The goal of this lab is to practice some of the core features of Blender: 3D objects, loop cuts, extrusion, scaling, and general viewing. This will prepare us for the chess piece Blender homework. For this lab, please work with your random partner, but I would encourage you to use your own computers since it is important to practice the functionality. Just make sure both you and your partner are making progress.
TIP 1: Objects or parts of objects that are selected are highlighted in orange. To deselect everything, hit 'a'. To select everything, hit 'a' again. To select certain parts, choose either 'vertices', 'edges', or 'faces' from the 3 cube shapes on the bottom left-hand panel.
TIP 2: If you have a non-standard keyboard or mouse (or the standard viewing tools are not working), check out this page for ways to get it working:
Blender non-standard equipment
TIP 3: 'Undo' (Ctrl-z) is very helpful for undoing the last thing you did!
Chair
This part is based on this tutorial: Blender Chair Tutorial, but the instructions have been updated for the latest version of Blender.
-
The first thing that shows up in Blender is a cube. Drag to select it and then click the scale button (left-hand side). You will see a control with three axes. Drag the blue axis down to obtain the seat of the chair like this:
Note: You can also use keyboard 'hotkeys' to achieve most effects. Instead of dragging the axis, try hitting ''s'' to start scaling, then click ''z'' to restrict the scaling to the z axis.
Blender has several viewport shading modes, accessible using the menu at top right with the sphere icons. Note that you can mouse over most controls to see what they are for. Switch to wireframe mode to see the difference, then back to solid mode (the filled circle).
-
Next, change the perspective to the 'bottom' view (using the 'View' menu on the top left-hand side, submenu 'Viewpoint'), and zoom in a bit so the bottom of the chair looks like this:
-
Change 'Object Mode' to 'Edit Mode' (top left-hand side, next to the View menu). Now we are going to make 4 'loop cuts' or 'ring cuts'. To do this, look for the 'Loop Cut' tool among the left side tool icons. (It should have appeared when we switched modes.) As you mouse over the object, you should see a yellow dividing line appear on it. Click and drag it to the desired position. Do this four times so that the end result looks like this:
-
Orbit the view to change the viewpoint a bit in preparation for making the legs of the chair. Then change the selection options to the 'faces' (third icon to right of the 'Edit Mode' selector) and go back to the arrow tool on the left palette. Select (using Shift to select more than one face) the 4 faces which will become the legs.
-
Then choose the 'Extrude' tool icon from the left tool menu, or hit 'e' for 'extrude', and gradually extend the legs of the chair (the axis has already been selected as 'z', so this should extrude them along the z-axis).
-
Finally, change the viewpoint again, then follow the same procedure to extrude the back of the chair. Now you're done with the chair! Save your work as chair.blend.
(Note that instead of extruding all the legs at once, we could do them one at a time and enter a numeric value for the amount of extrusion so as to make them all the same length.)
Wine Glass
This part is based on this tutorial: Blender Wine Glass Tutorial 1, but the instructions have been updated for the latest version of Blender.
Note: I switched back and forth between 'Solid' and 'Wireframe' mode for this part - feel free to use whichever feels more comfortable for you, or for the part you're working on. Those are the icons in the top right - one looks like a solid circle and the other like a globe with lat/long lines.
-
First delete the cube (hit the Del key or use 'Delete' under the 'Object' menu in the top left), and add instead a cylinder from the 'Add' menu on the top left, 'Mesh' submenu. Switch the viewpoint to 'front' and change the projection to orthographic if it's not there already (all in the top left 'View' menu), to get a picture like that below.
-
In 'Edit Mode', make 3 ring cuts, as shown below:
Switch to wireframe mode (top right), and use the select tool (top of the left icon palette) and click and drag to create a box around the top set of vertices:
-
Then hit 's' or use the tool icon to scale them all inwards. Continue this procedure to scale the middle vertices out and the bottom vertices inward to form a glass shape similar to this:
-
Now go back to 'Solid' mode and the 'Faces' selection, and delete the top face to give us a hollow glass:
-
Select the entire shape ('a'), then use 'e' (extrude) and 's' (scale) to extrude the entire shape inward to give the wine glass a thickness.
-
Then use 'e' again on the bottom vertices to make the wine glass stem. Some more ring cuts and extrusion will produce the wide base.
Finally, switch back to Solid and Object view, then select smooth shading from the 'Object' menu at top left. In the properties menu on the right-hand side, select the wrench icon and add a modifier: Subdivision Surface. Then increase the subdivisions to 3 (or more) for both view and render.
-
Hopefully you should get something like this!
If you have time, complete the second part of the wine glass tutorial.