\addons\modules\
extensions_framework\ui.py”, line 175, in draw_column
if not self.check_enabled(control_list_item, property_group):
File “C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.58\scripts\addons\modules\
extensions_framework\ui.py”, line 109, in check_enabled
if lookup_property in property_group.enabled.keys():
AttributeError: ‘bool’ object has no attribute ‘keys’
location::-1
location::-1
Actually, disregard this. I ended up figuring it out. Because I’m running 2.58, I apparently had to use the LuxBlend addon referred to in LuxRender’s installation wiki. The one that comes with the LuxRender complete installer apparently doesn’t work.
Thanks for the mad tutorial Jonathan – LuxRender really blows my mind, never knew there were programs that could do this (especially the light modifications while rendering).
Just a quick tip, you might already know this, but if you want to disable blender going into image mode (with a black image since we’re using luxrender) every time you render, go to Properties panel -> Render settings -> Render -> and change Display from ‘Image editor’ to ‘Keep UI’
This was a great tutorial Jonathan.You managed to combine many simplified aspects and yet provide the user with a very satisfying end result.I have a couple of questions regarding luxrender if someone has the time to point me in the right direction.
Firstly,several times during the tutorial,you stop a render in Lux and escape it in blender then start rendering again at some point.Each time I do this,a new instance of the Lux GUI is opened and I loose any changes i’ve made to the light settings.I dont think this was the case for you,is there some setting I’m missing.
Secondly,I noticed that in Lux you have “Threads” set to 8(default seems to be 2).I was wondering if this is important and what it’s relevance is.
And lastly,does placing a null material on an object make that object completely invisible,as in,preventing it from affecting reflections,shadows etc.If not,is it possible to achieve that.
I apologize if the answers to any of the above questions are glaringly obvious but this is my first time using an external renderer and to be honest just getting the thing to work proved to be a chore(my own stupidity,not Lux or blenders fault).
Hi Jan,
Good questions!
Firstly, Lux always start a second instance for me as well, I just always exit out of LuxRender before adjust the settings again. Generally I do this with CMD + Q when on a man.
Next, the threads refer to how many processor cores LuxRender will use while render. Since I have a Quad dual core I run eight threads at a time. LuxRender should default to the number of cores you have in your system.
Lastly, I believe the Null material should prevent it from showing up in anything, including reflections.
I hope that helps!
-Jonathan
Thanks for the response Jonathan.Cleared it all up for me.cheers.
I can´t see the video on VIMEO please fixx that !
It was my first tutorial I did in Blender after learning very basics and this was amazing, I’ve learned a lot and got satisfied by my result
Having issues…I know it’s not a battery but I saw the technique and wanted to apply it to a sword. For some reason I can’t get the UV unwrap to work with a material like with the battery label I tried this on the handle with a wood floor picture I had. and the light groups it’s not letting me creating more then one. I click add, but it doesn’t show up so when I render I don’t get a second light to adjust. just the first one
so when I render I am getting ALOT of noise and the image is unclear…
http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d3/BlazeLeeDragon/Chang_Dao_Miao_Daoreal.png
It is possible to difference between Computer system Architectural together with Laptop or computer Science?
Great Tutorial as always.
I’m having a problem finding the UV Exporter though. It’s at the top of the list in the tutorial…It not their for me. I tried another build and I still don’t see it under UV’s. Help anyone?
Thanks,
Hi Curt,
UV Export is now included as an addon in the Import/Export category. Enable it and then you will find it in the UVs menu as expected.
-Jonathan
Excellent.
Thanks for the help.