Blender Basics

Hackerspace LA Meetup – May 18, 2016

In a nutshell (a very big nutshell) Blender is a professional free and open-source 3D computer graphics software product used for creating animated films, visual effects, art, 3D printed models, interactive 3D applications and video games. Blender’s features include 3D modeling, UV unwrapping, texturing, raster graphics editing, rigging and skinning, fluid and smoke simulation, particle simulation, soft body simulation, sculpting, animating, match moving, camera tracking, rendering, video editing and compositing. It also has an integrated game engine.

Online Resources

Official Blender website:  https://www.blender.org

Download current Blender software:  https://www.blender.org/download/

Recommended Blender community:  http://blenderartists.org/forum/

Recommended Tutorials

HackerspaceLA Curated Blender Beginners Tutorials:  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLro2LhzvRdB4ZDH-pRlB8foZhNKpJXnJI

Video Editing in Blender Introduction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=te9HFQVaSUE

Video editing quick start:  http://danielpocock.com/quick-start-blender-video-editing

YouTube Blender Tutorials: https://www.youtube.com/user/blendercookie/playlists

Blender tutorials: http://www.creativebloq.com/3d-tips/blender-tutorials-1232739

Blender Absolute Beginner Series:  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrgQj91MOVfjTShOMRY8TLmkJ7OFr7bj6

The links and resources on the previous page cover the following tutorials, skills, and techniques.

The Basics

Introduction for beginners

Shading and lighting

Enhance your environments

Create a realistic off-road scene

Enhance a game level environment

Rendering

How to create a cup of coffee in Blender

How to create a realistic earth

How to make a minion

Create a realistic head

How to create a photo-real render using Cycles

How to make realistic bread

Create a spaceship

Modelling a building

The secrets of realistic texturing

Animation

Fun with rigid bodies

Character animation fundamentals

Create an animation walkcycle

Animate a circular swipe in Blender

Create a Tron-inspired light cycle effect

Animate a flame using materials in Blender

Create an energetic fire and water scene

How to roll a 3D object on its edge

Create a classy fluid simulation

Blender Techniques

Fur with Cycles and particle hair

Model a low-poly T-Rex in Blender

How to make metallic text

Introduction to rigging

How to box model a sperm whale in 3D

How to build and use a phoneme library

Model a modern interior scene

Introduction to camera-tracking

Camera mapping in Blender

Blender tips from the pros