Student: Connor Marshman

Course: GCM 340 Computer Animation

Instructor: Professor Aleksandra Prokic

Addendum: Outdoor Scene in Blender

The Process of Creating an Outdoor Scene in Blender

In Professor Prokic's class, students learned how to create household objects, creatures, robots,

and basic animations in the 3D software Blender. For my addendum, I was tasked with recreating an

outdoor scene since the class focuses mainly on indoor scenes.

Before creating anything in Blender, I came up with a general concept of what I wanted my

scene to look like. To keep things simple, I decided to do an up-close “insect level” shot. I wanted to

create an insect that was basic since I had limited time, so I decided on a ladybug. Lastly, I wanted to

include a grassy background with a fence and tree.

First, I focused on creating the grassy field. I started by making a rectangle mesh object,

subdividing it, coloring it a grass green, and then deleting a vertex on each end to create a grass-like

shape. I duplicated this shape numerous times to create a lush, grassy field. I rotated the shapes

randomly so that they did not all appear uniform.

Then, I created the tree trunk by making a mesh cylinder. I deformed the trunk to make it appear

more natural by going into the Edit Mode and stretching out certain vertices. I also applied a

Subdivision Surface to the tree. Lastly, I added a bark texture to the tree. I applied a second texture that

was simply a rough, sandpaper pattern. The second texture was invisible, but it was used to make the

bark rough rather than smooth. I did this by going under Influence and making the Geometry -2.6.

I had some setbacks creating leaves. I tried modeling leaves, but every time I made one it

appeared unnatural. I discovered after doing investigation online that you can import complex shapes

with a transparent background from Adobe Photoshop CS6. So, I found a leaf image and made it

transparent in Photoshop and saved it as a PNG. Then, I used the UV Editor and unwrapped my leave

design onto a plane indicating where I wanted my leaf to be. Lastly, I went into the Material tab, turned

on the translucency option, and pulled the alpha down to 0%. I used this process again to create

bunches of leaves for the tree in the background. For the fence, I used the same process.

For the ladybug, I created the simple shapes for it. Then, I used Vertex Paint to create the spots.

After modeling was done, I lighted my scene to make it appear like it was outdoors. I tried hard to

recreate light coming through the trees in rays, but I couldn't figure it out. So, I just made it appear that

way through manipulation in Adobe Photoshop. I also added in a few dew drops in Photoshop as an

afterthought.

All-in-all, this project taught me several new things about 3D animation using Blender: outdoor

lighting, vertex paint, unwrapping an image on an object, and importing translucent shapes.