BlenderArt Magazine - 11 - Mechanical

Issue 11 | July 2007 | Blenderart Magazine

Producing Models With Accuracy

Amateur Mechanisms

Solid Device Construction

How To Create Weld Joint

Blender As NURBS Application

Burned Bridges - Walkthrough

Blender learning made easy

Gaurav Nawani [email protected]

Sandra [email protected]

Nam [email protected]

Kernon DillonPhillip A. RyalsKevin C. BraunDerek MarshBruce Westfall

Robert BurkeErick RamirezAndrew LaneClaas Eicke KuhnenAvery LanierGiancarlo Chan Ng

‘BlenderArt Magazine’, ‘blenderart’ andBlenderArt logo are copyright of GauravNawani. ‘Izzy’ and ‘Izzy logo’ are copy-right Sandra Gilbert. All products andcompany names featured in the publica-tion are trademark or registered trademarks of their respective owners

Michael Kammer (Myke) - ‘Creeper’

Contents 2

www.blenderart.org Issue 11 | Jul 2007- Mechanical

Producing Models With Accuracy

Amateur Mechanism

Solid Device Construction

How To Create Weld Joint

Blender As NURBS Application

Burned Bridges Texturing - Walkthrough 39

Unsolved Mystery - Walkthrough

Meet The Blenderhead - Derek Marsh

5

9

13

20

23

42

46

mailto:[email protected]



When I think of Mechanical modeling, I gen-erally envision robots and futuristic objects.But that is just a small subsection of Me-chanical Modeling and overlooks the grow-ing field of modelers using Blender forproduct design and prototyping, as well asour large number of car modelers. In factMechanical modeling encompasses every-thing that is not organic. Somewhat of ano-brainer statement, but true, none theless.

I don't think most of us give much thoughtto how much of our world is actually me-chanical at this point. Or how it got builtand in use to the point that we no longergive it much thought.

Well, it started with ideas that were tested,built, then were put into practice. Therehave been programs around for some timethat have become industry standards. Andlately Blender has been making an impacton these work-flows.

Blender is a great program to experimentwith your ideas. Not only can you designthe next new marvel, you can also animateit and see how it would actually work.

While Mechanical modeling in Blender canbe at times cumbersome, new features andtools are making it easier all the time, asthe articles and tutorials in this issue willshow. To that end, we have gathered to-gether a nice variety of articles/tutorialsshowing some tips and tricks to creatingMechanical models with blender.

I hope you enjoy and learn as much as Ihave from this issue.

Happy [email protected]

Editorial

Managing Editor

3



Izzy don't know squat about lighting.Well that is not quite true, she has agood understanding of lighting theo-ries, she has read and done everytutorial on lighting she could find andyet her images still look poorly lit. Infact she would give just about any-thing to any coder that would add a'Light it Up Perfectly' Button and hasgone so far as to highly consider hir-ing someone to light all her imagesand scenes for her.

Sound familiar? It should. The greatermajority of us have problems gettingour lighting to do what we want. Andunfortunately, there is no magic but-ton or even a 'one size fits all' light-ing solution. Lighting is and alwayswill need to be customized to what-ever you are lighting. Bummer deal

for those of us that can't ever quiteget it right.

But luckily for Izzy and the rest of us,'The Essential Blender” has an entirechapter devoted to lighting. With aseries of simple to followexercises/examples, the writer ex-plains how simple it is to actually useblender's lighting tools. (Izzy has al-ready learned quite a bit of new in-fo).

Each lamp type is fully explained aswell as several lighting setups. An indepth section covers the standard 3point lighting setup as well as tipsand tricks to get the most out of it.Once you have completed the tutorialsection, there is also an in depthreference section for current or futureuse.

After reading this chapter, while I stillfind myself wishing for my 'magiclighting button', at least now I have abetter understanding of blender'slamps and how to use them moreeffectively.

Izzy Speaks - Lighting Setup


4

Where's the Magic'Light it Up Perfectly' Button?

Call For ProposalsIt's has been five years sinceBlender became OpenSource, and to showcase allof our achievements andpave the way for the next 5years, the Blender Founda-tion is pleased to launch acall for proposals for theBlender Conference 2007, tobe held October 12-14, 2007at the new venue De Zwijgerin Amsterdam, the Nether-lands.

They are looking for Papers,Presentations, Courses andWorkshops to be presentedat the conference.

Proposal ChecklistPlease submit the following information by email [email protected]

Deadline: September 1, 2007

1 Personal information: First name & family name(and optional a nick), Address & country, E-mailaddress

2 Title of paper, presentation, workshop or course:Brief summary of your proposal (max. 200 words)

3 Outline of technical needs (in terms of set-up forcourses, equipment and software needed for pres-entations, etc.)

4 Brief narrative biography (max. 200 words) - pleasedo not send full CVs

5 Url(s) for visual and/or other supporting material

Blender Conference 2007


IntroductionMany users of Blender see the program asa tremendous tool for creating stunningartwork or animations. Many modelingtechniques are covered in tutorials forbuilding models using methods such asbox modeling, building shapes and formspolygon by polygon or tracing over a back-ground image, used as a reference for themodels shape and proportions. These aregreat methods to build an artistic repre-sentation of a product, but what happenswhen you want the model to be used forengineering and have the precision of aCAD model?

Fortunately, Blender's arsenal of internalmodeling tools has been quietly growing

and with a little forethought and planningBlender can produce models to a far higherdimensional accuracy than parts couldever be manufactured to. To start drawingwith precision we need to consider the realworld dimensions one Blender unit willrepresent. In architectural work it is com-mon for one Blender unit to equal onemeter, but this leaves the smallest dimen-sion that can be viewed using the "EdgeLength" feature as 1mm. In Engineering,parts are often produced with dimensiontolerances of 0.02mm and sometimes assmall as a few microns. To achieve thislevel of accuracy in Blender we would needto assign a dimension of one Blender unitto equal one millimeter, allowing you toview an edge length of one micron andmodel to sub micron accuracy (1micron =0.001mm).

To help you visualize just how small onemicron is, image 1 shows a size compari-son related to a human hair.

To enable you to see large components atthis scale you will need to increase theview cameras clipping distanceView>>View Properties and increase "ClipEnd" to a size larger than the model.

If you intend to model with CAD precisionyou need to adopt a work-flow similar tothose used in industry standard CADpackages. Constraint everything.

Extruding with AccuracyWhen Extruding, Rotating or scaling a setof vertices, Blender allows you to con-strain their positions using numericalinput. It's better to type in the length ofan extruded edge rather than draggingthe edge until the edge length looks right.

To constrain an extruded vertex to a setdimension, simply select the vertex youwish to extrude [RMB]. Press [E] for Ex-trude. [X or Y or Z] to constrain to a setaxis. [12.513] or any other dimension forthe length, (minus figures extrude in theopposite direction) then press Enter. Thenew vertex will be positioned the exactdistance you entered along the axis.

If you need to extrude an edge at anangle to an axis simply extrude the vertexalong the axis at the required length thenrotate the edge to the desired angle. Thisis a little more complex because youneed to use Blenders Snap tools. Say youwanted to extrude an edge 35mm longand 45 degrees above the X-axis. Selectthe vertex to extrude [RMB] snap thecursor to the vertex [Shift-S]

3D Workshop - Producing Models with Accuracy


5

Producing Models with Accuracy- by Robert Burke

Cursor>Selection, the cursor will be used asthe center point of the rotation. Extrudethe vertex [E] constrain the extrusion to theX-axis [X] and a length of [35] press Enter,an edge has been created 35mm long onthe X-axis. With the Extruded vertex stillselected we need to rotate it -45 degreesfrom the cursor. Change the Pivot Point to3D Cursor, so any rotation will be centeredon the cursor position and press [R] forrotate then [-45] to rotate the vertex 45degrees in an anticlockwise direction,press Enter to accept the rotation.

Constraining moves to an axis and dimen-sional input works for extrusion [E] rotation[R] move (grab) [G] and scale [S]. Howeverwith scale you will need to use a scalefactor rather than a dimensional input.This is easily calculated by dividing therequired finished size by the existing sizeof the object.

Using these simple procedures you cancreate the basic geometry of components

to extrude or spin into accurate 3D models.But first the sections will need a littlerefinement. Very few components havesharp edges and it is normal for corners tobe rounded off with fillets or chamfers.

In CAD packages the Fillet and Chamfertools automate the process of rounding offcorners to a set radius or chamfer. InBlender you can achieve the same resultbut need to construct the geometry manu-ally.

Adding Fillets and ChamfersIt's possible to accurately position filletsusing Blenders mesh tools, but you willneed to know the angle between the edgesto fillet, the fillet radius you require andone of the edges must be aligned to aknown axis. See Image 3.

To create a fillet, extrude a vertex fromthe intersection of two edges 1.5 times

larger than the fillet radius. Rotate thisvertex 1/2 angle A. See Image 4.From the intersect, extrude a vertex per-pendicular to the edge on the known axisand the length of the fillet radius.

Extrude another vertices from this paral-lel to the edge on the known axis. Wherethese two lines cross is the center pointfor the fillet.

Using the knife tool [K] snap a cut line[Ctrl-LMB] between the two referencevertices parallel to the known axis lineand cut a new vertex on the center pointof the fillet. See Image 5.



6

Image2 - EdgeLength. Image3 - Angle A.

Image4 - LineParallel.

From the center point extrude a vertexperpendicular to the edge on the knownaxis at the length of the fillet radius.

Set the cursor on the center point and spinthe vertex on the end of the radius edgethrough an angle of 180 degrees minusAngle A. See Image 7.

Delete the reference vertices. Re-make theedges between the fillet and surroundingvertices. See Image 8.

Its possible using basic geometry tech-niques and constrained dimensional input to accurately create almost any compo-

nent. For the model to be useful inmanufacturing it must be manifold (nointernal faces) and contain no holes.Many rapid prototyping machines willaccept a 3D model that has been ex-ported as a .stl file and cutter paths forCNC machines can also be produced di-rectly from the model.

To output a model as an engineeringdrawing layout that will print at an accu-rate scale I find it easiest is to set thecamera in orthographic mode, with acamera scale set at a multiple of 25.4.Then set the size X and Size Y in theFormat panel of the Render Buttons to anequivalent multiple but this time of 300(printers tend to print at a resolution of300 dpi).

So if you wanted to have a 1:1 scaledimage fit onto an A4 page of 11" by 8" youwould need to set the camera scale to25.4 x 11 = 279.4, the Format panel SizeX: to 8 x 300 = 2400 and Size Y: to 11 x 300= 3300. There is one further requirementas the image is set to print at the screenresolution not 300dpi. This requires theuse of an image-editing program such asthe Gimp or Photo Shop, to change theoutput size of the image to 300dpi.



7

Image5 - StartVertex. Image7-spin.

Image8 - CompletedFillet.

The above techniques are a brief extract ofthe information contained in the eleven-part tutorial Modeling a 608 Bearing. Whichdetails the process and techniques neededto precisely model the bearing and pro-duce an accurate scaled drawing. The 608Bearing tutorial is the first part in myengineer's guide to Blender, more tutorialsand techniques will be added as I workthrough the project of redesigning my CNCrouter.



8

Image9 - layout.

Robert BurkeStaffordshire England

Technical Manager of a leading Build-ing Products manufacturer.

I use Blender alongside 2D and 3D CADpackages to both quickly prototypenew products and assemblies andproduce graphics for both marketingand technical literature.

I have found blender an extremelyproductive tool and I am currentlyexperimenting with techniques thatwill allow blender to be accepted as analternative engineering design tool forhobby and model engineers. Peoplewho can't afford the excessive costs of3D parametric modeling programs.

IntroductionMechanics is a very interesting theme inblender, as complex as it is. But it can alsobe used by amateurs, even animating asingle cube can show an interesting ani-mation performance. So I don't doubt at allthat this tutorial -containing many experi-ments with the ipo window- will result ina good theme for people with interests inmechanical animations.

I accept that these animations will demon-strate little about scientific fundamentalsfor mechanics, but it is an opportunity tointroduce further analysis of mechanics.

Constructing A ChainI wanted to emulate a chain of somemechanical elements through some ipocurves and easy constraints.

In front view create a pulley system with alarge pulley and a smaller one, add otherdetails if you want. Try to modify thesefeatures with Transform Properties Dialogbox. Then, create a curve and adjust it toresemble the band for these pulleys.

Split whichever windows are convenientfor you to see additional controls. And inthe option 'Display Current Window Type'select Ipo Curve Editor.

In the 3d Window, select the curve youcreated and name it C –this will speed upsome settings afterwards-. As in figure 2,in the Option 'Show IPO Type’, select Path-only available for curves-. You'll see agraph that Emo (a elephants dreammovie character) no doubt would say“there’s nothing there”. Also, the param-eter 'Speed' isn't enabled.

As figure 3 shows, the graph has somemarked black lines that give some physi-cal constraints of curve C. Inside thisbounds you will create the position rela-tion for objects which will use the C curve(in 3d window) as a path through thedefault 100 frames given to curves. Allanimations start with frame 1, by defaultwhen a curve is used as a path its

3D Workshop - Amateur Mechanisms


9

Amateur Mechanisms- by Erick Ramirez

animation ends at frame 100. But if theanimation was continued, a new cyclewould start at frame 101. But this behav-iour isn't shown in this graph because isn'tactivated.

Create the new behaviour in Ipo curveeditor by [CONTROL + left mouse button]inside of marked boundaries, it will createa horizontal line that runs through allvisible frames.

Press N key or on Ipo header menuView>>Channel properties of Transformproperties, the transform properties boxdialog will appear. Set the parameters asin figure 4.1.

It looks to be a little difficult to understandbehaviour through curves, but this is acheap one.

Unfortunately, Blender doesn’t show units.But if limits are 0 and 1, automatically youthink about percentage. The Blue curve infigure 4 is the curve that we going tomodify. Speed curves always indicate thatvelocity = position related to time or x(t).E. g. consider a horizontal straight curvewith slope = 0; this ‘curve’ indicates justone position (%) all the time, thus, pathjust has a single point available to objectsthat uses this curve as path. But if thisstraight curve has slope, objects will runthrough all positions of path with a con-stant velocity, if slope is small, objects willrun very slowly, but if slope is big, objectswill run very rapidly. But if the straight lineis totally vertical, objects would occupy allpositions at same time (infinite velocity).If slope become negative the directionchanges.

Due to the fact that curve C is a closedpath, a cycle for constant velocity is astraight sloped line, if we want add avariable velocity we must get a curve, butin this case we just need constant velocity.

To create the next key, move the greenbar to frame 101 (it can be achieved withright arrow button) and press I key toINSERT A KEY VERTICE to current frame.Next enter edit mode by pressing the TABkey and with the vertex at frame 101selected press G key to grab up it to 1.0.You can also achieve this by typing 1 in‘Vertex Y:’ field in Transform PropertiesIpo dialog in edit mode. In the 3d win-dow, create a empty object, then, SHIFT +select curve C and [CONTROL+P key] andPARENT TYPE dialog will appear, thenselect follow Path. Select only the emptyobject and [ALT+O key] to clear origin,next press [ALT+A key]. The animationstarts and the velocity for the emptyobject is variable (it is slower at the startand at the end, and slightly faster inbetween).

Go to the Ipo window and on the headermenu select [Point>>Extent Mode>>Cyclic].This will extend velocity beyond theframes we started on. With the vertex at101 frame still selected, press G key andgrab horizontal through left and right,cyclic will change as you move this ver-tex, experiment with this behaviour



10

and check it in 3d window, undo thechanges you made to go back or select aposition for this by typing values in Trans-form Properties dialog.

Delete the empty object, and in Front Viewadd an armature object named A1, pressF7 to display the Object panel. Select DrawName and Axis in the Draw extra settings(Draw panel), in the Anim Settings settrack to Y, Up to Z. Parent with curve C tofollow path and clear origin again as youdid with the empty object.

With A1 still selected press [ALT+D key] toduplicate, name the new armature object

A2. On the Constraints panel, add ‘Track to’constraint, type A1 in OB: Target Objectfield -A2 will track A1-. In the Anim Settingspanel type 1 in the TimeOffset field, movethe frames in the 3d window with the Rightarrow key and back to see the new offsetwith armature objects, adjust the TimeOff-set values to get a good looking chain.

Next you will create a linked duplicate ofA2 and name it A3. Change the name onthe OB name field (Constraints panel) withA2. Change the TimeOffset value for thenumber given to A2 and Right arrow to add*2, the result will be the TimeOffset valuefor A3. [ALT+D key] to create a linkedduplicate of A3. Change the OB name field(Object and Link panel) for the nextnumber, Change the target name on OBname field (Constraints panel) for theprecedent name, make sure this nametarget exists. Position the cursor inside theTime Offset field and CONTROL+ left mouseclick to avoid moving this value and add +.(A2 TimeOffset value).

Do the same for the next duplicates untilyou have filled the curve. Finally add aempty object called 1 and add a ‘CopyLocation’ constraint with last armatureobject. First select the armature object (A1)and add a‘Track to’ con-straint to thisEmpty objectby typing 1 inthe targetpanel.

The result will be a chaining mechanismthat will have an excellent performance.

Add some objects and add to each ofthese ‘copy location’ and ‘copy rotation’constraints to occupy the location ofarmature objects.

Select curve C and add some Hooks byselecting a vertex or a group of vertices.In Edit mode for curve C select the vertexgroup for the larger pulley and[CONTROL+H key], select ‘Add, to NewEmpty’; and add a Hook. Select the vertexgroup for the smaller pulley and add aHook. Add others Hooks for the verticesthat are left. Parent curve C with a largecube object. Create 2 more cube objectsfor pulleys and Parent to the large cube.



11

Parent the empty object that is the Hookfor large pulley and parent it to the closestcube, The empty object for the smallerpulley will parent with closest cube ofvertices. Other empties belonging to thiscurve will parent with the large cube.

ConclusionSo the large cube will move all the mecha-nisms, you can tweak, rotate, and movethe parent cubes and single hooks to get anice effect in animation and so on. The filerelated to this tutorial has a little anima-tion. The Camera also adds more effects.



12

Erick Ramirez

Erick Ramirez is an Industrial Engi-neer specialized in 3d projects. Dur-ing several years he has modelledindustrial models in diverse indus-tries and handled tutorials in NationalUniversity of Mexico. Currently he isin a search for promoting blender asa common knowledge among society.

IntroductionFor some time, virtual reality has helpedscientists to simulate all scenarios wheregeometry is involved. This leads to im-provements in each aspect of the processplanning in industries, government,schools and life standards. Personally Iconsider graphics are as natural as thelanguage because we live in 3d space andsometimes we get confused when talkingabout physical objects with words. Thelanguage is extremely flexible and we candescribe all aspects with the right combi-nations of words.

This tutorial is a part of a project thatcarries some deductive methods and con-straints on a effort to achieve solid models

in blender 2.44. ‘Solid modeling’ is a termnot even used in computers graphics. Infact, solid modeling has recently emergedto resolve some problems related to me-chanical modeling with excellent results.As the abilities of blender have been en-hanced through all blender versions andbuilds, always getting closer to solid mod-eling. To test these new abilities, I starteddoing this tutorial that consists of model-ling a solenoid valve. This valve can helpyou learn how this device operates tocontrol the steam input-output from a pipesystem.

Constructing GeometryFor solid modelling there are conditionalrules that help to control several variableswhile this device is constructed. Theserules are the creation of reference objectslike planes and shapes. Planes serve toeasily detect a reference position in 3dview and shapes give a reference geometryfor creation of new future objects. Figure 2shows the use of Cartesian planes thatsupport the main origin. In top view anoutline was created with a circle of 4vertices, this object was called‘PlanexyBase’, and then it was duplicatedand rotated to get the other 2 Cartesianplanes.

Blender has the ability to manipulate pa-rameters directly from the Transform Prop-erties dialog in object mode and edit mode(each mode has it's own parameters thatyou can adjust). Solid modelling requiresthe continuous use of this Transform dia-log to control construction process. In solid

modelling there’s no way to start withlow resolution models so it is good ideato clone each object you finish, in casethese objects become useless with theconsequential operations while themodel is getting more complex.

The Solenoid body was made of a me-dium resolution uv sphere in top viewwith 48 segments, 48 rings and a radiusof 30. Without leaving edit mode, andwith all vertices still selected, in Frontview the sphere was rotated 90 degrees.However, in object mode the parameterscan change thanks to transform proper-ties dialog box [N key]. The parameters ofthe new sphere need to be changed withy and z = 48.00 and x = 60.00 to get anellipsoid shape. Inside of this there willbe 2 chambers. Several bosses will becreated to model valve connections.

3D Workshop - Solid Device Construction


13

Solid Device Construction- by Erick Ramirez

After, a second body was created in topview, watching out that the cursor wasn’tmoved off, as a way to maintain the xybase plane domain. The parameters forthis cylinder are 48 vertices, dimensionsfor x and y = 42.00 diameter, z = 24.00(object mode). By default, Blender givesthe cylinder its median point (pivot) cen-tered. To change this, you are going to takethe centred vertex at the bottom of thecylinder and snap the cursor on the se-lected vertex. Within object mode useSPACE BAR>>transform>>center cursor tochange median point position. Using snapgives excellent results when an exact ob-ject position is required. But changing thecursor position isn’t enough, the cylinderhad to move to planexyBase position. Themain goal of Cartesian plane is providehistory of each object's relative position.

As figure 3 shows, the cylinder is subdi-vided through its height to give a morecontrolled tessellation when operators areadded to object.

Next with Cartesian planes on a differentlayer, the plane yz was duplicated andlocated at x position = 26.00, y and z = 0.You can see this by selecting this planeand viewing transform dialog box where itsays ‘LocX:26.000’. Then, with this planestill selected, SHIFT>>S key to move thecursor to the median point of the plane.This will be the position for the next object:shape geometry and object geometry.

Shape GeometryThe shape geometry was made on anotherlayer, especially made for storing all refer-ence geometry for the solenoid valve. Atthis point the shape geometry wasachieved in Right view adding 4 singleCircles of 48 vertices each and all circlediameter parameters are: Smaller circle =18.500, the next = 21.900, the next = 28.600and last = 38.500. Last circle will be thereference bounds for a hexagon form.

The second large circle will be the refer-ence for the third object for the solenoid.This third object will be duplicated on theplane yz position, a cylinder with 48vertices and parameters in object modeof X and Y = 28.60, Z = 20.00 inward. Thena symmetrical cylinder will take place formirroring. Mirroring in solid modellingmust be done with care to ensure thatnormals are all pointing outside of themesh or there will be unexpected results.



14

Finally another cylinder was added to thesolenoid valve, first by duplicating planexyand locating it on Z = -28.50, X and Y = 0.Within the duplicated planexy position acylinder was added of 48 vertices, X and Y= 30.00, Z = 12.633 towards the inside ofsolenoid. All positions were checked byreviewing all plane positions.

Once the positions were checked, the lastcylinder was subdivided through its heightto start Booleans operators. All objectswere duplicated and stored in anotherlayer (In case they were needed again

later). Start by applying union Booleanwith the third and fourth objects to themain body. The result is a smoothed objectthanks to 48 vertices constant on eachobject. The duplicated objects should onceagain be stored on another layer. Finallythe last object was added to achieve thedesired object.

Figure 10 shows that there were mesh facelosses because the last object didn’t haveall normals outside or perhaps there wereredundant vertices, and the result wasunexpected as I said before.

So when you want to use Booleans oper-ations you must check the normal direc-tion with the option ‘Draw Normals’ inMesh Tools 1 panel (edit mode). Also, theoption ‘remove doubles’ is useful bymaking tests of vertex merge levels incre-menting the value of ‘specifies the maxdistance ‘Rem doubles’ will consider ver-tices as ‘doubled’’ with care to avoidresolution loss-less. There are caseswhere the unexpected result can affectnext objects. As in this case, there weresome.

The result should be a single mesh witha few redundant vertice errors. This meshwas opened by deleting the top mostcentred vertex in order to prepare to adda thin wall inside this mesh with the newscripts added to Blender 2.44. Select allvertices, then selectmesh>>scripts>>solidify selection.

New ObjectsTo the solenoid mesh a -3.00 of thicknesswas applied to create a shell, this will bethe space for solenoid chambers.



15

This script works wonderfully to createeven offset meshes, with no normal direc-tional problems. The bevel center scriptcreates bevels to selected areas, this isgood for some solid areas.

Next it is required to create holes in thesides of the solenoid. The opening shownin figure 12 is for an automatically control-led device that opens and closes the pathof the steam. Above this valve there is anelectromagnet that controls that opening.

For creating the holes, use the second tosmallest circle. This circle will be the refer-ence for a cylinder that passes through thesolenoid body. Once you have created thiscylinder, the procedure for subtract orapply difference Boolean is first to selectthe cylinder (first making sure all meshesdon’t have any normals facing inside),repeat the magic words ‘subtract this(cylinder) from this (solenoid)’ and voilà,the hole has been created. (Okay, notreally, just apply the Boolean operationlike normal).

The result gives you an idea of what I amdoing. Truly, the possibility of makingsolids, is in many cases hard in blenderbecause the calculations (if they are at ahigh resolution) take a while. But instead,blender has tools that can create excellentwalk-throughs and animations. There arenumerous options for importing differentformats to blender, this means a potentiallibrary that Blender shares with other pro-grams, adding value to Blender and itsusers.

Figure 15 shows a shaded model (I re-curred to Blender material library). Nextwith the cursor on the hexagon shapeand in Right view a cylinder of 6 verticesand diameter of = 38.50, Z = 12 wascreated . To this cylinder (although itdoesn’t seem to be a cylinder) it isnecessary to subtract another cylinder(reference is the smallest circle).

At this point it wasn’t necessary to unitethis last object with solenoid body. Youcan join them with CONTROL+J key due tothe fact the the last object is the outermost external solenoid object.



16

Next a mirrored object and a cross sectionfor creating a wall that divides the cavityinto two chambers. But first, the crosssection must be created. With the aid ofplanes and circles (with parameters) thecross section was created. The referencegeometry was used with snap operations,and then the cross section was ‘skinned’arbitrarily.

In some cases when planes and circles fitwell and form a single mesh, the optionremove doubles can help to merge unnec-essary vertices. Solid modelling canstrongly use the option remove doubles toweld separated meshes in edit mode.

With this cross section made, the next stepis to create the wall by extruding thisregion (fig 18). This wall will have anopening in which another object will fitinto this space to control the openinglowering and lifting itself, controlling thesteam flow.

The next step is to fit the wall within thesolenoid cavity. For this, the intersectoperator will work. To crop this wall it wasnecessary to offset the first object (mainbody) that was in an another layer. Theoffset was created with a distance of 1.5and exterior vertices were deleted , innervertices were left and their normals wererecalculated outside. Then the ellipsoidwas selected and then the chamber walls

were selected and was pronounced“create the resultant intersection of this(ellipsoid) and this (wall)”…next step!!!.Figure 20 shows the function of chamberwall.

A cross section was created above theopening with the objective of addingmore material to thicken the mouth ofthe valve with a donut form that is shownwith x ray property. [Draw panel>>Drawextra>>X-ray]. Figure 21 shows this sectionabove left.

This donut was created with the Spincommand inside of Mesh Tools panel(edit mode) with step set to 48.



17

Transform Properties In Edit ModeFigure 23 shows it is possible to changeparameters by moving some vertices inedit mode, but first you must doCONTROL+A Key to apply rotation and scale.Then, you can access the transform prop-erties dialog in edit mode.

To add more dimensions to the solenoid itwas necessary to create a donut above thesolenoid mouth and another plane wasadded at xy at Z = 31.498, X and Y = 0,

This position reference now helps to addanother box with parameters of X and Y =64.2, Z =11.00 up-wards. Aswell as a cyl-inder withparametersof X, Y, Z =30.00 to sub-tract mate-rial from lastcube object.

Next stepswere neededto add moreobjects tothe chamberwall, an-other planewas createdat xy atheight of‘Loc Z: 4.00’

Hole param-eters were atube with in-ner diameterof 18.00 andouter diame-ter of 28.00and Z = 5.00.

At first therewere prob-lems whiletrying tosubtract ma-terial be-cause thewall was ex-truded usingtoo few ver-tices, but atlast, with alittle revision of recalculating normals out-side, the subtraction was achieved.

Anothersubtractionof a cylin-der with di-ameter of12.2 wasachieved.

The result-ing is aspace for adevice thatwill fit in toclose theopeningmade by alater cylin-der.

For more adjustments, you need to movesome vertices in edit mode with thetransform properties dialog. In some cas-es, units for transform properties wereincorrect when it didn’t have ‘apply rota-tion and scale’ applied . Vertices weremoved down changing the values whereit says ‘median Z:value’. In this edit modetransform properties dialog it is possibleto add operations like sum, subtract,multiply, division. E. g. If you want movedown a group of vertices 5 units, youmust leave the actual value in the fieldand write in the -5 value.



18

Later, anothertube subtractedmaterial fromthe last object tocreate sittingswhere other ob-jects will fit.

Again the verti-ces were pulledup to correctthese sittings.

A pattern of reference geometry for boltholes was created used the function of‘Rotation/Scaling Pivot’ set PIVOT to ‘3Dcursor’. Figure 34 shows original circle(above left) cloned and positioning clonesby rotating each 90 degrees with cursorinside of other reference circles.

Figure 35 shows the mechanism used inconjunction with the solenoid valve andchambers divided by a wall. In reality,several sensors detect the steam flow andtemperature at any given time, givinginstructions to an electronic device to givecertain voltage to an electromagnet thatopens gradually or semi closes the valve tolet different quantities of steam pass. Theblend file related to this tutorial has a littleanimation with a camera and a secondscene where a solenoid valve was made inanother application.

ConclusionSolid modeling is becoming possible inblender but the development needs per-haps to consider the option to createsolid objects (not meshes) to achievemechanical models. This represents newopportunities because management forsolid objects is little different than mesh-es.



19

IntroductionThis effect could probably be achievedusing booleans, but the method explainedhere is a good practice.

We will start of by creating a circle. Usingthe space bar tool menu: mesh-circle.Create it witheight vertices(just forspeed of ed-iting lateron). We nowhave a circlecentered onthe cursor[fig 1].

Now click the 3dwindow to theright of the circleto separate thecursor from thecircle [fig 2].

Make sure[Numlock] is onfor this tutorial,then press[numpad 1] to getthis [fig 3].

Our view pointhas changed tothe side view. Goto the editingwindow [F9] andin the Mesh Toolssection pressSPIN. We havemade a curvebased on theshape of the circle [fig 4].

By changing the Degr spinner value (belowthe SPIN button) to a negative we get acurve in the opposite direction. Press [tab]to exit edit mode. This is the shape we willwork with. Duplicate it once: While inobject mode [tab], press [ctrl d] right clickto confirm the copy. Rotate the new copythrough 45 degrees in the y axis and

reposition it [fig 4]. One shape penetratesthe other about half way. This an artistictutorial not a super scientific technicalone, so don't worry about precision. Saveyour file regularly if you wish. I havepressed [z] to reach wireframe mode forthese screenshots, if you are new toblender.

Select one ofthe tubeshapes, hold[shift] then se-lect the other byright clicking it.Pressing [ctrl j]will join theshapes into oneeditable mesh.Pressing [tab] will reveal the new mesh[fig 5].

Enter edge se-lect mode [ctrltab 2] and makesome cuts in themesh just to re-fine it. Rightclick this edge[fig 6] thenpress [crtl r].Now, left clicktwice to makethe cut [fig 7].

3D Workshop - How to Create a Weld Joint


20

How to Create a Weld Joint- by Andrew Lane

[fig 8] shows memaking another cutwhere the two ob-jects meet. Weneed to create twovertices at eachpoint where thesurfaces meet, soyour cuts may need

to be in slightly dif-ferent positionsfrom mine. Youneed to makeabout 4-6 more cutsin the mesh to getenough vertices tomerge/weld to-gether [fig 9].

Now we need to weld. Enter vertex mode[ctrl tab 1]. Select two vertices that areclose to each other, one from each tubeshape. Select from the vertical tube first,then the horizontal tube [fig 10].

Press [w] then select MERGE from the list.Repeat this process at the boundary of thetube shapes where the vertices meet up.Select vertices in the same first to lastorder so the surfaces don't warp. If pairs

of vertices don't match up, perform morecuts [fig 11].

Go into face select mode [ctrl tab 3], andselect the faces of the mesh that arecovered or part covered by other faces [fig12].

Pressing [x] willbring up theerase menu, se-lect faces. Thisshould makequite a mess ofthe mesh (trysaying that aftera few pints) [fig13].

Once again, go back to vertex mode andbegin to repair your mesh by selecting 3-4connected vertices and hitting [f] to cre-ate a face [fig 14].

Repeat until all is well again [fig 15].

Now I will merge these 3 vertices [fig 16],



21

deleting vertices created during the cuttingstage until we have [fig 17].

Select these edges [fig 18],

then enter the script menu. Select Scripts->Mesh->Bevel center. Press the large Bevelbutton to create a weld seam of the se-

lected edges [fig 19], which could be uvmapped later.

I hope those who have never used the 3dcursor for modeling before will be exitedby its potential for creating arcs and curvesas the basis for more complex shapes. Iwill write another article along these linesin the future, thanks for reading.



22

PrefaceI created Blender files for this article.Please feel free to look into it while reading.

IntroductionClass-A NURBS and ACIS solids are thepreferred tools of choice in Industrial De-sign and Product Engineering. Those toolsprovide the designer with the engineeringrequirement and artistic freedom.

In addition to those tools most high endapplications also provide a true construc-tion tree. This is similar to the history inAdobe Photoshop . However the differenceis that it enables you to change propertiesof your design without having to remodelall following steps. An edge fillet for exam-ple for solids is called a feature. It changesare interactive and not permanent.

The nice aspect of NURBS and Solids is thatin most packages like Ashlar Cobalt youcan convert a closed NURBS object into aSolid and apply functions like booleanoperations or complex edge fillets. After-wards the Solid can be split into individualNURBS patches which reflect the appliedSolid tools.

Blender in contrast does not provide anyof those techniques. However if you payattention to the current software marketfor industrial design products you willnotice that more and more companiesinclude complex polygon mesh tools intotheir packages which go beyond the rudi-mentary import function.

With Rhino 4 McNeel increased signifi-cantly the polygon mesh tools. But theymainly are still limited to clean up work,not for surface creation. Everybody whoworks withNURBS and construction treevalues the flexibility and precision it pro-vides. However NURBS also has its limits.For many years, Autodesk Maya has hadthe ablity to convert 4 sided polygonmeshes into subdivision surfaces whichthan can be converted into NURBS patches.

And recently T-Splines also brought theirT-Spline technology as a plug-in intoRhino. T-Splines in contrast to Mayas'ssubdivision offers the possibility to towork with subdivision surfaces like inBlender, but additionally has the abilityto locally add additional edges onto aface. This can result in faces with morethan 4 edge points.

This is very familiar to traditional NURBSpatch modeling of a face. In NURBS, edgecurves can occupy the same space whilehaving a different amount of controlpoints. However the contrast is that withNURBS you handle stitched patches, withT-Splines you work on one mesh objectonly.

T-Splines inside Rhino 4 can then convertthe subdivision model into very opti-mised NURBS patches to enable the de-signer to apply NURBS specific tools tothe model like fillets, blends, or trimsurfaces for example.

3D Workshop - Use of Blender as NURBS/CAD Application


23

Use of Blender asNURBS/CAD Application

- by Claas Eicke Kuhnen

However as great this sounds, the work-flow with T-Splines polygonal mesh mode-ling in Rhino is limited. Rhino is a NURBSmodeler and T-Splines brings some basicmesh modeling into Rhino. This is whereBlender with it's quite powerful meshmodeling tool set comes in.

I Subdivision Modeling toNURBS Work-flow:This illustrates the new possibility for adesigner to not only rely on NURBS andSolids but also to utilize polygon meshmodeling with the usage of Catmull-Clarksubdivision surface smoothing to createsurfaces - which are rather difficult withNURBS or Solids.

Polygon mesh modeling never played animportant role in Product Design. A mainreason for that is that a polygon modelprovides internally only linear edges whileNURBS surfaces are always smooth.

The same still applies to when you in-crease the density of the mesh.

A common trick to make a mesh modellook smooth is to turn on vertex normalsmoothing which simulates a blendingbetween faces. However this is just asimulation - looking straight onto an edgereveals the true linear geometry structure.

In a nutshell you can explain NURBS ascomputed surfaces which are based onmath calculated curves. Surface structurescan thus be calculated by curve projec-tions. Mesh modeling is comparable toworking with linear wire sticks. Surfacesstructures are modeled by hand.

However what seems at first a disadvan-tage, and that is how polygon mesh mod-eling was treated in the past, can be veryuseful for even CAD applications.

The magic word is 4 side polygon modelingwith subdivision surfaces.

Blenders subdivided surfaces behave verymuch like NURBS surfaces. Lets compare a4 point NURBS curve with a Catmull-Clarkcurve. The similarity is that the two curvesflow through the start and end point with-out touching the points in between. Thedifference is of course thatNURBS issmooth and you can see the linear sub-

segments of the subdivision surfacecurve.

The same nearly applies to surfaces. Thedifference you can see is that the NURBScurve is spawned perfectly inside the 4sided control patch while the subdividedsurface does not flow from edge to edge

- instead the edges are round.However this can be changed by applyinga full crease weight to the patch edges



24

The important aspect behind this compari-son is that instead of modeling straight inRhino for example, the designer couldsketch out the basic model in Blender,import it into Rhino to finish it up there.Subdivided surfaces allows you to extrudefaces whileNURBS can cut holes, trim partsaway, and create blends which matchperfectly the tangency of the two connect-ing edges of two objects. With the possibil-ity to turn a polygon mesh into matchingNURBS patches utilizing a subdivided sur-face algorithm, the best of both worlds arecombined.

As a quick example, please take a look atthe following image. It shows a very roughmodel of a water faucet. Modeled inBlender using a low polygon cage exportedthat is then imported into Maya and con-verted intoSDS and then into NURBS. FromMaya exported as IGES into Cobalt. As youcan see there is no loss in detail. Modelingthis object in Blender including convertingit through Maya was faster than buildingthe object in Rhino straight with NURBS.Pay attention to how the surface betweenthe horizontal 4 extrusions flow into eachother and vertically along the main shaftof the faucet. A simple looking but quitelabor intensive work.

In my last CAD class I introduced mystudents first to Blender as a modelingapplication utilizing subdivision modelingas a basic introduction into how to think in3D and how to create surfaces. The firstmajor project was to design the new I-PodShuffle. This product offers many aspectsto learn:

Part 1Extrusion of profiles, creating fillets andchamfers, and creating planar surface fill-ings between different profiles. In addition,it made heavy use of Blender's snap andscale along axis constraints in conjunctionwith the 3D cursor. Working in proportionsand using Blenders measurements.

1. Pre-Planing:Measurements, the big concern in Blenderfor new users can be approached in a verysimple way. Through utilizing a technicaldrawing of a newiPod Shuffle the studentswere quickly able to work in correct pro-portions.

However, the supplied dimensions can beused as well. All that was required was toscale a box to 1.62 to 1.06 to .19 to createthe rough dimensions which representthe iPod. While Blender does not supplyyou with any unit system, you can stilluse the Blender units and decide on yourown what they represent. In this case1.62 in Blender were equal to 1.62".

We need to do this to the 3D object andafterwards also to the mesh inside. Thisway the 3D body has the same measure-ment values as the 3D mesh. Additionalmeasuring of parts by hand helped tomore carefully model all needed parts.Afterwards we scaled down the image tofit the box dimensions.

2. Shelling Sides:We started with drawing out the topprofile of the main body using thestraight lines and for the sides half circlewith 32 vertices. From the beginning weapplied the subdivided surface modifierto create smooth curves. In the profile wealso already built in the edge blends toform smooth transitions at the corners.



25

Case Study 1: Surface Shelland Chamfer creation

We also subdivided the one edge which isabove the radial button to build in thegeometry we need to build in the roundhole for the radial button later. This re-quired some properpre-planing beforemodeling.

After that we can extrude the profile to thedesired length. By turning on the edgelength, we can make sure to perfectly hitthe right values.

A four sided face does not produce aperfect round circle, thus we need morethan 4 sides. For a good NURBS topology

we can use a 8 sided circle. To stitch thatin, we add a horizontal loop cut to build inthe ring opening.

After removing the edges where the ringhas to be inserted, we utilize BlendersSnap 3D "cursor to selection" (Shift s) toposition the 3D cursor at the right position.We scaled down the ring to the proper sizeand then start filling in the rectangularfaces in between.

3. Shelling Tops:The main side is done now. It is veryimportant that we continue working withthe same profile of the side to create thefaces for the top shells. The reason be-hind it is that only when the mesh pointsof neighbouring edges of different meshpatches are at the same positions will weprevent any gaps between surfaces andguaranty creating a solid surface. Thefollowing screen shots "1" Object modeand "2" with both objects joined showsthe conceptbehind this.



26

We can select on the ring and hit "y" tosplit the the ring - it duplicates and discon-nects the selection - and then separate itwith "p" into a new 3D object.

It is time to start working on the top faces.Blenders internal offset tool "shrink" doesnot always work very good or correctly.Because this iPod is quite simple to model,we can utilize a simple combination ofscale and move steps to create the properfirst ring on the top face. Use the extrudetool first and then scale and move objectsto your need.

To rebuild the round offsets better, we canmake use of the 3D cursor in Blenderagain. Select the two most inwards verticesand select "cursor to selection" (shift s).Next select all vertices of that round cor-ner, turn on 3D cursor as the pivot pointfor scaling, press "s" to scale and hit "y" torestrict it only to the Y axis.

The triangular extrusion can be filled. Wecould use again the "cursor to selection"

option and with "s" restricted to "y" andhitting "0" utilizing the 3D cursor as thepivot point aligning all points in a straightline.

However a smarter solution would be tofill the the faces instead. This wouldproduce a less dense inner profile.

This profile is very similar to the otherside of the iPod with the difference thatthe other side also has the round



27

extrusion filled. Because we built the pro-file already, we can easily copy and pasteit. However moving the duplicate to theother side of the iPod main shell is verydifficult by hand. However again Blender3D cursor comes in very handy. Instead ofjust moving the mesh I am going to snapthe 3D object. Completely select the otheredge of the iPod main shell and snap the3D cursor to that position. The 3D cursor isnow at the center of the mesh selection.This is very important to be aware of.In the next step we duplicate the one

TopShell and reset the center point of thatmesh with "Center New" This moves thecenter point of the 3D object to the centerof the internal 3D mesh.

Finally - and never by accident move your3D cursor - with the duplicated TopShellselected hit "shift s" and select "Selectionto cursor". This will more the object centerof the 3D object to the position of the 3Dcursor. Because the outer profiles are thesame between SideShell and TopShell thetwo objects will perfectly match their edg-es.

We can now also fill in the missing faces inthe round extrusion in one of the Top-Shells. Because the Ring would force us tobuild in a triangle we ignored the lowercenter point, connected all opposite facesand later cut those with a loop cut "crtl r".

This way we get another empty four sidedhole which we can fill with a quad.We have to do some clean up work. In themesh we built in some edges which arevery close to each other. Not always verygood with NURBS. We select the twoTopShells and with "crtl j" in object modejoin them together into one mesh.Now we can select always the same

points on both meshes at the same time.We moved all those points in the innerprofile curve away to form a more relaxedquad structure. Use "g" for moving andpress "x" to restrict the movement onlyto the X axis.

Afterwards we can again separate the twomeshes by selecting one TopShell and hit



28

"p" to separate. It is very easy to select thegeometry of a complete mesh with hitting"L" because this selects only linked edgeswhich includes also the faces.

4. Top Interfaces:After having the outer surfaces created, wecould again duplicate and separate theinner profile of one TopShell into which wemodel in the two trenches for the "PlayOrder" and "On/Off" button. After havingcreated a new 3D object for the profile setthe 3D cursor to the center of the profileand add a ring with 32 vertices.

Scale it down and by using the "x" key torestrict to the X axis move the ring to theproper position. Duplicate one half move itto the side of the trench remove all un-needed vertices and fill in the missing twoedges. You can duplicate that profile andmove it to the other side where the secondtrench is.

Now comes the tricky part. We cannot justfill all faces in between with "shift f",

because this would just plainly create anenormous amount of triangles which arenot suitable for a good SDS to NURBSconversation in Maya for example. So weneed to count a little bit the points on thering of the trenches and the outer profileand see how we could fill in four sidedfaces without any triangles.

As you can see I subdivided the lower edgeof the trench profile to make it match tothe points of the outer profile better andthen you can start filling in all the faces.Just continue to fill in faces on the left sideof the trench.

Right now it is a smart idea to just connectthe two trenches with each other to form

good geometry. For a smaller screen shotI moved the right trench close to the leftone.

To finish filling the face it was necessaryto subdivide one edge of the outer profile.

Because we added geometry to a profile,it is wise to add this also to the other twosurfaces as well. This can be done veryquickly.Select theaddedpoint andsnap the3D cursorto it.



29

Set the pivot point to the 3D cursor and forexample go to the top mesh and addanother vertical loop cut. Select the addedpoint in the inner profile and with [Shift+S]"selection to cursor" move that point to the3D cursor to match it with the inner surface.

This procedure has to be repeated alsowith theother sur-faces. Thefollowingimageshows thechanges in

the side surface of the iPod.

Now it is time to give the trenches somedepth. Select one trench profile duplicateand separate it. In the new object selectthat profile hit "e" to extrude and press"esc" to prevent any movement. Press "G"with "Z" to move along the Z axis and typein ".02" to create an extrusion with a depthof 0.02".

To close the hole, select the end ring andpress "s" to scale and type in "0" to scaledown the extrusion to close the hole. Forthis you need your pivot to be set to"Median Point". Be careful not to merge orremove the doubles because this wouldcreate undesired triangles. Scaling to "0"closes physically the surface because thevertices and edges of the ring that occupy

the same space and thus close the sur-face.To remove the rounded edge all we needto do is to select the lower faces of thecap and hit "y" to split it apart from themain mesh. This will discontinue the flowof the surface because internally we have2 meshes now in one object.

Because the two trenches are built fromthe same beginning profile we can utilizethe new "vertex snap" tool in Blender tomove a copy of the trench to the otheropening. Move the copy closer to thedesignated hole. Select first the TopShelland then shift select the duplicatedtrench and go into "Edit Mode". By firstselecting the TopShell we can make thenew snap tool also work with geometryof a different 3D Object. With the com-plete mesh selected, move your cursorclose to one vertice and press "g" andthan "crtl" to activate the snap function.When you now move your cursor closerto the position where in the other meshthe neighbour vertice is, the Blendercursor should turn into a "White Circle"and snap to the position of that neigh-bour vertice.



30

Click here and because we had all themesh selected everything is in place now.

5.Dial RingTo build the dial ring is just a snap. All weneed to do is select the ring of the openingof the side mesh and hit "e" to extrude itand with "s" and "0" to scale it down toclose the hole. With "crtl r" we can inserttwo more rings at the correct positionswhich describe the geometry of the innerdisk.

Selecting the inner loop ring of the dial ringgeometry and move it a little bit outwards.Select all faces of the dial ring and sepa-rate it with using "p".

You can give the new ring object a differ-ent material to let it stand out more. Byincreasing the subsurf level to somethinglike 3 you can evaluate your design andyou will see that all edges of the 3Dobjects match perfectly.

6. Fillets:Fillets, blends, and complex chamfers area prone tool for NURBS because applica-tions like Rhino or Cobalt can calculatematching tangency between the edges ofthe blend and the surfaces automaticallyfor you. Modeling the Dial Ring or the Side

and Top Shells is also a good approach onhow fillets, blends or chamfers could beincluded in Blender. However they onlywork good when the patch edges showthe same geometrical structure. SinceNURBS fillets are calculated to match thetangency you have to model this by hand.But this actually also allows you to createvery irregular and custom blends whichmight be much harder to do with NURBS.After all those SDS blends can easily beconverted into NURBS patches!

The last scene inside the iPod demoblend file covers the this topic. Becausethe iPod model is built through separateshells it is very easy to model in thedesired thickness for the blend surfaceutilizing "Loop Cut" on the Top and SideShell.



31

In the next step we select those face loopsand separate them, join them together intoa new mesh, and finally remove all doubles.Again make sure that your "Remove Dou-bles" is set to 0.000 and that all surfaceedges match each other in position andvertices.

Add on each end another Loop Cut. Wehave now a nice round Blend - howevernot a radial Fillet.

In case you desire a radial fillet the situa-tion is not that easy. A 3 point curvecannot produce an arc with polygons. Youwould have to add an additional Loop Cutand spread out the loops.

To create a Chamfer, just remove the Loopat the center of the Blend with hitting "x"and selecting "Edge Loop". This produces aChamfer with soft round edges flowing intothe neighbour surfaces with a matchingtangency continuity. In case you want tohave very sharp transitions, just removethe the Loop Cuts we just added.

Take a look at the following two imageshow the Blends are integrated into theiPod model.

Finishing up the modeling should now bevery easy The model is now ready to beimported into Rhino for example for fur-ther more complex NURBS applications.

Additionally, take a look at these threeimages showing an early stage of a newproject I am working on. Everything in redare Chamfers and Fillets. You can seehow useful those are.



32

However to build a Blend between themain body and the huge sphere is morethan complex and rather impossible whenyou want to prevent distortions or trian-gles. This task would ask then for finishingthe job in a NURBS application to createthis complex Blend. As a rule of thumb,Blends between cylindrical objects or on aflat/planar surface are quite easy withBlender.

Part2: Product Interaction

Blender is not only a modeling environ-ment for Industrial Designers, it also offersvery good tools to evaluate the interactionof the product in much more sophisticatedway than Rhino for example can do it.Simple bone animations are only possiblein Rhino via a commercial 3rd party plugin. Blender in contrast, comes with a veryrich tool set. As a simple example lets usevaluate how the paper clip was modeledand if the rotation of it will allow it tocreate a big enough gap to push for exam-ple some fabric between the clip and theiPod body.

For that we are going to use the "Armature"system which is restricted in its rotationand linked to an empty for simple andeasy bone animation.

1. Placing the BoneFrom the top view we have to find theright center of rotation for the paper clip.I make use of the geometry of the Top-Shell as can be seen in the followingimage.

At that position we add a bone by addinga new "Armature" and move the otherend of the bone to the other side of paperclip. To make the bone less distractingyou can set the display style of the boneto "Stick" under the "Edit Buttons" menu.

Switch into the "Pose Mode", select theClip first and second the bone. By press-ing "crtl p" you can now parent the Clipto the complete bone. Please pay atten-tion to the information for the Clip. It saysit is parented to the armature, but also toa complete bone inside this armature.



33

Lets add an empty, rename it "Bone Emp-ty" and move it over to the other end ofthe bone, away from the axis of rotation.Inside the "Object Buttons" "F7" add a"Track to" Constraint and make the bonelook towards the empty. You might needto have to reset the "Align to" and "Up"vectors. If you now move the Empty youwill see that the bone will always look atit and thus moves the clip accordingly aswell. It might be helpful to also add a"Limit Rotation" Constraint for the X andY to prevent any rotation along thoseaxises. This also helps to control rotationsin perspective view for example.

In addition to that, texturing and renderingis by far more sophisticated than in solu-tions like Flamingo. The easiest way todecal the Dial Ring for example is to set the3D cursor to the center of the mesh andwhile you look perpendicular onto thesurface add an empty. Rename it to some-thing meaningful like "Control Empty".Apply a material and load a texture. In theblend demo file you can find a controlimage. In the "Map Input" field select"Object" and enter the Empty name. Theonly thing left is to scale the empty to theright dimension so you can see the texturecorrectly.

II Case Study 2: Reverse Modelingfrom NURBS to SDS

The following project illustrates howBlender was used to finish up the modelfor a printing on a liquid polymer 3DPrinter to create a model which can becasted.

NURBS patches by nature only allow evenU and V subdivision. You cannot let 2 ormore iso curves merge in a single one.The following image shows the seriousproblems. The crease of the sides isformed through having few iso-curvesvery close to each other at the side of thehead. Seen from the side you also cansee that those curves flow upwardscloser to the neck while the neck itselfcurves downwards. An attempt to spreadout the curves along the neck on acircular path is not successful.



34

Luckily Rhino has an option not to onlymesh NURBS into a form fitting polygonmesh, but also to mesh the control cage ofthe NURBS object into a low polygon cagewhich can be imported into Blender andthen cleaned up - meaning simplified.

The fourth image shows the cleaned upversion and illustrates one of the greatgifts of polygonal modeling, merging edg-es. Hence the next stage would be the STLexport to send the model to the 3D printer,we do not need to convert it back to NURBS

because Blender also has a quite good STLexporter build in.

Interestingly enough, for applying a thick-ness, Rhino is not much better. Rhino alsoproduces quite a few problems and it wasfaster to get the Spout turned into a Solidin Blender than in Rhino. For buildingthickness Blender has a very nice visualtool. When you press "Alt b" you can drawa selection in the view port which willexclude everything outside that selectionvisually.

However, just because you do not see thehidden geometry, it does not mean youcannot affect it. A loop cut selection willalso select those vertices which are hid-den. Utilizing the "Edge Length" option Iwas able to measure the thickness of thethe shell. However there is one problem.Blender does not allow you to snap verti-ces to the smoothed surface of the sub-surf modifier. Blender only snaps to thelow polygon control cage. As you can seethe 3D widget is positioned at where thecontrol cage vertice is and the 3D cursoralso jumped to a similar position insteadto the surface. This sadly also applies tothe new Snap tool as well and makes it abit less useful with subsurf meshes insome cases.

So you either have to bake a copy to workwith and to draw in a reference line forthe thickness depth or you draw that lineand by hand carefully match it with thesubsurf mesh.



35

III Afterthoughts:It was very interesting to teach Blenderfirst to my students because it seemed tohelp them more to understand how a goodmesh structure should be created in con-junction also with object animation andrendering. After they were introduced toCobalt and Rhino, a few students men-tioned they will go back to Blender andonly work there. However the attractivepoint I strongly needed to make themaware of the pure fact that Blender is nota CAD program at all and it cannot replacein any way NURBS is that with SDS you nowhave 3 possibilities to approach modelinga product. As much as you can start witha solid cube in Cobalt and step by step cutaway shapes and afterwards turn every-thing into NURBS patches for further refine-ment, as much can you start sketching outyour main proportions in SDS and finish itin Rhino with NURBS.

This is a work flow not many Designersknow about, many even do not understandit and claim it as being rubbish. Howeverthose who understand the deeper designphilosophy and compatibility of thosethree modeling methodologies are veryexited about this change finally takingplace. Sadly, only Gestel Solidthinking doesprovide all three tools in one applicationsince over 5 years. However the mesh toolsare hardly paid attention to.

NURBS are great, they are precise, safework, but as Solids, are not the ultimatesolution to CAD modeling. With this emerg-ing new technology I also hope that therewill be a change in the acceptance which

will hopefully will also influence thestrongly established Industrial Design for-mal language which is clearly influencedby the stiffness of NURBS and Solids.

Because Blender is free, and T-Spline plug-in only offers few modeling features andBlender in addition also provides a com-plete set for animation and rendering Ihope that it's importance will also mergemore into the field of Industrial Design.

IV Tips & Tricks

Modeling:

Always have 4 sided polygons. Model as it would be fabricated. Always keep neighbour edges having

the same vertice count at the samepositions otherwise the edge geome-try will not match.

Use scale "s" and hit "0" to close asurface but do not merge to keepquads.

Use proper names for all your objectsto organize your scene better.

Re-center your 3D object centers Make use of the 3D cursor for 3D

object snapping. Make use of the 3D cursor along an

axis to align points. Make use of the different pivot points. For STL meshing always make sure all

objects have the same subsurf levelsettings otherwise the edge geometrywill not match

Two faces can now be bridged withpressing "f" and selecting "Skin Fac-es".

To break the flow of a curve you canselect the edge and hit "y" to splitit.

If you re-import an STL mesh set the"Remove Doubles" Limit to 0.000 thisway only truly matching vertices arebeing merged.

You can model fillets, blends, andchamfers by hand as separatepatches to round edges

You can make use of the new"ReTopo" to draw over dense im-ported mesh a more clean andorganized mesh. it just has to be afine one to match the importedmesh curvature.Make use of the "Volume Clipper""alt b" to hide unwanted geometryinstead of using only selecting faceyou want to hide.

Interaction:

Hooks can be very useful to quicklymove a cable

Use "Track To" and "Limit Rotation"Constraints to prevent unwantedmovements/rotations.

· Empties in this case provide perfectalternative controls to work with.



36



37

SNAP information:http://www.blender.org/development/release-logs/blender-243/transform-snap/

Retopo:http://www.blender.org/development/release-logs/blender-243/retopo/

Object Hooks:http://www.blender.org/development/release-logs/blender-235a/object-hooks/http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual/Hooks

Pivot Points:http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual/Pivot_Points

Axis Locking:http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual/Axis_Locking

Constraints:http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/BSoD/Introduction_to_Rigging/Constraints_and_Axis_Locks

Links Claas Eicke KuhnenGermany

MFA 3D Studio Jewelry/MetalBowling Green State University, USAFocus in Functional Metal Art and 3D Digital Art

Dipl. Des. (Fh) Color – Advanced Color ConceptsHAWK University of Applied Science and Art, GermanyFocus on Functional Graphic and Product Design

After grad school I taught for one year at the UniversityWisconsin-Stout where I introduced Blender for industrialdesign and interior design to students. Through thatexposure to the students I focused more on researchingthe usability of Blender for this field.

It has increased my knowledge and understanding to seehow NURBS and SDS can be combined in a professionalwork flow for CAD and Rapid-Prototyping using BlenderBlender proved itself to be actually not only quite usefulbut rather being a real treasure and workhorse for thedesign students.

www.ckbrd.de |- [email protected] | 715 309 9795

http://www.blender.org/development/release-logs/blender-243/transform-snap/

http://www.blender.org/development/release-logs/blender-243/retopo/

http://www.blender.org/development/release-logs/blender-235a/object-hooks/

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual/Hooks

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual/Pivot_Points

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual/Axis_Locking

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/BSoD/Introduction_to_Rigging/Constraints_and_Axis_Locks

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/BSoD/Introduction_to_Rigging/Constraints_and_Axis_Locks

www.ckbrd.de


PrefaceThe Blender Foundation has initiated an-other open movie project, “Project Peach”.Following their successful formula from'Elephants Dream', they have again gath-ered a small team of talented artists towork in the new Blender Institute to createa short animation.

The creative concept of "Peach" will becompletely different from that of the"Orange" project. This time we have beenpromised funny and furry!

Whoe, (Netherlands),

and , (Bulgaria), havebeen approached and accepted the invita-

tion to lead the project. Together withproducer l, they havepicked the other team members. They willbe defining the concept and get the scriptready for production. , (artdirector of the former Orange team), hasalso joined the team, bringing his experi-ence from “Project Orange”

The other team members are:

(Italy) (USA)

(Belgium)

has agreed once again tosponsor us with his wonderful music andsound design, including all editing facilitiesof his studio.

As spares on the waiting list (if drop-outs,or if get extra funds become available):

Colin Levy (USA)William Reynish (Denmark)David Revoy (France)

WhenThe project itself has been scheduledto be executed in six months, startingon October 1st 2007.

A couple of (tentative!) milestones:

· Public call for portfoliosubmissions.

· Closing date for submittingportfolios.

· Announcement team (+define spares).

· Decisions on team roles,concept, how to get script, con-tracts, payment details.

· : Siggraph, San Diego.· Final decision on project

duration and team size.· Pre-production work-

shop with script writer, with ascript!

· Final contracts signed with all teammembers.

· : final script.

Sponsors or PartnersAs for Elephants Dream, they are againlooking for sponsors in many areas;

Hardware (computers, screens) Render farm Film transfer

Blender News - Project Peach


38

Project Peach!Animation Short byBlenderFoundation

IntroductionI'm just your typical polymath that will tryto be efficient at anything that I touch.Though I am an Audio Engineer/ Musician,and Video Editor, naturally I am also a 3Dartist. As can be seen, from the musicvideo I was producing- the three fields playvery well together. In this tutorial, I willfocus on my texturing technique for the"path" and another mechanical item in thevideo. As you can see, the renders, whichonly took about 12 to 15 minutes per frameon a Dell core duo 2.0 gHz, have a lot oftechniques utilized from Blender whichcan be discussed at a later date.

The GoalFirst of all, it's important to note thatspeed was one of my primary concerns.So, I had to make sure that a seeminglycomplex and detailed scene could be ren-dered quickly. Therefore, it was very nec-essary, as with a real-world videographer,to plan my camera shots carefully.

This way I could eliminate any models froma given shot that would lengthen myrender time. Finally, I appreciate highlydetailed and complex models and scenes,and the time and artistic ability that goesinto them. I would like to say however,that depending on your shot, it can be awaste of time if your goal is not just toproduce art, but have a production with ascheduled release date. I have seen verylarge production file scenes that havebeautiful models but take forever torender. Thus enters texturing...

TechniqueFortunately, this will not be a lengthy,complex tutorial, (just the previous intros),because I love simplicity. I believe skillshould use the simplest route to achievethe best results. So the technique is reallysimple, and one that you probably couldeasily guess, but it works when donecorrectly.

A simple overview to the method is tomake a UV map of the object you wish totexture, tweak it in GIMP or Photoshop,make varied layer maps, and import theminto Blender to use in various channels.

: Make a UV MapMapping a box or a flat plane, (As is thecase with the video), is easy. However, asa brief side note, what if it has muchmore detail? Lets take one of our ma-chines as an example.

If you unwrapped this using the standardunwrap algorithm, this is what wouldhappen.

If this is not what you want, then youhave to use your seams. Switch into editmode. It is a good idea to make seamswhere the texturing is insignificant, (suchas areas that will not be seen, or are asolid color). For example, making a seamin these places works well for this object.

3D Workshop - Walkthrough - Texturing in “Burned Bridges” Music Video


39

Walkthrough - Texturing in“Burned Bridges” Music Video

- by Avery Lanier

After unwrapping your object and lining upyour vertices, save the UV layout as apicture. I use the "Save UV Layout" scriptunder UVs:Scripts:Save UV Layout.

Paint the UVFor this part we will texture the flat planecalled the "path". I wanted a realisticallyvaried texture for the path, so I did not usea repeating pattern- in fact, I didn't evenuse a UV map! Contradictory? Why? Be-cause I wanted the scale of the photos todictate the scale of my object.

This method to my knowledge only workswith a flat plane. Remember, this is art-

not only technical skills- there's more thanone method for doing anything.

For the path, I snapped several photos ofconcrete. I tried to line them up like apanorama (making sure the edges line up).Some cameras have a built in function forthis.

I then imported the photos into Pho-toshop, (Or GIMP), into separate layers.

I kept changing the document size as I wasassembling the photos from left to right.I merged the two selected layers andturned the rest off. I then blended theedges of the photos using the clone toolset to a really low opacity and soft edges.

Once I finished assembling the entirepath, I saved it as a JPEG, (Very importantto do this if you are using YAFRAY).

RenderingOnce you've placed the photo onto aplane inside of Blender, select the plane,hold down the <alt> key and type <V>.

This allows the plane to jump to theproper proportions of the photograph.You don't even have to guess if yourplane proportions are correct! Yes, it wasthat simple. Very low polygonal count,excellent texture, fast rendering- wel-come to the world of productivity!



40

ConclusionOf course there is much more going on inthe scene, so I invite you to analyze it. Asan imperfect human, I can assure you, it'snot perfect. Perhaps you can give me somesuggestions. At least I hope it contributesto learning the techniques and createsmore levels of skill in using Blender.

Till next time...

[email protected]

The video can be viewed at:The password is: Bridges

http://www.4shared.com/dir/3134253/c9917fad/sharing.html



41




Introduction“The Unsolved Mystery” is the title of avery simple 46 second CGI animated filmcreated by the author. As a first work, theobjectives were all very simple from theoutset, but the experience of the authorcan be relevant for beginners hoping tobreakthrough from visualizing somethingto actually creating a finished work. Thisarticle effectively covers key points in thisauthor’s first attempt at creating a produc-tion work-flow for a simple CGI film. Thearticle will focus on aspects of the work-flow related to the production of the Me-

chanical Actor, explaining the modelingand animation solutions used in the afore-mentioned short film. In the last sectionthe author will discuss certain pitfalls andpossible improvements that other begin-ners can take note of.

Robots as a Beginner’s ConceptMy previous experience prior to “The Un-solved Mystery” was that I would immedi-ately attempt trying organic actors and CGIhumans, thus resulting in being over-whelmed at my current level of knowledgeand simply not really finishing anything.

I knew that to be able to actually progressand finish a film as a beginner, I only reallyneeded to work with something very sim-ple to get things going.

This is the point at which I decided that thesubject of the film would be a ROBOT.Robots are quick to model, easy to createarmatures for, and do not have to organi-cally deform at all. If necessary, a robotdesign can free the artist such that therobot can have irregular shape, wheels,tracks, or legs. Colors and lighting forrobots are attained easier compared tothose of most organic actors. The other bigbonus is that since each part is totallyindependent of the other, robots are easilycreated by combining different objects ormeshes, unlike in the case of, say, OrganicActors where usually it is expected thatco-joined parts like arms and shoulders,practically the whole body in some cases,should be one mesh. This allows a begin-ner to experiment with less risk involved

and make straightforward corrections tosmall parts like fingers, shoulder joints,and arms.

Therefore, whatever the film’s theme ormessage, I knew that my best bet tofinish a short production at a beginner’slevel would have something to do with amechanical actor. So from this point, theconcept was more or less fleshed out: “Asimple robot actor in a simple situation.”

In my opinion, robots make for the bestfirst subject for beginners. Robots arealso a very close real-world equivalent toearly simple actors used in some moreformal CGI study courses. So to me, theidea of Robots as a beginner’s conceptseemed very logical.

Story Treatment & ResearchPrior to designing the robot, I had alreadyfabricated beforehand the Story and Mes-sage for “The Unsolved Mystery”. Storyand Message are important becausethese can be relied upon to make de-mands on production design and serve asthe guiding vanes for any CGI project.

For example, for “The Unsolved Mystery”,to convey a sense of wonder or curiosity,the robot lead actor had to have a child-like or toy-like quality. It was especiallyimportant to convey this visually becausethere would be no spoken dialogue. Earlyon, I originally dawdled at the idea of arobot with caterpillar tracks, but a scriptdemand for having the robot bend downto pick an object up meant that caterpil-lar tracks would be a tricky solution.

3D Workshop - Walkthrough - Unsolved Mystery Short


42

Walkthrough - Unsolved MysteryShort

- by Giancarlo Chan Ng

These, and other similar considerations,help to guide the Design, Modeling, andAnimation process.

The other important activity prior to actualDesign and Modeling is research. Even ifone knows what something looks like, itusually pays off to have research becausethe mind plays tricks and tends to missout on details that later on can becomeimportant to achieving an intended result.For Jules The Blue-Eyed Robot who appearsin “The Unsolved Mystery”, I procuredpictures of many kinds of robots and theirrepresentations such as factory robots,movie robots, or toy robots.

Armed with the story and the research, Itook my pencil and started designing therobot I had in mind with an eye towardshow I could create the robot in Blender.After making about three or four veryvaried designs, I settled on a diminutivetoy-like figure with a humanoid shape,stubby legs, and hands inspired by old1950’s robot toys made up completely outof cylinders and ball jointed limbs. I haddrawings of the character in various posi-tions that can be expected given the scriptand the storyboards.

Production Design & Pre-Pro-duction TestingFor modeling Jules, I only really neededtwo skills: KNIFE and EXTRUDE. The basicprinciple is to distill each part of the robotinto one of Blender’s basic shapes andthen knife or extrude until the right shapeis attained. Sometimes it is helpful to have

a preliminary mesh-like sketch of what isto be expected already in Blender’s envi-ronment based on the approved produc-tion design. Each cylinder, ball joint, orpolygon is a separate mesh.

The figure (Fig. 1) below shows each phaseof the modeling progress. In every situa-tion, the principle described above is used.The only exception is the mesh for thehead which is the only part of Jules to usea SubSurf modifier with Set Smooth toachieve a rounded look.

The figure (Fig. 2) below illustrates thearrangement of the armatures. For me-chanical objects, I found it best to parentthe individual meshes in Pose Mode witheach bone in the Armature. Parenting tothe bones this way allows for “simpleparenting”. Simple parenting of meshes tobones results in no organic deformations.

A minor note must be made here aboutthe EMPTY that is located at the hip area.This is simply used as a handle so that Ican drag Jules anywhere and flip himabout by simply selecting the Empty.Their relationships are: Each Mesh’s par-ent is the closest Bone by simple parent-ing. The Armature’s parent is the Empty.

One thing I learned prior to making “TheUnsolved Mystery” was that a mesh’sfinal look relied as much on surroundingobjects and light as well as its ownstructure and materials. Below are someof the conditions created for the testrender to create the final look of Jules theBlue-Eyed Robot:

Copper Material (Head, Hands, UpperTorso, Lower Torso, and Lower Legs):Gun Metal Material (All ball joints, Upper

Arm, Fingers, Upper Legs, Hip Joints,Shoulder Joints, Waist, and Neck):Set Design: (Sky Dome) Note: Material is

simply White with maximum values ofReflection and Specularity. The ExtraPlane (“Reflective Panel”) shown in Pinkhas the same material and is us used toallow the “horizon” of the Sky Dome tovanish when viewed by the Camera asset. See Fig. 5 next.



43

Fig. 1: Modeling Progress

The Reflective Panel is set with two extralamps that are setup as shown below (Fig.6):

Lights Settings for Spot Lights Fixed to SkyDome:

Eye Material and Lighting – A special noteat this point about eyes, the eyes here aresimply Blue Metal spheres, but to helpcreate the illusion that “there’s somethinggoing on behind them”, one trick is tohave the eyes on another layer and createa pair of lights aligned some ways upper

right or left in orientation to the eyes. Thishelps create brightness and a sense of life.The lights of the eyes must affect only thelayer where the eyes are on. Without theeyes arranged in their own separate layerwith special lighting to enhance them, theycan become vapid and lifeless.

The separated layer, Blue Metal Eye mate-rial, and lights affecting this layer only areshown below (Fig. 8.).

AnimationAll the animation seen in “The UnsolvedMystery” is done with a method inspiredfrom the “Go-Motion” photographymethod used for miniatures, such as theCave Roller Coaster in “Indiana Jones andThe Temple of Doom”.

The principle is that the Armature has eachmotion Key-Framed in gaps of 20 or 30frames, and then one uses the IPO Curvesto manipulate the frame speed of themotion.

Making the initial Key-Framed movementcan be tedious and requires a lot of imagi-nation. Note, for example that sometimesto animate a figure bending forward, thefirst few frames actually have the figurebending back as if to “rev up” the motion.Similarly at the end of each movement, themotion’s final frames exceed the mark at

which the motion should stop. This lasttrick helps to create the illusion of Inertia.

When manipulating the IPO Curves, Ifollow one rule: “Jagged Is Good”. Ofcourse, to avoid rickety motion, most ofthe IPO will be smooth, but making theIPO jagged can be used for life-like em-phasis and can create sensation of weightif done properly. An example of the IPO

Curve from the “Shutdown” shot thatoccurs at the end of “The Unsolved Mys-tery” is shown below (Fig. 9):Each shot in “The Unsolved Mystery” isactually a separate Blender file with cop-ies of Jules, the set, and the MysteriousBox. As a result of this, each Blender filecontains only the animation and thecorresponding IPO Curves for each spe-cific shot.

IPO Curves control everything in “TheUnsolved Mystery”, even the Energy forlights affecting the eyes also use LampIPO Curves.



44

AudioAll the audio attached to Jules’ motions in“The Unsolved Mystery” were salvagedfrom free web sources only after the im-ages were committed to production. This isa mistake, and the flawed matching of theaudio is very apparent. I am only writingthis down as a warning to other beginners:“Always have Test-Audio ready soon afterhaving a Script”.

To end this feature, I would like to extenda note to beginners in CGI, or CGI hobby-ists. Projects with mechanical and non-deforming actors are not only fun andfulfilling. They are a very quick and reason-able way forward to creating those firstfew projects. In fact, if one distills some ofthe fundamentals of animating and creat-ing Mechanical Actors, one will find theyare subsets to more complex objects andprojects, including Organic Actors.

“The Unsolved Mystery” can be seen here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDrUtl5_2KU



45

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDrUtl5_2KU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDrUtl5_2KU

Welcome to our next installment of “Meetthe Blenderhead”. As some of you may know,the last person interviewed is allowed to pickwho they would like to see interviewed in thenext issue. Eldron didn’t have anyone specificand allowed me to pick whomever I wished.After some discussion with people in#blenderchat on IRC, we came to the conclu-sion that hey, why don’t I interview myself?

With that decision made, I made the choiceto allow the community to post questions atwww.blenderartists.org for me to answer. Nosense in me just talking about myself now, isthere? I have taken eleven of the best ques-tions posted within the thread and have en-deavoured to answer them the best I can.

In my real life, I have been very happily mar-ried for almost eight years and a father ofthree. I am currently working as a salesmanager for a company in Toronto, Ontario,Canada. I have been an active member of theBlender community for about 8-9 years now,(Ver. 1.8), when the old NaN was still around.Blender, for me, is my hobby. I love that Ican still create things and have my work andknowledge appreciated by many peoplearound the world. It is a great feeling. ThoughI currently don’t have as much free time as Iused to have to put into my Blender work, Istill find time when I can to open Blenderand play with some sort of a mesh. It’s beenone of the best experiences in my life, (otherthan getting married and watching my sonbeing born – have to kind of say that!).

So, without any further ado, here is me!

Oddly enough, at one of my old jobs,I was searching for a CAD program so I couldopen and edit AutoCAD files. We didn’t havethe funds at the time, small sales company,to purchase AutoCAD and I really needed thisin order to do some of the work. After a lotof searching, I found a link to Blender andthe old NaN forums. I was immediately awe-struck with what I saw. I had never seenanything like this program before and thewhole CG thing was still very new. I had seen“Toy Story”, etc., and always wondered howthat stuff was done. Then when I discoveredBlender, I was like, “man, I have to get intothis!” I downloaded Blender and started do-ing every single tutorial I could find. Most ofthe early tutorials were from B@rt’s website.Every tutorial on his site, (which he still hasup btw), were invaluable in the beginning. Alot of question asking in the old forums

about how to do things have taken me towhere I am today.

I am inspired daily by all the users ofBlender. Everyone who posts their work onany forum always prove to me that Blenderis a very capable application. Some of myfavorite users included @ndy, RobertT, Bas-sam, LohnS, Myke, Eldron, just to name afew.

As far as outside sources that inspire me,my family is always number one in that re-gard. They are very supportive of me in myBlender life. I can’t ask for anything morefrom them.

Also, I scour the 2D artwork sections at CG-Talk and my all time favorite site,www.conceptart.org/forums. The “It’s FinallyFinished” section there is one of the bestresources for inspiration. My “Alien – A Por-trait” image was based off of a concept bymellowsmooth, that I found there, (usedwith permission, of course). I highly recom-mend that you visit that site regularly forinspiration and concepts that you can takeand turn into 3D.

Features are being added at such a -

Meet The Blenderhead - Derek Marsh (Aka BgDM)


46

rate that I don’t think anyone can keep upwith everything. Even some of the old fea-tures that are getting new additions/tweaks,(i.e. particle system), have gone beyondwhat I ever thought they could.

With my current limited Blender time, I don’thave the required time to learn these fea-tures. So in a sense, I am falling behind thecurve. If I don’t start taking the time to re-view these great new additions, I will fall toofar behind. For now, things seem to be stillOK for me. Most of the new features are foranimation and other areas that I don’t reallyuse in my work-flow. That will however, defi-nitely change down the road. So I eitherneed to start keeping up, or be left in thedust.

I’m sure if I really needed one of the newfeatures for a certain project, then I wouldtake the time to research it and learn it prop-erly. The sculpt tool is one of those featuresthat I have taken the time to play with, as itis a very useful and beneficial tool in mywork-flow.

Being featured in 3D World magazinehas been my highest achievement during mytime using Blender. I was beyond excitedwhen I received that email asking to publishmy “Alien – A Portrait” image. I almost de-

leted the email thinking it was a completejoke. Here I am, half way around the worldfrom where the magazine is published and Iget an email out of the blue. But, I re-sponded and the rest is now published histo-ry! They even sent me a free copy of theissue, which I now keep stored away for fu-ture reflections, when I get old and cranky.

As far as offers and open doors, nothing hasreally happened as a result of that work be-ing published. I have received offers to dowork on open source games and other non-commercial work. But, since I have a real life,with a paycheck, it is very hard for me toaccept these offers and to date I have notaccepted any of them. That could changesometime down the road, if things ever getbetter for me with some free time.

I am always interested in seeing what peopleare working on, and if there is any interest inhaving me be part of the team, then please,feel free to drop me a line and I will defi-nitely review the scope and consider theopportunity.

My job allows me some freedom. Dur-ing breaks, and lunch time, I get to surf andmonitor the forums. Mostly, I spend timefirst thing in the morning reviewing threadsand stuff. This is my quiet time and I get

most of my regular daily work done then aswell. Admin/Moderating the forum doesn’tactually take up as much time as you wouldthink. We have a great group of mods andadmins that do a great job of maintainingthe sanity there. They are all a great help.that are added?

My family, as I stated above, are very sup-portive of what I do. My son sits beside mewhile I surf the forums and he is alwayspointing at images and going “Wow daddy!Did you do that one?” And I am always an-swering, “No son. That’s not mine.” So hekind of has the bug a bit too. Just doesn’t



47

All of my projects are favorites ofmine. To pick one though, is a tough choice.I would have to say that my “Sebulba” that Imade 2-3 years ago has to be the most re-warding one that I have done to date. Thatmodel pushed me to learn proper edge loopsand pushed my modeling skills to a newlevel. I can’t even remember how manytimes I redid the ears on that model before Igot them right.

Also, that model taught me so much aboutUV mapping and texture painting. TorQ wasparamount in helping me get that thing un-wrapped, when I knew absolutely nothingabout UV mapping. At the time, I had givenup texturing the model and posted the Blendfile for everyone to use as they wish. (Someinteresting animations came from that). ThenTorQ got a hold of the mesh, provided aclean unwrap and then posted that Blend fileback. I took that, tweaked that UV map somemore and then proceeded to do the textures.Without that initial unwrap by TorQ, I would

not be anywhere near the level of texturingthat I am today. I owe him a lot for that ef-fort back then. Ever since then, organic andcreature modeling has been my most favoritething to do in Blender.

I love my job. It’s fun for me. I get totravel around and see construction in itsearly stages and then look at those jobs thatI have supplied material on and can say thatI was part of the process. It’s very rewarding.

Outside of work, I am very involved with mykids’ lives. They are my hobby outside ofBlender. During the winter months here inCanada, I coach both my son and daughtershockey teams. During the summer months, Icoach my daughters’ softball team. It’s greatfun watching kids improve and grow in frontof your eyes and become more than theythought they could at the start of the season.

My entire family enjoys camping. We packthe van full with tents and sleeping bags andhead north here in Ontario. It’s great fun andeveryone has a good time. I will be movingup there one of these days and retire fromwork to sit on my dock. Over look the lakeand just take in the days. If any of you everget the chance to visit Ontario, definitely takethe time to head to the northern part. One ofthe most peaceful and beautiful places onthe planet.

Tough question, because I run intothis myself all the time. All I can really say isthat when inspiration hits you, run with it.Even if you don’t see the project through toit’s final stages, you will no doubt learnsomething from what you have done. I havestarted more projects than I can count. Withevery one of them, I have taken somethingthat has helped me on my next project.

The time thing is the biggest issue. When Iget that inspiration to open Blender and I getinto the rhythm and flow of the modelingprocess, it’s great. Then something comesup and you have to stop. You lose that driveand that moment you were in at the time.It’s sometimes very hard to get that back.Just be persistent in what you do and whensomething stops you from doing it, you justhave to pick up from where you left off andtry and find that place you were in again.You can do it, because I have.



48

Blender has given me so much overthe last years that I feel I have to give some-thing back. I am no coder, so I can’t help inthe development process. I wish I could. ButI’m too old and not patient enough to learncoding. So to me, giving the communitysome of my Blend files is a way for me togive back. It’s also a way for others to learnand to see how someone else approaches acertain project. I may not be the best model-er, or the best at lighting, etc. But even ifsomeone looks at the file and says, “Ah, nowI get it!” that’s all that matters. A Blend file isa great learning tool.

I would encourage every Blender user to posttheir Blend files for people to see. Even if it’sto get some help on how to do something. Itis an invaluable tool.

On the other hand, I do understand why peo-ple don’t do it as well. You put a lot of hardwork and time into something. You create agreat piece that people appreciate. You wantto keep that for yourself. It’s yours. That ishow I feel about my texture work. That iswhy I typically don’t post my textures alongwith my Blend files. Textures to me are moreart than the actual model itself. So those, Ikeep to myself. Also, I have to keep some ofmy trick up my sleeve as well.

There are definitely times when I sit atmy comp, reviewing posts as an admin andthink, “this is really a pain in the lower backside”. Deleting spambots, PM’ing users warn-ings about conduct and other forum relatedstuff can be very boring and very tediousstuff. To be a regular forum user again wouldbe great. No worries. No deleting threads,etc., etc.

Now, with that being said, the stuff that doesneed to get done really doesn’t take up thatmuch time, when you look at it in the grandscheme of things. There are many featuresimplemented that help and as I said above,

we have a great team of admins and modsthat we all rely on. Being part of that team isrewarding.

To date, there really hasn’t been anyinterface changes that I have come to reallyappreciate. There have been some generalclean ups and reorganizing of some things,but nothing that really stands out, which isreally a shame. It is the number one com-plaint that everyone has that tries Blender,newbs and industry people included. Andsince it has been the number one oneveryone’s list, I don’t know why it hasn’tbeen addressed to date.

I have used Lightwave for some time. Thatapplication has a great menu based system.You can click through it very quickly and getto the tool that you want in an efficientmanner. That is one thing that I would liketo see incorporated into Blender. Say in EDITMODE, you have a menu system that onlyshows tools that can be used in EDIT MODE.Divided into Modeling tools with subsets,Editing tools divided into subsets, etc. Itwould have to be very well thought out andplanned to get the efficiency required, but Ifound it very useful and easy in Lightwave.



49

1. We accept the following:· Tutorials explaining new Blender features, 3dconcepts, techniques or articles based on current theme of the maga-

zine.· Reports on useful Blender events throughout the world.· Cartoons related to blender world.

2. Send submissions to [email protected]. Send us a notification on what you want to write and we can follow up from there. (Some guidelines you must follow)

· Images are prefered in PNG but good quality JPG can also do. Images should be seperate from the text document.· Make sure that screenshots are clear and readable and the renders should be at least 800px, but not more than

1600px at maximum.· Sequential naming of images like, image 001.png... etc.· Text should be in either ODT, DOC, TXT or HTML.· Archive them using 7zip or RAR or less preferably zip.

3. Please include the following in your email:· Name: This can be your fullname or blenderartist avtar.· Photograph: As PNG and maximum width of 256Px. (Only if submitting the article for the first time )· About yourself: Max 25 w ords .· Website: (optional)

Note: All the approved submissions can be placed in the final issue or subsequent issue if deemed fit. All submissions willbe cropped/modified if necessary. For more details see the blenderart website.

Interested in writing articles for BlenderArt Magazine?


50

Here is how!

http://blenderart.org

Galleria


51

Alejandro Chocano - BeeBot

Galleria


52

Calvin Culy - Futuristic Vehicle

Galleria


53

Calvin Culy - Futuristic Vehicle

Galleria


54

Daniel Wray - KV Tank

Galleria


55

Marcin Szkup - Panzer IV

Galleria


56

Mirek Jackow - ARV_WZT

Galleria


57

Philippe Roubal - Cyclone 9 Motor

Galleria


58

Roland Hess - Robo Museum

Galleria


59

Salvador Gracia Bernal - Arrival

Theme: Texturing

2D textureProcedural textureNodesAnd more...

Disclaimer


60

Issue#12 Sep 2007

blenderart.org does not takes any responsibility both expressed or impliedfor the material and its nature or accuracy of the information which ispublished in this PDF magazine. All the materials presented in this PDFmagazine have been produced with the expressed permission of theirrespective authors/owners. blenderart.org and the contributors disclaim allwarranties, expressed or implied, including, but not limited to impliedwarranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. All imagesand materials present in this document are printed/re-printed with expressedpermission from the authors/owners.

This PDF magazine is archived and available from the blenderart.org website.The blenderart magazine is made available under Creative Commons‘ Attribu-tion-NoDerivs 2.5’ license.

Disclaimer

Documents

BlenderArt Magazine - 11 - Mechanical