Learn how to quick re-use a previous tool or action via the Operator History in Blender.

Due to the nature of modeling and animation workflow, there’s many times that we use a tool over and over again. This may not seem like a hassle, but the time we take to access those tools can really add up. Over the course of a large project seconds become minutes and minutes become hours.

In Blender we can quickly reach a previously used tool or command by accessing the History list or via the Repeat Last operator. This can greatly improve our workflow efficiency.

You can call the History menu from the Toolbar (T) or via the hotkey F3. Alternately, you can simply repeat the last command with Shift+R, or also from the Toolbar.

The Quick Tools Add-on Improves Workflow With A Series Of Shortcuts and Macros

Blender offers a very powerful and fast workflow for many different tasks, but sometimes improvements can be made. Using the multitude of Blender add-ons available we are able to alter and improve the way we work in Blender.

In this case, the Quick Tools add-on is an extension developed by yours truly that offers a set of easy-access menus in Object mode, Edit mode, and Sculpt mode. These menus contain a series of commonly used tools and custom macros that work to speed up repetitive tasks.

Once enabled, you can access these menus from the 3D Viewport with the Q key. If you wish, you can change this hotkey easily from User Preferences > Input > 3D View > Object/Edit/Sculpt.

Download the Quick Tools Add-on

You can download the latest version of Quick Tools HERE.

Bug Reporting

If you stumble across any bugs in the add-on please submit a bug report via the Issue Tracker on our GitHub Repo: https://github.com/CGCookie/script-bakery/issues?state=open

Hard Surface Sculpting

Everyone knows how valuable digital sculpting is for things like characters, monsters, trees, animals…any kind of organic shape. But what about hard surface shapes? Is it possible to apply the artistic freedom and benefits of digital sculpting to rigid forms?

Yes!

Join the Citizen ranks to learn how you can create your own sci-fi weaponry

In this Citizen series we’ll take a beautiful piece of sci-fi concept art by Tim Von Rueden and realize the weapon in 3D with Blender’s sculpting toolset. I’ll show you how to quickly generate a base mesh with the skin modifier and how to approach your sculpt with hard surface techniques. By the end you’ll be an expert with brushes like Polish, Crease, and Pinch!

Why Sculpting instead of Modeling?

If you’re like me, you welcome the more artistic approaches to digital art. Granted sculpting is not appropriate for every hard surface task. For example something like a wooden crate or coffee table makes more sense to model traditionally. However in the case of some complex hard-surface shapes, like this futuristic firearm, it can be easier for an artist to achieve the right forms with brushes instead point-pushing. The sweeping curves and angles make this object a prime candidate for hard surface sculpting.

Credits and License Info

Working Non-Destructively

Whether you want to venture into the profession industry of computer graphics or want to create the most beautiful CG Images, you can’t help but learn to sharpen your skill set to be as efficient as possible. A non-destructive philosophy will save you a lot of time and frustration. By “non-destructive” I mean a layered workflow that builds upon itself and doesn’t destroy the old work with the new. You see this encouraged a lot with photoshop artists who use many layers and masks to preserve their work each step of the way. This same philosophy can be applied to a modeler’s workflow using Blender.

Blender’s Shape Key System

For a modeler the shape key system can be used like a layer system because each new key is additive. Assuming that we won’t be changing our mesh’s topology, we can make as many shape changes that we want while maintaining the original basis. This gives us the power of the “Before and After”.  Seeing a model pre and post-tweak is a tremendous advantage both when dealing with a client/creative authority or making the most educated decision for a personal project.

The shape key system also offers some useful alternatives when mesh modeling. Have you ever needed to make a symmetrical change but you’ve already applied your mirror modifier and prefer not to take that step backwards?  You can do this with a shape key. And when combined with a vertex group, shape keys allow you to isolate specific areas of your mesh for manipulating.

Shape keys offer many useful techniques that make a serious modeler’s workflow more efficient and polished.

Music:  “Contemporary (Happy) Time” by reusenoise

Embrace the Power of F2

In this quick tip you will learn how to enable and use the F2 addon by Crouch. F2 is an extension of the F-key fill-faces function for mesh editing.  Its purpose is to increases workflow efficiency and user friendliness when it comes to filling holes in polygonal meshes.

For any Blender modelers out there, I think you will evaluate F2 as a brilliant tool that belongs in your workflow!

Additional information can be found on the Blender Artists thread.

MUSIC:  “In Peace” by Jeris

Learn to use Dropbox to sync your Blender Settings across all your machines

If you use Blender on multiple machines, such as a desktop machine and a laptop, then chances are you get tired of constantly update your settings to match the other machine. This is particularly annoying anytime a new feature comes out and you change your default settings. Suddenly both machines are out-of-sync again.

In my studio, I have three machines. A 27″ iMac and a 15″ Retina Macbook Pro both running Mac OS X Mountain Lion, and then a custom desktop box running Ubuntu Linux. I use Blender on all of them. But due to the nature of constantly updating and improving my default configurations, I’m constantly finding the machines to have slightly different settings. More than anything, this is annoying for custom hotkeys.

For a while I simply stopped customizing my settings so that I wouldn’t have to worry about it being out of sync. Then I decided to solve this once and for all by making all of the machines sync automatically.

This is actually a little easier than it sounds.

Step 1: Use Dropbox

If you don’t already use Dropbox in your daily life then you’re missing out. It is an incredible piece of software that has become ingrained in daily life here at CG Cookie. We use it for everything. Seriously. It allows you to keep all of your files in sync across multiple machines, so long as those files are within the Dropbox folder.

If you’re not already familiar with Dropbox, then check out their tour HERE. Otherwise, I’m going to assume you already have it and know how to use it.

Step 2: Move Blender Config to Dropbox

Anytime you save your settings in Blender, it saves out specific files in a pre-defined location. This is also true for all user-installed add-ons, custom themes, etc. This location is known as the Blender Config folder and can be found at these locations:

Mac OS X: /Users/{user}/Library/Application Support/Blender/

Linux: $HOME/.config/blender/

Windows Vista/7/8 : C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\

Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Blender Foundation\Blender\

First you’ll need to find the directory above. In recent version of Mac OS X, and in Windows, the Library/ and AppData\ directories are hidden. But you can access them from the location bar in Windows by typing in the exact path, and in OS X by pressing Cmd+G from your home user home and typing “Library”.

Once you have found the Blender/ directory, we need to move it into the Dropbox. In my case, I’ve moved it to Dropbox/Blender-Config/Blender/

Note: while doing this don’t do ANYTHING with Blender. If you open or save anything with Blender during this move it’ll create a new settings directory, which you’ll have to remove.

We are now ready to do the real magic, making symbolic links.

Step 3: Make Symbolic Links

If you’re not familiar with symbolic links, then you’re in for a treat! Symbolic links act a bit like shortcuts, but they’re better. When you create a symbolic link from one location to another, it creates a connection between the two locations, making your computer think they both go to the exact same place, when in reality only the original location is real.

This is useful because it means we can store our Blender config directory in Dropbox and yet make Blender think it’s still in the original location.

For this tutorial, I’m going to show you how to create the symbolic links via command line on Mac OS X and Linux. If you’re on Windows then check out this tutorial from HowToGeek for the symbolic link portion:

To create the symbolic link first open a command prompt (on OS X use /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app). Next do the following (be sure you’ve moved your Blender/ directory to Dropbox!):

Mac OS X:

cd Library/Application\ Support/

ln -s /Users/username/Dropbox/Blender-Config/ Blender

Linux: 

cd .config/

ln -s $HOME/Dropbox/Blender-Config/ Blender

That’s it! You should now have a symbolic link from the original config location to Dropbox. You can test this by going to the original location and checking for a Blender/ directory. Opening that directory will then take you to Dropbox/Blender-Config/Blender/. This also means that now when Blender saves out any settings, Blender will think it’s saving them to the normal location, when it’s actually saving all settings to Dropbox. Nifty huh?

But wait, there’s more.

Step 4: Repeat for Each Machine

You now need to recreate the above symbolic link for each of your machines that you want synced. Otherwise the syncing will not do any good.

Once you have done this you are ready to go!

Step 5: Live in Peace

With all machines now synced with Dropbox, and the symbolic links in place for each machine, your Blender settings will automatically be synced. This includes all add-ons you install, any themes your create, any layouts you change, and even any custom hot-keys you add.

Enjoy!

FAQs:

Q: Can I use other syncing software, such as Sugar Sync with this technique?

A: You sure can! Any software that keeps files in sync between multiple machines should do the trick. The symbolic links are what make this work, not the syncing software specifically.

Learn how to use a drawing tablet to improve Blender’s sculpting and texturing workflow

Drawing tablets are incredible tools. They enable you to adapt a pencil-on-paper like workflow to your digital art production process. There are many tablets available on the market and they come in many different sizes and subsequent price ranges. The most common tablets are Wacom brand. However, there are many other brands that also make tablets that will get the job done. Doing a quick Amazon search for “Drawing Tablets” brings up a lot of options.

In this tutorial I’m going to show you how I configure my Wacom Intuos 4 to work in Blender.

Interior Architectural Visualization is now available on DVD via Blender.org!

We are pleased to announce that our very well reviewed training course on Architectural Visualization is now available on DVD through the e-shop at Blender.org. This is excellent for anyone wishing to have a hard-copy or are unable to stream the Citizen version. Another benefit to purchasing the DVD is most of the proceeds go directly to supporting Blender and the Blender Foundation projects.

Interior architectural visualization is an ideal use of 3D rendering; it can help portray exactly what an interior could look like after being built without ever setting foot in the space or picking up a tool. Through this course, Jonathan Williamson will give you a complete run-through on how to create an interior architectural visualization completely within Blender 2.6. This course makes use of the Cycles render engine to achieve an excellent sense of realism and mood. To gain access to this course you can signup as a Citizen member of the CG Cookie network for just $10 USD per month. This is an incredible deal, the course contains just over five hours of training; covering modeling, shading, lighting, rendering, compositing, and post processing. You can sign up for a Citizen account from our membership page HERE.

Purchase the DVD HERE

As a Citizen member you get access to the complete streaming course, including all project files and the ability to download each individual video. All the source files and videos are also included on the DVD.

Go to the series page!

 Watch the trailer:

Announcing Concept Cookie’s New Online Training Course for Character Concept Art – Natalia

We realize this is not specifically Blender related, but Tim Von Rueden has just released his full training course on creating stunning character concept art! Character concept art is the starting process for today’s standard in gathering and defining an idea for games, movies, and television. In this series, Tim takes you through the complete concept process for the character Natalia. He will walk you through each step in this in-depth look at the Natalia character concept art creation.

To check out the course visit Concept Cookie now!

http://cgcookie.com/concept/cgc-series/training-course-character-concept-art-natalia/

To gain access to this course you can signup as a Citizen member of the CG Cookie network for just $10 USD per month. This is an incredible deal, the course contains over seven hours of training; covering silhouette, anatomy, lighting, color, drawing the head, each of the facial features, hair, cloth, leather, metal, and posting it off. You can sign up for a Citizen account from our membership page HERE.

As a Citizen member you get access to the complete streaming course, including all project files, brushes and color swatches, a set of excellent anatomy and skin references, and the ability to download each individual video. To make this series more accessible you can now choose to either stream or download any of the videos. To stream the videos, simply click on the thumbnail for that portion and it will automatically load at the top of the page.

What you’ll learn in this course

In the duration of this course you will be taken through the entirety of a character creation process. This includes all the pre-production work that often goes overlooked such as gathering references, setting your layout, and a look at picking out your colors to compliment each other and lighting your scene. When it comes to drawing this series covers the human aspects such as the silhouette process, refining the anatomy, rendering skin using the pre-packed brushes, shaping out the head from any angle, taking an in-depth look and focus on the facial features from the eyes, the nose, the mouth, and the hair. Then we go through the materials included with a leather jacket, jeans, boots, metal, jewelry, tattoos, gloves. Then to polish it off I add a rim light and bring it all together with a background. I hope you enjoy and learn how to use this to create your own character concept art!

Note: the first three videos, and the introduction and freely available for anyone to view to help give you a better preview of the course Enjoy!

To check out the course visit Concept Cookie now!

http://cgcookie.com/concept/cgc-series/training-course-character-concept-art-natalia/

Hello and welcome to this project workflow tutorial! 

Unless you are an artist or team member that is actively involved in a studio production environment, chances are you find the requirements and good practices for a project workflow to be a complete mystery. It is not uncommon to see new, or even intermediate Blender users with little, to no idea how to efficiently structure a project. This can cause unnecessary delays and challenges during production.

Before getting down to it, I would also like to take a moment to give a small pitch for our Citizen Membership. If you like this guide and want to take it with you for easy reading or reference then sign-up for a Citizen account and download the print-ready PDF to take with you on your iPad, Kindle or phone! Citizen also gives you access to download the source files for all our tutorials and it includes exclusive tutorials you can only view with a Citizen pass.

This tutorial, or editorial of sorts, is meant to try and shed some light on a few things you can do to help make your production more successful; regardless of your project is or who is involved.

Efficiently structuring a production, and the project workflow is absolutely key to succeeding with larger projects. If your project is not a solo project, and instead you’re working with a team then this is even more crucial!

An effective project workflow, or production workflow, not only helps you get the job done faster but it helps you produce better work. You will enjoy the process more and it leaves you with a project that is easier to navigate several years down the road; even if the person looking at the project was not on the original team.

Every project is different and the workflow must be adapted to fit that particular project as best as can be. However, there are a few things that are universal to all projects. In the below text you will find a few of my thoughts on these things, along with some of the techniques I have found to make a successful project workflow during our productions here at the CG Cookie Studio.

I have attempted to break the key parts of a production or project workflow into five components. These are Project Roles, Team Communication, File Structure and Naming Conventions, Asset Management, and Finishing the Project! Let’s take a look at each one of these in turn.

#1 – Project Roles

Being part of the Blender Community, I believe many of us have this idealized picture of a large group of people all coming together and communally working to produce something awesome without a centralized direction or project lead. This is a great mental image but in reality, particularly when it comes to your beloved project that has been stewing in your mind for years it just doesn’t work.

One of the first things you should do before you produce a single project asset is define team member roles. Determine who is doing what, which roles need to be filled and figure out how you can best make use of the skills your team brings to the table.

Below are some example roles which you should be looking to fill. Granted, depending on the size or type of project you may also include User Interface Designers, Concept Artists, Marketing, and others. The exact roles for your team may vary, the important thing is that you define them.

Example Primary Roles:

1. Project Lead - the person responsible for making project-wide choices and keeping the team on task and motivated.
2. Art Director – the person that takes charge of the look and feel of the project. On smaller teams this person may also help direct marketing.
3. Production Artist(s) and respective Leads - these people are charged to ensure all project assets are completed to spec. Depending on the spec of your project, this may be broken into several areas such as: Character Artist Lead and Environment Artist Lead. 
   1. Environment Artist: Responsible for all hard surface modeling and environment layout. This includes object modeling and lighting in most cases.
   2. Character Artist: As you can imagine all things characters. Clothing, accessories and textures.
4. Animation Lead – the person that keep tabs on all animation to ensure quality and consistency
5. Tech artists / Engineers - these people are responsible for making sure everything actually works. This can boil down to shader development, optimization, custom tool creation and staring at lines and lines of codes for months on end.

When you have these roles defined, stick to them! Within the production environment, it is crucial each member fills their role to the best of their ability; this includes everything from the producer keeping the project going to the asset artists pumping out quality work. Doing this helps everyone stay on track and keep moving towards project completion.

Aside from making the best use of available skills, this also helps to avoid work overlap and too much head-butting. It is very common for new directors/producers to try and always be nice and let everyone do what they want, but this nearly always results in one things: you getting walked all over and the team getting nothing done. Let’s face it, this is your project and it should be done the way you want it to be.

#2 – Team Communication

I cannot stress just how important team communication is…personally I believe it is more important than your entire team, hardware, location, and everything else combined. The only reason this isn’t the #1 key is because the roles can determine aspects of the communication. Without good team communication your project will start to fall apart even before you begin. Good team communication should be a lot like your neighbors annoying, clanging, noisy machine that is always spouting steam! It’s always there, constantly makes a racket and refuses to be turned off.

The first step to good team communication is to put together a group of people that actually like to communicate. If each member of your team is off gallivanting with no regard for the rest of the group your project is doomed to fail. Every person on the team should actively contribute to team discussions and updates while also following the project lead. It is their job to help guide the project through completion and it is everyone else’s job to fulfill their role.

There are many different ways teams choose to communicate, if you’re looking for some new options then here’s a brief list to ease the process:

1. Skype - this works great for active discussions, particularly if the group chats are used to keep all members up to date
2. Wunderkit - the newest member of the 6WunderKinder family, this software is a great team to-do list and management application
3. BaseCamp - this tool is renowned for great team management while offering a wealth of tools
4. email - while boring, email is tried and true but it takes a very good team to not lose track of messages and to make sure everyone is on the email list. Use mailing lists to help solve this problem.

In the end, the most important thing is to simply keep the communication going!

#3 – File Structure and Naming Convention

If there’s a single thing I would consider a pet peeve of mine in the production process, it is bad or inconsistent file structures and naming conventions. When I’m knee-deep in a project, the last thing I want to do is spend hours searching for the files Sneaky Tom sent me because I don’t know what they’re called or where they’re at. Hours may be an exaggeration, okay fine it’s a huge exaggeration, but you get the point. If each team member follows a consistent naming convention and file structure it will be much easier for each member to pick up where others left off or make use of files from other people on the team.

You can use most any structure and naming convention as you like, just so long as it’s consistent and everyone sticks to it!

An example project directory structure:

• Project Root
  • assets
    • models
    • textures
  • output
    • final_renders
    • sequence
    • sequence_comp
  • scenes
    • 01
    • 02

This is merely an example and could be broken down further for specific projects. For example, you might further separate assets into characters and environments.

#4 – Asset Management

Right up there in importance with file structure and naming convention, is asset management. While working in a team environment it is crucial that every member know exactly where each and every file exists that is pertinent to them.

There are many different ways you can manage your assets, but I highly recommend using something like Dropbox with shared folders to keep everyone in sync and on the same page. The requirements of your project may bring to light other challenges for asset management, but Dropbox or some of the other software is a good place to start.

1. Dropbox -  an automatic file syncing tool that allows for shared folders between team members; also includes file change history in case of emergencies.
2. SugarSync – another automatic file syncing utility with much the same feature set as Dropbox but with wider range of customizations.
3. SVN – a version control utility that lets team members check in and out from a central source. It is great for coding projects but not so good for animation projects due to file sizes.

#5 – Finish the Project

This sounds like a silly thing to bring up in a workflow guide, but this is probably one of the hardest things to do. We’ve all seen and been around the start-up projects where everyone is excited, anxious and pumped to get started. Only to find out months and sometimes just weeks later that the project is on hold… Somebody is upset at somebody else, this other person won’t answer e-mails, and the motivation to work on this awesome project instead of going streaking on Saturday night isn’t winning.

If you follow the above project guidelines you will be making the first steps towards a successful project. By making communication a priority, defining team roles and managing your assets well you can not only give the project a successful start but be well on your way to finishing the project and going on vacation!

All vector artwork done by the excellent Yuanden