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--- blender [2015/06/02 01:00]
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+++ blender [2021/06/03 19:48] (current)
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 ====== Blender ======
@@ Line 159: / Line 155: @@
 At least four additional free 3d render engines are available along with Blender plugins to integrate them as seamlessly as Blender Render and Cycles, straight from [[http://slackbuilds.org]]:
-  * luxrender
+  * [[luxrender]]
-  * yafaray (the Blender plugin is located in the yafaray-blender package)
+  * [[yafaray]]
-  * povray (Blender already includes an exporter plugin for POVray, but it requires activation in the **User Preferences > Addons** panel.
+  * [[http://www.povray.org/|povray]] (Blender already includes an exporter plugin for POVray, but it requires activation in the **User Preferences > Addons** panel.
-  * mitsuba (the Blender plugin is located in the mitubsa-blender package)
+  * [[mitsuba]] (the Blender plugin is located in the mitubsa-blender package)
 In each case, whether you had to install the Blender plugin separately or whether it was bundled, you must go to **User Preferences > Addons** and activate the renderer just as you would any other plugin.
-{{ blender_engine.png }}
+[{{ blender_engine.png | Add additional render engines. }}]
 Once installed and activated, change which render engine you are using from the **Render Engine** menu located in the Info panel.
+{{anchor:crashcourseblender}}
+===== Blender Crash Course =====
+d graphics is a complex subject, and the applications that generate them can be intimidating. A full course on Blender is out of scope for this article, but sometimes the hardest part of getting started with a new application are the first few steps. This "crash course" demonstrates how to generate some CGI objects, texture them, and then render the shot (a still image or animation) to disk.
+<WRAP important>
+Learning 3d applications is more than just learning the application; it's also learning the way that 3d on a 2d surface is implemented. In order to complete this quickstart, you should have some basic 3d experience. If you are completely new to the genre, start with something even more basic than this. The initial episodes of [[Blender for Motion Graphic Artists|http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FBoegkgIho]] are particularly recommended.
+</WRAP>
+When you launch Blender, you get one gray cube for free. It brings along with it some default texturing and material presets, so delete it for now just so you can start completely fresh.
+To delete an object, **right-click** the object and press the **x** key on your keyboard.
+<WRAP alert>
+In Blender, the location of your mouse cursor affects what happens when a key is pressed. If your mouse cursor is hovering over the cube object and you press **x**, then the cube is deleted, but if your mouse is hovering over a random menu or panel and you press **x**, probably nothing at all will happen. Always be aware of where your cursor is.
+</WRAP>
+==== Working with 3d Objects ====
+Add a new cube. To add an object, place your mouse cursor in the 3d viewport of Blender (the main window, where the first cube was located before you deleted it) and press the **spacebar** and type "Add Cube", or use the menu **Add > Mesh > Cube**
+[{{ blender_addCube.png | Add a basic cube. }}]
+Also add a plane for this exercise. To add a plane, press the **spacebar** and type "Add Plane", or use the menu **Add > Plane**
+[{{ blender_addPlane.png | Add a plane. }}]
+Scale (resize) the plane and move the cube so that the cube sits on the plane with enough of a "ground" for reflections and fancy effects like that. To scale an object, hover your mouse cursor over the object and press the **s** key on your keyboard. To grab onto things and move them, press the **g** key on your keyboard.
+To release an object in Blender, left-click.
+It often helps to move objects either by number or by axis:
+* To move by axis, press **g** and then **x** (or **y** or **z**, depending on which axis you want to move along). Defining an axis immediately after a transform key (such as **g** for grab, **s** for scale, or **r** for rotate) constrains all motion along that axis).
+* To move objects by numbers, press **n** to birng up the properties panel. Use the **X**, **Y**, and **Z** fields to manipulate the location and size of the cube.
+[{{ blender_scale.png | Scaling an object. }}]
+==== The Camera Object ====
+When you are rendering something, you are transferring it from 3d space into 2d space. So you always render from the point-of-view of a camera.
+By default, you have one camera in your viewport. You can grab it and move it around just as you can any other object. To actually see through its lens so you know what you will see in your final render, press the **0** on your *number pad*. To get back to normal ("perspective") view, press **5** on your number pad.
+[{{ blender_camview.png | Through the lens. }}]
+==== Lighting ====
+The fact that you can see anything at all in your Blender workspace is only because there's an imaginary worklight on, but that worklight will not render. It's just a worklight, it's not on your virtual set.
+To add a lamp, press the **spacebar** and type "add lamp", or use the menu **Add > Lamp > Area**.
+[{{ blender_lamp.png | Summon your inner gaffer.}}]
+Like 3d objects and cameras, you can grab and move a lamp, but you might notice that it is difficult to light a shot when there is no indication what affect a lamp has on your scene. To see a preview of what your scene looks like under different lighting situations, switch your Blender viewport into **Texture shading**: click the **Display** pop-up menu at the bottom of your viewport pane.
+[{{ blender_texturedview.png | Switch to Textured View.}}]
+Now if you move your light around your workspace, you should be able to see a better indication of what effect it will have upon your scene.
+[{{ blender_adjustlamp.png | Adjust the position of your lamp to suit.}}]
+To see what you have so far, do a single-frame render. Press **F12**, or use the menu **Render > Render Image** in the top menu bar of the Blender window.
+Press **Escape** to exit the render view.
+[{{ blender_renderframe1.png | A basic render of a basic scene.}}]
+==== Textures, Materials, and Maps ====
+Texturing works differently, in Blender, for polygonal objects and vector shapes, so the process will be different on the cube and the plane.
+All objects in Blender, however, need a *material*. Without having a defined material, an object is *immaterial*; there isn't really an equivalent in the real world, but you might imagine that everything you create in Blender is made of old, dull clay until you give it a material.
+<WRAP tip>
+Remember: you cannot texture an object that has no material. You cannot UV map an object that has no material. Think of any object in Blender that has no material as *immaterial*, like the lamps and the camera; they have no material and likewise cannot be textured by you.
+</WRAP>
+=== Material ===
+First add a material to the plane object.
+**Right-click** on the plane to select it, and then click on the **Material** tab of the **Properties** panel.
+[{{ blender_newmaterial.png | Add a material in the Properties panel. }}]
+Click the **New** button to create a new material and assign it to your plane.
+Once your plane is "made" of something, or else has a "tangible" shell around it (if you prefer), make it reflective, like a mirror.  Activate the **Mirror** attribute in the **Material** tab and raise the reflectivity to **0.8** or so.
+[{{ blender_mirror.png | Create a reflective material. }}]
+Perform a test render and notice that the plane is now reflecting the cube.
+[{{ blender_mirrorrender.png | A rendered mirror effect. }}]
+Press **Escape** to exit the render screen.
+Apply a basic texture to your cube before continuing. Don't make it reflective or anything fancy, since you are going to use it as a target for a UV map.
+=== Texture ===
+A *texture* is a pattern or algorithmically generated image that is "painted" onto a material. In this example, we will use the generic textures that come bundled with Blender.
+To create a new texture for your cube, click the **Texture** tab in the **Properties** panel.
+[{{ blender_cubetexture.png | Texture tab in Properties panel. }}]
+By default, the texture applied to your cube will be a cloud pattern. Feel free to try out other patterns found in the **Type** pop-up menu.
+[{{ blender_cubemarble.png | Generated Texture. }}]
+Perform a test render and notice that the texture is not only applied to the cube, but is accurately reflected in the plane.
+[{{ blender_cuberender.png | A simple render with texture. }}]
+=== UV Map ===
+UV Mapping is a common trick in texture departments and is often used in video games because it's fast to render. They are also fairly fast to create since a UV map contains no 3d data itself; it's actually a 2d image "projected" onto a 3d object. This is why, if you play any 3d games, you might notice that while an old well-worn wooden cabin door looks very realistic when it is far away, if you get too close to it, it starts to look very pixelated and 2 dimensional.
+UV mapping can get very detailed, because you can project 2d images onto very complex 3d surfaces, and you can even use colour information within the projected image to provide pseudo-3d depth.
+To perform simple UV mapping, make sure you are still in the **Texture** tab on the **Properties** panel.
+In the Texture tab, deactivate the texture that is currently on your cube, and then click the **New** button to create an empty texture slot.
+To assign an image to the texture, click on the **Type** pop-up menu and select **Image or Movie**.
+[{{ blender_uvimage.png | Create an image texture. }}]
+Scroll down as needed to the **Image** section of the **Properties** panel and click the **Open** button.
+[{{ blender_uv.png | Assign an image to the texture slot. }}]
+Upon clicking **Open**, the main panel of Blender becomes a file browser. Find an image and select it. There are many sites online that feature free textures, so you may find some nice images that way, but for now any image will do.
+You can adjust the mapping of your image in the Mapping section of **Properties** but for now, do a render and notice how the image has been stretched around the cube.
+[{{ blender_uvrender.png | Simple render of a textured object. }}]
+There are far more detailed methods of doing a UV Map, whereby a 3d object is split at the "seam" and the image is designed to wrap gracefully around the object. But for now, let's leave this as is and continue with the crash course.
+==== Rendering Multiple Frames ====
+So far, we have only rendered a single frame. You may be a single-frame artist but frequently when working in Blender it's to do animation. Let's do a simple animation and then render out the array of rendered images.
+First, make sure you are on frame 1 (by default, you are). You can enter a frame manually in the number field at the bottom of the screen (just to the right of the **End** field), or drag the playhead to frame 1.
+[{{ blender_frame1.png | Move to frame 1 in the Blender timeline. }}]
+**Right-click** on the cube object and then press the **i** button on your keyboard to insert a keyframe. Choose the **Rotation** keyframe from the contextual menu that appears.
+[{{ blender_framerotation.png | Insert a rotation keyframe. }}]
+Using the **Timeline** panel, advance 99 frames ahead.
+[{{ blender_frame1.png | Move to frame 1 in the Blender timeline. }}]
+Using the Timeline panel, advance 99 frames ahead.
+Rotate the cube as close to 360 degrees as convenient. To rotate an object, right-click the object to select it, and then press **r** and then **z** (remember, the **z** constrains the rotation to the z-axis).
+Press **i** again to insert a second rotation keyframe.
+[{{ blender_framerotation.png | Insert a second rotation keyframe. }}]
+After you have rotated the cube, change the **End** value in the **Timeline** panel to 99. This will make it so that you are only rendering the 99 frames you actually need for your complete animation, rather than the default 250.
+[{{ blender_frameEnd.png | Set the end of the animation to 99. }}]
+If you were to press **F12** at this point, you would only get a single frame rendered. Rendering an animation is, essentially, doing *that* 99 times; the end result is 99 still images. That is the default method of animation and VFX; still images are rendered to disk, and then imported into a video editor (which usually see image sequences as makeshift movie files).
+The default location for rendered frames is **/tmp** which is fine for temporary work but it's better to change the destination location to a directory in an actual working directory.
+To set your render attributes, click the **Render** tab in the **Properties** panel.
+[{{ blender_frameOutput.png | Setting render attributes. }}]
+Scroll down to the **Output** section of the **Render** tab and click the **folder** icon to define a location for your rendered frames.
+Navigate to the **Render** menu in the top menu of the Blender window and select **Render Animation**.
+Once the animation has rendered, find the rendered images in the directory you defined as the target destination for your animated sequence. You might use [[ffmpeg]] to string these together or play them back, but Blender has an inbuilt animation player.
+Click the **Render** menu at the top of the Blender window and select **Play Rendered Animation** or just press **Control+F11** on your keyboard.
+That's the basics of a mere subset of the features in Blender. While everything covered has been very basic, this workflow is close, in a very simplified form, to the usual 3d workflow; model, texture, animate, render. Practise those steps and develop each one as you learn more and become more skilled, and you will be making great 3d animations and rigs in no time.
+{{anchor:edit}}
 ===== Blender as a Video Editor =====
-Blender as a 3d modeling application and as an animation tool is, unsurprisingly, commonplace, but there are those who use Blender primarily as a video editing tool. This use case appears to be more popular among Linux users, and so it does not get the same amount of attention in either the user manual or online in general, so it warrants some special attention here.
+<WRAP info>
+**TL;DR** \\
+Blender is not [yet] the pro video editor you're looking for.
+</WRAP>
+Blender as a 3d modeling application and as an animation tool is, unsurprisingly, commonplace, but there are those who use Blender primarily as a video editing tool. This use case appears to be more popular among Linux users, so it warrants some special attention here.
-{{ blender_vse.png?700 }}
+[{{ blender_vse.png?700 | Blender is perfect. It's just not a perfect video editor yet. }}]
 There are several reasons to turn to Blender for non-linear video editing:
@@ Line 184: / Line 379: @@
-Allowing for the fact that one editor's advantage is another editor's disadvantage, Blender does have some //significant// drawbacks as an NLE, as well:
+Allowing for the fact that one editor's advantage is another editor's disadvantage, Blender does have some <wrap em>significant</wrap> drawbacks as an NLE, as well:
-  *Blender does not mix frame rates. If you have some clips at 25 fps and some clips at 50 fps, you must convert them on your own, outside of Blender.
+  * Blender cannot mix frame rates. If you have some clips at 25 fps and some clips at 50 fps, you must convert them on your own, outside of Blender.
-  *Blender lacks conveniences, such as copying attributes of filters applied to video clips, that makes colour grading so easy on other video editors.
+  * Blender lacks conveniences, such as copying attributes of filters applied to video clips, that makes colour grading so easy on other video editors.
   *Blender has no concept of track-types, and no way of muting or hiding entire tracks.
   *Blender's video export options are limited and can be unreliable (for example, losing frame rate settings, incorrect video-to-video compositing when filters are involved) in extremely long-form edits. If you are editing more than 20 minutes of footage, you should break your project into multiple smaller Blender files and then concatenate the edits together outside of Blender.
-  *There is no multi-threaded rendering of video exports, so exporting video can take far longer than exporting from ''Kdenlive'' or similar, by //orders of magnitude//.
+  *There is no multi-threaded rendering of //video exports// (other types of exports have it, but not when the source is video), so exporting video can take far longer than exporting from ''Kdenlive'' or similar, by //orders of magnitude// (an hour of heavily edited and graded footace can take days).
 Those are technical concerns, but additionally there are pragmatic concerns that an experienced video editor may have:
-  *Since Blender started life as a 3d modeling application, it is not as finely tuned toward video editing as a longtime video editor might desire. Blender devs are adding native features and users are creating plugins to help create a more NLE-centric environment within Blender, so the situation is only improving.
+  * Since Blender started life as a 3d modeling application, it is not as finely tuned toward video editing as a longtime video editor might desire. Blender devs are adding native features and users are creating plugins to help create a more NLE-centric environment within Blender, so the situation is only improving.
-  *It's not a carbon copy of any editing environment and probably never will be. It's never a good idea to expect or even, arguably, request for an open source clone of a closed source application that you just so happen to be very good at, but it's common for people moving to open source to desire just that: familiarity. Blender is probably never going to be a traditional video editor, so adapting to it and the way it does edit video is a must, if you intend to edit video on it.
+  * It's not a carbon copy of any editing environment and probably never will be. It's never a good idea to expect or even, arguably, request for an open source clone of a closed source application that you just so happen to be very good at, but it's common for people moving to open source to desire just that: familiarity. Blender is probably never going to be a traditional video editor, so adapting to it and the way it does edit video is a must, if you intend to edit video on it.
-  *The workflow tends to be very marvelously efficient when an action has a direct analogy to a 3d process (moving clips, deleting clips), but when there are totally unique functions introduced by a plugin, they are frequently menu- or button- oriented, with no keyboard shortcuts. Compared to the rest of Blender, this feels out of place and can bring your editing pace to an almost grinding halt.
+  * The workflow tends to be marvelously efficient when an action has a direct analogy to a 3d process (moving clips, deleting clips), but when there are totally unique functions introduced by a plugin, they are frequently menu- or button- oriented, with no keyboard shortcuts. Compared to the rest of Blender, this feels out of place and can bring your editing pace to an almost grinding halt.
 The good news is that Blender itself, and most of its features and plugins, are all open source, so you can add functionality yourself, or wait for someone else to add it; as more people start to use Blender for everyday video editing, the more fluid it will become.
@@ Line 202: / Line 397: @@
 Some pertinent video editing addons are these:
-  *[[http://easy-logging.net|Easy Logging]] creates a workspace that uses the File Browser window as a video bin, and adds buttons to allow editing of clips prior to importing them into the video sequence editor. This plugin, more or less, provides three-point editing.
+  * [[http://easy-logging.net|Easy Logging]] creates a workspace that uses the File Browser window as a video bin, and adds buttons to allow editing of clips prior to importing them into the video sequence editor. This plugin, more or less, provides three-point editing.
   *Audition adds the ability to preview a clip from the File Browser before importing it into your project. It is intended as an extension of Easy Logging.
-  *[[http://blenderaddonlist.blogspot.co.nz/2014/06/addon-jump-to-cut.html|Jump to Cut]] enables the playhead to jump from a strip's in- or out- points, and also adds in some convenience trimming functions. This plugin provides, more or less, the most common and basic timeline features of an NLE.
+  * [[http://blenderaddonlist.blogspot.co.nz/2014/06/addon-jump-to-cut.html|Jump to Cut]] enables the playhead to jump from a strip's in- or out- points, and also adds in some convenience trimming functions. This plugin provides, more or less, the most common and basic timeline features of an NLE.
-  *[[http://blenderaddonlist.blogspot.co.nz/2014/06/addon-vse-quick-functions.html|VSE Quick Functions]] provides all the little convenience functions for timeline editing that any NLE would normally have (snapping, muting, locking, parenting or grouping, quick fades, quick titles) plus a few that others do not have (sorting by position in timeline or clip title or clip length).
+  * [[http://blenderaddonlist.blogspot.co.nz/2014/06/addon-vse-quick-functions.html|VSE Quick Functions]] provides all the little convenience functions for timeline editing that any NLE would normally have (snapping, muting, locking, parenting or grouping, quick fades, quick titles) plus a few that others do not have (sorting by position in timeline or clip title or clip length).
-  *[[http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/Sequencer/Extra_Sequencer_Actions|Extra_Sequencer_Actions]] adds advanced trimming functions to the VSE, including ripple deletes, ripple cuts, insert edits, slides, and more.
+  * [[http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/Sequencer/Extra_Sequencer_Actions|Extra_Sequencer_Actions]] adds advanced trimming functions to the VSE, including ripple deletes, ripple cuts, insert edits, slides, and more.
-  *[[http://blenderaddonlist.blogspot.co.nz/2013/10/addon-vse-transform-tool_28.html|VSE Transform Tools]] adds basic motion graphic capabilities to the VSE. Using this tool set, you are able to grab onto the video display itself and resize and re-position it within the frame. With it, you can achieve common effects such as picture-in-picture, split screen, and basic tween-based animation.
+  * [[http://blenderaddonlist.blogspot.co.nz/2013/10/addon-vse-transform-tool_28.html|VSE Transform Tools]] adds basic motion graphic capabilities to the VSE. Using this tool set, you are able to grab onto the video display itself and resize and re-position it within the frame. With it, you can achieve common effects such as picture-in-picture, split screen, and basic tween-based animation.
 Install these plugins, and any other that appeals to your needs, and you will have a fairly robust and flexible, albeit somewhat un-even in backend and convenience features, video editing environment for short form video.
@@ Line 219: / Line 414: @@
 **See Also** \\
 MakeHuman \\
-K3d \\
+[[kdenlive|Kdenlive]] \\
-Kdenlive \\
+[[lightworks|Lightworks]] \\
-Lightworks \\
+[[notran|Natron]] \\
-Natron \\
+[[synfig|Synfig Studio]] \\
-Synfig Studio \\
+[[Mitsuba|misuba]] \\
-Mitsuba \\
+[[Luxrender|luxrender]] \\
-Luxrender \\
+[[yafaray|Yafaray]]
-Yafaray \\
-povray
 </WRAP>
 For more information, read the section on [[render|Render Farming]].
-[[{arrown.png|border:0;background:none;width:0;display:inline-block;float:right;}bombono|]][[{arrowp.png|border:0;background:none;width:0;float:right;}audacity|]]
+<WRAP centeralign>
+<wrap fa>[[filters|R]]</wrap> <wrap fa>[[start|S]]</wrap> <wrap fa>[[bombono|Q]]</wrap>
+</WRAP>